and by their honest Industry make Provision for those who depend on them AND then lastly for bodily Torments and Persecutions you need not be told what a Misery that is for your own Sense will inform you how dolorous it is to Flesh and Blood to be cruelly scourged beaten and abused to be pinched with Hunger harrassed with Labour and dispirited for Want of necessary Ease and Refreshment and therefore as Mercy binds you by the strictest Obligations not to inflict these Evils upon your Children or Servants or any others that are in your Power and Disposal so it also engages you to endeavour the Relief of all such unhappy Persons whom you know to be thus cruelly treated to intercede in their behalf with those their hard-hearted Parents Masters or Conquerors by whom they are thus unmercifully dealt with to remonstrate to them their Cruelty and Inhumanity and to endeavour by such Arguments as are most likely to affect them to reduce them to a more merciful Temper and Treatment and if in despight of your Arguments they still persist in their Cruelty to use all just and lawful ways to curb and restrain them to complain of them to those who have power to Correct them and to rescue the miserable Wretches out of their Power and Disposal AND then as for those who are unjustly perfecuted for their Conscience and Religion who to secure their Souls and their Loyalty to God and their Saviour are forced to fly from their Habitations and Countries or to submit themselves to Spoil and Depredation to Imprisonment and Famine Torture and Death these doubtless are of all others the greatest Objects of our Mercy because they suffer for our common Master and in our common Cause which ought to be dearer to us than our own Lives because our Religion suffers with them and what they suffer we must suffer unless we will renounce our Religion if ever we are reduced to their Circumstances And can we with unconcerned Hearts behold our persecuted Brethren flying into our Arms for Succour before the mighty Nimrods of the Earth with their Souls their Consciences and their Religion in their Hands and with pitiful Looks beseeching us to deliver them from the dreadful Dilemma they are put to of delivering up their Souls or Bodies for a Prey without Agonies of Pity and Compassion And if we have any Mercy or Compassion for them by what more suitable Acts can we express it than by a kind and welcome Reception of those who fly to us for Succour and a free and liberal Contribution towards their Relief and Subsistence and by assisting those with the Charity of our Prayers whom we cannot reach with the Charity of our Alms or as the Apostle expresses it by remembring those that are in bonds that is so as to pity them and pray for them and if it were in our Power so as to visit and comfort and relieve them as being bound with them and also with the same effect to remember those that suffer Adversity as being our selves also in the body Heb. xiii 3. IV. ANOTHER of the Miseries which affect Mens Bodies is Civil or Arbitrary Punishments inflicted on them for Injuries received For all considerable Injuries do give us a Right to punish the Of-Offender either by due course of Law or else immediately by our own Power and Authority If by Nature or Compact the Offender be put under our Power and Disposal his offence giveth us a Right to correct him by our own Authority if not his offence giveth us Right to appeal to the Publick Tribunals and there to exact of him such Penalties as the Law denounces in the case Now because Mens Souls are out of the reach of all Humane Punishments and liable only to the lash of the Father of Spirits therefore we can exact no other Penalties of Offenders but only such as do affect their Bodies with Shame or Pain with loss of bodily Goods or wearisome Labour or confinement of Liberty all which being Miseries to the Body are proper Objects of our Compassion and Mercy And what Mercy these Miseries require may be easily collected from the natural End of Punishment which is not so much to offend the Guilty as to defend the Innocent not so much to hurt or damnifie the Offender as to restrain him from hurting himself or others and to warn others by the Example of his Punishment not to imitate the Example of his Offence So that according to its true and natural Design Punishment is rather an act of Mercy than an act of Revenge the End of it being to do good and not to retaliate evil to defend my self or others against the Offenders or else to defend the Offenders against themselves or to defend others against the prevailing Infection of their lewd and pernicious Examples and whosoever punishes to vent and ease his Spleen or gratifie his Malice with the Hurt and Mischief of the Offender transgresses the End of punishment and under pretence of Iustice Sacrifices to his own Cruelty No Man hath Right to do another Hurt unless it be necessary to some good End for to hurt without any Reason is a brutish Savageness and to hurt without a good Reason devilish Rancour he therefore who hurts another merely to hurt him acts with the intention of a Devil who doth mischief for mischiefs sake and plagues his wretched Vassals merely to recreate himself with their Miseries and pacifie his own black Rage and Malice Since therefore the End of punishment is doing good it ought to be executed with a good Will and a kind and benevolent Intention not to discharge our Rage or tickle and recreate our Malice but either to vindicate our own Right or to reclaim the Offender or to terrifie others from his sin by his Sufferings This therefore is the first thing which the Law of Mercy requires of us in respect to our punishing Offenders that we should always do it with a good and benevolent Intention But then II. IT also requires us not to exact Punishment for small and trifling Offences for since the End of Punishment is doing good it is Cruelty to exact it for slight and inconsiderable Evils because in this case the Punishment is a greater Hurt than the Offence And what Reason can I have to hurt another for such small Offences as do little or no hurt either to my self or others but only to gratifie my own Revenge and Malice As for instance suppose that in a heat of Passion a Man should give me the Lye or call me by an ill Name or treat me with reproachful Language and thereupon I should strike or wound him or prosecute him with with a vexatious Suit at Law in this case it is plain my Punishment would hurt him more than his Offence could hurt me and consequently my Design in punishing him would be to do Hurt and not Good and to design to do Hurt is Malice and Cruelty Wherefore in case of lighter
