with a Heathen man or a Publican which in many occasions might be a greater pain to the Excommunicant than to the Excommunicate The seventh place is 1 Cor. 4. 21. Shall I come unto you with a Rod or in love and the spirit of lenity But here again it is not the Power of a Magistrate to punish offenders that is meant by a Rod but onely the Power of Excommunication which is not in its owne nature a Punishment but onely a Denouncing of punishment that Christ shall inflict when he shall be in possession of his Kingdome at the day of Judgment Nor then also shall it bee properly a Punishment as upon a Subject that hath broken the Law but a Revenge as upon an Enemy or Revolter that denyeth the Right of our Saviour to the Kingdome And therefore this proveth not the Legislative Power of any Bishop that has not also the Civill Power The eighth place is Timothy 3. 2. A Bishop must be the husband but of one wife vigilant sober c. which he saith was a Law I thought that none could make a Law in the Church but the Monarch of the the Church St. Peter But suppose this Precept made by the authority of St. Peter yet I see no reason why to call it a Law rather than an Advice seeing Timothy was not a Subject but a Disciple of S. Paul nor the flock under the charge of Timothy his Subjects in the Kingdome but his Scholars in the Schoole of Christ If all the Precepts he giveth Timothy be Laws why is not this also a Law Drink no longer water but use a little wine for thy healths sake And why are not also the Precepts of good Physitians so many Laws but that it is not the Imperative manner of speaking but an absolute Subjection to a Person that maketh his Precepts Laws In like manner the ninth place 1 Tim. 5. 19. Against an Elder receive not an accusation but before two or three VVitnesses is a wise Precept but not a Law The tenth place is Luke 10. 16. He that heareth you heareth mee and he that despiseth you despiseth me And there is no doubt but he that despiseth the Counsell of those that are sent by Christ despiseth the Counsell of Christ himself But who are those now that are sent by Christ but such as are ordained Pastors by lawfull Authority and who are lawfully ordained that are not ordained by the Soveraign Pastor and who is ordained by the Soveraign Pastor in a Christian Common-wealth that is not ordained by the authority of the Soveraign thereof Out of this place therefore it followeth that he which heareth his Soveraign being a Christian heareth Christ and hee that despiseth the Doctrine which his King being a Christian authorizeth despiseth the Doctrine of Christ which is not that which Bellarmine intendeth here to prove but the contrary But all this is nothing to a Law Nay more a Christian King as a Pastor and Teacher of his Subjects makes not thereby his Doctrines Laws He cannot oblige men to beleeve though as a Civill Soveraign he may make Laws suitable to his Doctrine which may oblige men to certain actions and sometimes to such as they would not otherwise do and which he ought not to command and yet when they are commanded they are Laws and the externall actions done in obedience to them without the inward approbation are the actions of the Soveraign and not of the Subject which is in that case but as an instrument without any motion of his owne at all because God hath commanded to obey them The eleventh is every place where the Apostle for Counsell putteth some word by which men use to signifie Command or calleth the following of his Counsell by the name of Obedience And therefore they are alledged out of 1 Cor. 11. 2. I commend you for keeping my Precepts as I delivered them to you The Greek is I commend you for keeping those things I delivered to you as I delivered them Which is far from signifying that they were Laws or any thing else but good Counsell And that of 1. Thess. 4. 2. You know what commandements we gave you where the Greek word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equivalent to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what wee delivered to you as in the place next before alledged which does not prove the Traditions of the Apostles to be any more than Counsells though as is said in the 8 verse he that despiseth them despiseth not man but God For our Saviour himself came not to Judge that is to be King in this world but to Sacrifice himself for Sinners and leave Doctors in his Church to lead not to drive men to Christ who never accepteth forced actions which is all the Law produceth but the inward conversion of the heart which is not the work of Laws but of Counsell and Doctrine And that of 2 Thess. 3. 14. If any man Obey not our word by this Epistle note that man and have no company with him that he may bee ashamed where from the word Obey he would inferre that this Epistle was a Law to the Thessalonians The Epistles of the Emperours were indeed Laws If therefore the Epistle of S. Paul were also a Law they were to obey two Masters But the word Obey as it is in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth hearkning to or putting in practice not onley that which is Commanded by him that has right to punish but also that which is delivered in a way of Counsell for our good and therefore St. Paul does not bid kill him that disobeys nor beat nor imprison nor amerce him which Legislators may all do but avoid his company that he may bee ashamed whereby it is evident it was not the Empire of an Apostle but his Reputation amongst the Faithfull which the Christians stood in awe of The last place is that of Heb. 13. 17. Obey your Leaders and submit your selves to them for they watch for your souls as they that must give account And here also is intended by Obedience a following of their Counsell For the reason of our Obedience is not drawn from the will and command of our Pastors but from our own benefit as being the Salvation of our Souls they watch for and not for the Exaltation of their own Power and Authority If it were meant here that all they teach were Laws then not onely the Pope but every Pastor in his Parish should have Legislative Power Again they that are bound to obey their Pastors have no power to examine their commands What then shall wee say to St. Iohn who bids us 1 Epist. chap. 4. ver 1. Not to beleeve every Spirit but to try the Spirits whether they are of God because many false Prophets are gone out into the world It is therefore manifest that wee may dispute the Doctrine of our Pastors but no man can dispute a Law The Commands of Civill Soveraigns are on all sides granted to be
no Law of England nor is the condemnation grounded upon a Presumption of Law but upon the Presumption of the Judges It is also against Law to say that no Proofe shall be admitted against a Presumption of Law For all Judges Soveraign and subordinate if they refuse to heare Proofe refuse to do Justice for though the Sentence be Just yet the Judges that condemn without hearing the Proofes offered are Unjust Judges and their Presumption is but Prejudice which no man ought to bring with him to the Seat of Justice whatsoever precedent judgements or examples he shall pretend to follow There be other things of this nature wherein mens Judgements have been perverted by trusting to Precedents but this is enough to shew that though the Sentence of the Judge be a Law to the party pleading yet it is no Law to any Judge that shall succeed him in that Office In like manner when question is of the Meaning of written Lawes he is not the Interpreter of them that writeth a Commentary upon them For Commentaries are commonly more subject to cavill than the Text and therefore need other Commentaries and so there will be no end of such Interpretation And therefore unlesse there be an Interpreter authorised by the Soveraign from which the subordinate Judges are not to recede the Interpreter can be no other than the ordinary Judges in the same manner as they are in cases of the unwritten Law and their Sentences are to be taken by them that plead for Lawes in that particular case but not to bind other Judges in like cases to give like judgements For a Judge may erre in the Interpretation even of written Lawes but no errour of a subordinate Judge can change the Law which is the generall Sentence of the Soveraigne In written Lawes men use to make a difference between the Letter and the Sentence of the Law And when by the Letter is meant whatsoever can be gathered from the bare words 't is well distinguished For the significations of almost all words are either in themselves or in the metaphoricall use of them ambiguous and may be drawn in argument to make many senses but there is onely one sense of the Law But if by the Letter be meant the literall sense then the Letter and the Sentence or intention of the Law is all one For the literall sense is that which the Legislator intended should by the letter of the Law be signified Now the Intention of the Legislator is alwayes supposed to be Equity For it were a great contumely for a Judge to think otherwise of the Soveraigne He ought therefore if the Word of the Law doe not fully authorise a reasonable Sentence to supply it with the Law of Nature or if the case be difficult to respit Judgement till he have received more ample authority For Example a written Law ordaineth that he which is thrust out of his house by force shall be restored by force It happens that a man by negligence leaves his house empty and returning is kept out by force in which case there is no speciall Law ordained It is evident that this case is contained in the same Law for else there is no remedy for him at all which is to be supposed against the Intention of the Legislator Again the word of the Law commandeth to Judge according to the Evidence A man is accused falsly of a fact which the Judge saw himself done by another and not by him that is accused In this case neither shall the Letter of the Law be followed to the condemnation of the Innocent nor shall the Judge give Sentence against the evidence of the Witnesses because the Letter of the Law is to the contrary but procure of the Soveraign that another be made Judge and himself Witnesse So that the incommodity that follows the bare words of a written Law may lead him to the Intention of the Law whereby to interpret the same the better though no Incommodity can warrant a Sentence against the Law For every Judge of Right and Wrong is not Judge of what is â—…ommodious or Incommodious to the Common-wealth The abilities required in a good Interpreter of the Law that is to say in a good Judge are not the same with those of an Advocate namely the study of the Lawes For a Judge as he ought to take notice of the Fact from none but the Witnesses so also he ought to take notice of the Law from nothing but the Satutes and Constitutions of the Soveraign alledged in the pleading or declared to him by some that have authority from the Soveraign Power to declare them and need not take care before-hand what hee shall Judge for it shall bee given him what hee shall say concerning the Fact by Witnesses and what hee shall say in point of Law from those that shall in their pleadings â—…hew it and by authority interpret it upon the place The Lords of Parlament in England were Judges and most difficult causes have been heard and determined by them yet few of them were much versed in the study of the Lawes and fewer had made profession of them and though they consulted with Lawyers that were appointed to be present there for that purpose yet they alone had the authority of giving Sentence In like manner in the ordinary trialls of Right Twelve men of the common People are the Judges and give Sentence not onely of the Fact but of the Right and pronounce simply for the Complaynant or for the Defendant that is to say are Judges not onely of the Fact but also of the Right and in a question of crime not onely determine whether done or not done but also whether it be Murder Homicide Felony Assault and the like which are determinations of Law but because they are not supposed to know the Law of themselves there is one that hath Authority to enforme them of it in the particular case they are to Judge of But yet if they judge not according to that he tells them they are not subject thereby to any penalty unlesse it be made appear they did it against their consciences or had been corrupted by reward The things that make a good Judge or good Interpreter of the Lawes are first A right understanding of that principall Law of Nature called Equity which depending not on the reading of other mens Writings but on the goodnesse of a mans own naturall Reason and Meditation is presumed to be in those most that have had most leisure and had the most inclination to meditate thereon Secondly Contempt of unnecessary Riches and Preferments Thirdly To be able in judgement to devest himselfe of all feare anger hatred love and compassion Fourthly and lastly Patience to heare diligent attention in hearing and memory to retain digest and apply what he hath heard The difference and division of the Lawes has been made in divers manners according to the different methods of those men that have written of
them For it is a thing that dependeth not on Nature but on the scope of the Writer and is subservient to every mans proper method In the Institutions of Justinian we find seven sorts of Civill Lawes 1. The Edicts Constitutions and Epistles of the Prince that is of the Emperour because the whole power of the people was in him Like these are the Proclamations of the Kings of England 2. The Decrees of the whole people of Rome comprehending the Senate when they were put to the Question by the Senate These were Lawes at first by the vertue of the Soveraign Power residing in the people and such of them as by the Emperours were not abrogated remained Lawes by the Authority Imperiall For all Lawes that bind are understood to be Lawes by his authority that has power to repeale them Somewhat like to these Lawes are the Acts of Parliament in England 3. The Decrees of the Common people excluding the Senate when they were put to the question by the Tribune of the people For such of them as were not abrogated by the Emperours remained Lawes by the Authority Imperiall Like to these were the Orders of the House of Commons in England 4. Senatûs consulta the Orders of the Senate because when the people of Rome grew so numerous as it was inconvenient to assemble them it was thought fit by the Emperour that men should Consult the Senate in stead of the people And these have some resemblance with the Acts of Counsell 5. The Edicts of Praetors and in some Cases of the Aediles such as are the Chiefe Justices in the Courts of England 6. Responsa Prudentum which were the Sentences and Opinions of those Lawyers to whom the Emperour gave Authority to interpret the Law and to give answer to such as in matter of Law demanded their advice which Answers the Judges in giving Judgement were obliged by the Constitutions of the Emperour to observe And should be like the Reports of Cases Judged if other Judges be by the Law of England bound to observe them For the Judges of the Common Law of England are not properly Judges but Juris Consulti of whom the Judges who are either the Lords or Twelve men of the Country are in point of Law to ask advice 7. Also Unwritten Customes which in their own nature are an imitation of Law by the tacite consent of the Emperour in case they be not contrary to the Law of Nature are very Lawes Another division of Lawes is into Naturall and Positive Naturâ—…ll are those which have been Lawes from all Eternity and are called not onely Naturall but also Morall Lawes consisting in the Morall Vertues as Justice Equity and all habits of the mind that conduce to Peace and Charity of which I have already spoken in the fourteenth and fifteenth Chapters Positive are those which have not been from Eternity but have been made Lawes by the Will of those that have had the Soveraign Power over others and are either written or made known to men by some other argument of the Will of their Legislator Again of Positive Lawes some are Humane some Divine And of Humane positive lawes some are Distributive some Penal Distributive are those that determine the Rights of the Subjects declaring to every man what it is by which he acquireth and holdeth a propriety in lands or goods and a right or liberty of action and these speak to all the Subjects Penal are those which declare what Penalty shall be inflicted on those that violate the Law and speak to the Ministers and Officers ordained for execution For though every one ought to be informed of the Punishments ordained before-hand for their transgression neverthelesse the Command is not addressed to the Delinquent who cannot be supposed will faithfully punish himselfe but to publique Ministers appointed to see the Penalty executed And these Penal Lawes are for the most part written together with the Lawes Distributive and are sometimes called Judgements For all Lawes are generall Judgements or Sentences of the Legislator as also every particular Judgement is a Law to him whose case is Judged Divine Positive Lawes for Naturall Lawes being Eternall and Universall are all Divine are those which being the Commandements of God not from all Eternity nor universally addressed to all men but onely to a certain people or to certain persons are declared for such by those whom God hath authorised to declare them But this Authority of man to declare what be these Positive Lawes of God how can it be known God may command a man by a supernaturall way to deliver Lawes to other men But because it is of the essence of Law that he who is to be obliged be assured of the Authority of him that declareth it which we cannot naturally take notice to be from God How can a man without supernaturall Revelation be assured of the Revelation received by the declarer and how can he be bound to obey them For the first question how a man can be assured of the Revelation of another without a Revelation particularly to himselfe it is evidently impossible For though a man may be induced to believe such Revelation from the Miracles they see him doe or from seeing the Extraordinary sanctity of his life or from seeing the Extraordinary wisedome or Extraordinary felicity of his Actions all which are marks of God extraordinary favour yet they are not assured evidences of speciall Revelation Miracles are Marvellous workes but that which is marvellous to one may not be so to another Sanctity may be feigned and the visible felicities of this world are most often the work of God by Naturall and ordinary causes And therefore no man can infallibly know by naturall reason that another has had a supernaturall revelation of Gods will but only a beliefe every one as the signs thereof shall appear greater or lesser a firmer or a weaker belief But for the second how he can be bound to obey them it is not so hard For if the Law declared be not against the Law of Nature which is undoubtedly Gods Law and he undertake to obey it he is bound by his own act bound I say to obey it but not bound to believe it for mens beliefe and interiour cogitations are not subject to the commands but only to the operation of God ordinary or extraordinary Faith of Supernaturall Law is not a fulfilling but only an assenting to the same and not a duty that we exhibite to God but a gift which God freely giveth to whom he pleaseth as also Unbelief is not a breach of any of his Lawes but a rejection of them all except the Laws Naturall But this that I say will be made yet cleerer by the Examples and Testimonies concerning this point in holy Scripture The Covenant God made with Abraham in a Supernaturall manner was thus This is the Covenant which thou shalt observe between Me and Thee and thy Seed after thee Abrahams Seed had
the same Authority controuleth it and in all Crimes that contain not in them a denyall of the Soveraign Power nor are against an evident Law Excuseth totally whereas he that groundeth his actions on his private Judgement ought according to the rectitude or errour thereof to stand or fall The same Fact if it have been constantly punished in other men is a greater Crime than if there have been many precedent Examples of impunity For those Examples are so many hopes of Impunity given by the Soveraign himselfe And because he which furnishes a man with such a hope and presumption of mercy as encourageth him to offend hath his part in the offence he cannot reasonably charge the offender with the whole A Crime arising from a sudden Passion is not so great as when the same ariseth from long meditation For in the former case there is a place for Extenuation in the common infirmity of humane nature but he that doth it with praemeditation has used circumspection and cast his eye on the Law on the punishment and on the consequence thereof to humane society all which in committing the Crime hee hath contemned and postposed to his own appetite But there is no suddennesse of Passion sufficient for a totall Excuse For all the time between the first knowing of the Law and the Commission of the Fact shall be taken for a time of deliberation because he ought by meditation of the Law to rectifie the irregularity of his Passions Where the Law is publiquely and with assiduity before all the people read and interpreted a fact done against it is a greater Crime than where men are left without such instrustion to enquire of it with difficulty uncertainty and interruption of their Callings and be informed by priuate men for in this case part of the fault is discharged upon common infirmity but in the former there is apparent negligence which is not without some contempt of the Sovetaign Power Those facts which the Law expresly condemneth but the Law-maker by other manifest signes of his will tacitly approveth are lesse Crimes than the same facts condemned both by the Law and Law-maker For seeing the will of the Law-maker is a Law there appear in this case two contradictory Lawes which would totally Excuse if men were bound to take notice of the Soveraigns approbation by other arguments than are expressed by his command But because there are punishments consequent not onely to the transgression of his Law but also to the observing of it he is in part a cause of the transgression and therefore cannot reasonably impute the whole Crime to the â—…quent For example the Law condemneth Duells the punishment is made capitall On the contrary part he that refuseth Duell is subject to contempt and 〈◊〉 without remedy and sometimes by the Soveraign himselfe thought unworthy to have any charge or preferment in Warre If thereupon he accept Duell considering all men lawfully endeavour to obtain the good opinion of them that have the Soveraign Power he ought not in reason to be 〈◊〉 punished seeing part of the fault may be discharged on the punisher which I say not as wishing liberty of private revenges or any other kind of disobedience but a care in Governours not to countenance any thing obliquely which directly they forbid The examples of Princes to those that see them are and ever have been more potent to govern their actions than the Lawes themselves And thought it be our duty to do not what they do but what they say yet will that duty never be performed till it please God to give men an extraordinary and supernaturall grace to follow that Precept Again if we compare Crimes by the mischiefe of their Effects First the same fact when it redounds to the dammage of many is greater than when it redounds to the hurt of few And therefore when a fact hurteth not onely in the present but also by example in the future it is a greater Crime than if it hurt onely in the present for the former is a fertile Crime and multiplyes to the hurt of many the later is barren To maintain doctrines contrary to the Religion established in the Common-wealth is a greater fault in an authorised Preacher than in a private person So also is it to live prophanely incontinently or do any irreligious act whatsoever Likewise in a Professor of the Law to maintain any point or do any act that tendeth to the weakning of the Soveraign Power is a greater Crime than in another man Also in a man that hath such reputation for wisedome as that his counsells are followed or his actions imitated by many his fact against the Law is a greater Crime than the same fact in another For such men not onely commit Crime but teach it for Law to all other men And generally all Crimes are the greater by the scandall they give that is to say by becomming stumbling-blocks to the weak that look not so much upon the way they go in as upon the light that other men carry before them Also Facts of hostility against the present state of the Common-wealth are greater Crimes than the same acts done to private men For the dammage extends it selfe to all Such are the betraying of the strengths or revealing of the secrets of the Common-wealth to an Enemy also all attempts upon the Representative of the Common-wealth be it a Monarch or an Assembly and all endeavours by word or deed to diminish the Authority of the same either in the present time or in succession which Crimes the Latines understand by Crimina laesae Majestatis and consist in designe or act contrary to a Fundamentall Law Likewise those Crimes which render Judgements of no effect are greater Crimes than Injuries done to one or a few persons as to receive mony to give False judgement or testimony is a greater Crime than otherwise to deceive a man of the like or a greater summe because not onely he has wrong that falls by such judgements but all Judgements are rendered uselesse and occasion ministred to force and private revenges Also Robbery and Depeculation of the Publique treasure or Revenues is a greater Crime than the robbing or defrauding of a Private man because to robbe the publique is to robbe many at once Also the Counterfeit usurpation of publique Ministery the Counterfeiting of publique Seales or publique Coine than counterfeiting of a private mans person or his seale because the fraud thereof extendeth to the dammage of many Of facts against the Law done to private men the greater Crime is that where the dammage in the common opinion of men is most sensible And therefore To kill against the Law is a greater Crime than any other injury life preserved And to kill with Torment greater than simply to kill And Mutilation of a limbe greater than the spoyling a man of his goods And the spoyling a man of his goods by
Terrour of death or wounds than by clandestine surreption And by clandestine Surreption than by consent fraudulently obtained And the violation of chastity by Force greater than by flattery And of a woman Married than of a woman not married For all these things are commonly so valued though some men are more and some lesse sensible of the same offence But the Law regardeth not the particular but the generall inclination of mankind And therefore the offence men take from contumely in words or gesture when they produce no other harme than the present griefe of him that is reproached hath been neglected in the Lawes of the Greeks Romans and other both antient and moderne Common-wealths supposing the true cause of such griefe to consist not in the contumely which takes no hold upon men conscious of their own vertue but in the Pusillanimity of him that is offended by it Also a Crime against a private man is much aggravated by the person time and place For to kill ones Parent is a greater Crime than to kill another for the Parent ought to have the honour of a Soveraign though he have surrendred his Power to the Civill Law because he had it originally by Nature And to Robbe a poore man is a greater Crime than to robbe a rich man because 't is to the poore a more sensible dammage And a Crime committed in the Time or Place appointed for Devotion is greater than if committed at another time or place for it proceeds from a greater contempt of the Law Many other caseâ—… of Aggravation and Extenuation might be added but by these I have set down it is obvious to every man to take the altitude of any other Crime proposed Lastly because in almost all Crimes there is an Injury done not onely to some Private men but also to the Common-wealth the same Crime when the accusation is in the name of the Common-wealth is called Publique Crime and when in the name of a Private man a Private Crime And the Pleas according thereunto called Publique Judicia Publica Pleas of the Crown or Private Pleas. As in an Accusation of Murder if the accuser be a Private man the plea is a Private plea if the accuser be the Soveraign the plea is a Publique plea. CHAP. XXVIII Of PUNISHMENTS and REWARDS APUNISHMENT is an Evill inflicted by publique Authority on him that hath done or omitted that which is Judged by the same Authority to be a Transgression of the Law to the end that the will of men may thereby the better be disposed to obedience Before I inferre any thing from this definition there is a question to be answered of much importance which is by what door the Right or Authority of Punishing in any case came in For by that which has been said before no man is supposed bound by Covenant not to resist violence and consequently it cannot be intended that he gave any right to another to lay violent hands upon his person In the making of a Common-wealth every man giveth away the right of defending another but not of defending himselfe Also he obligeth himselfe to assist him that hath the Soveraignty in the Punishing of another but of himselfe not But to covenant to assist the Soveraign in doing hurt to another unlesse he that so covenanteth have a right to doe it himselfe is not to give him a Right to Punish It is manifest therefore that the Right which the Common-wealth that is he or they that represent it hath to Punish is not grounded on any concession or gift of the Subjects But I have also shewed formerly that before the Institution of Common-wealth every man had a right to every thing and to do whatsoever he thought necessary to his own preservation subduing hurting or killing any man in order thereunto And this is the foundation of that right of Punishing which is exercised in every Common-wealth For the Subjects did not give the Soveraign that right but onely in laying down theirs strengthned him to use his own as he should think fit for the preservation of them all so that it was not given but left to him and to him onely and excepting the limits set him by naturall Law as entire as in the condition of meer Nature and of warre of every one against his neighbour â—…rom the definition of Punishment I inferre First that neither private revenges nor injuries of private men can properly be stiled Punishment because they proceed not from publique Authority Secondly that to be neglected and unpreferred by the publique favour is not a Punishment because no new evill is thereby on any man Inflicted he is onely left in the estate he was in before Thirdly that the evill inflicted by publique Authority without precedent publique condemnation is not to be stiled by the name of Punishment but of an hostile act because the fact for which a man is Punished ought first to be Judged by publique Authority to be a transgression of the Law Fourthly that the evill inflicted by usurped power and Judges without Authority from the Soveraign is not Punishment but an act of hostility because the acts of power usurped have not for Author the person condemned and therefore are not acts of publique Authority Fifthly that all evill which is inflicted without intention or possibility of disposing the Delinquent or by his example other men to obey the Lawes is not Punishment but an act of hostility because without such an end no hurt done is contained under that name Sixthly whereas to certain actions there be annexed by Nature divers hurtfull consequences as when a man in assaulting another is himselfe slain or wounded or when he falleth into sicknesse by the doing of some unlawfull act such hurt though in respect of God who is the author of Nature it may be said to be inflicted and therefore a Punishment divine yet it is not contaned in the name of Punishment in respect of men because it is not inflicted by the Authority of man Seventhly If the harm inflicted be lesse than the benefit or contentment that naturally followeth the crime committed that harm is not within the definition and is rather the Price or Redemption than the Punishment of a Crime Because it is of the nature of Punishment to have for end the disposing of men to obey the Law which end if it be lesse than the benefit of the transgression it attaineth not but worketh a contrary effect Eighthly If a Punishment bè determined and prescribed in the Law it selfe and after the crime committed there be a greater Punishment inflicted the excesse is not Punishment but an act of hostility For seeing the aym of Punishment is not a revenge but terrour and the terrour of a great Punishment unknown is taken away by the declaration of a lesse the unexpected addition is no part of the Punishment But where there is no Punishment at all determined by the
and the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament have had one and the same scope to convert men to the obedience of God 1. in Moses and the Priests 2. in the man Christ and 3. in the Apostles and the successors to Apostolicall power For these three at several times did represent the person of God Moses and his successors the High Priests and Kings of Judah in the Old Testament Christ himself in the time he lived on earth and the Apostles and their successors from the day of Pentecost when the Holy Ghost descended on them to this day It is a question much disputed between the divers sects of Christian Religion From whence the Scriptures derive their Authority which question is also propounded sometimes in other terms as How wee know them to be the Word of God or Why we b◅leeve them to be so And the difficulty of resolving it ariseth chiefly from the impropernesse of the words wherein the question it self is couched For it is beleeved on all hands that the first and originall Author of them is God and consequently the question disputed is not that Again it is manifest that none can know they are Gods Word though all true Christians beleeve it but those to whom God himself hath revealed it supernaturally and therefore the question is not rightly moved of our Know edge of it Lastly when the question is propounded of our Beleefe because some are moved to beleeve for one and others for other reasons there can be rendred no one generall answer for them all The question truly stated is By what Authority they are made Law As far as they differ not from the Laws of Nature there is no doubt but they are the Law of God and carry their Authority with them legible to all men that have the use of naturall reason but this is no other Authority then that of all other Morall Doctrine consonant to Reason the Dictates whereof are Laws not made but Eternall If they be made Law by God himselfe they are of the nature of written Law which are Laws to them only to whom God hath so sufficiently published them as no man can excuse himself by saying he knew not they were his He therefore to whom God hath not supernaturally revealed that they are his nor that those that published them were sent by him is not obliged to obey them by any Authority but his whose Commands have already the force of Laws that is to say by any other Authority then that of the Common-wealth residing in the Soveraign who only has the Legislative power Again if it be not the Legislative Authority of the Common-wealth that giveth them the force of Laws it must bee some other Authority derived from God either private or publique if private it obliges onely him to whom in particular God hath been pleased to reveale it For if every man should be obliged to take for Gods Law what particular men on pretence of private Inspiration or Revelation should obtrude upon him in such a number of men that out of pride and ignorance take their own Dreams and extravagant Fancies and Madnesse for testimonies of Gods Spirit or out of ambition pretend to such Divine testimonies falsely and contrary to their own consciences it were impossible that any Divine Law should be acknowledged If publique it is the Authority of the Common-wealth or of the Church But the Church if it be one person is the same thing with a Common-wealth of Christians called a Common-wealth because it consisteth of men united in one person their Soveraign and a Church because it consisteth in Christian men united in one Christian Soveraign But if the Church be not one person then it hath no authority at all it can neither command nor doe any action at all nor is capable of having any power or right to any thing nor has any Will Reason nor Voice for all these qualities are personall Now if the whole number of Christians be not contained in one Common-wealth they are not one person nor is there an Universall Church that hath any authority over them and therefore the Scriptures are not made Laws by the Universall Church or if it bee one Common-wealth then all Christian Monarchs and States are private persons and subject to bee judged deposed and punished by an Universall Soveraigne of all Christendome So that the question of the Authority of the Scriptures is reduced to this Whether Christian Kings and the Soveraigne Assemblies in Christian Common-wealths be absolute in their own Territories immediately under God or subject to one Vicar of Christ constituted of the Vniversall Church to bee judged condemned deposed and put to death as hee shall think expedient or necessary for the common good Which question cannot bee resolved without a more particular consideration of the Kingdome of God from whence also wee are to judge of the Authority of Interpreting the Scripture For whosoever hath a lawfull power over any Writing to make it Law hath the power also to approve or disapprove the interpretation of the same CHAP. XXXIV Of the Signification of SPIRIT ANGEL and INSPIRATION in the Books of Holy Scripture SEeing the foundation of all true Ratiocination is the constant Signification of words which in the Doctrine following dependeth not as in naturall science on the Will of the Writer nor as in common conversation on vulgar use but on the sense they carry in the Scripture It is necessary before I proceed any further to determine out of the Bible the meaning of such words as by their ambiguity may render what I am to inferre upon them obscure or disputable I will begin with the words BODY and SPIRIT which in the language of the Schools are termed Substances Corporeall and Incorporeall The Word Body in the most generall acceptation signifieth that which filleth or occupyeth some certain room or imagined place and dependeth not on the imagination but is a reall part of that we call the Vniverse For the Vniverse being the Aggregate of all Bodies there is no reall part thereof that is not also Body nor any thing properly a Body that is not also part of that Aggregate of all Bodies the Vniverse The same also because Bodies are subject to change that is to say to variety of apparence to the sense of living creatures is called Substance that is to say Subject to various accidents as sometimes to be Moved sometimes to stand Still and to seem to our senses sometimes Hot sometimes Cold sometimes of one Colour Smel Tast or Sound somtimes of another And this diversity of Seeming produced by the diversity of the operatiō of bodies on the organs of our sense we attribute to alterations of the Bodies that operate call them Accidents of those Bodies And according to this acceptation of the word Substance and Body signifie the same thing and therefore Substance incorporeall are words which when they are joined together destroy one another as if
and delivered by God himselfe to Moses and by Moses made known to the people Before that time there was no written Law of God who as yet having not chosen any people to bee his peculiar Kingdome had given no Law to men but the Law of Nature that is to say the Precepts of Naturall Reason written in every mans own heart Of these two Tables the first containeth the law of Soveraignty 1. That they should not obey nor honour the Gods of other Nations in these words Non-habebis Deos alienos coram me that is Thou shalt not have for Gods the Gods that other Nations worship but onely me whereby they were forbidden to obey or honor as their King and Governour any other God than him that spake unto them then by Moses and afterwards by the High Priest 2. That they should not make any Image to represent him that is to say they were not to choose to themselves neither in heaven nor in earth any Representative of their own fancying but obey Moses and Aaron whom he had appointed to that office 3. That they should not take the Name of God in vain that is they should not speak rashly of their King nor dispute his Right nor the commissions of Moses and Aaron his Lieutenants 4. That they should every Seventh day abstain from their ordinary labour and employ that time in doing him Publique Honor. The second Table containeth the Duty of one man towards another as To honor Parents Not to kill Not to Commit Adultery Not to steale Not to corrupt Iudgment by false witnesse and finally Not so much as to designe in their heart the doing of any injury one to another The question now is Who it was that gave to these written Tables the obligatory force of Lawes There is no doubt but they were made Laws by God himselfe But because a Law obliges not nor is Law to any but to them that acknowledge it to be the act of the Soveraign how could the people of Israel that were forbidden to approach the Mountain to hear what God said to Moses be obliged to obedience to all those laws which Moses propounded to them Some of them were indeed the Laws of Nature as all the Second Table and therefore to be acknowledged for Gods Laws not to the Israelites alone but to all people But of those that were peculiar to the Israelites as those of the first Table the question remains saving that they had obliged themselves presently after the propounding of them to obey Moses in these words Exod. 20. 19. Speak thou to us and we will hear thee but let not God speak to us lest we dye It was therefore onely Moses then and after him the High Priest whom by Moses God declared should administer this his peculiar Kingdome that had on Earth the power to make this short Scripture of the Decalogue to bee Law in the Common-wealth of Israel But Moses and Aaron and the succeeding High Priests were the Civill Soveraigns Therefore hitherto the Canonizing or making of the Scripture Law belonged to the Civill Soveraigne The Judiciall Law that is to say the Laws that God prescribed to the Magistrates of Israel for the rule of their administration of Justice and of the Sentences or Judgments they should pronounce in Pleas between man and man and the Leviticall Law that is to say the rule that God prescribed touching the Rites and Ceremonies of the Priests and Levites were all delivered to them by Moses onely and therefore also became Lawes by vertue of the same promise of obedience to Moses Whether these laws were then written or not written but dictated to the People by Moses after his forty dayes being with God in the Mount by word of mouth is not expressed in the Text but they were all positive Laws and equivalent to holy Scripture and made Canonicall by Moses the Civill Soveraign After the Israelites were come into the Plains of Moab over against Jericho and ready to enter into the land of Promise Moses to the former Laws added divers others which therefore are called Deuteronomy that is Second Laws And are as it is written Deut. 29. 1. The words of a Covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Children of Israel besides the Covenant which he made with them in Horeb. For having explained those former Laws in the beginning of the Book of Deuteronomy he addeth others that begin at the 12. Cha. and continue to the end of the 26. of the same Book This Law Deut. 27. 1. they were commanded to write upon great stones playstered over at their passing over Jordan This Law also was written by Moses himself in a Book and delivered into the hands of the Priests and to the Elders of Israel Deut. 31. 9. and commanded ve 26. to be put in the side of the Arke for in the Ark it selfe was nothing but the Ten Commandements This was the Law which Moses Deuteronomy 17. 18. commanded the Kings of Israel should keep a copie of And this is the Law which having been long time lost was found again in the Temple in the time of Josiah and by his authority received for the Law of God But both Moses at the writing and Josiah at the recovery thereof had both of them the Civill Soveraignty Hitherto therefore the Power of making Scripture Canonicall was in the Civill Soveraign Besides this Book of the Law there was no other Book from the time of Moses till after the Captivity received amongst the Jews for the Law of God For the Prophets except a few lived in the time of the Captivity it selfe and the rest lived but a little before it and were so far from having their Prophecies generally received for Laws as that their persons were persecuted partly by false Prophets and partly by the Kings which were seduced by them And this Book it self which was confirmed by Josiah for the Law of God and with it all the History of the Works of God was lost in the Captivity and sack of the City of Jerusalem as appears by that of 2 Esdras 14. 21. Thy Law is burnt therefore no man knoweth the things that are done of thee or the works that shall begin And before the Captivity between the time when the Law was lost which is not mentioned in the Scripture but may probably be thought to be the time of Rehoboam when Shishak King of Egypt took the spoile of the Temple and the time of Josiah when it was found againe they had no written Word of God but ruled according to their own discretion or by the direction of such as each of them esteemed Prophets From hence we may inferre that the Scriptures of the Old Testament which we have at this day were not Canonicall nor a Law unto the Jews till the renovation of their Covenant with God at their return from the Captivity and restauration of their Common-wealth under Esdras But from that time
ordained And therefore in all Common-wealths of the Heathen the Soveraigns have had the name of Pastors of the People because there was no Subject that could lawfully Teach the people but by their permission and authority This Right of the Heathen Kings cannot bee thought taken from them by their conversion to the Faith of Christ who never ordained that Kings for beleeving in him should be deposed that is subjected to any but himself or which is all one be deprived of the power necessary for the conservation of Peace amongst their Subjects and for their defence against foraign Enemies And therefore Christian Kings are still the Supreme Pastors of their people and have power to ordain what Pastors they please to teach the Church that is to teach the People committed to their charge Again let the right of choosing them be as before the conversion of Kings in the Church for so it was in the time of the Apostles themselves as hath been shewn already in this chapter even so also the Right will be in the Civill Soveraign Christian. For in that he is a Christian he allowes the Teaching and in that he is the Soveraign which is as much as to say the Church by Representation the Teachers hee elects are elected by the Church And when an Assembly of Christians choose their Pastor in a Christian Common-wealth it is the Soveraign that electeth him because t is done by his Authority In the same manner as when a Town choose their Maior it is the act of him that hath the Soveraign Power For every act done is the act of him without whose consent it is invalid And therefore whatsoever examples may be drawn out of History concerning the Election of Pastors by the People or by the Clergy they are no arguments against the Right of any Civill Soveraign because they that elected them did it by his Authority Seeing then in every Christian Common-wealth the Civill Soveraign is the Supreme Pastor to whose charge the whole flock of his Subjects is committed and consequently that it is by his authority that all other Pastors are made and have power to teach and performe all other Pastorall offices it followeth also that it is from the Civill Soveraign that all other Pastors derive their right of Teaching Preaching and other functions pertaining to that Office and that they are but his Ministers in the same manner as the Magistrates of Towns Judges in Courts of Justice and Commanders of Armies are all but Ministers of him that is the Magistrate of the whole Common-wealth Judge of all Causes and Commander of the whole Militia which is alwaies the Civill Soveraign And the reason hereof is not because they that Teach but because they that are to Learn are his Subjects For let it be supposed that a Christian King commit the Authority of Ordaining Pastors in his Dominions to another King as divers Christian Kings allow that power to the Pope he doth not thereby constitute a Pastor over himself nor a Soveraign Pastor over his People for that were to deprive himself of the Civill Power which depending on the opinion men have of their Duty to him and the fear they have of Punishment in another world would depend also on the skill and loyalty of Doctors who are no lesse subject not only to Ambition but also to Ignorance than any other sort of men So that where a stranger hath authority to appoint Teachers it is given him by the Soveraign in whose Dominions he teacheth Christian Doctors are our Schoolmasters to Christianity But Kings are Fathers of Families and may receive Schoolmasters for their Subjects from the recommendation of a stranger but not from the command especially when the ill teaching them shall redound to the great and manifest profit of him that recommends them nor can they be obliged to retain them longer than it is for the Publique good the care of which they stand so long charged withall as they retain any other essentiall Right of the Soveraignty If a man therefore should ask a Pastor in the execution of his Office as the chief Priests and Elders of the people Mat. 21. 23. asked our Saviour By what authority dost thou these things and who gave thee this authority he can make no other just Answer but that he doth it by the Authority of the Common-wealth given him by the King or Assembly that representeth it All Pastors except the Supreme execute their charges in the Right that is by the Authority of the Civill Soveraign that is Iure Civili But the King and every other Soveraign executeth his Office of Supreme Pastor by immediate Authority from God that is to say in Gods Right or Iure Divino And therefore none but Kings can put into their Titles a mark of their submission to God onely Dei gratiâ Rex c. Bishops ought to say in the beginning of their Mandates By the favour of the Kings Majesty Bishop of such a Diocesse or as Civill Ministers In his Majesties Name For in saying Divinâ providentiâ which is the same with Dei gratiâ though disguised they deny to have received their authority from the Civill State and sliely slip off the Collar of their Civill Subjection contrary to the unity and defence of the Common-wealth But if every Christian Soveraign be the Supreme Pastor of his own Subjects it seemeth that he hath also the Authority not only to Preach which perhaps no man will deny but also to Baptize and to Administer the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and to Consecrate both Temples and Pastors to Gods service which most men deny partly because they use not to do it and partly because the Administration of Sacraments and Consecration of Persons and Places to holy uses requireth the Imposition of such mens hands as by the like Imposition successively from the time of the Apostles have been ordained to the like Ministery For proof therefore that Christian Kings have power to Baptize and to Consecrate I am to render a reason both why they use not to doe it and how without the ordinary ceremony of Imposition of hands they are made capable of doing it when they will There is no doubt but any King in case he were skilfull in the Sciences might by the same Right of his Office read Lectures of them himself by which he authorizeth others to read them in the Universities Neverthelesse because the care of the summe of the businesse of the Common-wealth taketh up his whole time it were not convenient for him to apply himself in Person to that particular A King may also if he please sit in Judgment to hear and determine all manner of Causes as well as give others authority to doe it in his name but that the charge that lyeth upon him of Command and Government constrain him to bee continually at the Helm and to commit the Ministeriall Offices to others under him In the like manner our Saviour who surely had
houses upon pretence of doing it in the honor of Christ of the Virgin Mary and of the Apostles and other the Pastors of the Primitive Church as being easie by giving them new names to make that an Image of the Virgin Mary and of her Sonne our Saviour which before perhaps was called the Image of Venus and Cupid and so of a Iupiter to make a Barnabas and of Mercury a Paul and the like And as worldly ambition creeping by degrees into the Pastors drew them to an endeavour of pleasing the new made Christians and also to a liking of this kind of honour which they also might hope for after their decease as well as those that had already gained it so the worshipping of the Images of Christ and his Apostles grew more and more Idolatrous save that somewhat after the time of Constantine divers Emperors and Bishops and generall Councells observed and opposed the unlawfulnesse thereof but too late or too weakly The Canonizing of Saints is another Relique of Gentilisme It is neither a misunderstanding of Scripture nor a new invention of the Roman Church but a custome as ancient as the Common-wealth of Rome it self The first that ever was canonized at Rome was Romulus and that upon the narration of Iulius Proculus that swore before the Senate he spake with him after his death and was assured by him he dwelt in Heaven and was there called Quirinus and would be propitious to the State of their new City And thereupon the Senate gave publique testimony of his Sanctity Iulius Caesar and other Emperors after him had the like testimony that is were Canonized for Saints for by such testimony is CANONIZATION now defined and is the same with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Heathen It is also from the Roman Heathen that the Popes have received the name and power of PONTIFEX MAXIMUS This was the name of him that in the ancient Common-wealth of Rome had the Supreme Authority under the Senate and People of regulating all Ceremonies and Doctrines concerning their Religion And when Augustus Caesar changed the State into a Monarchy he took to himselfe no more but this office and that of Tribune of the People that is to say the Supreme Power both in State and Religion and the succeeding Emperors enjoyed the same But when the Emperour Constantine lived who was the first that professed and authorized Christian Religion it was consonant to his profession to cause Religion to be regulated under his authority by the Bishop of Rome Though it doe not appear they had so soon the name of Pontifex but rather that the succeeding Bishops took it of themselves to countenance the power they exercised over the Bishops of the Roman Provinces For it is not any Priviledge of St. Peter but the Priviledge of the City of Rome which the Emperors were alwaies willing to uphold that gave them such authority over other Bishops as may be evidently seen by that that the Bishop of Constantinople when the Emperour made that City the Seat of the Empire pretended to bee equall to the Bishop of Rome though at last not without contention the Pope carryed it and became the Pontifex Maximus but in right onely of the Emperour and not without the bounds of the Empire nor any where after the Emperour had lost his power in Rome though it were the Pope himself that took his power from him From whence wee may by the way observe that there is no place for the superiority of the Pope over other Bishops except in the territories whereof he is himself the Civill Soveraign and where the Emperour having Soveraign Power Civill hath expressely chosen the Pope for the chief Pastor under himselfe of his Christian Subjects The carrying about of Images in Procession is another Relique of the Religion of the Greeks and Romans For they also carried their Idols from place to place in a kind of Chariot which was peculiarly dedicated to that use which the Latines called Thensa and Vehiculum Deorum and the Image was placed in a frame or Shrine which they called Ferculum And that which they called Pompa is the same that now is named Procession According whereunto amongst the Divine Honors which were given to Iulius Caesar by the Senate this was one that in the Pompe or Procession at the Circaean games he should have Thensam Ferculum a sacred Chariot and a Shrine which was as much as to be carried up and down as a God Just as at this day the Popes are carried by Switzers under a Canopie To these Processions also belonged the bearing of burning Torches and Candles before the Images of the Gods both amongst the Greeks and Romans For afterwards the Emperors of Rome received the same honor as we read of Caligula that at his reception to the Empire he was carried from Misenum to Rome in the midst of a throng of People the wayes beset with Altars and Beasts for Sacrifice and burning Torches And of Caracalla that was received into Alexandria with Incense and with casting of Flowers and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is with Torches for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were they that amongst the Greeks carried Torches lighted in the Processions of their Gods And in processe of time the devout but ignorant People did many times honor their Bishops with the like pompe of Wax Candles and the Images of our Saviour and the Saints constantly in the Church it self And thus came in the use of Wax Candles and was also established by some of the ancient Councells The Heathens had also their Aqua Lustralis that is to say Holy Water The Church of Rome imitates them also in their Holy Dayes They had their Bacchanalia and we have our Wakes answering to them They their Saturnalia and we our Carnevalls and Shrovetuesdays liberty of Servants They their Procession of Priapus wee our fetching in erection and dancing about May-poles and Dancing is one kind of Worship They had their Procession called Ambarvalia and we our Procession about the fields in the Rogation week Nor do I think that these are all the Ceremonies that have been left in the Church from the first conversion of the Gentiles but they are all that I can for the present call to mind and if a man would wel observe that which is delivered in the Histories concerning the Religious Rites of the Greeks and Romanes I doubt not but he might find many more of these old empty Bottles of Gentilisme which the Doctors of the Romance Church either by Negligence or Ambition have filled up again with the new Wine of Christianity that will not faile in time to break them CHAP. XLVI Of DARKNESSE from VAIN PHILOSOPHY and FABULOUS TRADITIONS BY PHILOLOSPHY is understood the Knowledge acquired by Reasoning from the Manner of the Generation of any thing to the Properties or from the Properties to some possible Way of Generation of the same to the
the Law which is the Will and Appetite of the State is the measure And yet is this Doctrine still practised and men judge the Goodnesse or Wickednesse of their own and of other mens actions and of the actions of the Common-wealth it selfe by their own Passions and no man calleth Good or Evill but that which is so in his own eyes without any regard at all to the Publique Laws except onely Monks and Friers that are bound by Vow to that simple obedience to their Superiour to which every Subject ought to think himself bound by the Law of Nature to the Civill Soveraign And this private measure of Good is a Doctrine not onely Vain but also Pernicious to the Publique State It is also Vain and false Philosophy to say the work of Marriage is repugnant to Chastity or Continence and by consequence to make them Morall Vices as they doe that pretend Chastity and Continence for the ground of denying Marriage to the Clergy For they confesse it is no more but a Constitution of the Church that requireth in those holy Orders that continually attend the Altar and administration of the Eucharist a continuall Abstinence from women under the name of continuall Chastity Continence and Purity Therefore they call the lawfull use of Wives want of Chastity and Continence and so make Marriage a Sin or at least a thing so impure and unclean as to render a man unfit for the Altar If the Law were made because the use of Wives is Incontinence and contrary to Chastity then all Marriage is vice If because it is a thing too impure and unclean for a man consecrated to God much more should other naturall necessary and daily works which all men doe render men unworthy to bee Priests because they are more unclean But the secret foundation of this prohibition of Marriage of Priests is not likely to have been laid so slightly as upon such errours in Morall Philosophy nor yet upon the preference of single life to the estate of Matrimony which proceeded from the wisdome of St. Paul who perceived how inconvenient a thing it was for those that in those times of persecution were Preachers of the Gospel and forced to fly from one countrey to another to be clogged with the care of wife and children but upon the designe of the Popes and Priests of after times to make themselves the Clergy that is to say sole Heirs of the Kingdome of God in this world to which it was necessary to take from them the use of Marriage because our Saviour saith that at the coming of his Kingdome the Children of God shall neither Marry nor bee given in Marriage but shall bee as the Angels in heaven that is to say Spirituall Seeing then they had taken on them the name of Spirituall to have allowed themselves when there was no need the propriety of Wives had been an Incongruity From Aristotles Civill Philosophy they have learned to call all manner of Common-wealths but the Popular such as was at that time the state of Athens Tyranny All Kings they called Tyrants and the Aristocracy of the thirty Governours â—…et up there by the Lacedemonians that subdued them the thirty Tyrants As also to call the condition of the people under the Democracy Liberty A Tyrant originally signified no more simply but a Monarch But when afterwards in most parts of Greece that kind of government was abolished the name began to signifie not onely the thing it did before but with it the hatred which the Popular States bare towards it As also the name of King became odious after the deposing of the Kings in Rome as being a thing naturall to all men to conceive some great Fault to be signified in any Attribute that is given in despight and to a great Enemy And when the same men shall be displeased with those that have the administration of the Democracy or Aristocracy they are not to seek for disgracefull names to expresse their anger in but call readily the one Anarchy and the other Oligarchy or the Tyranny of a Few And that which offendeth the People is no other thing but that they are governed not as every one of them would himselfe but as the Publique Representant be it one Man or an Assembly of men thinks fit that is by an Arbitrary government for which they give evill names to their Superiors never knowing till perhaps a little after a Civill warre that without such Arbitrary government such Warre must be perpetuall and that it is Men and Arms not Words and Promises that make the Force and Power of the Laws And therefore this is another Errour of Aristotles Politiques that in a wel ordered Common-wealth not Men should govern but the Laws What man that has his naturall Senses though he can neither write nor read does not find himself governed by them he fears and beleeves can kill or hurt him when he obeyeth not or that beleeves the Law can hurt him that is Words and Paper without the Hands and Swords of men And this is of the number of pernicious Errors for they induce men as oft as they like not their Governours to adhaere to those that call them Tyrants and to think it lawfull to raise warre against them And yet they are many times cherished from the Pulpit by the Clergy There is another Errour in their Civill Philosophy which they never learned of Aristotle nor Cicero nor any other of the Heathen to extend the power of the Law which is the Rule of Actions onely to the very Thoughts and Consciences of men by Examination and Inquisition of what they Hold notwithstanding the Conformity of their Speech and Actions By which men are either punished for answering the truth of their thoughts or constrained to answer an untruth for fear of punishment It is true that the Civill Magistrate intending to employ a Minister in the charge of Teaching may enquire of him if hee bee content to Preach such and such Doctrines and in case of refusall may deny him the employment But to force him to accuse himselfe of Opinions when his Actions are not by Law forbidden is against the Law of Nature and especially in them who teach that a man shall bee damned to Eternall and extream torments if he die in a false opinion concerning an Article of the Christian Faith For who is there that knowing there is so great danger in an error whom the naturall care of himself compelleth not to hazard his Soule upon his own judgement rather than that of any other man that is unconcerned in his damnation For a Private man without the Authority of the Common-wealth that is to say without permission from the Representant thereof to Interpret the Law by his own Spirit is another Error in the Politiques but not drawn from Aristotle nor from any other of the Heathen Philosophers For none of them deny but that in the Power of making Laws is comprehended
also the Power of Explaining them when there is need And are not the Scriptures in all places where they are Law made Law by the Authority of the Common-wealth and consequently a part of the Civill Law Of the same kind it is also when any but the Soveraign restraineth in any man that power which the Common-wealth hath not restrained as they do that impropriate the Preaching of the Gospell to one certain Order of men where the Laws have left it free If the State give me leave to preach or teach that is if it forbid me not no man can forbid me If I find my selfe amongst the Idolaters of America shall I that am a Christian though not in Orders think it a sin to preach Jesus Christ till I have received Orders from Rome or when I have preached shall not I answer their doubts and expound the Scriptures to them that is shall I not Teach But for this may some say as also for administring to them the Sacraments the necessity shall be esteemed for a sufficient Mission which is true But this is true also that for whatsoever a dispensation is due for the necessity for the same there needs no dispensation when there is no Law that forbids it Therefore to deny these Functions to those to whom the Civill Soveraigne hath not denyed them is a taking away of a lawfull Liberty which is contrary to the Doctrine of Civill Government More examples of Vain Philosophy brought into Religion by the Doctors of Schoole-Divinity might be produced but other men may if they please observe them of themselves I shall onely adde this that the Writings of Schoole-Divines are nothing else for the most part but insignificant Traines of strange and barbarous words or words otherwise used then in the common use of the Latine tongue such as would pose Cicero and Varro and all the Grammarians of ancient Rome Which if any man would see proved let him as I have said once before see whether he can translate any Schoole-Divine into any of the Modern tongues as French English or any other copious language for that which cannot in most of these be made Intelligible is not Intelligible in the Latine Which Insignificancy of language though I cannot note it for false Philosophy yet it hath a quality not onely to hide the Truth but also to make men think they have it and desist from further search Lastly for the Errors brought in from false or uncertain History what is all the Legend of fictitious Miracles in the lives of the Saints and all the Histories of Apparitions and Ghosts alledged by the Doctors of the Romane Church to make good their Doctrines of Hell and Purgatory the power of Exorcisme and other Doctrines which have no warrant neither in Reason nor Scripture as also all those Traditions which they call the unwritten Word of God but old Wives Fables Whereof though they find dispersed somewhat in the Writings of the ancient Fathers yet those Fathers were men that might too easily beleeve false reports and the producing of their opinions for testimony of the truth of what they beleeved hath no other force with them that according to the Counsell of St. Iohn 1 Epist. chap. 4. verse 1. examine Spirits than in all things that concern the power of the Romane Church the abuse whereof either they suspected not or had benefit by it to discredit their testimony in respect of too rash beleef of reports which the most sincere men without great knowledge of naturall causes such as the Fathers were are commonly the most subject to For naturally the best men are the least suspicious of fraudulent purposes Gregory the Pope and S. Bernard have somewhat of Apparitions of Ghosts that said they were in Purgatory and so has our Beda but no where I beleeve but by report from others But if they or any other relate any such stories of their own knowledge they shall not thereby confirm the more such vain reports but discover their own Infirmity or Fraud With the Introduction of False we may joyn also the suppression of True Philosophy by such men as neither by lawfull authority nor sufficient study are competent Judges of the truth Our own Navigations make manifest and all men learned in humane Sciences now acknowledge there are Antipodes And every day it appeareth more and more that Years and Dayes are determined by Motions of the Earth Neverthelesse men that have in their Writings but supposed such Doctrine as an occasion to lay open the reasons for and against it have been punished for it by Authority Ecclesiasticall But what reason is there for it Is it becaâ—…se such opinions are contrary to true Religion that cannot be if they be true Let therefore the truth be first examined by competent Judges or confuted by them that pretend to know the contrary Is it because they be contrary to the Religion established Let them be silenced by the Laws of those to whom the Teachers of them are subject that is by the Laws Civill For disobedience may lawfully be punished in them that against the Laws teach even true Philosophy Is it because they tend to disorder in Government as countenancing Rebellion or Sedition then let them be silenced and the Teachers punished by vertue of his Power to whom the care of the Publique quiet is committed which is the Authority Civill For whatsoever Power Ecclesiastiques take upon themselves in any place where they are subject to the State in their own Right though they call it Gods Right is but Usurpation CHAP. XLVII Of the BENEFIT that proceedeth from such Darknesse and to whom it accreweth CIcero maketh honorable mention of one of the Cassâ—… a severe Judge amongst the Romans for a custome he had in Criminall causes when the testimony of the witnesses was not sufficient to ask the Accusers Cuibono that is to say what Profit Honor or other Contentment the accused obtained or expected by the Fact For amongst Praesumptions there is none that so evidently declareth the Author as doth the BENEFIT of the Action By the same rule I intend in this place to examine who they may be that have possessed the People so long in this part of Christendome with these Doctrines contrary to the Peaceable Societies of Mankind And first to this Error that the present Church now Militant on Earth is the Kingdome of God that is the Kingdome of Glory or the Land of Promise not the Kingdome of Grace which is but a Promise of the Land are annexed these worldly Benefits First that the Pastors and Teachers of the Church are entitled thereby as Gods Publique Ministers to a Right of Governing the Church and consequently because the Church and Common-wealth are the same Persons to be Rectors and Governours of the Common-wealth By this title it is that the Pope prevailed with the subjects of all Christian Princes to beleeve that to disobey him was to disobey Christ himselfe
the sustaining of the same when it is set up or to the worldly Riches Honour and Authority of those that sustain it And therefore by the aforesaid rule of Cui bono we may justly pronounce for the Authors of all this Spirituall Darknesse the Pope and Roman Clergy and all those besides that endeavour to settle in the mindes of men this erroneous Doctrine that the Church now on Earth is that Kingdome of God mentioned in the Old and New Testament But the Emperours and other Christian Soveraigns under whose Government these Errours and the like encroachments of Ecclesiastiques upon their Office at first crept in to the disturbance of their possessions and of the tranquillity of their Subjects though they suffered the same for want of foresight of the Sequel and of insight into the designs of their Teachers may neverthelesse bee esteemed accessaries to their own and the Publique dammage For without their Authority there could at first no seditious Doctrine have been publiquely preached I say they might have hindred the same in the beginning But when the people were once possessed by those spirituall men there was no humane remedy to be applyed that any man could invent And for the remedies that God should provide who never faileth in his good time to destroy all the Machinations of men against the Truth wee are to attend his good pleasure that suffereth many times the prosperity of his enemies together with their ambition to grow to such a height as the violence thereof openeth the eyes which the warinesse of their predecessours had before sealed up and makes men by too much grasping let goe all as Peters net was broken by the struggling of too great a multitude of Fishes whereas the Impatience of those that strive to resist such encroachment before their Subjects eyes were opened did but encrease the power they resisted I doe not therefore blame the Emperour Frederick for holding the stirrop to our countryman Pope Adrian for such was the disposition of his subjects then as if hee had not done it hee was not likely to have succeeded in the Empire But I blame those that in the beginning when their power was entire by suffering such Doctrines to be forged in the Universities of their own Dominions have holden the Stirrop to all the succeeding Popes whilest they mounted into the Thrones of all Christian Soveraigns to ride and tire both them and their people at their pleasure But as the Inventions of men are woven so also are they ravelled out the way is the same but the order is inverted The web begins at the first Elements of Power which are Wisdom Humility Sincerity and other vertues of the Apostles whom the people converted obeyed out of Reverence not by Obligation Their Consciences were free and their Words and Actions subject to none but the Civill Power Afterwards the Presbyters as the Flocks of Christ encreased assembling to consider what they should teach and thereby obliging themselves to teach nothing against the Decrees of their Assemblies made it to be thought the people were thereby obliged to follow their Doctrine and when they refused refused to keep them company that was then called Excommunication not as being Infidels but as being disobedient And this was the first knot upon their Liberty And the number of Presbyters encreasing the Presbyters of the chief City or Province got themselves an authority over the Parochiall Presbyters and appropriated to themselves the names of Bishops And this was a second knot on Christian Liberty Lastly the Bishop of Rome in regard of the Imperiall City took upon him an Authority partly by the wills of the Emperours themselves and by the title of Pontifex Maximus and at last when the Emperours were grown weak by the priviledges of St. Peter over all other Bishops of the Empire Which was the third and last knot and the whole Synthesis and Construction of the Pontificiall Power And therefore the Analysis or Resolution is by the same way but beginneth with the knot that was last tyed as wee may see in the dissolution of the praeterpoliticall Church Government in England First the Power of the Popes was dissolved totally by Queen Elizabeth and the Bishops who before exercised their Functions in Right of the Pope did afterwards exercise the same in Right of the Queen and her Successours though by retaining the phrase of Iure Divino they were thought to demand it by immediate Right from God And so was untyed the first knot After this the Presbyterians lately in England obtained the putting down of Episcopacy And so was the second knot dissolved And almost at the same time the Power was taken also from the Presbyterians And so we are reduced to the Independency of the Primitive Christians to follow Paul or Cephas or Apollos every man as he liketh best Which if it be without contention and without measuring the Doctrine of Christ by our affection to the Person of his Minister the fault which the Apostle reprehended in the Corinthians is perhaps the best First because there ought to be no Power over the Consciences of men but of the Word it selfe working Faith in every one not alwayes according to the purpose of them that Plant and Water but of God himself that giveth the Increase and secondly because it is unreasonable in them who teach there is such danger in every little Errour to require of a man endued with Reason of his own to follow the Reason of any other man or of the most voices of many other men Which is little better then to venture his Salvation at crosse and pile Nor ought those Teachers to be displeased with this losse of their antient Authority For there is none should know better then they that power is preserved by the same Vertues by which it is acquired that is to say by Wisdome Humility Clearnesse of Doctrine and sincerity of Conversation and not by suppression of the Naturall Sciences and of the Morality of Naturall Reason nor by obscure Language nor by Arrogating to themselves more Knowledge than they make appear nor by Pious Frauds nor by such other faults as in the Pastors of Gods Church are not only Faults but also scandalls apt to make men stumble one time or other upon the suppression of their Authority But after this Doctrine that the Church now Militant is the Kingdome of God spoken of in the Old and New Testament was received in the World the ambition and canvasing for the Offices that belong thereunto and especially for that great Office of being Christs Lieutenant and the Pompe of them that obtained therein the principall Publique Charges became by degrees so evident that they lost the inward Reverence due to the Pastorall Function in so much as the Wisest men of them that had any power in the Civill State needed nothing but the authority of their Princes to deny them any further Obedience For from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten
Non est postestas Super terram quae Comparetur ei Iob. 41.24 LEVIATHAN Or THE MATTER FORME and POWER of a COMMON-WEALTH ECCLESIASTICALL and CIVIL By THOMAS HOBBES of MALMESBURY London Printed for Andrew Crooke 1651 LEVIATHAN OR The Matter Forme Power OF A COMMON-WEALTH ECCLESIASTICALL AND CIVILL By THOMAS HOBBES of Malmesbury LONDON Printed for ANDREW CROOKE at the Green Dragon in St. Pauls Church-yard 1651. FIDE ✚ ET ✚ FORTITUDINE The Right Hon. ble Algernon Capell Earl of Essex Viscount Maldon and Baron Capell of Hadham 1701. TO MY MOST HONOR'D FRIEND Mr FRANCIS GODOLPHIN of Godolphin Honor'd Sir YOur most worthy Brother Mr Sidney Godolphin when he lived was pleas'd to think my studies something and otherwise to oblige me as you know with reall testimonies of his good opinion great in themselves and the greater for the worthinesse of his person For there is not any vertue that disposeth a man either to the service of God or to the service of his Country to Civill Society or private Friendship that did not manifestly appear in his conversation not as acquired by necessity or affected upon occasion but inhaerent and shining in a generous constitution of his nature Therefore in honour and gratitude to him and with devotion to your selfe I humbly Dedicate unto you this my discourse of Common-wealth I know not how the world will receive it nor how it may reflect on those that shall seem to favour it For in a way beset with those that contend on one side for too great Liberty and on the other side for too much Authority 't is hard to passe between the points of both unwounded But yet me thinks the endeavour to advance the Civill Power should not be by the Civill Power condemned nor private men by reprehending it declare they think that Power too great Besides I speak not of the men but in the Abstract of the Seat of Power like to those simple and unpartiall creatures in the Roman Capitol that with their noyse defended those within it not because they were they but there offending none I think but those without or such within if there be any such as favour them That which perhaps may most offend are certain Texts of Holy Scripture alledged by me to other purpose than ordinarily they use to be by others But I have done it with due submission and also in order to my Subject necessarily for they are the Outworks of the Enemy from whence they impugne the Civill Power If notwithstanding this you find my labour generally decryed you may be pleased to excuse your selfe and say I am a man that love my own opinions and think all true I say that I honoured your Brother and honour you and have presum'd on that to assume the Title without your knowledge of being as I am SIR Your most humble and most obedient servant THO. HOBBES Paris Aprill 15 25. 1651. The Contents of the Chapters The first part Of MAN Chap. Introduction Page 1 Chap. 1. Of Sense Page 3 Chap. 2. Of Imagination Page 4 Chap. 3. Of the Consequence or Train of Imaginations Page 8 Chap. 4. Of Speech Page 12 Chap. 5. Of Reason and Science Page 18 Chap. 6. Of the interiour Beginnings of Voluntary Motions commonly called the Passions And the Speeches by which they are expressed Page 23 Chap. 7. Of the Ends or Resolutions of Discourse Page 30 Chap. 8. Of the Vertues commonly called Intellectuall and their contrary Defects Page 32 Chap. 9. Of the severall Subjects of Knowledge Page 40 Chap. 10. Of Power Worth Dignity Honour and Worthinesse Page 41 Chap. 11. Of the Difference of Manners Page 47 Chap. 12. Of Religion Page 52 Chap. 13. Of the Naturall Condition of Mankind as concerning their Felicity and Misery Page 60 Chap. 14. Of the first and second Naturall Lawes and of Contract Page 64 Chap. 15. Of other Lawes of Nature Page 71 Chap. 16. Of Persons Authors and things Personated Page 80 The second Part Of COMMON-WEALTH Chap. 17. Of the Causes Generation and Definition of a Common-wealth Page 85 Chap. 18. Of the Rights of Soveraignes by Institution Page 88 Chap. 19. Of severall Kinds of Common-wealth by Institution and of Succession to the Soveraign Power Page 94 Chap. 20. Of Dominion Paternall and Despoticall Page 101 Chap. 21. Of the Liberty of Subjects Page 107 Chap. 22. Of Systemes Subject Politicall and Private Page 115 Chap. 23. Of the Publique Ministers of Soveraign Power Page 123 Chap. 24. Of the Nutrition and Procreation of a Common-wealth Page 127 Chap. 25. Of Counsell Page 131 Chap. 26. Of Civill Lawes Page 136 Chap. 27. Of Crimes Excuses and Extenuations Page 151 Chap. 28. Of Punishments and Rewards Page 161 Chap. 29. Of those things that Weaken or tend to the Dissolution of a Common-wealth Page 167 Chap. 30. Of the Office of the Soveraign Representative Page 175 Chap. 31. Of the Kingdome of God by Nature Page 186 The third Part. Of A CHRISTIAN COMMON-WEALTH Chap. 32. Of the Principles of Christian Politiques Page 195 Chap. 33. Of the Number Antiquity Scope Authority and Interpreters of the Books of Holy Scripture Page 199 Chap. 34. Of the signification of Spirit Angell and Inspiration in the Books of Holy Scripture Page 207 Chap. 35. Of the signification in Scripture of the Kingdome of God of Holy Sacred and Sacrament Page 216 Chap. 36. Of the Word of God and of Prophets Page 222 Chap. 37. Of Miracles and their use Page 233 Chap. 38. Of the signification in Scripture of Eternall life Hel Salvation the World to come and Redemption Page 238 Chap. 39. Of the Signification in Scripture of the word Church Page 247 Chap. 40. Of the Rights of the Kingdome of God in Abraham Moses the High Priests and the Kings of Judah Page 249 Chap. 41. Of the Office of our Blessed Saviour Page 261 Chap. 42. Of Power Ecclesiasticall Page 267 Chap. 43. Of what is Necessary for a mans Reception into the Kingdome of Heaven Page 321 The fourth Part. Of THE KINGDOME OF DARKNESSE Chap. 44. Of Spirituall Darknesse from Misinterpretation of Scripture Page 333 Chap. 45. Of Daemonology and other Reliques of the Religion of the Gentiles Page 352 Chap. 46. Of Darknesse from Vain Philosophy and Fabulous Traditions Page 367 Chap. 47. Of the Benefit proceeding from such Darknesse and to whom it accreweth Page 381 A Review and Conclusion Page 389 Errata PAge 48. In the Margin for love Praise râ—…d love of Praise p. 75. l. 5. for signied r. signified p. 88. l. 1. for performe r. forme l. 35. for Soveraign r. the Soveraign p. 94. l. 14. for lands r. hands p. 100. l. 28. for in r. in his p. 102. l. 46. for in r. is p. 105. in the margin for ver 10. r. ver 19. c. p. 116. l. 46. for are involved r. are not involved p. 120. l. 42. for Those Bodies r. These Bodies p. 137. â—… a. for in generall r. in generall p. 139.
of the resolution of the same into its first seeds or principles which are only an opinion of a Deity and Powers invisible and supernaturall that can never be so abolished out of humane nature but that new Religions may againe be made to spring out of them by the culture of such men as for such purpose are in reputation For seeing all formed Religion is founded at first upon the faith which a multitude hath in some one person whom they believe not only to be a wise man and to labouâ—… to procure their happiness but also to be a holy man to whom God himselfe vouchsafeth to declare his will supernaturally It followeth necessarily when they that have the Government of Religion shall come to have either the wisedome of those men their sincerity or their love suspected or that they shall be unable to shew any probable token of Divine Revelation that the Religion which they desire to uphold must be suspected likewise and without the feare of the Civill Sword contradicted and rejected That which taketh away the reputation of Wisedome in him that formeth a Religion or addeth to it when it is allready formed is the enjoyning of a beliefe of contradictories For both parts of a contradiction cannot possibly be true and therefore to enjoyne the beleife of them is an argument of ignorance which detects the Author in that and discredits him in all things else he shall propound as from revelation supernaturall which revelation a man may indeed have of many things above but of nothing against naturall reason That which taketh away the reputation of Sincerity is the doing or saying of such things as appeare to be signes that what they require other men to believe is not believed by themselves all which doings or sayings are therefore called Scandalous because they be stumbling blocks that make men to fall in the way of Religion as Injustice Cruelty Prophanesse Avarice and Luxury For who can believe that he that doth ordinarily such actions as proceed from any of these rootes believeth there is any such Invisible Power to be feared as he affrighteth other men withall for lesser faults That which taketh away the reputation of Love is the being detected of private ends as when the beliefe they require of others conduceth or seemeth to conduce to the acquiring of Dominion Riches Dignity or secure Pleasure to themselves onely or specially For that which men reap benefit by to themselves they are thought to do for their own sakes and not for love of others Lastly the testimony that men can render of divine Calling can be no other than the operation of Miracles or true Prophecy which also is a Miracle or extraordinary Felicity And therefore to those points of Religion which have been received from them that did such Miracles those that are added by such as approve not their Calling by some Miracle obtain no greater beliefe than what the Custome and Lawes of the places in which they be educated have wrought into them For as in naturall things men of judgement require naturall signes and arguments so in supernaturall things they require signes supernaturall which are Miracles before they consent inwardly and from their hearts All which causes of the weakening of mens faith do manifestly appear in the Examples following First we have the Example of the children of Israel who when Moses that had approved his Calling to them by Miracles and by the happy conduct of them out of Egypt was absent but 40. dayes revolted from the worship of the true God recommended to them by him and setting up a Golden Calfe for their God relapsed into the Idolatry of the Egyptians from whom they had been so lately delivered And again after Moses Aaron Joshua and that generation which had seen the great works of God in Israel were dead another generation arose and served Baal So that Miracles fayling Faith also failed Again when the sons of Samuel being constituted by their father Judges in Bersabee received bribes and judged unjustly the people of Israel refused any more to have God to be their King in other manner than he was King of other people and therefore cryed out to Samuel to choose them a King after the manner of the Nations So that Justice fayling Faith also fayled Insomuch as they deposed their God from reigning over them And whereas in the planting of Christian Religion the Oracles ceased in all parts of the Roman Empire and the number of Christians encreased wonderfully every day and in every place by the preaching of the Apostles and Evangelists a great part of that successe may reasonably be attributed to the contempt into which the Priests of the Gentiles of that time had brought themselves by their uncleannesse avarice and jugling between Princes Also the Religion of the Church of Rome was partly for the same cause abolished in England and many other parts of Christendome insomuch as the fayling of Vertue in the Pastors maketh Faith faile in the People and partly from bringing of the Philosophy and doctrine of Aristotle into Religion by the Schoole-men from whence there arose so many contradictions and absurdities as brought the Clergy into a reputation both of Ignorance and of Fraudulent intention and enclined people to revolt from them either against the will of their own Princes as in France and Holland or with their will as in England Lastly amongst the points by the Church of Rome declared necessary for Salvation there be so many manifestly to the advantage of the Pope and of his spirituall subjects residing in the territories of other Christian Princes that were it not for the mutuall emulation of those Princes they might without warre or trouble exclude all forraign Authority as easily as it has been excluded in England For who is there that does not see to whose benefit it conduceth to have it believed that a King hath not his Authority from Christ unlesse a Bishop crown him That a King if he be a Priest cannot Marry That whether a Prince be born in lawfull Marriage or not must be judged by Authority from Rome That Subjects may be freed from their Alleageance if by the Court of Rome the King be judged an Heretique That a King as Chilperique of France may be deposed by a Pope as Pope Zachary for no cause and his Kingdome given to one of his Subjects That the Clergy and Regulars in what Country soever shall be exempt from the Jurisdiction of their King in cases criminall Or who does not see to whose profit redound the Fees of private Masses and Vales of Purgatory with other signes of private interest enough to mortifie the most lively Faith if as I sayd the civill Magistrate and Custome did not more sustain it than any opinion they have of the Sanctity Wisdome or Probity of their Teachers So that I may attribute all the changes of Religion in the world to one and the same cause and
yet have no other direction than their particular judgements and appetites nor speech whereby one of them can signifie to another what he thinks expedient for the common benefit and therefore some man may perhaps desire to know why Man-kind cannot do the same To which I answer First that men are contiâ—…ually in competition for Honour and Dignity which these creatures are not and consequently amongst men there ariseth on that ground Envy and Hatred and finally Warre but amongst these not so Secondly that amongst these creatures the Common good differeth not from the Private and being by nature enclined to their private they procure thereby the common benefit But man whose Joy consisteth in comparing himselfe with other men can relish nothing but what is eminent Thirdly that these creatures having not as man the use of reason do not see nor think they see any fault in the administration of their common businesse whereas amongst men there are very many that thinke themselves wiser and abler to govern the Publique better than the rest and these strive to reforme and innovate one this way another that way and thereby bring it into Distraction and Civill warre Fourthly that these creatures though they have some use of voice in making knowne to one another their desires and other affections yet they want that art of words by which some men can represent to others that which is Good in the likenesse of Evill and Evill in the likenesse of Good and augment or diminish the apparent greatnesse of Good and Evill discontenting men and troubling their Peace at their pleasure Fiftly irrationall creatures cannot distinguish betweene Injury and Dammage and therefore as long as they be at ease they are not offended with their fellowes whereas Man is then most troublesome when he is most at ease for then it is that he loves to shew his Wisdome and controule the Actions of them that governe the Common-wealth Lastly the agreement of these creatures is Naturall that of men is by Covenant only which is Artificiall and therefore it is no wonder if there be somwhat else required besides Covenant to make their Agreement constant and lasting which is a Common Power to keep them in awe and to direct their actions to the Common Benefit The only way to erect such a Common Power as may be able to defend them from the invasion of Forraigners and the injuries of one another and thereby to secure them in such sort as that by their owne industrie and by the fruites of the Earth they may nourish themselves and live contentedly is to conferre all their power and strength upon one Man or upon one Assembly of men that may reduce all their Wills by plurality of voices unto one Will which is as much as to say to appoint one Man or Assembly of men to beare their Person and every one to owne and acknowledge himselfe to be Author of whatsoever he that so beareth their Person shall Act or cause to be Acted in those things which concerne the Common Peace and Safetie and therein to submit their Wills every one to his Will and their Judgements to his Judgment This is more than Consent or Concord it is a reall Unitie of them all in one and the same Person made by Covenant of every man with every man in such manner as if every man should say to every man I Authorise and give up my Right of Governing my selfe to this Man or to this Assembly of men on this condition that thou give up thy Right to him and Authorise all his Actions in like manner This done the Multitude so united in one Person is called a COMMON-WEALTH in latine CIVITAS This is the Generation of that great LEVIATHAN or rather to speake more reverently of that Mortall God to which wee owe under the Immortall God our peace and defence For by this Authoritie given him by every particular man in the Common-Wealth he hath the use of so much Power and Strength conferred on him that by terror thereof he is inabled to performe the wills of them all to Peace at home and mutuall ayd against their enemies abroad And in him consisteth the Essence of the Common-wealth which to define it is One Person of whose Acts a great Multitude by mutuall Covenants one with another have made themselves every one the Author to the end he may use the strength and means of them all as he shall think expedient for their Peace and Common Defence And he that carryeth this Person is called SOVERAIGNE and said to have Soveraigne Power and every one besides his SUBIECT The attaining to this Soveraigne Power is by two wayes One by Naturall force as when a man maketh his children to submit themselves and their children to his government as being able to destroy them if they refuse or by Warre subdueth his enemies to his will giving them their lives on that condition The other is when men agree amongst themselves to submit to some Man or Assembly of men voluntarily on confidence to be protected by him against all others This later may be called a Politicall Common-wealth or Common-wealth by Institution and the former a Common-wealth by Acquisition And first I shall speak of a Common-wealth by Institution CHAP. XVIII Of the RIGHTS of Soveraignes by Institution A Common-wealth is said to be Instituted when a Multitude of men do Agree and Covenant every one with every one that to whatsoever Man or Assembly of Men shall be given by the major part the Right to Present the Person of them all that is to say to be their Representative every one as well he that Voted for it as he that Voted against it shall Authorise all the Actions and Judgements of that Man or Assembly of men in the same manner as if they were his own to the end to live peaceably amongst themselves and be protected against other men From this Institution of a Common-wealth are derived all the Rights and Facultyes of him or them on whom Soveraigne Power is conferred by the consent of the People assembled First because they Covenant it is to be understood they are not obliged by former Covenant to any thing repugnant hereunto And Consequently they that have already Instituted a Common-wealth being thereby bound by Covenant to own the Actions and Judgements of one cannot lawfully make a new Covenant amongst themselves to be obedient to any other in any thing whatsoever without his permission And therefore they that are subjects to a Monarch cannot without his leave cast off Monarchy and return to the confusion of a disunited Multitude nor transferre their Person from him that beareth it to another Man or other Assembly of men for they are bound every man to every man to Own and be reputed Author of all that he that already is their Soveraigne shall do and judge fit to be done so that any one man dissenting all the rest should break their
and inseparable Rights it follows necessarily that in whatsoever words any of them seem to be granted away yet if the Soveraign Power it selfe be not in direct termes renounced and the name of Soveraign no more given by the Grantees to him that Grants them the Grant is voyd for when he has granted all he can if we grant back the Soveraignty all is restored as inseparably annexed thereunto This great Authority being Indivisible and inseparably annexed to the Soveraignty there is little ground for the opinion of them that say of Soveraign Kings though they be singulis majores of greater Power than every one of their Subjects yet they be Universis minores of lesse power than them all together For if by all together they mean not the collective body as one person then all together and every one signifie the same and the speech is absurd But if by all together they understand them as one Person which person the Soveraign bears then the power of all together is the same with the Soveraigns power and so again the speech is absurd which absurdity they see well enough when the Soveraignty is in an Assembly of the people but in a Monarch they see it not and yet the power of Soveraignty is the same in whomsoever it be placed And as the Power so also the Honour of the Soveraign ought to be greater than that of any or all the Subjects For in the Soveraignty is the fountain of Honour The dignities of Lord Earle Duke and Prince are his Creatures As in the presence of the Master the Servants are equall and without any honour at all So are the Subjects in the presence of the Soveraign And though they shine some more some lesse when they are out of his sight yet in his presence they shine no more than the Starres in presence of the Sun But a man may here object that the Condition of Subjects is very miserable as being obnoxious to the lusts and other irregular passions of him or them that have so unlimited a Power in their hands And commonly they that live under a Monarch think it the fault of Monarchy and they that live under the government of Democracy or other Soveraign Assembly attribute all the inconvenience to that forme of Common-wealth whereas the Power in all formes if they be perfect enough to protect them is the same not considering that the estate of Man can never be without some incommodity or other and that the greatest that in any forme of Government can possibly happen to the people in generall is scarce sensible in respect of the miseries and horrible calamities that accompany a Civill Warre or that dissolute condition of masterlesse men without subjection to Lawes and a coërcive Power to tye their lands from rapine and revenge nor considering that the greatest pressure of Soveraign Governours proceedeth not from any delight or profit they can expect in the dammage or weakening of their Subjects in whose vigor consisteth their own strength and glory but in the restiveness of themselves that unwillingly contributing to their own defence make it necessary for their Governours to draw from them what they can in time of Peace that they may have means on any emergent occasion or sudden need to resist or take advantage on their Enemies For all men are by nature provided of notable multiplying glasses that is their Passions and Selfe-love through which every little payment appeareth a great grievance but are destitute of those prospective glasses namely Morall and Civill Science to see a farre off the miseries that hang over them and cannot without such payments be avoyded CHAP. XIX Of the severall Kinds of Common-wealth by Institution and of Succession to the Soveraigne Power THe difference of Common-wealths consisteth in the difference of the Soveraign or the Person representative of all and every one of the Multitude And because the Soveraignty is either in one Man or in an Assembly of more than one and into that Assembly either Every man hath right to enter or not every one but Certain men distinguished from the rest it is manifest there can be but Three kinds of Common-wealth For the Representative must needs be One man or 〈◊〉 and if more then it is the Assembly of All or but of a Part. When the Representative is One man then is the Common-wealth a MONARCHY when an Assembly of All that will come together then it is a DEMOCRACY or Popular Common-wealth when an Assembly of a Part onely then it is called an ARISTOCRACY Other kind of Common-wealth there can be none for either One or More or All must have the Soveraign Power which I have shewn to be indivisible entire There be other names of Government in the Histories and books of Policy as Tyranny and Oligarchy But 〈◊〉 are not the names of other Formes of Government but of the same Formes misliked For they that are discontented under Monarchy call it Tyranny and they that are displeased with Aristocracy called it Oligarchy So also they which find themselves grieved under a Democracy call it Anarchy which signifies want of Government and yet I think no man believes that want of Government is any new kind of Government nor by the same reason ought they to believe that the Government is of one kind when they like it and another when they mislike it or are oppressed by the Governours It is manifest that men who are in absolute liberty may if they please give Authority to One man to represent them every one as well as give such Authority to any Assembly of men whatsoever and consequently may subject themselves if they think good to a Monarch as absolutely as to any other Representative Therefore where there is already erected a Soveraign Power there can be no other Representative of the same people but onely to certain 〈◊〉 ends by the Soveraign limited For that were to erect two Soveraigns and every man to have his person represented by two Actors that by opposing one another must needs divide that Power which if men will live in Peace is indivisible and thereby reduce the Multitude into the condition of Warre contrary to the end 〈◊〉 which all Soveraignty is instituted And therefore as it is absurd to think that a Soveraign Assembly inviting the People of their Dominion to send up their Deputies with power to make known their Advise or Desires should therefore hold such Deputies rather than themselves for the absolute Representative of the people so it is absurd also to think the same in a Monarchy And I know not how this so manifest a truth should of late be so little observed that in a Monarchy he that had the Soveraignty from a descent of 600 years was alone called Soveraign had the title of Majesty from every one of his Subjects and was unquestionably taken by them for their King was notwithstanding never considered as their Representative that name
without contradiction passing for the title of those men which at his command were sent up by the people to carry their Petitions and give him if he permitted it their advise Which may serve as an admonition for those that are the true and absolute Representative of a People to instruct men in the nature of that Office and to take heed how they admit of any other generall Representation upon any occasion whatsoever if they mean to discharge the 〈◊〉 committed to them The difference between these three kindes of Common-wealth consisteth not in the difference of Power but in the difference of Convenience or Aptitude to produce the Peace and Security of the people for which end they were instituted And to compare Monarchy with the other two we may observe First that whosoeuer beareth the Person of the people or is one of that Assembly that bears it 〈◊〉 also his own naturall Person And though he be carefull in his politique Person to procure the common interest yet he is more or no lesse carefull to procure the private good of himselfe his family kindred and friends and for the most part if the publique interest chance to crosse the private he preferrs the private for the Passions of men are commonly more potent than their Reason From whence it follows that where the publique and private interest are most closely united there is the publique most advanced Now in Monarchy the private interest is the same with the publique The riches power and honour of a Monarch arise onely from the riches strength and reputation of his Subjects For no King can be rich nor glorious nor secure whose Subjects are either poore or contemptible or too weak through want or dissention to maintain a war against their enemies Whereas in a Democracy or Aristocracy the publique prosperity conferres not so much to the private fortune of one that is corrupt or ambitious as doth many times a perfidious advice a treacherous action or a Civill warre Secondly that a Monarch receiveth counsell of whom when and where he pleaseth and consequently may heare the opinion of men versed in the matter about which he deliberates of what rank or quality soever and as long before the time of action and with as much secrecy as he will But when a Soveraigne Assembly has need of Counsell none are admitted but such as have a Right thereto from the beginning which for the most part are of those who have beene versed more in the acquisition of Wealth than of Knowledge and are to give their advice in long discourses which may and do commonly excite men to action but not governe them in it For the Understanding is by the flame of the Passions never enlightned but dazled Nor is there any place or time wherein an Assemblie can receive Counsell with secrecie because of their owne Multitude Thirdly that the Resolutions of a Monarch are subject to no other Inconstancy than that of Humane Nature but in Assemblies besides that of Nature there ariseth an Inconstancy from the Number For the absence of a few that would have the Resolution once taken continue firme which may happen by security negligence or private impediments or the diligent appearance of a few of the contrary opinion undoes to day all that was concluded yesterday Fourthly that a Monarch cannot disagree with himselfe out of envy or interest but an Assembly may and that to such a height as may produce a Civill Warre Fifthly that in Monarchy there is this inconvenience that any Subject by the power of one man for the enriching of a favourite or flatterer may be deprived of all he possesseth which I confesse is a great and inevitable inconvenience But the same may as well happen where the Soveraigne Power is in an Assembly For their power is the same and they are as subject to evill Counsell and to be seduced by Orators as a Monarch by Flatterers and becoming one an others Flatterers serve one anothers Covetousnesse and Ambition by turnes And whereas the Favorites of Monarchs are few and they have none els to advance but their owne Kindred the Favorites of an Assembly are many and the Kindred much more numerous than of any Monarch Besides there is no Favourite of a Monarch which cannot as well succour his friends as hurt his enemies But Orators that is to say Favourites of Soveraigne Assemblies though they have great power to hurt have little to save For to accuse requires lesse Eloquence such is mans Nature than to excuse and condemnation than absolution more resembles Justice Sixtly that it is an inconvenience in Monarchie that the Soveraigntie may descend upon an Infant or one that cannot discerne between Good and Evill and consisteth in this that the use of his Power must be in the hand of another Man or of some Assembly of men which are to governe by his right and in his name as Curators and Protectors of his Person and Authority But to say there is inconvenience in putting the use of the Soveraign Power into the hand of a Man or an Assembly of men is to say that all Government is more Inconvenient than Confusion and Civill Warre And therefore all the danger that can be pretended must arise from the Contention of those that for an office of so great honour and profit may become Competitors To make it appear that this inconvenience proceedeth not from that forme of Government we call Monarchy we are to consider that the precedent Monarch hath appointed who shall have the Tuition of his Infant Successor either expressely by Testament or tacitly by not controlling the Custome in that case received And then such inconvenience if it happen is to be attributed not to the Monarchy but to the Ambition and Injustice of the Subjects which in all kinds of Government where the people are not well instructed in their Duty and the Rights of Soveraignty is the same Or else the precedent Monarch hath not at all taken order for such Tuition And then the Law of Nature hath provided this sufficient rule That the Tuition shall be in him that hath by Nature most interest in the preservation of the Authority of the Infant and to whom least benefit can accrue by his death or diminution For seeing every man by nature seeketh his own benefit and promotion to put an Infant into the power of those that can promote themselves by his destruction or dammage is not Tuition but Trechery So that sufficient provision being taken against all just quarrell about the Government under a Child if any contention arise to the disturbance of the publique Peace it is not to be attributed to the forme of Monarchy but to the ambition of Subjects and ignorance of their Duty On the other side there is no great Common-wealth the Soveraignty whereof is in a great Assembly which is not as to consultations of Peace and Warre and making of Lawes in the same condition as if the Government
were in a Child For as a Child wants the judgement to dissent from counsell given him and is thereby necessitated to take the advise of them or him to whom he is committed So an Assembly wanteth the liberty to dissent from the counsell of the major part be it good or bad And as a Child has need of a Tutor or Protector to preserve his Person and Authority So also in great Common-wealths the Soveraign Assembly in all great dangers and troubles have need of Custodes libertatis that is of Dictators or Protectors of their Authoritie which are as much as Temporary Monarchs to whom for a time they may commit the entire exercise of their Power and have at the end of that time been oftner deprived thereof than Infant Kings by their Protectors Regents or any other Tutors Though the Kinds of Soveraigntie be as I have now shewn but three that is to say Monarchie where One Man has it or Democracie where the generall Assembly of Subjects hath it or Aristocracie where it is in an Assembly of certain persons nominated or otherwise distinguished from the rest Yet he that shall consider the particular Common-wealthes that have been and are in the world will not perhaps easily reduce them to three and may thereby be inclined to think there be other Formes arising from these mingled together As for example Elective Kingdomes where Kings have the Soveraigne Power put into their hands for a time or Kingdomes wherein the King hath a power limited which Governments are nevertheles by most Writers called Monarchie Likewise if a Popular or Aristocraticall Common-wealth subdue an Enemies Countrie and govern the same by a President Procurator or other Magistrate this may seeme perhaps at first sight to be a Democraticall or Aristocraticall Government But it is not so For Elective Kings are not Soveraignes but Ministers of the Soveraigne nor limited Kings Soveraignes but Ministers of them that have the Soveraigne Power Nor are those Provinces which are in subjection to a Democracie or Aristocracie of another Common-wealth Democratically or Aristocratically governed but Monarchically And â—…irst concerning an Elective King whose power is limited to his life as it is in many places of Christendome at this day or to certaine Yeares or Moneths as the Dictators power amongst the Romans If he have Right to appoint his Successor he is no more Elective but Hereditary But if he have no Power to elect his Successor then there is some other Man or Assembly known which after his decease may elect a new or else the Common-wealth dieth and dissolveth with him and returneth to the condition of Warre If it be known who have the power to give the Soveraigntie after his death it is known also that the Soveraigntie was in them before For none have right to give that which they have not right to possesse and keep to themselves it they think good But if there be none that can give the Soveraigntie after the decease of him that was first elected then has he power nay he is obliged by the Law of Nature to provide by establishing his Successor to keep those that had trusted him with the Government from relapsing into the miserable condition of Civill warre And consequently he was when elected a Soveraign absolute Secondly that King whose power is limited is not superiour to him or them that have the power to limit it and he that is not superiour is not supreme that is to say not Soveraign The Soveraignty therefore was alwaies in that Assembly which had the Right to Limit him and by consequence the government not Monarchy but either Democracy or Aristocracy as of old time in Sparta where the Kings had a priviledge to lead their Armies but the Soveraignty was in the Ephori Thirdly whereas heretofore the Roman People governed the land of Judea for example by a President yet was not Judea therefore a Democracy because they were not governed by any Assembly into the which any of them had right to enter nor by an Aristocracy because they were not governed by any Assembly into which any man could enter by their Election but they were governed by one Person which though as to the people of Rome was an Assembly of the people or Democracy yet as to people of Judea which had no right at all of participating in the government was a Monarch For though where the people are governed by an Assembly chosen by themselves out of their own number the government is called a Democracy or Aristocracy yet when they are governed by an Assembly not of their own choosing 't is a Monarchy not of One man over another man but of one people over another people Of all these Formes of Government the matter being mortall so that not onely Monarchs but also whole Assemblies dy it is necessary for the conservation of the peace of men that as there was order taken for an Artificiall Man so there be order also taken for an Artificiall Eternity of life without which men that are governed by an Assembly should return into the condition of Warre in every age and they that are governed by One man assoon as their Governour dyeth This Artificiall Eternity is that which men call the Right of Succession There is no perfect forme of Government where the disposing of the Succession is not in the present Soveraign For if it be in any other particular Man or private Assembly it is in a person subject and may be assumed by the Soveraign at his pleasure and consequently the Right is in himselfe And if it be in no particular man but left to a new choyce then is the Common-wealth dissolved and the Right is in him that can get it contrary to the intention of them that did Institute the Common-wealth for their perpetuall and not temporary security In a Democracy the whole Assembly cannot faile unlesse the Multitude that are to be governed faile And therefore questions of the right of Succession have in that forme of Government no place at all In an Aristocracy when any of the Assembly dyeth the election of another into his room belongeth to the Assembly as the Soveraign to whom belongeth the choosing of all Counsellours and Officers For that which the Representative doth as Actor every one of the Subjects doth as Author And though the Soveraign Assembly may give Power to others to elect new men for supply of their Court yet it is still by their Authority that the Election is made and by the same it may when the publique shall require it be recalled The greatest difficultie about the right of Succession is in Monarchy And the difficulty ariseth from this that at first sight it is not manifest who is to appoint the Successor nor many times who it is whom he hath appointed For in both these cases there is required a more exact ratiocination than every man is accustomed to use As to the question who shall appoint the Successor of
a Monarch that hath the Soveraign Authority that is to say who shall determine of the right of Inheritance for Elective Kings and Princes have not the Soveraign Power in propriety but in use only we are to consider that either he that is in possession has right to dispose of the Succession or else that right is again in the dissolved Multitude For the death of him that hath the Soveraign power in propriety leaves the Multitude without any Soveraign at all that is without any Representative in whom they should be united and be capable of doing any one action at all And therefore they are incapable of Election of any new Monarch every man having equall right to submit himselfe to such as he thinks best able to protect him or if he can protect himselfe by his owne sword which is a returne to Confusion and to the condition of a War of every man against every man contrary to the end for which Monarchy had its first Institution Therfore it is manifest that by the Institution of Monarchy the disposing of the Successor is alwaies left to the Judgment and Will of the present Possessor And for the question which may arise sometimes who it is that the Monarch in possession hath designed to the succession and inheritance of his power it is determined by his expresse Words and Testament or by other tacite signes sufficient By expresse Words or Testament when it is declared by him in life time viva voce or by Writing as the first Emperours of Rome declared who should be their Heires For the word Heire does not of it selfe imply the Children or nearest Kindred of a man but whomsoever a man shall any way declare he would have to succeed him in his Estate If therefore a Monarch declare expresly that such a man shall be his Heire either by Word or Writing then is that man immediatly after the decease of his Predecessor Invested in the right of being Monarch But where Testament and expresse Words are wanting other naturall signes of the Will are to be followed whereof the one is Custome And therefore where the Custome is that the next of Kindred absolutely succeedeth there also the next of Kindred hath right to the Succession for that if the will of him that was in posession had been otherwise he might easily have declared the same in his life time And likewise where the Custome is that the next of the Male Kindred succeedeth there also the right of Succession is in the next of the Kindred Male for the same reason And so it is if the Custome were to advance the Female For whatsoever Custome a man may by a word controule and does not it is a naturall signe he would have that Custome stand But where neither Custome nor Testament hath preceded there it is to be understood First that a Monarchs will is that the government remain Monarchicall because he hath approved that government in himselfe Secondly that a Child of his own Male or Female be preferred before any other because men are presumed to be more enclined by nature to advance their own children than the children of other men and of their own rather a Male than a Female because men are naturally fitter than women for actions of labour and danger Thirdly where his own Issue faileth rather a Brother than a stranger and so still the neerer in bloud rather than the more remote because it is alwayes presumed that the neerer of kin is the neerer in affection and 't is evident that a man receives alwayes by reflexion the most honour from the greatnesse of his neerest kindred But if it be lawfull for a Monarch to dispose of the Succession by words of Contract or Testament men may perhaps object a great inconvenience for he may sell or give his Right of governing to a stranger which because strangers that is men not used to live under the same government nor speaking the same language do commonly undervalue one another may turn to the oppression of his Subjects which is indeed a great inconvenience but it proceedeth not necessarily from the subjection to a strangers government but from the unskilfulnesse of the Governours ignorant of the true rules of Politiques And therefore the Romans when they had subdued many Nations to make their Government digestible were wont to take away that grievance as much as they thought necessary by giving sometimes to whole Nations and sometimes to Principall men of every Nation they conquered not onely the Privileges but also the Name of Romans and took many of them into the Senate and Offices of charge even in the Roman City And this was it our most wise King King James aymed at in endeavouring the Union of his two Realms of England and Scotland Which if he could have obtained had in all likelihood prevented the Civill warres which make both those Kingdomes at this present miserable It is not therefore any injury to the people for a Monarch to dispose of the Succession by Will though by the fault of many Princes it hath been sometimes found inconvenient Of the lawfulnesse of it this also is an argument that whatsoever inconvenience can arrive by giving a Kingdome to a stranger may arrive also by so marrying with strangers as the Right of Succession may descend upon them yet this by all men is accounted lawfull CHAP. XX. Of Dominion PATERNALL and DESPOTICALL A Common-wealth by Acquisition is that where the Soveraign Power is acquired by Force And it is acquired by force when men singly or many together by plurality of voyces for fear of death or bonds do authorise all the actions of that Man or Assembly that hath their lives and liberty in his Power And this kind of Dominion or Soveraignty differeth from Soveraignty by Institution onely in this That men who choose their Soveraign do it for fear of one another and not of him whom they Institute But in this case they subject themselves to him they are afraid of In both cases they do it for fear which is to be noted by them that hold all such Covenants as proceed from fear of death or violence voyd which if it were true no man in any kind of Common-wealth could be obliged to Obedience It is true that in a Common-wealth once Instituted or acquired Promises proceeding from fear of death or violence are no Covenants nor obliging when the thing promised is contrary to the Lawes But the reason is not because it was made upon fear but because he that promiseth hath no right in the thing promised Also when he may lawfully performe and doth not it is not the Invalidity of the Covenant that absolveth him but the Sentence of the Soveraign Otherwise whensoever a man lawfully promiseth he unlawfully breaketh But when the Soveraign who is the Actor acquitteth him then he is acquitted by him that extorted the promise as by the Author of such absolution But the
therefore Aristotle puts it down in his Politiques lib. 6. cap. 2. In democracy Liberty is to be supposed for 't is commonly held that no man is Free in any other Government And as Aristotle so Cicero and other Writers have grounded their Civill doctrine on the opinions of the Romans who were taught to hate Monarchy at first by them that having deposed their Soveraign shared amongst them the Soveraignty of Rome and afterwards by their Successors And by reading of these Greek and Latine Authors men from their childhood have gotten a habit under a false shew of Liberty of favouring tumults and of licentious controlling the actions of their Soveraigns and again of controlling those controllers with the effusion of so much blood as I think I may truly say there was never any thing so deerly bought as these Western parts have bought the learning of the Greek and Latine tongues To come now to the particulars of the true Liberty of a Subject that is to say what are the things which though commanded by the Soveraign he may neverthelesse without Injustice refuse to do we are to consider what Rights we passe away when we make a Common-wealth or which is all one what Liberty we deny our selves by owning all the Actions without exception of the Man or Assembly we make our Soveraign For in the act of our Submission consisteth both our Obligation and our Liberty which must therefore be inferred by arguments taken from thence there being no Obligation on any man which ariseth not from some Act of his own for all men equally are by Nature Free. And because such arguments must either be drawn from the expresse words I Authorise all his Actions or from the Intention of him that submitteth himselfe to his Power which Intention is to be understood by the End for which he so submitteth The Obligation and Liberty of the Subject is to be derived either from those Words or others equivalent or else from the End of the Institution of Soveraignty namely the Peace of the Subjects within themselves and their Defence against a common Enemy First therefore seeing Soveraignty by Institution is by Covenant of every one to every one and Soveraignty by Acquisition by Covenants of the Vanquished to the Victor or Child to the Parent It is manifest that every Subject has Liberty in all those things the right whereof cannot by Covenant be transferred I have shewn before in the 14. Chapter that Covenants not to defend a mans own body are voyd Therefore If the Soveraign command a man though justly condemned to kill wound or mayme himselfe or not to resist those that assault him or to abstain from the use of food ayre medicine or any other thing without which he cannot live yet hath that man the Liberty to disobey If a man be interrogated by the Soveraign or his Authority concerning a crime done by himselfe he is not bound without assurance of Pardon to confesse it because no man as I have shewn in the same Chapter can be obliged by Covenant to accuse himselfe Again the Consent of a Subject to Soveraign Power is contained in these words I Authorise or take upon me all his actions in which there is no restriction at all of his own former naturall Liberty For by allowing him to kill me I am not bound to kill my selfe when he commands me 'T is one thing to say Kill me or my fellow if you please another thing to say I will kill my selfe or my fellow It followeth therefore that No man is bound by the words themselves either to kill himselfe or any other man And consequently that the Obligation a man may sometimes have upon the Command of the Soveraign to execute any dangerous or dishonourable Office dependeth not on the Words of our Submission but on the Intention which is to be understood by the End thereof When therefore our refusall to obey frustrates the End for which the Soveraignty was ordained then there is no Liberty to refuse otherwise there is Upon this ground a man that is commanded as a Souldier to fight against the enemy though his Soveraign have Right enough to punish his refusall with death may neverthelesse in many cases refuse without Injustice as when he substituteth a sufficient Souldier in his place for in this case he deserteth not the service of the Common-wealth And there is allowance to be made for naturall timorousnesse not onely to women of whom no such dangerous duty is expected but also to men of feminine courage When Armies fight there is on one side or both a running away yet when they do it not out of trechery but fear they are not esteemed to do it unjustly but dishonourably For the same reason to avoyd battell is not Injustice but Cowardise But he that inrowleth himselfe a Souldier or taketh imprest mony taketh away the excuse of a timorous nature and is obliged not onely to go to the battell but also not to run from it without his Captaines leave And when the Defence of the Common-wealth requireth at once the help of all that are able to bear Arms every one is obliged because otherwise the Institution of the Common-wealth which they have not the purpose or courage to preserve was in vain To resist the Sword of the Common-wealth in defence of another man guilty or innocent no man hath Liberty because such Liberty takes away from the Soveraign the means of Protecting us and is therefore destructive of the very essence of Government But in case a great many men together have already resisted the Soveraign Power unjustly or committed some Capitall crime for which every one of them expecteth death whether have they not the Liberty then to joyn together and assist and defend one another Certainly they have For they but defend their lives which the Guilty man may as well do as the Innocent There was indeed injustice in the first breach of their duty Their bearing of Arms subsequent to it though it be to maintain what they have done is no new unjust act And if it be onely to defend their persons it is not unjust at all But the offer of pardon taketh from them to whom it is offered the plea of self-defence and maketh their perseverance in assisting or defending the rest unlawfull As for other Lyberties they depend on the Silence of the Law In cases where the Soveraign has prescribed no rule there the Subject hath the Liberty to do or forbeare according to his own discretion And therefore such Liberty is in some places more and in some lesse and in some times more in other times lesse according as they that have the Soveraignty shall think most convenient As for Example there was a time when in England a man might enter in to his own Land and dispossesse such as wrongfully possessed it by force But in after-times that Liberty of Forcible Entry was taken away by a Statute made by the
King in Parliament And in some places of the world men have the Liberty of many wives in other places such Liberty is not allowed If a Subject have a controversie with his Soveraigne of debt or of right of possession of lands or goods or concerning any service required at his hands or concerning any penalty corporall or pecuniary grounded on a precedent Law he hath the same Liberty to sue for his right as if it were against a Subject and before such Judges as are appointed by the Soveraign For seeing the Soveraign demandeth by force of a former Law and not by vertue of his Power he declareth thereby that he requireth no more than shall appear to be due by that Law The sute therefore is not contrary to the will of the Soveraign and consequently the Subject hath the Liberty to demand the hearing of his Cause and sentence according to that Law But if he demand or take any thing by pretence of his Power there lyeth in that case no action of Law for all that is done by him in Vertue of his Power is done by the Authority of every Subject and consequently he that brings an action against the Soveraign brings it against himselfe If a Monarch or Soveraign Assembly grant a Liberty to all or any of his Subjects which Grant standing he is disabled to provide for their safety the Grant is voyd unlesse he directly renounce or transferre the Soveraignty to another For in that he might openly if it had been his will and in plain termes have renounced or transferred it and did not it is to be understood it was not his will but that the Grant proceeded from ignorance of the repugnancy between such a Liberty and the Soveraign Power and therefore the Soveraignty is still retayned and consequently all those Powers which are necessary to the exercising thereof such as are the Power of Warre and Peace of Judicature of appointing Officers and Councellours of levying Mony and the rest named in the 18th Chapter The Obligation of Subjects to the Soveraign is understood to last as long and no longer than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them For the right men have by Nature to protect themselves when none else can protect them can by no Covenant be relinquished The Soveraignty is the Soule of the Common-wealth which once departed from the Body the members doe no more receive their motion from it The end of Obedience is Protection which wheresoever a man seeth it either in his own or in anothers sword Nature applyeth his obedience to it and his endeavour to maintaine it And though Soveraignty in the intention of them that make it be immortall yet is it in its own nature not only subject to violent death by forreign war but also through the ignorance and passions of men it hath in it from the very institution many seeds of a naturall mortality by Intestine Discord If a Subject be taken prisoner in war or his person or his means of life be within the Guards of the enemy and hath his life and corporall Libertie given him on condition to be Subject to the Victor he hath Libertie to accept the condition and having accepted it is the subject of him that took him because he had no other way to preserve himself The case is the same if he be deteined on the same termes in a forreign country But if a man be held in prison or bonds or is not trusted with the libertie of his bodie he cannot be understood to be bound by Covenant to subjection and therefore may if he can make his escape by any means whatsoever If a Monarch shall relinquish the Soveraignty both for himself and his heires His Subjects returne to the absolute Libertie of Nature because though Nature may declare who are his Sons and who are the nerest of his Kin yet it dependeth on his own will as hath been said in the precedent chapter who shall be his Heyr If therefore he will have no Heyre there is no Soveraignty nor Subjection The case is the same if he dye without known Kindred and without declaration of his Heyre For then there can no Heire be known and consequently no Subjection be due If the Soveraign Banish his Subject during the Banishment he is not Subject But he that is sent on a message or hath leave to travell is still Subject but it is by Contract between Soveraigns not by vertue of the covenant of Subjection For whosoever entreth into anothers dominion is Subject to all the Laws thereof unlesse he have a privilege by the amity of the Soveraigns or by speciall licence If a Monarch subdued by war render himself Subject to the Victor his Subjects are delivered from their former obligation and become obliged to the Victor But if he be held prisoner or have not the liberty of his own Body he is not understood to have given away the Right of Soveraigntie and therefore his Subjects are obliged to yield obedience to the Magistrates formerly placed governing not in their own name but in his For his Right remaining the question is only of the Administration that is to say of the Magistrates and Officers which if he have not means to name he is supposed to approve those which he himself had formerly appointed CHAP. XXII Of SYSTEMES Subject Politicall and Private HAving spoken of the Generation Forme and Power of a Common-wealth I am in order to speak next of the parts thereof And first of Systemes which resemble the similar parts or Muscles of a Body naturall By SYSTEMES I understand any numbers of men joyned in one Interest or one Businesse Of which some are Regular and some Irregular Regular are those where one Man or Assembly of men is constituted Representative of the whole number All other are Irregular Of Regular some are Absolute and Independent subject to none but their own Representative such are only Common-wealths Of which I have spoken already in the 5. last precedent chapters Others are Dependent that is to say Subordinate to some Soveraign Power to which every one as also their Representative is Subject Of Systemes subordinate some are Politicall and some Private Politicall otherwise Called Bodies Politique and Persons in Law are those which are made by authority from the Soveraign Power of the Common-wealth Private are those which are constituted by Subjects amongst themselves or by authoritie from a stranger For no authority derived from forraign power within the Dominion of another is Publique there but Private And of Private Systemes some are Lawfull some Unlawfull Lawfull are those which are allowed by the Common-wealth all other are Unlawfull Irregular Systemes are those which having no Representative consist only in concourse of People which if not forbidden by the Common-wealth nor made on evill designe such as are conflux of People to markets or shews or any other harmelesse end are Lawfull But when the
not a Common benefit to the whole Body which have in this case no common stock but what is deducted out of the particular adventures for building buying victualling and manning of Ships but the particular gaine of every adventurer it is reason that every one be acquainted with the employment of his own that is that every one be of the Assembly that shall have the power to order the same and be acquainted with their accounts And therefore the Representative of such a Body must be an Assembly where every member of the Body may be present at the consultations if he will If a Body Politique of Merchants contract a debt to a stranger by the act of their Representative Assembly every Member is lyable by himself for the whole For a stranger can take no notice of their private Lawes but considereth them as so many particular men obliged every one to the whole payment till payment made by one dischargeth all the rest But if the debt be to one of the Company the creditor is debter for the whole to himself and cannot therefore demand his debt but only from the common stock if there be any If the Common-wealth impose a Tax upon the Body it is understood to be layd upon every Member proportionably to his particular adventure in the Company For there is in this case no other common stock but what is made of their particular adventures If a Mulct be layd upon the Body for some unlawfull act they only are lyable by whose votes the act was decreed or by whose assistance it was executed for in none of the rest is there any other crime but being of the Body which if a crime because the Body was ordeyned by the authority of the Common-wealth is not his If one of the Members be indebted to the Body he may 〈◊〉 sued by the Body but his goods cannot be taken nor his person imprisoned by the authority of the Body but only by Authority of the Common-wealth for if they can doe it by their own Authority they can by their own Authority give judgement that the debt is due which is as much as to be Judge in their own Cause Those Bodies made for the government of Men or of Traffique be either perpetuall or for a time prescribed by writing But there be Bodies also whose times are limited and that only by the nature of their businesse For example if a Soveraign Monarch or a Soveraign Assembly shall think fit to give command to the towns and other severall parts of their territory to send to him their Deputies to enforme him of the condition and necessities of the Subjects or to advise with him for the making of good Lawes or for any other cause as with one Person representing the whole Country such Deputies having a place and time of meeting assigned them are there and at that time a Body Politique representing every Subject of that Dominion but it is onely for such matters as shall be propounded unto them by that Man or Assembly that by the Soveraign Authority sent for them and when it shall be declared that nothing more shall be propounded nor debated by them the Body is dissolved For if they were the absolute Representative of the people then were it the Soveraign Assembly and so there would be two Soveraign Assemblies or two Soveraigns over the same people which cannot consist with their Peace And therefore where there is once a Soveraignty there can be no absolute Representation of the people but by it And for the limits of how farre such a Body shall represent the whole People they are set forth in the Writing by which they were sent for For the People cannot choose their Deputies to other intent than is in the Writing directed to them from their Soveraign expressed Private Bodies Regular and Lawfull are those that are constituted without Letters or other written Authority saving the Lawes common to all other Subjects And because they be united in one Person Representative they are held for Regular such as are all Families in which the Father or Master ordereth the whole Family For he obligeth his Children and Servants as farre as the Law permitteth though not further because none of them are bound to obedience in those actions which the Law hath forbidden to be done In all other actions during the time they are under domestique government they are subject to their Fathers and Masters as to their immediate Soveraigns For the Father and Master being before the Institution of Common-wealth absolute Soveraigns in their own Families they lose afterward no more of their Authority than the Law of the Common-wealth taketh from them Private Bodies Regular but Unlawfull are those that unite themselves into one person Representative without any publique Authority at all such as are the Corporations of Beggars Theeves and Gipsies the better to order their trade of begging and stealing and the Corporations of men that by Authority from any forraign Person unite themselves in anothers Dominion for the easier propagation of Doctrines and for making a party against the Power of the Common-wealth Irregular Systemes in their nature but Leagues or sometimes meer concourse of people without union to any particular designe not by obligation of one to another but proceeding onely from a similitude of wills and inclinations become Lawfull or Unlawfull according to the lawfulnesse or unlawfulnesse of every particular mans designe therein And his designe is to be understood by the occasion The Leagues of Subjects because Leagues are commonly made for mutuall defence are in a Common wealth which is no more than a League of all the Subjects together for the most part unnecessary and savour of unlawfull designe and are for that cause Unlawfull and go commonly by the name of Factions or Conspiracies For a League being a connexion of men by Covenants if there be no power given to any one Man or Assembly as in the condition of meer Nature to compell them to performance is so long onely valid as there ariseth no just cause of distrust and therefore Leagues between Common-wealths over whom there is no humane Power established to keep them all in awe are not onely lawfull but also profitable for the time they last But Leagues of the Subjects of one and the same Common-wealth where every one may obtain his right by means of the Soveraign Power are unnecessary to the maintaining of Peace and Justice and in case the designe of them be evill or Unknown to the Common-wealth unlawfull For all uniting of strength by private men is if for evill intent unjust if for intent unknown dangerous to the Publique and unjustly concealed If the Soveraign Power be in a great Assembly and a number of men part of the Assembly without authority consult a part to contrive the guidance of the rest This is a Faction or Conspiracy unlawfull as being a fraudulent seducing of the Assembly for their particular
thing for the use of war either by Land or Sea are publique Ministers But a Souldier without Command though he fight for the Common-wealth does not therefore represent the Person of it because there is none to represent it to For every one that hath command represents it to them only whom he commandeth They also that have authority to teach or to enable others to teach the people their duty to the Soveraign Power and instruct them in the knowledge of what is just and unjust thereby to render them more apt to live in godlinesse and in peace amongst themselves and resist the publique enemy are Publique Ministers Ministers in that they doe it not by their own Authority but by anothers and Publique because they doe it or should doe it by no Authority but that of the Soveraign The Monarch or the Soveraign Assembly only hath immediate Authority from God to teach and instruct the people and no man but the Soveraign receiveth his power Dei gratiâ simply that is to say from the favour of none but God All other receive theirs from the favour and providence of God and their Soveraigns as in a Monarchy Dei gratiâ Regis or Dei providentiâ voluntate Regis They also to whom Jurisdiction is given are Publique Ministers For in their Seats of Justice they represent the person of the Soveraign and their Sentence is his Sentence For as hath been before declared all Judicature is essentially annexed to the Soveraignty and therefore all other Judges are but Ministers of him or them that have the Soveraign Power And as Controversies are of two sorts namely of Fact and of Law so are Judgements some of Fact some of Law And consequently in the same controversie there may be two Judges one of Fact another of Law And in both these controversies there may arise a controversie between the party Judged and the Judge which because they be both Subjects to the Soveraign ought in Equity to be Judged by men agreed on by consent of both for no man can be Judge in his own cause But the Soveraign is already agreed on for Judge by them both and is therefore either to heare the Cause and determine it himself or appoint for Judge such as they shall both agree on And this agreement is then understood to be made between them divers wayes as first if the Defendant be allowed to except against such of his Judges whose interest maketh him suspect them for as to the Complaynant he hath already chosen his own Judge those which he excepteth not against are Judges he himself agrees on Secondly if he appeale to any other Judge he can appeale no further for his appeale is his choice Thirdly if he appeale to the Soveraign himself and he by himself or by Delegates which the parties shall agree on give Sentence that Sentence is finall for the Defendant is Judged by his own Judges that is to say by himself These properties of just and rationall Judicature considered I cannot forbeare to observe the excellent constitution of the Courts of Justice established both for Common and also for Publique Pleas in England By Common Pleas I meane those where both the Complaynant and Defendant are Subjects and by Publique which are also called Pleas of the Crown those where the Complaynant is the Soveraign For whereas there were two orders of men whereof one was Lords the other Commons The Lords had this Priviledge to have for Judges in all Capitall crimes none but Lords and of them as many as would be present which being ever acknowledged as a Priviledge of favour their Judges were none but such as they had themselves desired And in all controversies every Subject as also in civill controversies the Lords had for Judges men of the Country where the matter in controvesie lay against which he might make his exceptions till at last Twelve men without exception being agreed on they were Judged by those twelve So that having his own Judges there could be nothing alledged by the party why the sentence should not be finall These publique persons with Authority from the Soveraign Power either to Instruct or Judge the people are such members of the Common-wealth as may fitly be compared to the organs of Voice in a Body naturall Publique Ministers are also all those that have Authority from the Soveraign to procure the Execution of Judgements given to publish the Soveraigns Commands to suppresse Tumults to apprehend and imprison Malefactors and other acts tending to the conservation of the Peace For every act they doe by such Authority is the act of the Common-wealth and their service answerable to that of the Hands in a Bodie naturall Publique Ministers abroad are those that represent the Person of their own Soveraign to forraign States Such are Ambassadors Messengers Agents and Heralds sent by publique Authoritie and on publique Businesse But such as are sent by Authoritie only of some private partie of a troubled State though they be received are neither Publique nor Private Ministers of the Common-wealth because none of their actions have the Common-wealth for Author Likewise an Ambassador sent from a Prince to congratulate condole or to assist at a solemnity though the Authority be Publique yet because the businesse is Private and belonging to him in his naturall capacity is a Private person Also if a man be sent into another Country secretly to explore their counsels and strength though both the Authority and the Businesse be Publique yet because there is none to take notice of any Person in him but his own he is but a Private Minister but yet a Minister of the Common-wealth and may be compared to an Eye in the Body naturall And those that are appointed to receive the Petitions or other informations of the People and are as it were the publique Eare are Publique Ministers and represent their Soveraign in that office Neither a Counsellor nor a Councell of State if we consider it with no Authority of Judicature or Command but only of giving Advice to the Soveraign when it is required or of offering it when it is not required is a Publique Person For the Advice is addressed to the Soveraign only whose person cannot in his own presence be represented to him by another But a Body of Counsellors are never without some other Authority either of Judicature or of immediate Administration As in a Monarchy they represent the Monarch in delivering his Commands to the Publique Ministers In a Democracy the Councell or Senate propounds the Result of their deliberations to the people as a Councell but when they appoint Judges or heare Causes or give Audience to Ambassadors it is in the quality of a Minister of the People And in an Aristocracy the Councell of State is the Soveraign Assembly it self and gives counsell to none but themselves CHAP. XXIV Of the NUTRITION and PROCREATION of a Common-wealth THe NUTRITION of a Common-wealth consisteth in
all written Lawes that may concerne his own future actions The Legislator known and the Lawes either by writing or by the light of Nature sufficiently published there wanteth yet another very materiall circumstance to make them obligatory For it is not the Letter but the Intendment or Meaning that is to say the authentique Interpretation of the Law which is the sense of the Legislator in which the nature of the Law consisteth And therefore the Interpretation of all Lawes dependeth on the Authority Soveraign and the Interpreters can be none but those which the Soveraign to whom only the Subject oweth obedience shall appoint For else by the craft of an Interpreter the Law may be made to beare a sense contrary to that of the Soveraign by which means the Interpreter becomes the Legislator All Laws written and unwritten have need of Interpretation The unwritten Law of Nature though it be easy to such as without partiality and passion make use of their naturall reason and therefore leaves the violaters thereof without excuse yet considering there be very few perhaps none that in some cases are not blinded by self love or some other passion it is now become of all Laws the most obscure and has consequently the greatest need of able Interpreters The written Laws if they be short are easily mis-interpreted from the divers significations of a word or two if long they be more obscure by the diverse significations of many words in so much as no written Law delivered in few or many words can be well understood without a perfect understanding of the finall causes for which the Law was made the knowledge of which finall causes is in the Legislator To him therefore there can not be any knot in the Law insoluble either by finding out the ends to undoe it by or else by making what ends he will as Alexander did with his sword in the Gordian knot by the Legislative power which no other Interpreter can doe The Interpretation of the Lawes of Nature in a Common-wealth dependeth not on the books of Morall Philosophy The Authority of writers without the Authority of the Common-wealth maketh not their opinions Law be they never so true That which I have written in this Treatise concerning the Morall Vertues and of their necessity for the procuring and maintaining peace though it bee evident Truth is not therefore presently Law but because in all Common-wealths in the world it is part of the Civill Law For though it be naturally reasonable yet it is by the Soveraigne Power that it is Law Otherwise it were a great errour to call the Lawes of Nature unwritten Law whereof wee see so many volumes published and in them so many contradictions of one another and of themselves The Interpretation of the Law of Nature is the Sentence of the Judge constituted by the Soveraign Authority to heare and determine such controversies as depend thereon and consisteth in the application of the Law to the present case For in the act of Judicature the Judge doth no more but consider whither the demand of the party be consonant to naturall reason and Equity and the Sentence he giveth is therefore the Interpretation of the Law of Nature which Interpretation is Authentique not because it is his private Sentence but because he giveth it by Authority of the Soveraign whereby it becomes the Soveraigns Sentence which is Law for that time to the parties pleading But because there is no Judge Subordinate nor Soveraign but may erre in a Judgement of Equity if afterward in another like case he find it more consonant to Equity to give a contrary Sentence he is obliged to doe it No mans error becomes his own Law nor obliges him to persist in it Neither for the same reason becomes it a Law to other Judges though sworn to follow it For though a wrong Sentence given by authority of the Soveraign if he know and allow it in such Lawes as are mutable be a constitution of a new Law in cases in which every little circumstance is the same yet in Lawes immutable such as are the Lawes of Nature they are no Lawes to the same or other Judges in the like cases for ever after Princes succeed one another and one Iudge passeth another commeth nay Heaven and Earth shall passe but not one title of the Law of Nature shall passe for it is the Eternall Law of God Therefore all the Sentences of precedent Judges that have ever been cannot all together make a Law contrary to naturall Equity Nor any Examples of former Judges can warrant an unreasonable Sentence or discharge the present Judge of the trouble of studying what is Equity in the case he is to Judge from the principles of his own naturall reason For example sake 'T is against the Law of Nature To punish the Innocent and Innocent is he that acquitteth himselfe Judicially and is acknowledged for Innocent by the Judge Put the case now that a man is accused of a capitall crime and seeing the power and malice of some enemy and the frequent corruption and parâ—…iality of Judges runneth away for feare of the event and afterwards is taken and brought to a legall triall and maketh it sufficiently appear he was not guilty of the crime and being thereof acquitted is neverthelesse condemned to lose his goods this is a manifest condemnation of the Innocent I say therefore that there is no place in the world where this can be an interpretation of a Law of Nature or be made a Law by the Sentences of precedent Judges that had done the same For he that judged it first judged unjustly and no Injustice can be a pattern of Judgement to succeeding Judges A written Law may forbid innocent men to fly and they may be punished for flying But that flying for feare of injury should be taken for presumption of guilt after a man is already absolved of the crime Judicially is contrary to the nature of a Presumption which hath no place after Judgement given Yet this is set down by a great Lawyer for the common Law of England If a man saith he that is Innocent be accused of Felony and for feare flyeth for the same albeit he judicially acquitteth himselfe of the Felony yet if it be found that he fled for the Felony he shall notwithstanding his Innocency Forfeit all his goods chattells debts and duties For as to the Forfeiture of them the Law will admit no proofe against the Presumption in Law grounded upon his flight Here you see An Innocent man Judicially acquitted notwithstanding his Innocency when no written Law forbad him to fly after his acquitall upon a Presumption in Law condemned to lose all the goods he hath If the Law ground upon his flight a Presumption of the fact which was Capitall the Sentence ought to have been Capitall if the Presumption were not of â—…he Fact for what then ought he to lose his goods This therefore is
a Crime For as I have shewn before in the second Chapter Dreams be naturally but the fancies remaining in sleep after the impressions our Senses had formerly received waking and when men are by any accident unassured they have slept seem to be reall Visions and therefore he that presumes to break the Law upon his own or anothers Dream or pretended Vision or upon other Fancy of the power of Invisible Spirits than is permitted by the Common-wealth leaveth the Law of Nature which is a certain offence and followeth the imagery of his own or another private mans brain which he can never know whether it signifieth any thing or nothing nor whether he that tells his Dream say true or lye which if every private man should have leave to do as they must by the Law of Nature if any one have it there could no Law be made to hold and so all Common-wealth would be dissolved From these different sources of Crimes it appeares already that all Crimes are not as the Stoicks of old time maintained of the same allay There is place not only for EXCUSE by which that which seemed a Crime is proved to be none at all but also for EXTENUATION by which the Crime that seemed great is made lesse For though all Crimes doe equally deserve the name of Injustice as all deviation from a strait line is equally crookednesse which the Stoicks rightly observed yet it does not follow that all Crimes are equally unjust no more than that all crooked lines are equally crooked which the Stoicks not observing held it as great a Crime to kill a Hen against the Law as to kill ones Father That which totally Excuseth a Fact and takes away from it the nature of a Crime can be none but that which at the same time taketh away the obligation of the Law For the fact committed once against the Law if he that committed it be obliged to the Law can be no other than a Crime The want of means to know the Law totally Excuseth For the Law whereof a man has no means to enforme himself is not obligatory But the want of diligence to enquire shall not be considered as a want of means Nor shall any man that pretendeth to reason enough for the Government of his own affairs be supposed to want means to know the Lawes of Nature because they are known by the reason he pretends to only Children and Madmen are Excused from offences against the Law Naturall Where a man is captive or in the power of the enemy and he is then in the power of the enemy when his person or his means of living is so if it be without his own fault the Obligation of the Law ceaseth because he must obey the enemy or dye and consequently such obedience is no Crime for no man is obliged when the protection of the Law faileth not to protect himself by the best means he can If a man by the terrour of present death be compelled to doe a fact against the Law he is totally Excused because no Law can oblige a man to abandon his own preservation And supposing such a Law were obligatory yet a man would reason thus If I doe it not I die presently if I doe it I die afterwards therefore by doing it there is time of life gained Nature therefore compells him to the fact When a man is destitute of food or other thing necessary for his life and cannot preserve himselfe any other way but by some fact against the Law as if in a great famine he take the food by force or stealth which he cannot obtaine for mony nor charity or in defence of his life snatch away another mans Sword he is totally Excused for the reason next before alledged Again Facts done against the Law by the authority of another are by that authority Excused against the Author because no man ought to accuse his own fact in another that is but his instrument but it is not Excused against a third person thereby injured because in the violation of the Law both the Author and Actor are Criminalls From hence it followeth that when that Man or Assembly that hath the Soveraign Power commandeth a man to do that which is contrary to a former Law the doing of it is totally Excused For he ought not to condemn it himselfe because he is the Author and what cannot justly be condemned by the Soveraign cannot justly be punished by any other Besides when the Soveraign commandeth any thing to be done against his own former Law the Command as to that particular fact is an abrogation of the Law If that Man or Assembly that hath the Soveraign Power disclaime any Right essentiall to the Soveraignty whereby there accâ—…eth to the Subject any liberty inconsistent with the Soveraign Power that is to say with the very being of a Common-wealth if the Subject shall refuse to obey the Command in any thing contrary to the liberty granted this is neverthelesse a Sinne and contrary to the duty of the Subject for he ought to take notice of what is inconsistent with the Soveraignty because it was erected by his own consent and for his own defence and that such liberty as is inconsistent with it was granted through ignorance of the evill consequence thereof But if he not onely disobey but also resist a publique Minister in the execution of it then it is a Crime because he might have been righted without any breach of the Peace upon complaint The Degrees of Crime are taken on divers Scales and measured First by the malignity of the Source or Cause Secondly by the contagion of the Example Thirdly by the mischiefe of the Effect and Fourthly by the concurrence of Times Places and Persons The same Fact done against the Law if it proceed from Presumption of strength riches or friends to resist those that are to execute the Law is a greater Crime than if it proceed from hope of not being discovered or of escape by flight For Presumption of impunity by force is a Root from whence springeth at all times and upon all temptations a contempt of all Lawes whereas in the later case the apprehension of danger that makes a man fly renders him more obedient for the future A Crime which we know to be so is greater than the same Crime proceeding from a false perswasion that it is lawfull For he that committeth it against his own conscience presumeth on his force or other power which encourages him to commit the same again but he that doth it by errour after the errour shewn him is conformable to the Law Hee whose errour proceeds from the authority of a Teacher or an Interpreter of the Law publiquely authorised is not so faulty as he whose errour proceedeth from a peremptory pursute of his own principles and reasoning For what is taught by one that teacheth by publique Authority the Common-wealth â—…eacheth and hath a resemblance of Law till
a Power to punish him which is to make a new Soveraign and again for the same reason a third to punish the second and so continually without end to the Confusion and Dissolution of the Common-wealth A Fifâ—…h doctrine that tendeth to the Dissolution of a Common-wealth is That every private man has an absolute Propriety in his Goods such as excludeth the Right of the Soveraign Every man has indeed a Propriety that excludes the Right of every other Subject And he has it onely from the Soveraign Power without the protection whereof every other man should have equall Right to the same But if the Right of the Soveraign also be excluded he cannot performe the office they have put him into which is to defend them both from forraign enemies and from the injuries of one another and consequently there is no longer a Common-wealth And if the Propriety of Subjects exclude not the Right of the Soveraign Representative to their Goods much lesse to their offices of Judicature or Execution in which they Represent the Soveraign himselfe There is a Sixth doctrine plainly and directly against the essence of a Common-wealth and 't is this That the Soveraign Power may be divided For what is it to divide the Power of a Common-wealth but to Dissolve it for Powers divided mutually destroy each other And for these doctrines men are chiefly beholding to some of those that making profession of the Lawes endeavour to make them depend upon their own learning and not upon the Legislative Power And as False Doctrine so also often-times the Example of different Government in a neighbouring Nation disposeth men to alteration of the forme already setled So the people of the Jewes were stirred up to reject God and to call upon the Prophet Samuel for a King after the manner of the Nations So also the lesser Cities of Greece were continually disturbed with seditions of the Aristocraticall and Democraticall factions one part of almost every Common-wealth desiring to imitate the Lacedaemonians the other the Athenians And I doubt not but many men have been contented to see the late troubles in England out of an imitation of the Low Countries supposing there needed no more to grow rich than to change as they had done the forme of their Government For the constitution of mans nature is of it selfe subject to desire novelty When therefore they are provoked to the same by the neighbourhood also of those that have been enriched by it it is almost impossible for them not to be content with those that solicite them to change and love the first beginnings though they be grieved with the continuance of disorder like hot blouds that having gotten the itch tear themselves with their own nayles till they can endure the smart no longer And as to Rebellion in particular against Monarchy one of the most frequent causes of it is the Reading of the books of Policy and Histories of the antient Greeks and Romans from which young men and all others that are unprovided of the Antidote of solid Reason receiving a strong and delightfull impression of the great exploits of warre atchieved by the Conductors of their Armies receive withall a pleasing Idea of all they have done besides and imagine their great prosperity not to have proceeded from the aemulation of particular men but from the vertue of their popular forme of government Not considering the frequent Seditions and Civill warres produced by the imperfection of their Policy From the reading I say of such books men have undertaken to kill their Kings because the Greek and Latine writers in their books and discourses of Policy make it lawfull and laudable for any man so to do provided before he do it he call him Tyrant For they say not Regicide that is killing of a King but Tyrannicide that is killing of a Tyrant is lawfull From the same books they that live under a Monarch conceive an opinion that the Subjects in a Popular Common-wealth enjoy Liberty but that in a Monarchy they are all Slaves I say they that live under a Monarchy conceive such an opinion not they that live under a Popular Government for they find no such matter In summe I cannot imagine how any thing can be more prejudiciall to a Monarchy than the allowing of such books to be publikely read without present applying such correctives of discreet Masters as are fit to take away their Venime Which Venime I will not doubt to compare to the biting of a mad Dogge which is a disease the Physicians call Hydrophobia or fear of Water For as he that is so bitten has a continuall torment of thirst and yet abhorreth water and is in such an estate as if the poyson endeavoured to convert him into a Dogge So when a Monarchy is once bitten to the quick by those Democraticall writers that continually snarle at that estate it wanteth nothing more than a strong Monarch which neverthelesse out of a certain Tyrannophobia or feare of being strongly governed when they have him they abhorre As there have been Doctors that hold there be three Soules in a man so there be also that think there may be more Soules that is more Soveraigns than one in a Common-wealth and set up a Supremacy against the Soveraignty Canons against Lawes and a Ghostly Authority against the Civill working on mens minds with words and distinctions that of themselves signifie nothing but bewray by their obscurity that there walketh as some think invisibly another Kingdome as it were a Kingdome of Fayries in the dark Now seeing it is manifest that the Civill Power and the Power of the Common-wealth is the same thing and that Supremacy and the Power of making anons and granting Faculties implyeth a Common-wealth it followeth that where one is Soveraign another Supreme where one can make Lawes and another make Canons there must needs be two Common-wealths of one the same Subjects which is a Kingdome divided in it selfe and cannot stand For notwithstanding the insignificant distinction of Temporall and Ghostly they are still two Kingdomes and every Subject is subject to two Masters For seeing the Ghostly Power challengeth the Right to declare what is Sinne it challengeth by consequence to declare what is Law Sinne being nothing but the transgression of the Law and again the Civill Power challenging to declare what is Law every Subject must obey two Masters who both will have their Commands be observed as Law which is impossible Or if it be but one Kingdome either the Civill which is the Power of the Common-wealth must be subordinate to the Ghostly and then there is no Soveraignty but the Ghostly or the Ghostly must be subordinate to the Temporall and then there is no Supremacy but the Temporall When therefore these two Powers oppose one another the Common-wealth cannot but be in great danger of Civill warre and Dissolution For the Civill Authority being more visible and standing in the cleerer light
that are dearest to a man are his own life limbs and in the next degree in most men those that concern conjugall affection and after them riches and means of living Therefore the People are to be taught to abstain from violence to one anothers person by private revenges from violation of conjugall honour and from forcible rapine and fraudulent surreption of one anothers goods For which purpose also it is necessary they be shewed the evill consequences of false Judgement by corruption either of Judges or Witnesses whereby the distinction of propriety is taken away and Justice becomes of no effect all which things are intimated in the sixth seventh eighth and ninth Commandements Lastly they are to be taught that not onely the unjust facts but the designes and intentions to do them though by accident hindred are Injustice which consisteth in the pravity of the will as well as in the irregularity of the act And this is the intention of the tenth Commandement and the summe of the second Table which is reduced all to this one Commandement of mutuall Charity Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy selfe as the summe of the first Table is reduced to the love of God whom they had then newly received as their King As for the Means and Conduits by which the people may receive this Instruction wee are to search by what means so many Opinions contrary to the peace of Man-kind upon weak and false Principles have neverthelesse been so deeply rooted in them I mean those which I have in the precedent Chapter specified as That men shall Judge of what is lawfull and unlawfull not by the Law it selfe but by their own Consciences that is to say by their own private Judgements That Subjects sinne in obeying the Commands of the Common-wealth unlesse they themselves have first judged them to be lawfull That their Propriety in their riches is such as to exclude the Dominion which the Common-wealth hath over the same That it is lawfull for Subjects to kill such as they call Tyrants That the Soveraign Power may be divided and the like which come to be instilled into the People by this means They whom necessity or covetousnesse keepeth attent on their trades and labour and they on the other side whom superfluity or sloth carrieth after their sensuall pleasures which two sorts of men take up the greatest part of Man-kind being diverted from the deep meditation which the learning of truth not onely in the matter of Naturall Justice but also of all other Sciences necessarily requireth receive the Notions of their duty chiefly from Divines in the Pulpit and partly from such of their Neighbours or familiar acquaintance as having the Faculty of discoursing readily and plausibly seem wiser and better learned in cases of Law and Conscience than themselves And the Divines and such others as make shew of Learning derive their knowledge from the Universities and from the Schooles of Law or from the Books which by men eminent in those Schooles and Universities have been published It is therefore manifest that the Instruction of the people dependeth wholly on the right teaching of Youth in the Universities But are not may some man say the Universities of England learned enough already to do that or is it you will undertake to teach the Universities Hard questions Yet to the first I doubt not to answer that till towards the later end of Henry the eighth the Power of the Pope was alwayes upheld against the Power of the Common-wealth principally by the Universities and that the doctrines maintained by so many Preachers against the Soveraign Power of the King and by so many Lawyers and others that had their education there is a sufficient argument that though the Universities were not authors of those false doctrines yet they knew not how to plant the truâ—… For in such a contradiction of Opinions it is most certain that they have not been sufficiently instructed and 't is no wonder if they yet retain a relish of that subtile liquor wherewith they were first seasoned against the Civill Authority But to the later question it is not fit nor needfull for me to say either I or No for any man that sees what I am doing may easily perceive what I think The safety of the People requireth further from him or them that have the Soveraign Power that Justice be equally administred to all degrees of People that is that as well the rich and mighty as poor and obscure persons may be righted of the injuries done them so as the great may have no greater hope of impunity when they doe violence dishonour or any Injury to the meaner sort than when one of these does the like to one of them For in this consisteth Equity to which as being a Precept of the Law of Nature a Soveraign is as much subject as any of the meanest of his People All breaches of the Law are offences against the Common-wealth but there be some that are also against private Persons Those that concern the Common-wealth onely may without breach of Equity be pardoned for every man may pardon what is done against himselfe according to his own diseretion But an offence against a private man cannot in Equity be pardoned without the consent of him that is injured or reasonable satisfaction The Inequality of Subjects proceedeth from the Acts of Soveraign Power and therefore has no more place in the presence of the Soveraign that is to say in a Court of Justice then the Inequality between Kings and their Subjects in the presence of the King of Kings The honour of great Persons is to be valued for their beneficence and the aydes they give to men of inferiour rank or not at all And the violences oppressions and injuries they do are not extenuated but aggravated by the greatnesse of their persons because they have least need to commit them The consequences of this partiality towards the great proceed in this manner Impunity maketh Insolence Insolence Hatred and Hatred an Endeavour to pull down all oppressing and contumelious greatnesse though with the 〈◊〉 of the Common wealth To Equall Justice appertaineth also the Equall imposition of Taxes the Equality whereof dependeth not on the Equality of riches but on the Equality of the debt that every man oweth to the Common-wealth for his defence It is not enough for a man to labour for the maintenance of his life but also to fight if need be for the securing of his labour They must either do as the Jewes did after their return from captivity in re-edifying the Temple build with one hand and hold the Sword in the other or else they must hire others to fight for them For the Impositions that are layd on the People by the Soveraign Power are nothing else but the Wages due to them that hold the publique Sword to defend private men in the exercise of severall Trades and Callings Seeing then the benefit that every one
receiveth thereby is the enjoyment of life which is equally dear to poor and rich the debt which a poor man oweth them that defend his life is the same which a rich man oweth for the defence of his saving that the rich who have the service of the poor may be debtors not onely for their own persons but for many more Which considered the Equality of Imposition consisteth rather in the Equality of that which is consumed than of the riches of the persons that consume the same For what reasonis there that he which laboureth much and sparing the fruits of his labour consumeth little should be more charged then he that living idlely getteth little and spendeth all he gets seeing the one hath no more protection from the Common-wealth then the other But when the Impositions are layd upon those things which men consume every man payeth Equally for what he useth Nor is the Common-wealth defrauded by the luxurious waste of private men And whereas many men by accident unevitable become unable to maintain themselves by their labour they ought not to be left to the Charity of private persons but to be provided for as far-forth as the necessities of Nature require by the Lawes of the Common-wealth For as it is Uncharitablenesse in any man to neglect the impotent so it is in the Soveraign of a Common-wealth to expose them to the hazard of such uncertain Charity But for such as have strong bodies the case is otherwise they are to be forced to work and to avoyd the excuse of not finding employment there ought to be such Lawes as may encourage all manner of Arts as Navigation Agriculture Fishing and all manner of Manifacture that requires labour The multitude of poor and yet strong people still encreasing they are to be transplanted into Countries not sufficiently inhabited where neverthelesse they are not to exterminate those they find there but constrain them to inhabit closer together and not range a great deal of ground to snatch what they find but to court each little Plot with art and labour to give them their sustenance in due season And when all the world is overchargd with Inhabitants then the last remedy of all is Warre which provideth for every man by Victory or Death To the care of the Soveraign belongeth the making of Good Lawes But what is a good Law By a Good Law I mean not a. Just Law for no Law can be Unjust The Law is made by the Soveraign Power and all that is done by such Power is warranted and owned by every one of the people and that which every man will have so no man can say is unjust It is in the Lawes of a Common-wealth as in the Lawes of Gaming whatsoever the Gamesters all agree on is Injustice to none of them A good Law is that which is Needfull for the Good of the People and withall Perspicuous For the use of Lawes which are but Rules Authorised is not to bind the People from all Voluntary actions but to direct and keep them in such a motion as not to hurt themselves by their own impetuous desires rashnesse or indiscretion as Hedges are set not to stop Travellers but to keep them in the way And therefore a Law that is not Needfull having not the true End of a Law is not Good A Law may be conceived to be Good when it is for the benefit of the Soveraign though it be not Necessary for the People but it is not so For the good of the Soveraign and People cannot be separated It is a weak Soveraign that has weak Subjects and a weak People whose Soveraign wanteth Power to rule them at his will Unnecessary Lawes are not good Lawes but trapps for Mony which where the right of Soveraign Power is acknowledged are superfluous and where it is not acknowledged unsufficient to defend the People The Perspicuity consisteth not so much in the words of the Law it selfe as in a Declaration of the Causes and Motives for which it was made That is it that shewes us the meaning of the Legislator and the meaning of the Legislator known the Law is more easily understood by few than many words For all words are subject to ambiguity and therefore multiplication of words in the body of the Law is multiplication of ambiguity Besides it seems to imply by too much diligence that whosoever can evade the words is without the compasse of the Law And this is a cause of many unnecessary Processes For when I consider how short were the Lawes of antient times and how they grew by degrees still longer me thinks I see a contention between the Penners and Pleaders of the Law the former seeking to circumscribe the later and the later to evade their circumscriptions and that the Pleaders have got the Victory It belongeth therefore to the Office of a Legislator such as is in all Common-wealths the Supreme Representative be it one Man or an Assembly to make the reason Perspicuous why the Law was made and the Body of the Law it selfe as short but in as proper and significant termes as may be It belongeth also to the Office of the Soveraign to make a right application of Punishments and Rewards And seeing the end of punishing is not revenge and discharge of choler but correction either of the offender or of others by his example the severest Punishments are to be inflicted for those Crimes that are of most Danger to the Publique such as are those which proceed from malice to the Government established those that spring from contempt of Justice those that provoke Indignation in the Multitude and those which unpunished seem Authorised as when they are committed by Sonnes Servants or Favorites of men in Authority For Indignation carrieth men not onely against the Actors and Authors of Injustice but against all Power that is likely to protect them as in the case of Tarquin when for the Insolent act of one of his Sonnes he was driven out of Rome and the Monarchy it selfe dissolved But Crimes of Infirmity such as are those which proceed from great provocation from great fear great need or from ignorance whether the Fact be a great Crime or not there is place many times for Lenity without prejudice to the Common-wealth and Lenity when there is such place for it is required by the Law of Nature The Punishment of the Leaders and teachers in a Commotion not the poore seduced People when they are punished can profit the Common-wealth by their example To be severe to the People is to punish that ignorance which may in great part be imputed to the Soveraign whose fault it was they were no better instructed In like manner it belongeth to the Office and Duty of the Soveraign to apply his Rewards alwayes so as there may arise from them benefit to the Common-wealth wherein consisteth their Use and End and is then done when they that have well
contriving their Titles to save the People from the shame of receiving them To have a known Right to Soveraign Power is so popular a quality as he that has it needs no more for his own part to turn the hearts of his Subjects to him but that they see him able absolutely to govern his own Family Nor on the part of his enemies but a disbanding of their Armies For the greatest and most active part of Mankind has never hetherto been well contented with the present Concerning the Offices of one Soveraign to another which are comprehended in that Law which is commonly called the Law of Nations I need not say any thing in this place because the Law of Nations and the Law of Nature is the same thing And every Soveraign hath the same Right in procuring the safety of his People that any particular man can have in procuring the safety of his own Body And the same Law that diâ—…tateth to men that have no Civil Government what they ought to do and what to avoyd in regard of one another dictateth the same to Common-wealths that is to the Consciences of Soveraign Princes and Soveraign Assemblies there being no Court of Naturall Justice but in the Conscience onely where not Man but God raigneth whose Lawes such of them as oblige all Mankind in respect of God as he is the Author of Nature are Naturall and in respect of the same God as he is King of Kings are Lawes But of the Kingdome of God as King of Kings and as King also of a peculiar People I shall speak in the rest of this discourse CHAP. XXXI Of the KINGDOME OF GOD BY NATURE THat the condition of meer Nature that is to say of absolute Liberty such as is theirs that neither are Soveraigns nor Subjects is Anarchy and the condition of Warre That the Praecepts by which men are guided to avoyd that condition are the Lawes of Nature That a Common-wealth without Soveraign Power is but a word without substance and cannot stand That Subjects owe to Soveraigns simple Obedience in all things wherein their obedience is not repugnant to the Lawes of God I have sufficiently proved in that which I have already written There wants onely for the entire knowledge of Civill duty to know what are those Lawes of God For without that a man knows not when he is commanded any thing by the Civill Power whether it be contrary to the â—…aw of God or not and so either by too much civill obedience offends the Divine Majesty or through feare of offending God transgresses the commandements of the Common-wealth To avoyd both these Rocks it is necessary to know what are the Lawes Divine And seeing the knowledge of all Law dependeth on the knowledge of the Soveraign Power I shall say something in that which followeth of the KINGDOME OF GOD. God is King let the Earth rejoyce saith the Psalmist And again God is King though the Nations be angry and he that sitteth on the Cherubins though the earth be moved Whether men will or not they must be subject alwayes to the Divine Power By denying the Existence or Providence of God men may shake off their Ease but not their Yoke But to call this Power of God which extendeth it selfe not onely to Man but also to Beasts and Plants and Bodies inanimate by the name of Kingdome is but a metaphoricall use of the word For he onely is properly said to Raigne that governs his Subjects by his Word and by promise of Rewards to those that obey it and by threatning them with Punishment that obey it not Subjects therefore in the Kingdome of God are not Bodies Inanimate nor creatures Irrationall because they understand no Precepts as his Nor Atheists nor they that believe not that God has any care of the actions of mankind because they acknowledge no Word for his nor have hope of his rewards or fear of his threatnings They therefore that believe there is a God that goeverneth the world and hath given Praecepts and propounded Rewards and Punishments to Mankind are Gods Subjects all the rest are to be understood as Enemies To rule by Words requires that such Words be manifestly made known for else they are no Lawes For to the nature of Lawes belongeth a sufficient and clear Promulgation such as may take away the excuse of Ignorance which in the Lawes of men is but of one onely kind and that is Proclamation or Promulgation by the voyce of man But God declareth his Lawes three wayes by the Dictates of Naturall Reason by Revelation and by the Voyce of some man to whom by the operation of Miracles he procureth credit with the rest From hence there ariseth a triple Word of God Rational Sensible and Prophetique to which Correspondeth a triple Hearing Right Reason Sense Supernaturall and Faith As for Sense Supernaturall which consisteth in Revelation or Inspiration there have not been any Universall Lawes so given because God speaketh not in that manner but to particular persons and to divers men divers things From the difference between the other two kinds of Gods Word Rationall and Prophetique there may be attributed to God a twofold Kingdome Naturall and Prophetique Naturall wherein he governeth as many of Mankind as acknowledge his Providence by the naturall Dictates of Right Reason And Prophetique wherein having chosen out one peculiar Nation the Jewes for his Subjects he governed them and none but them not onely by naturall Reason but by Positive Lawes which he gave them by the mouths of his holy Prophets Of the Naturall Kingdome of God I intend to speak in this Chapter The Right of Nature whereby God reigneth over men and punisheth those that break his Lawes is to be derived not from his Creating them as if he required obedience as of Gratitude for his benefits but from his Irresistible Power I have formerly shewn how the Soveraign Right ariseth from Pact To shew how the same Right may arise from Nature requires no more but to shew in what case it is never taken away Seeing all men by Nature had Right to All things they had Right every one to reigne over all the rest But because this Right could not be obtained by force it concerned the safety of every one laying by that Right to set up men with Soveraign Authority by common consent to rule and defend them whereas if there had been any man of Power Irresistible there had been no reason why he should not by that Power have ruled and defended both himselfe and them according to his own discretion To those therefore whose Power is irresistible the dominion of all men adhaereth naturally by their excellence of Power and consequently it is from that Power that the Kingdome over men and the Right of afflicting men at his pleasure belongeth Naturally to God Almighty not as Creator and Gracious but as Omnipotent And though Punishment be due for Sinne onely because by
and gave it to the Seventy Elders But as I have shewn before chap. 36. by Spirit is understood the Mind so that the sense of the place is no other than this that God endued them with a mind conformable and subordinate to that of Moses that they might Prophecy that is to say speak to the people in Gods name in such manner as to set forward as Ministers of Moses and by his authority such doctrine as was agreeable to Moses his doctrine For they were but Ministers and when two of them Prophecyed in the Camp it was thought a new and unlawfull thing and as it is in the 27. and 28. verses of the same Chapter they were accused of it and Joshua advised Moses to forbid them as not knowing that it was by Moses his Spirit that they Prophecyed By which it is manifest that no Subject ought to pretend to Prophecy or to the Spirit in opposition to the doctrine established by him whom God hath set in the place of Moses Aaron being dead and after him also Moses the Kingdome as being a Sacerdotall Kingdome descended by vertue of the Covenant to Aarons Son Eleazar the High Priest And God declared him next under himself for Soveraign at the same time that he appointed Joshua for the Generall of their Army For thus God saith expressely Numb 27. 21. concerning Joshua He shall stand before Eleazar the Priest who shall ask counsell for him before the Lord at his word shall they goe out and at his word they shall come in both he aâ—…d all the Children of Israel with him Therefore the Supreme Power of making War and Peace was in the Priest The Supreme Power of Judicature belonged also to the High Priest For the Book of the Law was in their keeping and the Priests and Levites onely were the subordinate Judges in causes Civill as appears in Deut. 17. 8 9 10. And for the manner of Gods worship there was never doubt made but that the High Priest till the time of Saul had the Supreme Authority Therefore the Civill and Ecclesiasticall Power were both joined together in one and the same person the High Priest and ought to bee so in whosoever governeth by Divine Right that is by Authority immediate from God After the death of Joshua till the time of Saul the time between is noted frequently in the Book of Judges that there was in those dayes no King in Israel and sometimes with this addition that every man did that which was right in his own eyes By which is to bee understood that where it is said there was no King is meant there was no Soveraign Power in Israel And so it was if we consider the Act and Exercise of such power For after the death of Joshua Eleazar there arose another generation Judges 2. 10. that knew not the Lord nor the works which he had done for Israel but did evill in the sight of the Lord and served Baalim And the Jews had that quality which St. Paul noteth to look for a sign not onely before they would submit themselves to the government of Moses but also after they had obliged themselves by their submission Whereas Signs and Miracles had for End to procure Faith not to keep men from violating it when they have once given it for to that men are obliged by the law of Nature But if we consider not the Exercise but the Right of Governing the Soveraign power was still in the High Priest Therefore whatsoever obedience was yeelded to any of the Judges who were men chosen by God extraordinarily to save his rebellious subjects out of the hands of the enemy it cannot bee drawn into argument against the Right the High Priest had to the Soveraign Power in all matters both of Policy and Religion And neither the Judges nor Samuel himselfe had an ordinary but extraordinary calling to the Government and were obeyed by the Israelites not out of duty but out of reverence to their favour with God appearing in their wisdome courage or felicity Hitherto therefore the Right of Regulating both the Policy and the Religion were inseparable To the Judges succeeded Kings And whereas before all authority both in Religion and Policy was in the High Priest so now it was all in the King For the Soveraignty over the people which was before not onely by vertue of the Divine Power but also by a particular pact of the Israelites in God and next under him in the High Priest as his Vicegerent on earth was cast off by the People with the consent of God himselfe For when they said to Samuel 1 Sam. 8. 5. make us a King to judge us like all the Nations they signified that they would no more bee governed by the commands that should bee laid upon them by the Priest in the name of God but by one that should command them in the same manner that all other nations were commandcd and consequently in deposing the High Priest of Royall authority they deposed that peculiar Government of God And yet God consented to it saying to Samuel verse 7. Hearken unto the voice of the People in all that they shall say unto thee for they have not rejected thee but they have rejected mee that I should not reign over them Having therefore rejected God in whose Right the Priests governed there was no authority left to the Priests but such as the King was pleased to allow them which was more or lesse according as the Kings were good or evill And for the Government of Civill affaires it is manifest it was all in the hands of the King For in the same Chapter verse 20. They say they will be like all the Nations that their King shall be their Judge and goe before them and fight their battells that is he shall have the whole authority both in Peace and War In which is contained also the ordering of Religion for there was no other Word of God in that time by which to regulate Religion but the Law of Moses which was their Civill Law Besides we read 1 Kings 2. 27. that Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being Priest before the Lord He had therefore authority over the High Priest as over any other Subject which is a great mark of Supremacy in Religion And we read also 1 Kings 8. that hee dedicated the Temple that he blessed the People and that he himselfe in person made that excellent prayer used in the Consecrations of all Churches and houses of Prayer which is another great mark of Supremacy in Religion Again we read 2 Kings 22. that when there was question concerning the Book of the Law found in the Temple the same was not decided by the High Priest but Josiah sent both him and others to enquire concerning it of Hulda the Prophetesse which is another mark of the Supremacy in Religion Lastly wee read 1 Chron. 26. 30. that David made Hashabiah and his brethren Hebronites Officers of Israel
his successors may probably enough have crept into the Religion of the Jews But seeing it is not likely our Saviour would countenance a Heathen rite it is most likely it proceeded from the Legall Ceremony of Washing after Leprosie And for the other Sacrament of eating the Paschall Lambe it is manifestly imitated in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper in which the Breaking of the Bread and the pouring out of the Wine do keep in memory our deliverance from the Misery of Sin by Christs Passion as the eating of the Paschall Lambe kept in memory the deliverance of the Jewes out of the Bondage of Egypt Seeing therefore the authority of Moses was but subordinate and hee but a Lieutenant to God it followeth that Christ whose authority as man was to bee like that of Moses was no more but subordinate to the authority of his Father The same is more expressely signified by that that hee teacheth us to pray Our Father Let thy Kingdome come and For thine is the Kingdome the Power and the Glory and by that it is said that Hee shall come in the Glory of his Father and by that which St. Paul saith 1 Cor. 15. 24. then commeth the end when hee shall have delivered up the Kingdome to God even the Father and by many other most expresse places Our Saviour therefore both in Teaching and Reigning representeth as Moses did the Person of God which God from that time forward but not before is called the Father aud being still one and the same substance is one Person as represented by Moses and another Person as represented by his Sonne the Christ. For Person being a relative to a Representer it is consequent to plurality of Representers that there bee a plurality of Persons though of one and the same Substance CHAP. XLII Of POWER ECCLESIASTICALL FOr the understanding of POVVER ECCLESIASTICALL what and in whom it is we are to distinguish the time from the Ascension of our Saviour into two parts one before the Conversion of Kings and men endued with Soveraign Civill Power the other after their Conversion For it was long after the Ascension before any King or Civill Soveraign embraced and publiquely allowed the teaching of Christian Religion And for the time between it is manifest that the Power Ecclesiasticall was in the Apostles and after them in such as were by them ordained to Preach the Gospell and to convert men to Christianity and to direct them that were converted in the way of Salvation and after these the Power was delivered again to others by these ordained and this was done by Imposition of hands upon such as were ordained by which was signified the giving of the Holy Spirit or Spirit of God to those whom they ordained Ministers of God to advance his Kingdome So that Imposition of hands was nothing else but the Seal of their Commission to Preach Christ and teach his Doctrine and the giving of the Holy Ghost by that ceremony of Imposition of hands was an imitation of that which Moses did For Moses used the same ceremony to his Minister Joshua as wee read Deâ—…teronomy 34. ver 9. And Ioshua the Son of Nun was full of the Spirit of VVisdome for Moses had laid his hands upon him Our Saviour therefore between his Resurrection and Ascension gave his Spirit to the Apostles first by Breathing on them and saying Iohn 20. 22. Receive yee the Holy Spirit and after his Ascension Acts 2. 2 3. by sending down upon them a mighty wind and Cloven tongues of fire and not by Imposition of hands as neither did God lay his hands on Moses and his Apostles afterward transmitted the same Spirit by Imposition of hands as Moses did to Joshua So that it is manifest hereby in whom the Power Ecclesiasticall continually remained in those first times where there was not any Christian Common-wealth namely in them that received the same from the Apostles by successive laying on of hands Here wee have the Person of God born now the third time For as Moses and the High Priests were Gods Representative in the Old Testament and our Saviour himselfe as Man during his abode on earth So the Holy Ghost that is to say the Apostles and their successors in the Office of Preaching and Teaching that had received the Holy Spirit have Represented him ever since But a Person as I have shewn before chapt 13. is he that is Represented as often as hee is Represented and therefore God who has been Represented that is Personated thrice may properly enough be said to be three Persons though neither the word Person nor Trinity be ascribed to him in the Bible St. Iohn indeed 1 Epist. 5. 7. saith There be three that bear witnesse in heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Spirit and these Three are One But this disagreeth not but accordeth fitly with three Persons in the proper signification of Persons which is that which is Represented by another For so God the Father as Represented by Moses is one Person and as Represented by his Sonne another Person and as Represented by the Apostles and by the Doctors that taught by authority from them derived is a third Person and yet every Person here is the Person of one and the same God But a man may here ask what it was whereof these three bare witnesse St. Iohn therefore tells us verse 11. that they bear witnesse that God hath given us eternall life in his Son Again if it should bee asked wherein that testimony appeareth the Answer is easie for he hath testified the same by the miracles he wrought first by Moses secondly by his Son himself and lastly by his Apostles that had received the Holy Spirit all which in their times Represented the Person of God and either prophecyed or preached Jesus Christ. And as for the Apostles it was the character of the Apostleship in the twelve first and great Apostles to bear Witnesse of his Resurrection as appeareth expressely Acts 1. ver 21 22. where St. Peter when a new Apostle was to be chosen in the place of Judas Iscariot useth these words Of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Iesus went in and out amongst us beginning at the Baptisme of Iohn unto that same day that hee was taken up from us must one bee ordained to be a Witnesse with us of his Resurrection which words interpret the bearing of Witnesse mentioned by St. John There is in the same place mentioned another Trinity of Witnesses in Earth For ver 8. he saith there are three that bear VVitnesse in Earth the Spirit and the VVater and the Bloud and these three agree in one that is to say the graces of Gods Spirit and the two Sacraments Baptisme and the Lords Supper which all agree in one Testimony to assure the consciences of beleevers of eternall life of which Testimony he saith verse 10. He that beleeveth on the Son of man hath the
authority to preach he sent not all that beleeved And he sent them to unbeleevers I send you saith he as sheep amongst wolves not as sheep to other sheep Lastly the points of their Commission as they are expressely set down in the Gospel contain none of them any authority over the Congregation We have first Mat. 10. that the twelve Apostles were sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and commanded to Preach that the Kingdome of God was at hand Now Preaching in the originall is that act which a Crier Herald or other Officer useth to doe publiquely in Proclaiming of a King But a Crier hath not right to Command any man And Luke 10. 2. the seventy Disciples are sent out as Labourers not as Lords of the Harvest and are bidden verse 9. to say The Kingdome of God is come nigh unto you and by Kingdom here is meant not the Kingdome of Grace but the Kingdome of Glory for they are bidden to denounce it ver 11. to those Cities which shall not receive them as a threatning that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodome than for such a City And Mat. 20. 28. our Saviour telleth his Disciples that sought Priority of place their Office was to minister even as the Son of man came not to be ministred unto but to minister Preachers therefore have not Magisteriall but Ministeriall power Bee not called Masters saith our Saviour Mat. 23. 10. for one is your Master even Christ. Another point of their Commission is to Teach all nations as it is in Mat. 28. 19. or as in St. Mark 16. 15. Goe into all the world and Preach the Gospel to every creature Teaching therefore and Preaching is the same thing For they that Proclaim the comming of a King must withall make known by what right he commeth if they mean men shall submit themselves unto him As St. Paul did to the Jews of Thessalonica when three Sabbath dayes he reasoned with them out of the Scriptures opening and alledging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead and that this Iesus is Christ. But to teach out of the Old Testament that Jesus was Christ that is to say King and risen from the dead is not to say that men are bound after they beleeve it to obey those that tell them so against the laws and commands of their Soveraigns but that they shall doe wisely to expect the coming of Christ hereafter in Patience and Faith with Obedience to their present Magistrates Another point of their Commission is to Baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost What is Baptisme Dipping into water But what is it to Dip a man into the water in the name of any thing The meaning of these words of Baptisme is this He that is Baptized is Dipped or Washed as a sign of becomming a new man and a loyall subject to that God whose Person was represented in old time by Moses and the High Priests when he reigned over the Jews and to Jesus Christ his Sonne God and Man that hath redeemed us and shall in his humane nature Represent his Fathers Person in his eternall Kingdome after the Resurrection and to acknowledge the Doctrine of the Apostles who assisted by the Spirit of the Father and of the Son were left for guides to bring us into that Kingdome to be the onely and assured way thereunto This being our promise in Baptisme and the Authority of Earthly Soveraigns being not to be put down till the day of Judgment for that is expressely affirmed by S. Paul 1 Cor. 15. 22 23 24 where he saith As in Adam all die so in Christ all shall be made alive But every man in his owne order Christ the first fruits afterward they that are Christs at his comming Then commeth the end when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God even the Father when he shall have put down all Rule and all Authority and Power it is manifest that we do not in Baptisme constitute over us another authority by which our externall actions are to bee governed in this life but promise to take the doctrine of the Apostles for our direction in the way to life eternall The Power of Remission and Retention of Sinnes called also the Power of Loosing and Binding and sometimes the Keyes of the Kingdome of Heaven is a consequence of the Authority to Baptize or refuse to Baptize For Baptisme is the Sacrament of Allegeance of them that are to be received into the Kingdome of God that is to say into Eternall life that is to say to Remission of Sin For as Eternall life was lost by the Committing so it is recovered by the Remitting of mens Sins The end of Baptisme is Remission of Sins and therefore St. Peter when they that were converted by his Sermon on the day of Pentecost asked what they were to doe advised them to repent and be Baptized in the name of Iesus for the Remission of Sins And therefore seeing to Baptize is to declare the Reception of men into Gods Kingdome and to refuse to Baptize is to declare their Exclusion it followeth that the Power to declare them Cast out or Retained in it was given to the same Apostles and their Substitutes and Successors And therefore after our Saviour had breathed upon them saying Iohn 20. 22. Receive the Holy Ghost hee addeth in the next verse VVhos 's soever Sins ye Remit they are Remitted unto them and whose soever Sins ye Retain they are Retained By which words is not granted an Authority to Forgive or Retain Sins simply and absolutely as God Forgiveth or Retaineth them who knoweth the Heart of man and truth of his Penitence and Conversion but conditionally to the Penitent And this Forgivenesse or Absolution in case the absolved have but a feigned Repentance is thereby without other act or sentence of the Absolvent made void and hath no effect at all to Salvation but on the contrary to the Aggravation of his Sin Therefore the Apostles and their Successors are to follow but the outward marks of Repentance which appearing they have no Authority to deny Absolution and if they appeare not they have no authority to Absolve The same also is to be observed in Baptisme for to a converted Jew or Gentile the Apostles had not the Power to deny Baptisme nor to grant it to the Un-penitent But seeing no man is able to discern the truth of another mans Repentance further than by externall marks taken from his words and actions which are subject to hypocrisie another question will arise Who it is that is constituted Judge of those marks And this question is decided by our Saviour himself If thy Brother saith he shal trespasse against thee go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone if shall hear thee thou hast gained thy Brother But if he will not hear thee then
take with thee one or two more And if he shall neglect to hear them tell it unto the Church but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen man and a Publican By which it is manifest that the Judgment concerning the truth of Repentance belonged not to any one Man but to the Church that is to the Assembly of the Faithull or to them that have authority to bee their Representant But besides the Judgment there is necessary also the pronouncing of Sentence And this belonged alwaies to the Apostle or some Pastor of the Church as Prolocutor and of this our Saviour speaketh in the 18 verse Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven And conformable hereunto was the practise of St. Paul 1 Cor. 5. 3 4 5. where he saith For I verily as absent in body but present in spirit have determined already as though I were present concerning him that hath so done this deed In the name of our Lord Iesus Christ when ye are gathered together and my spirit with the power of our Lord Iesus Christ To deliver such a one to Satan that is to say to cast him out of the Châ—…rch as a man whose Sins are not Forgiven Paul here pronounceth the Sentence but the Assembly was first to hear the Cause for St. Paul was absent and by consequence to condemn him But in the same chapter ver 11 12. the Judgment in such a case is more expressely attributed to the Assembly But now I have written unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a Brother be a Fornicator c. with such a one no not to eat For what have I to do to judg them that are without Do not ye judg them that are within The Sentence therefore by which a man was put out of Church was pronounced by the Apostle or Pastor but the Judgment concerning the merit of the cause was in the Church that is to say as the times were before the conversion of Kings and men that had Soveraign Authority in the Common-wealth the Assembly of the Christians dwelling in the same City as in Corinth in the Assembly of the Christians of Corinth This part of the Power of the Keyes by which men were thrust out from the Kingdom of God is that which is called Excommunication and to excommunicate is in the Originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to cast out of the Synagogue that is out of the place of Divine service a word drawn from the custome of the Jews to cast out of their Synagogues such as they thought in manners or doctrine contagious as Lepers were by the Law of Moses separated from the congregation of Israel till such time as they should be by the Priest pronounced clean The Use and Effect of Excommunication whilest it was not yet strengthened with the Civill Power was no more than that they who were not Excommunicate were to avoid the company of them that were It was not enough to repute them as Heathen that never had been Christians for with such they might eate and drink which with Excommunicate persons they might not do as appeareth by the words of St. Paul 1 Cor. 5. ver 9 10 c. where he telleth them he had formerly forbidden them to company with Fornicators but because that could not bee without going out of the world he restraineth it to such Fornicators and otherwise vicious persons as were of the brethren with such a one he saith they ought not to keep company no not to eat And this is no more than our Saviour saith Mat. 18. 17. Let him be to thee as a Heathen and as a Publican For Publicans which signifieth Farmers and Receivers of the revenue of the Common-wealth were so hated and detested by the Jews that were to pay it as that Publican and Sinner were taken amongst them for the same thing Insomuch as when our Saviour accepted the invitation of Zacchaeus a Publican though it were to Convert him yet it was ohjected to him as a Crime And therefore when our Saviour to Heathen added Publican he did forbid them to eat with a man Excommunicate As for keeping them out of their Synagogues or places of Assembly they had no Power to do it but that of the owner of the place whether he were Christian or Heathen And because all places are by right in the Dominion of the Common-wealth as well hee that was Excommunicated as hee that never was Baptized might enter inter into them by Commission from the Civill Magistrate as Paul before his conversion entred into their Synagogues at Damascus to apprehend Christians men and women and to carry them bound to Jerusalem by Commission from the High Priest By which it appears that upon a Christian that should become an Apostate in a place where the Civill Power did persecute or not assist the Church the effect of Excommunication had nothiug in it neither of dammage in this world nor of terrour Not of terrour because of their unbeleef nor of dammage because they are retâ—…rned thereby into the favour of the world and in the world to come were to be in no worse estate then they which never had beleeved The dammage redounded rather to the Church by provocation of them they cast out to a freer execution of their malice Excommunication therefore had its effect onely upon those that beleeved that Jesus Christ was to come again in Glory to reign over and to judge both the quick and the dead and should therefore refuse entrance into his Kingdom to those whose Sins were Retained that is to those that were Excommunicated by the Church And thence it is that St. Paul calleth Excommunication a delivery of the ExcoÌ„municate person to Satan For without the Kingdom of Christ all other Kingdomes after Judgment are comprehended in the Kingdome of Satan This is it that the faithfull stood in fear of as long as they stood Excommunicate that is to say in an estate wherein their sins were not Forgiven Whereby wee may understand that Excommunication in the time that Christian Religion was not authorized by the Civill Power was used onely for a correction of manners not of errours in opinion for it is a punishment whereof none could be sensible but such as beleeved and expected the coming again of our Saviour to judge the world and they who so beleeved needed no other opinion but onely uprightnesse of life to be saved There lyeth Excommunication for Injustice as Mat. 18. If thy Brother offend thee tell it him privately then with Witnesses lastly tell the Church and then if he obey not Let him be to thee as an Heathen man and a Publican And there lieth Excommunication for a Scandalous Life as 1 Cor. 5. 11. If any man that is called a Brother be a Fornicator or Covetous or an Idolater
The same is also confirmed by the continuall practise even to this day in the Election of the Bishops of Rome For if the Bishop of any place had the right of choosing another to the succession of the Pastorall Office in any City at such time as he went from thence to plant the same in another place much more had he had the Right to appoint his successour in that place in which he last resided and dyed And we find not that ever any Bishop of Rome appointed his successor For they were a long time chosen by the People as we may see by the sedition raised about the Election between Damasus and Vrsicinus which Ammianus Marcellinus saith was so great that Iuventius the Praefect unable to keep the peace between them was forced to goe out of the City and that there were above an hundred men found dead upon that occasion in the Church it self And though they afterwards were chosen first by the whole Clergy of Rome and afterwards by the Cardinalls yet never any was appointed to the succession by his predecessor If therefore they pretended no right to appoint their own successors I think I may reasonably conclude they had no right to appoint the successors of other Bishops without receiving some new power which none could take from the Church to bestow on them but such as had a lawfull authority not onely to Teach but to Command the Church which none could doe but the Civill Soveraign The word Minister in the Originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth one that voluntarily doth the businesse of another man and differeth from a Servant onely in this that Servants are obliged by their condition to what is commanded them whereas Ministers are obliged onely by their undertaking and bound therefore to no more than that they have undertaken So that both they that teach the Word of God and they that administer the secular affairs of the Church are both Ministers but they are Ministers of different Persons For the Pastors of the Church called Acts 6. 4. The Ministers of the Word are Ministers of Christ whose Word it is But the Ministery of a Deacon which is called verse 2. of the same Chapter Serving of Tables is a service done to the Church or Congregation So that neither any one man nor the whole Church could ever of their Pastor say he was their Minister but of a Deacon whether the charge he undertook were to serve tables or distribute maintenance to the Christians when they lived in each City on a common stock or upon collections as in the first times or to take a care of the House of Prayer or of the Revenue or other worldly businesse of the Church the whole Congregation might properly call him their Minister For their employment as Deacons was to serve the Congregation though upon occasion they omitted not to Preach the Gospel and maintain the Doctrine of Christ every one according to his gifts as S. Steven did and both to Preach and Baptize as Philip did For that Philip which Act. 8. 5. Preached the Gospell at Samaria and verse 38. Baptized the Eunuch was Philip the Deacon not Philip the Apostle For it is manifest verse 1. that when Philip preached in Samaria the Apostles were at Jerusalem and verse 14. when they heard that Samaria had received the Word of God sent Peter and Iohn to them by imposition of whose hands they that were Baptized verse 15. received which before by the Baptisme of Philip they had not received the Holy Ghost For it was necessary for the conferring of the Holy Ghost that their Baptisme should be administred or confirmed by a Minister of the Word not by a Minister of the Church And therefore to confirm the Baptisme of those that Philip the Deacon had Baptized the Apostles sent out of their own number from Jerusalem to Samaria Peter and John who conferred on them that before were but Baptized those graces that were signs of the Holy Spirit which at that time did accompany all true Beleevers which what they were may be understood by that which S. Marke saith chap. 16. 17. These signes follow them that beleeve in my Name they shall cast out Devills they shall speak with new tongues They shall take up Serpents and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover This to doe was it that Philip could not give but the Apostles could and as appears by this place effectually did to every man that truly beleeved and was by a Minister of Christ himself Baptized which power either Christs Ministers in this age cannot conferre or else there are very few true Beleevers or Christ hath very few Ministérs That the first Deacons were chosen not by the Apostles but by a Congregation of the Disciples that is of Christian men of all sorts is manifest out of Acts 6. where we read that the Twelve after the number of Disciples was multiplyed called them together and having told them that it was not fit that the Apostles should leave the Word of God and serve tables said unto them verse 3. Brethren looke you out among you seven men of honest report full of the Holy Ghost and of Wisdome whom we may appoint over this businesse Here it is manifest that though the Apostles declared them elected yet the Congregation chose them which also verse the fift is more expressely said where it is written that the saying pleased the multitude and they chose seven c. Under the Old Testament the Tribe of Levi were onely capable of the Priesthood and other inferiour Offices of the Church The land was divided amongst the other Tribes Levi excepted which by the subdivision of the Tribe of Joseph into Ephraim and Manasses were still twelve To the Tribe of Levi were assigned certain Cities for their habitation with the suburbs for their cattell but for their portion they were to have the tenth of the fruits of the land of their Brethren Again the Priests for their maintenance had the tenth of that tenth together with part of the oblations and sacrifices For God had said to Aaron Numb 18. 20. Thou shalt have no inheritance in their land neither shalt thou have any part amongst them I am thy part and thine inheritance amongst the Children of Israel For God being then King and having constituted the Tribe of Levi to be his Publique Ministers he allowed them for their maintenance the Publique revenue that is to say the part that God had reserved to himself which were Tythes and Offerings and that is it which is meant where God saith I am thine inheritance And therefore to the Levites might not unfitly be attributed the name of Clergy from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth Lot or Inheritance not that they were heirs of the Kingdome of God more than other but that Gods inheritance was their maintenance Now seeing in this time
Laws if any else can make a Law besides himselfe all Common-wealth and consequently all Peace and Justice must cease which is contrary to all Laws both Divine and Humane Nothing therefore can be drawn from these or any other places of Scripture to prove the Decrees of the Pope where he has not also the Civill Soveraignty to be Laws The last point hee would prove is this That our Saviour Christ has committed Ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction immediately to none but the Pope Wherein he handleth not the Question of Supremacy between the Pope and Christian Kings but between the Pope and other Bishops And first he sayes it is agreed that the Jurisdiction of Bishops is at least in the generall de Iure Divino that is in the Right of God for which he alledges S. Paul Ephes. 4. 11. where hee sayes that Christ after his Ascension into heaven gave gifts to men some Apostles some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and some Teachers And thence inferres they have indeed their Jurisdiction in Gods Right but will not grant they have it immediately from God but derived through the Pope But if a man may be said to have his Jurisdiction de Jure Divino and yet not immediately what lawfull Jurisdiction though but Civill is there in a Christian Common-wealth that is not also de Jure Divino For Christian Kings have their Civill Power from God immediately and the Magistrates under him exercise their severall charges in vertue of his Commission wherein that which they doe is no lesse de Jure Divino mediato than that which the Bishops doe in vertue of the Popes Ordination All lawfull Power is of God immediately in the Supreme Governour and mediately in those that have Authority under him So that either hee must grant every Constable in the State to hold his Office in the Right of God or he must not hold that any Bishop holds his so besides the Pope himselfe But this whole Dispute whether Christ left the Jurisdiction to the Pope onely or to other Bishops also if considered out of those places where the Pope has the Civill Soveraignty is a contention de lana Caprina For none of them where they are not Soveraigns has any Jurisdiction at all For Jurisdiction is the Power of hearing and determining Causes between man and man and can belong to none but him that hath the Power to prescribe the Rules of Right and Wrong that is to make Laws and with the Sword of Justice to compell men to obey his Decisions pronounced either by himself or by the Judges he ordaineth thereunto which none can lawfully do but the Civill Soveraign Therefore when he alledgeth out of the 6 of Luke that our Saviour called his Disciples together and chose twelve of them which he named Apostles he proveth that he Elected them all except Matthias Paul and Barnabas and gave them Power and Command to Preach but not to Judge of Causes between man and man for that is a Power which he refused to take upon himselfe saying Who made me a Iudge or a Divider amongst you and in another place My Kingdome is not of this world But hee that hath not the Power to hear and determine Causes between man and man cannot be said to have any Jurisdiction at all And yet this hinders not but that our Saviour gave them Power to Preach and Baptize in all parts of the world supposing they were not by their own lawfull Soveraign forbidden For to our own Soveraigns Christ himself and his Apostles have in sundry places expressely commanded us in all things to be obedient The arguments by which he would prove that Bishops receive their Jurisdiction from the Pope seeing the Pope in the Dominions of other Princes hath no Jurisdiction himself are all in vain Yet because they prove on the contrary that all Bishops receive Jurisdiction when they have it from their Civill Soveraigns I will not omit the recitall of them The first is from Numbers 11. where Moses not being able alone to undergoe the whole burthen of administring the affairs of the People of Israel God commanded him to choose Seventy Elders and took part of the spirit of Moses to put it upon those Seventy Elders by which is understood not that God weakned the spirit of Moses for that had not eased him at all but that they had all of them their authority from him wherein he doth truly and ingenuously interpret that place But seeing Moses had the entire Soveraignty in the Common-wealth of the Jews it is manifest that it is thereby signified that they had their Authority from the Civill Soveraign and therefore that place proveth that Bishops in every Christian Common-wealth have their Authority from the Civill Soveraign and from the Pope in his own Territories only and not in the Territories of any other State The second argument is from the nature of Monarchy wherein all Authority is in one Man and in others by derivation from him But the Government of the Church he says is Monarchicall This also makes for Christian Monarchs For they are really Monarchs of their own people that is of their own Church for the Church is the same thing with a Christian people whereas the Power of the Pope though hee were S. Peter is neither Monarchy nor hath any thing of Archicall nor Craticall but onely of Didacticall For God accepteth not a forced but a willing obedience The third is from that the Sea of S. Peter is called by S. Cyprian the Head the Source the Roote the Sun from whence the Authority of Bishops is derived But by the Law of Nature which is a better Principle of Right and Wrong than the word of any Doctor that is but a man the Civill Soveraign in every Common-wealth is the Head the Source the Root and the Sun from which all Jurisdiction is derived And therefore the Jurisdiction of Bishops is derived from the Civill Soveraign The fourth is taken from the Inequality of their Jurisdictions For if God saith he had given it them immediately he had given aswell Equality of Jurisdiction as of Order But wee see some are Bishops but of own Town some of a hundred Towns and some of many whole Provinces which differences were not determined by the command of God their Jurisdiction therefore is not of God but of Man and one has a greater another a lesse as it pleaseth the Prince of the Church Which argument if he had proved before that the Pope had had an Universall Jurisdiction over all Christians had been for his purpose But seeing that hath not been proved and that it is notoriously known the large Jurisdiction of the Pope was given him by those that had it that is by the Emperours of Rome for the Patriarch of Constantinople upon the same title namely of being Bishop of the Capitall City of the Empire and Seat of the Emperour claimed to be equall to him it followeth that all other Bishops
have their Jurisdiction from the Soveraigns of the place wherein they exercise the same And as for that cause they have not their Authority de Iure Divino so neither hath the Pope his de Iure Divino except onely where hee is also the Civill Soveraign His fift argument is this If Bishops have their Iurisdiction immediately from God the Pope could not take it from them for he can doe nothing contrary to Gods ordination And this consequence is good and well proved But saith he the Pope can do this and has done it This also is granted so he doe it in his own Dominions or in the Dominions of any other Prince that hath given him that Power but not universally in Right of the Popedome For that power belongeth to every Christian Soveraign within the bounds of his owne Empire and is inseparable from the Soveraignty Before the People of Israel had by the commandment of God to Samuel set over themselves a King after the manner of other Nations the High Priest had the Civill Government and none but he could make nor depose an inferiour Priest But that Power was afterwards in the King as may be proved by this same argument of Bellarmine For if the Priest be he the High Priest or any other had his Jurisdiction immediately from God then the King could not take it from him for he could doe nothing contrary to Gods ordinance But it is certain that King Solomon 1 Kings 2. 26. deprived Abiathar the High Priest of his Office and placed Zadok verse 35. in his room Kings therefore may in the like manner Ordaine and Deprive Bishops as they shall thinke fit for the well governing of their Subjects His sixth argument is this If Bishops have their Jurisdiction de Iure Divino that is immediately from God they that maintaine it should bring some Word of God to prove it But they can bring none The argument is good I have therefore nothing to say against it But it is an argument no lesse good to prove the Pope himself to have no Jurisdiction in the Dominion of any other Prince Lastly hee bringeth for argument the testimony of two Popes Innocent and Leo and I doubt not but hee might have alledged with as good reason the testimonies of all the Popes almost since S. Peter For considering the love of Power naturally implanted in mankind whosoever were made Pope he would be tempted to uphold the same opinion Neverthelesse they should therein but doe as Innocent and Leo did bear witnesse of themselves and therefore their witnesse should not be good In the fift Book he hath four Conclusions The first is That the Pope is not Lord of all the world The second That the Pope is not Lord of all the Christian world The third That the Pope without his owne Territory has not any Temporall Jurisdiction DIRECTLY These three Conclusions are easily granted The fourth is That the Pope has in the Dominions of other Princes the Supreme Temporall Power INDIRECTLY which is denyed unlesse hee mean by Indirectly that he has gotten it by Indirect means then is that also granted But I understand that when he saith he hath it Indirectly he means that such Temporall Jurisdiction belongeth to him of Right but that this Right is but a Consequence of his Pastorall Authority the which he could not exercise unlesse he have the other with it And therefore to the Pastorall Power which he calls Spirituall the Supreme Power Civill is necessarily annexed and that thereby hee hath a Right to change Kingdomes giving them to one and taking them from another when he shall think it conduces to the Salvation of Souls Before I come to consider the Arguments by which hee would prove this Doctrine it will not bee amisse to lay open the Consequences of it that Princes and States that have the Civill Soveraignty in their severall Common-wealths may bethink themselves whether it bee convenient for them and conducing to the good of their Subjects of whom they are to give an account at the day of Judgment to admit the same When it is said the Pope hath not in the Territories of other States the Supreme Civill Power Directly we are to understand he doth not challenge it as other Civill Soveraigns doe from the originall submission thereto of those that are to be governed For it is evident and has already been sufficiently in this Treatise demonstrated that the Right of all Soveraigns is derived originally from the consent of every one of those that are to bee governed whether they that choose him doe it for their common defence against an Enemy as when they agree amongst themselves to appoint a Man or an Assembly of men to protect them or whether they doe it to save their lives by submission to a conquering Enemy The Pope therefore when he disclaimeth the Supreme Civill Power over other States Directly denyeth no more but that his Right cometh to him by that way He ceaseth not for all that to claime it another way and that is without the consent of them that are to be governed by a Right given him by God which hee calleth indirectly in his Assumption to the Papacy But by what way soever he pretend the Power is the same and he may if it bee granted to be his Right depose Princes and States as often as it is for the Salvation of Soules that is as often as he will for he claimeth also the Sole Power to Judge whether it be to the Salvation of mens Souls or not And this is the Doctrine not onely that Bellarmine here and many other Doctors teach in their Sermons and Books but also that some Councells have decreed and the Popes have accordingly when the occasion hath served them put in practise For the fourth Councell of Lateran held under Pope Innocent the third in the third Chap. De Haereticis hath this Canon If a King at the Popes admonition doe not purge his Kingdome of Haeretiques and being Excommunicate for the same make not satisfaction within a yeer his Subjects are absolved of their Obedience And the practise hereof hath been seen on divers occasions as in the Deposing of Chilperique King of France in the Translation of the Roman Empire to Charlemaine in the Oppression of Iohn King of England in Transferring the Kingdome of Navarre and of late years in the League against Henry the third of France and in many more occâ—…rrences I think there be few Princes that consider not this as Injust and Inconvenient but I wish they would all resolve to be Kings or Subjects Men cannot serve two Masters They ought therefore to ease them either by holding the Reins of Government wholly in their own hands or by wholly delivering them into the hands of the Pope that such men as are willing to be obedient may be protected in their obedience For this distinction of Temporall and Spirituall Power is but words Power is as really divided and as
other Pastors are bidden to esteem those Christians that disobey the Church that is that disobey the Christian Soveraigne as Heathen men and as Publicans Seeing then men challenge to the Pope no authority over Heathen Princes they ought to challenge none over those that are to bee esteemed as Heathen But from the Power to Teach onely hee inferreth also a Coercive Power in the Pope over Kings The Pastor saith he must give his flock convenient food Therefore the Pope may and ought to compell Kings to doe their duty Out of which it followeth that the Pope as Pastor of Christian men is King of Kings which all Christian Kings ought indeed either to Confesse or else they ought to take upon themselves the Supreme Pastorall Charge every one in his own Dominion His sixth and last Argument is from Examples To which I answer first that Examples prove nothing Secondly that the Examples he alledgeth make not so much as a probability of Right The fact of Jehoiada in Killing Athaliah 2 Kings 11. was either by the Authority of King Joash or it was a horrible Crime in the High Priest which ever after the election of King Saul was a mere Subject The fact of St. Ambrose in Excommunicating Theodosius the Emperour if it were true hee did so was a Capitall Crime And for the Popes Gregory 1. Greg. 2. Zachary and Leo 3. their Judgments are void as given in their own Cause and the Acts done by them conformably to this Doctrine are the greatest Crimes especially that of Zachary that are incident to Humane Nature And thus much of Power Ecclesiasticall wherein I had been more briefe forbearing to examine these Arguments of Bellarmine if they had been his as a Private man and not as the Champion of the Papacy against all other Christian Princes and States CHAP. XLIII Of what is NECESSARY for a Mans Reception into the Kingdome of Heaven THe most frequent praetext of Sedition and Civill Warre in Christian Common-wealths hath a long time proceeded from a difficulty not yet sufficiently resolved of obeying at once both God and Man then when their Commandements are one contrary to the other It is manifest enough that when a man receiveth two contrary Commands and knows that one of them is Gods he ought to obey that and not the other though it be the command even of his lawfull Soveraign whether a Monarch or or a soveraign Assembly or the command of his Father The difficulty therefore consisteth in this that men when they are commanded in the name of God know not in divers Cases whether the command be from God or whether he that commandeth doe but abuse Gods name for some private ends of his own For as there were in the Church of the Jews many false Prophets that sought reputation with the people by feigned Dreams and Visions so there have been in all times in the Church of Christ false Teachers that seek reputation with the people by phantasticall and false Doctrines and by such reputation as is the nature of Ambition to govern them for their private benefit But this difficulty of obeying both God and the Civill Soveraign on earth to those that can distinguish between what is Necessary and what is not Necessary for their Reception into the Kingdome of God is of no moment For if the command of the Civill Soveraign bee such as that it may be obeyed without the forfeiture of life Eternall not to obey it is unjust and the precept of the Apostle takes place Servants obey your Masters in all things and Children obey your Parents in all things and the precept of our Saviour The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses Chaire All therefore they shall say that observe and doe But if the command be such as cannot be obeyed without being damned to Eternall Death then it were madnesse to obey it and the Counsell of our Saviour takes place Mat. 10. 28. Fear not those that kill the body but cannot kill the soule All men therefore that would avoid both the punishments that are to be in this world inflicted for disobedience to their earthly Soveraign and those that shall be inflicted in the world to come for disobedience to God have need be taught to distinguish well between what is and what is not Necessary to Eternall Salvation All that is NECESSARY to Salvatian is contained in two Vertues Faith in Christ and Obedience to Laws The latter of these if it were perfect were enough to us But because wee are all guilty of disobedience to Gods Law not onely originally in Adam but also actually by our own transgressions there is required at our hands now not onely Obedience for the rest of our time but also a Remission of sins for the time past which Remission is the reward of our Faith in Christ. That nothing else is Necessarily required to Salvation is manifest from this that the Kingdome of Heaven is shut to none but to Sinners that is to say to the disobedient or transgressors of the Law nor to them in case they Repent and Beleeve all the Articles of Christian Faith Necessary to Salvation The Obedience required at our hands by God that accepteth in all our actions the Will for the Deed is a serious Endeavour to Obey him and is called also by all such names as signifie that Endeavour And therefore Obedience is sometimes called by the names of Charity and Love because they imply a Will to Obey and our Saviour himself maketh our Love to God and to one another a Fulfilling of the whole Law and sometimes by the name of Righteousnesse for Righteousnesse is but the will to give to every one his owne that is to say the will to obey the Laws and sometimes by the name of Repentance because to Repent implyeth a turning away from finne which is the same with the return of the will to Obedience Whosoever therefore unfeignedly desireth to fulfill the Commandements of God or repenteth him truely of his transgressions or that loveth God with all his heart and his neighbor as himself hath all the Obedience Necessary to his Reception into the Kingdom of God For if God should require perfect Innocence there could no flesh be saved But what Commandements are those that God hath given us Are all those Laws which were given to the Jews by the hand of Moses the Commandements of God If they bee why are not Christians taught to Obey them If they be not what others are so besides the Law of Nature For our Saviour Christ hath not given us new Laws but Counsell to observe those wee are subject to that is to say the Laws of Nature and the Laws of our severall Soveraigns Nor did he make any new Law to the Jews in his Sermon on the Mouut but onely expounded the Laws of Moses to which they were subject before The Laws of God therefore are none but the Laws of Nature whereof the principall is that we
Church supposed to be that Kingdom of his to which we are addressed in the Gospel is the Doctrine that it is necessary for a Christian King to receive his Crown by a Bishop as if it were from that Ceremony that he derives the clause of Dei gratiâ in his title and that then onely he is made King by the favour of God when he is crowned by the authority of Gods universall Vicegerent on earth and that every Bishop whosoever be his Soveraign taketh at his Consecration an oath of absolute Obedience to the Pope Consequent to the same is the Doctrine of the fourth Councell of Lateran held under Pope Innocent the third Chap. 3. de Haereticis That if a King at the Popes admonition doe not purge his Kingdome of Haeresies and being excommunicate for the same doe not give satisfaction within a year his Subjects are absolved of the bond of their obedience Where by Haeresies are understood all opinions which the Church of Rome hath forbidden to be maintained And by this means as often as there is any repugnancy between the Politicall designes of the Pope and other Christian Princes as there is very often there ariseth such a Mist amongst their Subjects that they know not a stranger that thrusteth himself into the throne of their lawfull Prince from him whom they had themselves placed there and in this Darknesse of mind are made to fight one against another without discerning their enemies from their friends under the conduct of another mans ambition From the same opinion that the present Church is the Kingdome of God it proceeds that Pastours Deacons and all other Ministers of the Church take the name to themselves of the Clergy giving to other Christians the name of Laity that is simply People For Clergy signifies those whose maintenance is that Revenue which God having reserved to himselfe during his Reigne over the Israelites assigned to the tribe of Levi who were to be his publique Ministers and had no portion of land set them out to live on as their brethren to be their inheritance The Pope therefore pretending the present Church to be as the Realme of Israel the Kingdome of God challenging to himselfe and his subordinate Ministers the like revenue as the Inheritance of God the name of Clergy was sutable to that claime And thence it is that Tithes and other tributes paid to the Levites as Gods Right amongst the Israelites have a long time been demanded and taken of Christians by Ecclesiastiques Iure divino that is in Gods Right By which meanes the people every where were obliged to a double tribute one to the State another to the Clergy whereof that to the Clergy being the tenth of their revenue is double to that which a King of Athens and esteemed a Tyrant exacted of his subjects for the defraying of all publique charges For he demanded no more but the twentieth part and yet abundantly maintained therewith the Commonwealth And in the Kingdome of the Iewes during the Sacerdotall Reigne of God the Tithes and Offerings were the whole Publique Revenue From the same mistaking of the present Church for the Kingdom of God came in the distinction betweene the Civill and the Canon Laws The Civil Law being the Acts of Soveraigns in their own Dominions and the Canon Law being the Acts of the Pope in the same Dominions Which Canons though they were but Canons that is Rules Propounded and but voluntarily received by Christian Princes till the translation of the Empire to Charlemain yet afterwards as the power of the Pope encreased became Rules Commanded and the Emperours themselves to avoyd greater mischiefes which the people blinded might be led into were forced to let them passe for Laws From hence it is that in all Dominions where the Popes Ecclesiasticall power is entirely received Jewes Turkes and Gentiles are in the Roman Church tolerated in their Religion as farre forth as in the exercise and profession thereof they offend not against the civill power whereas in a Christian though a stranger not to be of the Roman Religion is Capitall because the Pope pretendeth that all Christians are his Subjects For otherwise it were as much against the law of Nations to persecute a Christian stranger for professing the Religion of his owne country as an Infidell or rather more in as much as they that are not against Christ are with him From the same it is that in every Christian State there are certaine men that are exempt by Ecclesiasticall liberty from the tributes and from the tribunals of the Civil State for so are the secular Clergy besides Monks and Friars which in many places bear so great a proportion to the common people as if need were there might be raised out of them alone an Army sufficient for any warre the Church militant should imploy them in against their owne or other Princes A second generall abuse of Scripture is the turning of Consecration into Conjuration or Enchantment To Consecrate is in Scripture to Offer Give or Dedicate in pious and decent language and gesture a man or any other thing to God by separating of it from common use that is to say to Sanctifie or make it Gods and to be used only by those whom God hath appointed to be his Publike Ministers as I have already proved at large in the 35. Chapter and thereby to change not the thing Consecrated but onely the use of it from being Profane and common to be Holy and peculiar to Gods service But when by such words the nature or qualitie of the thing it selfe is pretended to be changed it is not Consecration but either an extraordinary worke of God or a vaine and impious Conjuration But seeing for the frequency of pretending the change of Nature in their Consecrations it cannot be esteemed a work extraordinary it is no other than a Conjuration or Incantation whereby they would have men to beleeve an alteration of Nature that is not contrary to the testimony of mans Sight and of all the rest of his Senses As for example when the Priest in stead of Consecrating Bread and Wine to Gods peculiar service in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper which is but a separation of it from the common use to signifie that is to put men in mind of their Redemption by the Passion of Christ whose body was broken and blood shed upon the Crosse for our transgressions pretends that by saying of the words of our Saviour This is my Body and This is my Blood the nature of Bread is no more there but his very Body notwithstanding there appeareth not to the Sight or other Sense of the Receiver any thing that appeared not before the Consecration The Egyptian Conjurers that are said to have turned their Rods to Serpents and the Water into Bloud are thought but to have deluded the senses of the Spectators by a false shew of things yet are esteemed Enchanters But what should wee have thought
and not the Reprobate To the Reprobate there remaineth after the Resurrection a Second and Eternall Death between which Resurrection and their Second and Eternall death is but a time of Punishment and Torment and to last by succession of sinners thereunto as long as the kind of Man by propagation shall endure which is Eternally Upon this Doctrine of the Naturall Eternity of separated Soules is founded as I said the Doctrine of Purgatory For supposing Eternall Life by Grace onely there is no Life but the Life of the Body and no Immortality till the Resurrection The texts for Purgatory alledged by Bellarmine out of the Canonicall Scripture of the old Testament are first the Fasting of David for Saul and Ionathan mentioned 2 Kings 1. 12. and againe 2 Sam. 3. 35. for the death of Abner This Fasting of David he saith was for the obtaining of something for them at Gods hands after their death because after he had Fasted to procure the recovery of his owne child assoone as he knew it was dead he called for meate Seeing then the Soule hath an existence separate from the Body and nothing can be obtained by mens Fasting for the Soules that are already either in Heaven or Hell it followeth that there be some Soules of dead men that are neither in Heaven nor in Hell and therefore they must bee in some third place which must be Purgatory And thus with hard straining hee has wrested those places to the proofe of a Purgatory whereas it is manifest that the ceremonies of Mourning and Fasting when they are used for the death of men whose life was not profitable to the Mourners they are used for honours sake to their persons and when t is done for the death of them by whose life the Mourners had benefit it proceeds from their particular dammage And so David honoured Saul and Abner with his Fasting and in the death of his owne child recomforted himselfe by receiving his ordinary food In the other places which he alledgeth out of the old Testamēt there is not so much as any shew or colour of proofe He brings in every text wherein there is the word Anger or Fire or Burning or Purging or Clensing in case any of the Fathers have but in a Sermon rhetorically applied it to the Doctrine of Purgatory already beleeved The first verse of Psalme 37. O Lord rebuke me not in thy wrath nor chasten me in thy hot displeasure What were this to Purgatory if Augustine had not applied the Wrath to the fire of Hell and the Displeasure to that of Purgatory And what is it to Purgatory that of Psalme 66. 12. Wee went through fire and water and thou broughtest us to a moist place and other the like texts with which the Doctors of those times entended to adorne or extend their Sermons or Commentaries haled to their purposes by force of wit But he alledgeth other places of the New Testament that are not so easie to be answered And first that of Matth. 12. 32. Whosoever speaketh a word against the Sonne of man it shall be forgiven him but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost it shall not bee forgiven him neither in this world nor in the world to come Where he will have Purgatory to be the World to come wherein some sinnes may be forgiven which in this World were not forgiven notwithstanding that it is manifest there are but three Worlds one from the Creation to the Flood which was destroyed by Water and is called in Scripture the Old World another from the Flood to the day of Judgement which is the Present World and shall bee destroyed by Fire and the third which shall bee from the day of Judgement forward everlasting which is called the World to come and in which it is agreed by all there shall be no Purgatory And therefore the World to come and Purgatory are inconsistent But what then can bee the meaning of those our Saviours words I confesse they are very hardly to bee reconciled with all the Doctrines now unanimously received Nor is it any shame to confesse the profoundnesse of the Scripture to bee too great to be sounded by the shortnesse of humane understanding Neverthelesse I may propound such things to the consideration of more learned Divines as the text it selfe suggesteth And first seeing to speake against the Holy Ghost as being the third Person of the Trinity is to speake against the Church in which the Holy Ghost resideth it seemeth the comparison is made betweene the Easinesse of our Saviour in bearing with offences done to him while hee himselfe taught the world that is when he was on earth and the Severity of the Pastors after him against those which should deny their authority which was from the Holy Ghost As if he should say You that deny my Power nay you that shall crucifie me shall be pardoned by mee as often as you turne unto mee by Repentance But if you deny the Power of them that teach you hereafter by vertue of the Holy Ghost they shall be inexorable and shall not forgive you but persecute you in this World and leave you without absolution though you turn to me unlesse you turn also to them to the punishments as much as lies in them of the World to come And so the words may be taken as a Prophecy or Praediction concerning the times as they have along been in the Christian Church Or if this be not the meaning for I am not peremptory in such difficult places perhaps there may be place left after the Resurrection for the Repentance of some sinners And there is also another place that seemeth to agree therewith For considering the words of St. Paul 1 Cor. 15. 29. What shall they doe which are Baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all why also are they Baptized for the dead a man may probably inferre as some have done that in St. Pauls time there was a custome by receiving Baptisme for the dead as men that now beleeve are Sureties and Undertakers for the Faith of Infants that are not capable of beleeving to undertake for the persons of their deceased friends that they should be ready to obey and receive our Saviour for their King at his his coming again and then the forgivenesse of sins in the world to come has no need of a Purgatory But in both these interpretations there is so much of paradox that I trust not to them but propound them to those that are throughly versed in the Scripture to inquire if there be no clearer place that contradicts them Onely of thus much I see evident Scripture to perswade me that there is neither the word nor the thing of Purgatory neither in this nor any other text nor any thing that can prove a necessity of a place for the Soule without the Body neither for the Soule of Lazarus during the four days he was dead nor for the Soules of them which the
and in all differences between him and other Princes charmed with the word Power Spirituall to abandon their lawfull Soveraigns which is in effect an universall Monarchy over all Christendome For though they were first invested in the right of being Supreme Teachers of Christian Doctrine by and under Christian Emperors within the limits of the Romane Empire as is acknowledged by themselves by the title of Pontifex Maximus who was an Officer subject to the Civill State yet after the Empire was divided and dissolved it was not hard to obtrude upon the people already subject to them another Title namely the Right of St. Peter not onely to save entire their pretended Power but also to extend the same over the same Christian Provinces though no more united in the Empire of Rome This Benefit of an Universall Monarchy considering the desire of men to bear Rule is a sufficient Presumption that the Popes that pretended to it and for a long time enjoyed it were the Authors of the Doctrine by which it was obtained namely that the Church now on Earth is the Kingdome of Christ. For that granted it must be understood that Christ hath some Lieutenant amongst us by whom we are to be told what are his Commandements After that certain Churches had renounced this universall Power of the Pope one would expect in reason that the Civill Soveraigns in all those Churches should have recovered so much of it as before they had unadvisedly let it goe was their own Right and in their own hands And in England it was so in effect saving that they by whom the Kings administred the Government of Religion by maintaining their imployment to be in Gods Right seemed to usurp if not a Supremacy yet an Independency on the Civill Power and they but seemed to usurpe it in as much as they acknowledged a Right in the King to deprive them of the Exercise of their Functions at his pleasure But in those places where the Presbytery took that Office though many other Doctrines of the Church of Rome were forbidden to be taught yet this Doctrine that the Kingdome of Christ is already come and that it began at the Resurrection of our Saviour was still retained But cui bono What Profit did they expect from it The same which the Popes expected to have a Soveraign Power over the People For what is it for men to excommunicate their lawful King but to keep him from all places of Gods publique Service in his own Kingdom and with force to resist him when he with force endeavoureth to correct them Or what is it without Authority from the Civill Soveraign to excommunicate any person but to take from him his Lawfull Liberty that is to usurpe an unlawfull Power over their Brethren The Authors therefore of this Darknesse in Religion are the Romane and the Presbyterian Clergy To this head I referre also all those Doctrines that serve them to keep the possession of this spirituall Soveraignty after it is gotten As first that the Pope in his publique capacity cannot erre For who is there that beleeving this to be true will not readily obey him in whatsoever he commands Secondly that all other Bishops in what Common-wealth soever have not their Right neither immediately from God nor mediately from their Civill Soveraigns but from the Pope is a Doctrine by which there comes to be in every Christian Common-wealth many potent men for so are Bishops that have their dependance on the Pope and owe obedience to him though he be a forraign Prince by which means he is able as he hath done many times to raise a Civill War against the State that submits not it self to be governed according to his pleasure and Interest Thirdly the exemption of these and of all other Priests and of all Monkes and Fryers from the Power of the Civill Laws For by this means there is a great part of every Common-wealth that enjoy the benefit of the Laws and are protected by the Power of the Civill State which neverthelesse pay no part of the Publique expence nor are lyable to the penalties as other Subjects due to their crimes and consequently stand not in fear of any man but the Pope and adhere to him onely to uphold his universall Monarchy Fourthly the giving to their Priests which is no more in the New Testament but Presbyters that is Elders the name of Sacerdotes that is Sacrificers which was the title of the Civill Soveraign and his publique Ministers amongst the Jews whilest God was their King Also the making the Lords Supper a Sacrifice serveth to make the People beleeve the Pope hath the same power over all Christians that Moses and Aaron had over the Jews that is to say all Power both Civill and Ecclesiasticall as the High Priest then had Fiftly the teaching that Matrimony is a Sacrament giveth to the Clergy the Judging of the lawfulnesse of Marriages and thereby of what Children are Legitimate and consequently of the Right of Succession to haereditary Kingdomes Sixtly the Deniall of Marriage to Priests serveth to assure this Power of the Pope over Kings For if a King be a Priest he cannot Marry and transmit his Kingdome to his Posterity If he be not a Priest then the Pope pretendeth this Authority Ecclesiasticall over him and over his people Seventhly from Auricular Confession they obtain for the assurance of their Power better intelligence of the designs of Princes and great persons in the Civill State than these can have of the designs of the State Ecclesiasticall Eighthly by the Canonization of Saints and declaring who are Martyrs they assure their Power in that they induce simple men into an obstinacy against the Laws and Commands of their Civill Soveraigns even to death if by the Popes excommunication they be declared Heretiques or Enemies to the Church that is as they interpret it to the Pope Ninthly they assure the same by the Power they ascribe to every Priest of making Christ and by the Power of ordaining Pennance and of Remitting and Retaining of sins Tenthly by the Doctrine of Purgatory of Justification by externall works and of Indulgences the Clergy is enriched Eleventhly by their Daemonology and the use of Exorcisme and other things appertaining thereto they keep or thinke they keep the People more in awe of their Power Lastly the Metaphysiques Ethiques and Politiques of Aristotle the frivolous Distinctions barbarous Terms and obscure Language of the Schoolmen taught in the Universities which have been all erected and regulated by the Popes Authority serve them to keep these Errors from being detected and to make men mistake the Ignis fatuus of Vain Philosophy for the Light of the Gospell To these if they sufficed not might be added other of their dark Doctrines the profit whereof redoundeth manifestly to the setting up of an unlawfull Power over the lawfull Soveraigns of Christian People or for
Examples of Impunity Extenuate Praemeditation Aggravateth Tacite approbation of the Soveraign Extenuates Comparison of Crimes from their Effects Laesa Majestas Bribery and False testimony Depeculation Counterfeiting Authority Crimes against private men compared Publique Crimes what The definition of Punishment Right to Punish whence derived Private injuries and revenges no Punishments Nor denyall of preferment Nor pain inflicted without publique hearing Nor pain inflicted by Usurped power Nor pain inflicted without respect to to the future good Naturall evill consequences no Punishments Hurt inflicted if lesse than the benefit of transgressing is not Punishment Where the Punishment is annexed to the Law a greater hurt is not Punishment but 〈◊〉 Hurt inflicted for a fact done before the Law no Punishment The Representative of the Common-wealth Unpunishable Hurt to Revolted Subjects is done by right of War not by way of Punishment Punishments Corporall Capitall Ignominy Imprisonment Exile The Punishment of Innocent Subjects is contrary to the Law of Nature But the Harme done to Innocents in War not so Nor that which is done to declared Rebels Reward is either Salary or Grace Benefits bestowed for fear are not Rewards Salaries Certain and Casuall Dissolution of Common-wealths proceedeth from their Imperfect Institution Want of Absolute power Private Judgement of Good and Evill Erroneous conscience Pretence of Inspiration Subjecting the Soveraign Power to Civill Lawes Attributing of absolute Propriâ—…ty to 〈◊〉 Dividing of the Soveraign Power Imitatioâ—… of Neighbour Natiouâ—… Imitation of the Greâ—…ks and Romans Mixt Government Want of Mony Monopolies and abuses of Publicans Popular men Excessive greatnesse of a â—…own multitude of Corporations Liberty of disputing against Soveraign Power Dissolution of the Common-wealth The Procuration of the Good of the People By Instrâ—…ction Lawes Against the duty of a Soveraign to relinquish any Essentiall Right of Soveraignty Or not to seâ—… the people taught the grounds of them Objection of those that say there are no Principles of Reason for absolute Soveraigâ—…ty Objection from the Incapacity of the vulgar Subjects are to be taught not to affect change of Government Nor adhere against the Soveraign to Popular men Nor to Dispute the Soveraign Power And to have dayes set apart to learn their Duty And to Honour their Parents And to avoyd doing of Injury And to do all this sincerely from the heart The use of Uâ—…iversities Equall â—…xes Publique Charity 〈◊〉 of Idlenesse Goâ—… Laweâ—… whâ—…t Such as are Necessary Such as are Perspicuous Punishments Rewards Counsellours Commanders The scope of the following Chapters Psal. 96 1. Psal. 98. 1. Who are subjects in the kingdome of God A Threefold Word of God Reason Revelation Prophâ—…y A twofold Kingdome of God Naturall and Prophetique The Right of Gods Soveraignty is derived from his Omnipotence Sinne not the cause of all Affliction Psal. 72. ver 1 2 3. Job 38. v. 4. Divine Lawes Honour and Worship what Severall signes of Honour Worship Naturall and Arbitrary Worship Commanded and Free Worship Publique and Private The End of Worship Attributes of Divine Honour Actions that are signes of Divine Honour Publique Worship consisteth in Uniformity All Attributes depend on the Lawes Civill Not all Actions Naturall Punishments The Conclusion of the Second Part. The Word of God delivered by Prophets is the mainprinciple of Christian Politiques Yet is not naturall Reason to be renounced What it is to captivate the Understanding How God speaketh to men By what marks Prophets are known 1 Kings 22. 1 Kings 13. Deut. 13. v. 1 2 3 4 5. Mat. 24. 24. Gal. 1. 8. The marks of a Prophet in the old law Miracles and Doctrin conformable to the law Miracles ceasing Prophets cease and the Scripture supplies their place Of the Books of Holy Scripture Their Antiquity The Pentaâ—… not written by Moses Deut. 31. 9. Deut. 31. 26. 2 King 22. 8. 23. 1 2 3. The Book of Joshua written after his time Josh. 4. 9. Josh. 5. 9. Josh. 7. 26. The Booke of Judges and Ruth written long after the Captivity The like of the Bookes of Samuel 2 Sam. 6. 4. The Books of the Kings and the Chronicles Ezra and Nehemiah Esther Job The Psalter The Proverbs Ecclesiastes and the Canticles The Prophets The New Testament Their Scope The question of the Authority of the Scriptures stated Their Authority and Interpretation Body and Spirit how taken in the Scripture The Spirit of God taken in the Scripture sometimes for a Wind or Breath Secondly for extraordinary gifts of the Vnderstanding Thirdly for extraordinary Affections Fourthly for the gift of Prediction by Dreams and Visions Fifâ—…ly for Life Sixtly for a subordination to authority Seventhly for Aeriall Bodies Angel what Inspiration what The Kingdom of God taken by Divines Metaphorically but in the Scriptures properly The originall of the Kingdome of God That the Kingdome of God is properly his Civill Soveraignty over a peculiar people by pact Holy what Sacred what Degrees of Sanctity Sacrament Word what The words spoken by God and concerning God both are called God 's Word in Scripture 1 Tim. 4. 1. The Word of God metaphorically used first for the Decrees and Power of God Secondly for the effect of his Word Acts 1. 4. Luke 24. 49. Thirdly for the words of reason and equity Divers acceptions of the word Prophet Praediction of future contingents not alwaies Prophecy The manner how God hath spoken to the Prophets To the Extraordinary Prophets of the Old Testament he spake by Dreams or Visions To Prophets of perpetuall Calling and Supreme God spake in the Old Testament from the Mercy Seat in a manner not expressed in the Scripture To Prophets of perpetuall Calling but subordinate God spake by the Spirit â—…od sometimes also spake by Lots Every man ought to examine the probability of a pretended Prophets Calling All prophecy but of the Soveraign Prophet is to be examined by every Subject A Miracle is a work that causeth Admiration And must therefore be rare and whereof there is no naturall cause known That which seemeth a Miracle to one man may seem otherwise to another The End of Miracles Exo. 4. 1 c. The definition of a Miracle Exod. 7. 11. Exod. 7. 22. Exod. 8. 7. That men are apt to be deceived by false Miracles Cautions against the Imposture of Miracles The place of Adams Eternity if he had not sinned had been the terrestiall Paradise Gen. 3. 22. Texts concerning the place of Life Eternall for Beleevers Ascension into heaven The place after Judgment of those who were never in the Kingdome of God 〈◊〉 having been in are cast out Tartarus The congregation of Giants Lake of Fire Vtter Darknesse Gehenna and Tophet Of the literall sense of the Scripture concerning Hell Satan Devill not Proper names but Appellatives Torments of Hell Apoc. 20. 13 14. The Joyes of Life Eternall and Salvation the same thing Salvation from Sin and from Misery all one The Place of Eternall Salvation 2 Pet. 2. 5. 2 Pet. 3. 13.
Redemption Church the Lords house Ecclesia properly what Acts 19. 39. In what sense the Church is one Person Church defined A Christian Common-wealth and a Church all one The Soveraign Rights of Abraham Abraham had the sole power of ordering the Religion of his own people No pretence of Private Spirit against the Religion of Abraham Abraham sole Judge and Interpreter of what God spake The authority of Moses whereon grounded John 5. 31. Moses was under God Soveraign of the Jews all his own time though Aaron had the Priesthood All spirits were subordinate to the spirit of Moses After Moses the Soveraignty was in the High Priest Of the Soveraign power between the time of Joshua and of Saul Of the Rights of the Kings of Israel The practice of Supremacy in Religion was not in the time of the Kings according to the Right thereof 2 Chro. 19. 2. After the Captivity the Iews â—…ad no setled Common-wealth Three parts of the Office of Christ. His Office as a Redeemer Christs Kingdome not of this woâ—…ld The End of Christs comming was to renew the Covenant of the Kingdome of God and to perswade the Elect to imbrace it which was the second part of his Office The preaching of Christ not contrary to the then law of the Iews nor of Caesar. The third part of his Office was to be King under his Father of the Elect. Christs authority in the Kingdome of God subordinate to that of his Father One and the same God is the Person represented by Moses and by Christ. Of the Holy Spirit that fel on the Apostles Of the Trinity The Power Ecclesiasticall is but the power to teach An argument thereof the Power of Christ himself From the name of Regeneration From the compariâ—…on of it with Fishing Leaven Seed Fâ—…om the nature of 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 1. 24. From the Authority Christ hath lâ—…st to Civill Princes What Christians may do to avoid persecution Of Martyrs Argument from the points of their Commission To Preach And Teach To Baptize And to Forgive and Retain Sinnes Mat. 18. 15 16 17. Of Excommunication The use of Excommunication without Civill Power Acts 9. 2. Of no effect upon an Apostate But upon the faithfull only For what fault lyeth Excommunication Ofpersons liaable to Excommunication 1 Sam. 8. Of the Interpreter of the Scriptures before Civil Soveraigns became Christians Of the Power to make Scripture Law Of the Ten Commandements Of the Iudiciall and Leviticall Law The Second Law * 1 Kings 14 26. The Old Testament when made Canonicall The New Testament began to be Canonicall under Christian Soveraigns Of the Power of Councells to make the Scriptures Law John 3. 36. John 3. 18. Of the Right of constituting Ecclesiasticall Officers in the time of the Apostles Matthias made Apostle by the Congregation Paul and Barnabas made Apostles by the Church of Antioch What Offices in the Church are Magisteriall Ordination of Teachers Ministers of the Church what And how chosen Of Ecclesiasticall Revenue under the Law of Moses In our Saviours time and after Mat. 10. 9 10. * Acts 4. 34. The Ministers of the Gospel lived on the Benevolence of their flocks 1 Cor. 9. 13. That the Civill Soveraign being a Christian hath the Right of appointing Pastors The Pastor all Authority of Soveraigns only is de Jure Divino that of other Pastors is Jure Civili Christian Kings have Power to execute all manner of Pastoral function * John 4. 2. * 1 Cor. 1. 14 16. * 1 Câ—…r 1. 17. The Civill Soveraigne if a Christian is head of the Church in his own Dominions Cardinal Bellarmines Books De Summo Pontifice considered The first book The second Book The third Book * Dan. 9. 27. The fourth Book Texts for the Infaâ—…ibility of the Popes Judgement in points of Faith Texts for the same in point of Manners The question of Superiority between the Pope and other Bishops Of the Popes â—…mporall Power The difficulty of obeying God and Man both at once Is none to them that distinguish between what is and what is not Necessary to Salvation All that is Necessary to Salvation is contained in Faith and Obedience What Obedience is Necessary And to what Laws In the Faith of a Christian who is the Person beleeved The causes of Christian Faith Faith comes by Hearing The onely Necessary Article of Christian Faith Proved from the Scope of the Evangelists From the Sermons of the Apostles From the Easinesse of the Doctrine From formall â—…ud cleer texts From that it is the Foundation of all other Articles 2 Pet. 3. v. 7 10 12. In what sense other Articles may be called Nâ—…cessary That Faith and Obedience are both of them Necessary to Salvation What each of them contributes thereunto Obedience to God and to the Civill Soveraign not inconsistent whether Christian Or Infidel The Kingdom of Darknesse what * Eph. 6. 12. * Mat. 12. 26. * Mat. 9. 34. * Eph. 2. 2. * Joh. 16. 11. The Church not yet fully â—…reed of Darknesse Four Causes of Spirituall Darknesse Errors from misinterpreting the Scriptures concerning the Kingdome of God As that the Kingdome of God is the present Church And that the Pope is his Vicar generall And that the Pastors are the Clergy Error from mistaking Consecration for Conjuration Incantation in the Ceremonies of Baptisme And in Marriage in Visitation of the Sick and in Consecration of Places Errors from mistaking Eternall Life and Everlasting Death As the Doctrine of Purgatory and Exorcismes and Invocation of Saints The Texts alledged for the Doctrines aforementioned have been answered before Answer to the text on which Beza inferreth that the Kingdome of Christ began at the Resurrection Explication of the Place in Mark 9. 1. Abuse of some other texts in defence of the Power of the Pope The manner of Consecrations in the Scripture was without Exorcisms The immortality of mans Soule not proved by Scripture to be of Nature but of Grace Eternall Torments what Answer of the Texts alledged for Purgatory Places of the New Testament for Purgatory answered Baptisme for the Dead how understood The Originall of Daemonclogy What were the Daemons of the Ancients How that Doctrine was spread How far received by the Jews John 8. 52. Why our Saviour controlled it not The Scriptures doe not teach that Spirits are Incorporeall The Power of Casting out Devills not the same it was in the Primitive Church Another relique of Gentilisme Worshipping of Images left in the Church not brought into it Answer to certain seeming texts for Images What is Worship Distinction between Divine and Civill Worship An Image what Phantasmes Fictions Materiall Images Idolatry what Scandalous worship of Images Answer 〈◊〉 the Argument from the Cherubins and Brazen Serpent * Exod. 32. 2. * Gen. 31. 30. Painting of Fancies no Idolatry but abusing them to Religious Worship is How Idolatry was left in the Church Canonizing of Saints The name of Pontifex Procession of Images Wax Candles and Torches lighted What Philosophy is Prudence no part of Philosophy No false Doctrine is part of Philosophy No more is Revelation supernaturall Nor learning taken upon credit of Authors Of the Beginnings and Progresse of Philosophy Of the Schools of Philosophy amongst the Athenians Of the Schools of the Jews The Schoole of the Graecians unprofitable The Schools of the Jews unprofitable University what it is Errors brought into Religion from Aristotles Metaphysiques Errors concerning Abstract Essences Nunc-stans One Body in many places and many Bodies in one place at once Absurdities in naturall Philosopy as Gravity the Cause of Heavinesse Quantity put into Body already made Powring in of Soules Ubiquity of Apparition Will the Cause of Willing Ignorance an occult Cause One makes the things incongruent another the Incongruity Private Appetite the rule of Publique good And that lawfull Marriage is Unchastity And that all Government but Popular is Tyranny That not Men but Law governs Laws over the Conscience Private Interpretation of Law Language of Schoole-Divines Errors from Tradition Suppression of Reason He that receiveth Benefit by a Fact is presumed to be the Author That the â—…hurch Militant is the Kingdome of God was first taught by the Church of Rome And maintained also by the Presbytery Infallibility Subjection of Bishops Exemptions of the Clergy The names of Saceâ—…dotes and Sacriâ—… The Sacramentation of Marriage The single life of Priests Auricular Confession Canonization of Saints and declaring of Martyrs Transubstantiation Pennance Absolution Purgatory Indulgences Externall works Daemonology and Exorcism School-Divinity The Authors of spirituall Darknesse who they be Comparison of the Papacy with the Kingdome of Fayries
he observe it not And to speak properly that Law is no Law to him It is therefore necessary to consider in this place what arguments and signes be sufficient for the knowledge of what is the Law that is to say what is the will of the Soveraign as well in Monarchies as in other formes of government And first if it be a Law that obliges all the Subjects without exception and is not written nor otherwise published in such places as they may take notice thereof it is a Law of Nature For whatsoever men are to take knowledge of for Law not upon other mens words but every one from his own reason must be such as is agreeable to the reason of all men which no Law can be but the Law of Nature The Lawes of Nature therefore need not any publishing nor Proclamation as being contained in this one Sentence approved by all the world Do not that to another which thou thinkest unreasonable to be done by another to thy selfe Secondly if it be a Law that obliges only some condition of men or one particular man and be not written nor published by word then also it is a Law of Nature and known by the same arguments and signs that distinguish those in such a condition from other Subjects For whatsoever Law is not written or some way published by him that makes it Law can be known no way but by the reason of him that is to obey it and is therefore also a Law not only Civill but Naturall For Example if the Soveraign employ a Publique Minister without written Instructions what to doe he is obliged to take for Instructions the Dictates of Reason As if he make a Judge The Judge is to take notice that his Sentence ought to be according to the reason of his Soveraign which being alwaies understood to be Equity he is bound to it by the Law of Nature Or if an Ambassador he is in all things not conteined in his written Instructions to take for Instruction that which Reason dictates to be most conducing to his Soveraigns interest and so of all other Ministers of the Soveraignty publique and private All which Instructions of naturall Reason may be comprehended under one name of Fidelity which is a branch of naturall Justice The Law of Nature excepted it belongeth to the essence of all other Lawes to be made known to every man that shall be obliged to obey them either by word or writing or some other act known to proceed from the Soveraign Authority For the will of another cannot be understood but by his own word or act or by conjecture taken from his scope and purpose which in the person of the Common-wealth is to be supposed alwaies consonant to Equity and Reason And in antient time before letters were in common use the Lawes were many times put into verse that the rude people taking pleasure in singing or reciting them might the more easily reteine them in memory And for the same reason Solomon adviseth a man to bind the ten Commandements upon his ten fingers And for the Law which Moses gave to the people of Israel at the renewing of the Covenant * he biddeth them to teach it their Children by discoursing of it both at home and upon the way at going to bed and at rising from bed and to write it upon the posts and dores of their houses and to assemble the people man woman and child to heare it read Nor is it enough the Law be written and published but also that there be manifest signs that it proceedeth from the will of the Soveraign For private men when they have or think they have force enough to secure their unjust designes and convoy them safely to their ambitious ends may publish for Lawes what they please without or against the Legislative Authority There is therefore requisite not only a Declaration of the Law but also sufficient signes of the Author and Authority The Author or Legislator is supposed in every Common-wealth to be evident because he is the Soveraign who having been Constituted by the consent of every one is supposed by every one to be sufficiently known And though the ignorance and security of men be such for the most part as that when the memory of the first Constitution of their Common-wealth is worn out they doe not consider by whose power they use to be defended against their enemies and to have their industry protected and to be righted when injury is done them yet because no man that considers can make question of it no excuse can be derived from the ignorance of where the Soveraignty is placed And it is a Dictate of Naturall Reason and consequently an evident Law of Nature that no man ought to weaken that power the protection whereof he hath himself demanded or wittingly received against others Therefore of who is Soveraign no man but by his own fault whatsoever evill men suggest can make any doubt The difficulty consisteth in the evidence of the Authority derived from him The removing whereof dependeth on the knowledge of the publique Registers publique Counsels publique Ministers and publique Seales by which all Lawes are sufficiently verified Verifyed I say not Authorised for the Verification is but the Testimony and Record not the Authority of the Law which consisteth in the Command of the Soveraign only If therefore a man have a question of Injury depending on the Law of Nature that is to say on common Equity the Sentence of the Judge that by Commission hath Authority to take cogninisance of such causes is a sufficient Verification of the Law of Nature in that individuall case For though the advice of one that professeth the study of the Law be usefull for the avoyding of contention yet it is but advice t is the Judge must tell men what is Law upon the hearing of the Controversy But when the question is of injury or crime upon a written Law every man by recourse to the Registers by himself or others may if he will be sufficiently enformed before he doe such injury or commit the crime whither it be an injury or not Nay he ought to doe so For when a man doubts whether the act he goeth about be just or injust and may informe himself if he will the doing is unlawfull In like manner he that supposeth himself injured in a case determined by the written Law which he may by himself or others see and consider if he complaine before he consults with the Law he does unjustly and bewrayeth a disposition rather to vex other men than to demand his own right If the question be of Obedience to a publique Officer To have seen his Commission with the Publique Seale and heard it read or to have had the means to be informed of it if a man would is a sufficient Verification of his Authority For every man is obliged to doe his best endeavour to informe himself of
power to Baptize Baptized none himselfe but sent his Apostles and Disciples to Baptize So also S. Paul by the necessity of Preaching in divers and far distant places Baptized few Amongst all the Corinthians he Baptized only Crispus Cajus and Stephanus and the reason was because his principall Charge was to Preach Whereby it is manifest that the greater Charge such as is the Government of the Church is a dispensation for the lesse The reason therefore why Christian Kings use not to Baptize is evident and the same for which at this day there are few Baptized by Bishops and by the Pope fewer And as concerning Imposition of Hands whether it be needfull for the authorizing of a King to Baptize and Consecrate we may consider thus Imposition of Hands was a most ancient publique ceremony amongst the Jews by which was designed and made certain the person or other thing intended in a mans prayer blessing sacrifice consecration condemnation or other speech So Jacob in blessing the children of Joseph Gen. 48. 14. Laid his right Hand on Ephraim the younger and his left Hand on Manasseh the first born and this he did wittingly though they were so presented to him by Joseph as he was forced in doing it to stretch out his arms acrosse to design to whom he intended the greater blessing So also in the sacrificing of the Burnt offering Aaron is commanded Exod. 29. 10. to Lay his Hands on the head of the bullock and ver 15. to Lay his Hand on the head of the ramme The same is also said again Levit. 1. 4. 8. 14. Likewise Moses when he ordained Joshua to be Captain of the Israelites that is consecrated him to Gods service Numb 27. 23. Laid his Hands upon him and gave him his Charge designing and rendring certain who it was they were to obey in war And in the consecration of the Levites Numb 8. 10. God commanded that the Children of Israel should Put their Hands upon the Levites And in the condemnation of him that had blasphemed the Lord Levit. 24. 14. God commanded that all that heard him should Lay their Hands on his head and that all the Congregation should stone him And why should they only that heard him Lay their Hands upon him and not rather a Priest Levite or other Minister of Justice but that none else were able to design and demonstrate to the eyes of the Congregation who it was that had blasphemed and ought to die And to design a man or any other thing by the Hand to the Eye is lesse subject to mistake than when it is done to the Eare by a Name And so much was this ceremony observed that in blessing the whole Congregation at once which cannot be done by Laying on of Hands yet Aaron Levit. 9. 22. did lift up his Hand towards the people when he blessed them And we read also of the like ceremony of Consecration of Temples amongst the Heathen as that the Priest laid his Hands on some post of the Temple all the while he was uttering the words of Consecration So naturall it is to design any individuall thing rather by the Hand to assure the Eyes than by Words to inform the Eare in matters of Gods Publique service This ceremony was not therefore new in our Saviours time For Jairus Mark 5. 23. whose daughter was sick besought our Saviour not to heal her but to ay h is Hands upon her that shee might bee healed And Matth. 19. 13. they brought unto him little children that hee should Put his Hands on them and Pray According to this ancient Rite the Apostles and Presbyters and the Presbytery it self Laid Hands on them whom they ordained Pastors and withall prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost and that not only once but sometimes oftner when a new occasion was presented but the end was still the same namely a punctuall and religious designation of the person ordained either to the Pastorall Charge in general or to a particular Mission so Act. 6. 6. The Apostles Prayed and Laid their Hands on the seven Deacons which was done not to give them the Holy Ghost for they were full of the Holy Ghost before they were chosen as appeareth imdiately before verse 3. but to design them to that Office And after Philip the Deacon had converted certain persons in Samaria Peter and John went down Act 8. 17. and Laid their Hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost And not only an Apostle but a Presbyter had this power For S. Paul adviseth Timothy 1 Tim. 5. 22. Lay Hands suddenly on no man that is designe no man rashly to the Office of a Pastor The whole Presbytery Laid their Hands on Timothy as we read 1 Tim. 4. 14. but this is to be understood as that some did it by the appointment of the Presbytery and most likely their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Prolocutor which it may be was St. Paul himself For in his 2 Epist. to Tim. ver 6. he saith to him Stirre up the gift of God which is in thee by the Laying on of my Hands where note by the way that by the Holy Ghost is not meant the third Person in the Trinity but the Gifts necessary to the Pastorall Office We read also that St. Paul had Imposition of Hands twice once from Ananias at Damascus Acts 9. 17 18. at the time of his Baptisme and again Acts 13. 3. at Antioch when he was first sent out to Preach The use then of this ceremony considered in the Ordination of Pastors was to design the Person to whom they gave such Power But if there had been then any Christian that had had the Power of Teaching before the Baptizing of him that is the making him a Christian had given him no new Power but had onely caused him to preach true Doctrine that is to use his Power aright and therefore the Imposition of Hands had been unnecessary Baptisme it selfe had been sufficient But every Soveraign before Christianity had the power of Teaching and Ordaining Teachers and therefore Christianity gave them no new Right but only directed them in the way of teaching Truth and consequently they needed no Imposition of Hands besides that which is done in Baptisme to authorize them to exercise any part of the Pastorall Function as namely to Baptize and Consecrate And in the Old Testament though the Priest only had right to Consecrate during the time that the Soveraignty was in the High Priest yet it was not so when the Soveraignty was in the King For we read 1 Kings 8. That Solomon Blessed the People Consecrated the Temple and pronounced that Publique Prayer which is the pattern now for Consecration of all Christian Churches and Chappels whereby it appears he had not only the right of Ecclesiasticall Government but also of exercising Ecclesiasticall Functions From this consolidation of the Right Politique and Ecclesiastique in Christian Soveraigns it is evident they