we are obliged in Justice not to maim or destroy or captivate one another's bodies unless it be in the necessary defence of our own Lives Estates or Liberties not to deprive one another of our necessary Livelyhood and Subsistence but out of our Abundance to supply the pinching Necessities of the Poor and Needy These things we owe one another as we are all the Tenants of God sent down into this lower World and quartered in these Houses of Clay and if we rob one another of what we are thus intitled to by the present State and Condition of our Being we are extremely unjust to God and to each other Again as we are rational Creatures united to each other by natural Relations we are obliged to render to each other all those Respects and Duties which the Nature of our Relation calleth for as we are Parents to love and instruct and make suitable provisions for our Children as we are Children to love and reverence succour and obey our Parents as we are Brethren or natural Kindred to love and honour succour and relieve one another and if we with-hold from each other any of these Rights or dues which the nature of our Relation calleth for we make an injurious Inroad upon the most sacred Rights and Inclosures of Nature Lastly as we are Rational Creatures united to one another by natural Society we owe Love and Peace Truth and Credit Protection and Participation of Profit to one another Whilst therefore we hate and malign and vex and disturb each other whilst we lye and equivocate and violate our Promises and Oaths whilst we refuse to defend each other's Lives Estates or Reputation and usurp all the profits of our Exchange and Intercourse not allowing those whom we deal with a sufficient share to subsist and live by we trample upon all the Natural Rights of humane Society and demean our selves as open Enemies and Out-Laws to Mankind WHEREFORE in the name of God if in this degenerate Age whereinto we are fallen Christianity hath quite lost its just Power and Dominion over us let us be honest Heathens at least though we resolve to be no longer Christians if we will needs be deaf to the voice of our revealed Religion yet for shame let us attend to the voice of our Nature and not leap down at once from the Perfection of Christians into the wretched Condition of Beasts and Devils O for the Love of God and the Honour of those noble Natures he hath given us stop at Men at least though you are fallen from Christian and do not by your Cruelty and Inhumanity Frauds and Calumnies Oppressions Lyes and shameless Perjuries at the least approach towards that at which Humanity starteth with horror and amazement do not defame and scandalize your Natures and render your selves a shame and reproach to the name of Men by these your outragious Invasions of the common Rights of Humane Nature CHAP. IV. Of Justice as it preserves the Acquired Rights of Men and particularly those which arise from Sacred and Civil Relations I PROCEED now to the second sort of Humane Rights which Justice between Man and Man relateth to viz. such as are not Natural to them either as Rational Creatures or as dwelling in Mortal Bodies or as joyned to one another by natural Relations or as naturally united in Society but are acquired subsequently to the Rights of Nature by that mutual Intercourse which passeth between Men in their Society with one another Which Rights though they are not Natural but Accidental are yet founded on the Rights of Nature and therefore ought to be preserved as sacredly and as inviolably as these for whatsoever Rights Men do acquire in the performance of the common Rights of Nature are equivalent with them as being founded on the same Reasons Now all those Rights which are not Natural are acquired one of these ways either First by Sacred and Civil Relations or Secondly by Legal Possession or Thirdly by Personal Accomplishments or Fourthly by outward Rank and Quality or Fifthly by Bargaining and Compact I. THERE are some Rights acquired by Sacred and Civil Relations and of these there are several sorts First There is the Relation of Sovereign and Subject Secondly Of subordinate Magistrates to the Sovereign and People Thirdly Of Pastors and People Fourthly Of Husband and Wife Fifthly Of Friend and Friend Sixthly Of Masters and Servants Seventhly Of Truster and Trustee Eightly Of Benefactor and Receiver Ninthly There is the Relation of Debtor and Creditor of the proper Rights of each of which Relations I shall give as brief an Account as I can I. THERE is the Relation of Sovereign and Subject which is the highest and most Sacred of all those Relations that are not natural For God being the Supreme Lord and Sovereign of the World all lawful Power and Authority must be derived from him for as in particular Kingdoms the King is the Fountain of Authority from whence executive Power descendeth upon subordinate Magistrates so in the universal Monarchy of the World God is the Fountain of all Power and Dominion from whom all Authority and Right of Government descendeth upon Princes and Governours and whosoever exerciseth Dominion in the World without Divine Authority is an Usurper in the Kingdom of God But then the Derivation of this Authority from Him is either immediate or mediate those who are supreme under Him derive their Authority immediately from Him and are the Channels by whose Mediation he deriveth Authority to their subordinate Magistrates so that the subordinate Magistrates of particular Kingdoms derive their Authority from God by the hands of their Kings but the Kings themselves derive theirs from God's own hands immediately and whatever the particular form of any Government be whether it be Monarchy or Polyarchy that which is supreme in it under God must be immediately from him So far from true is that modern Maxim of some Jesuited Politicians viz. That Civil Government is the Peoples Creature which by necessary Consequence excludeth God from being the supreme Governor of the World for if He be absolutely Supreme there is none can be Supreme immediately under Him but by an Authority derived immediately from him So that the Relation of Sovereign hath this Right unalienably appendant to it to be accountable to none but God from whom alone it holdeth its Authority and to whom alone it is subjected And therefore for Subjects to call their Sovereign to account is both to arraign God's Authority and to invade his Peculiar to set our selves down in his Throne and summon his Authority before us and require it to submit its awful Head to our Doom and Sentence which is as high and impious an Injustice as can be offered either to God or Man and till Popery that fardle of religious Impostures set Treason and Rebellion abroach as abhorrent to all Christian Principles and Practices as Hell is to Heaven or Darkness to Light But then since Sovereigns are God's Vicegerents
and do Reign by his Authority they have also an inseparable Right to be obeyed in all things wherein they do not interfere with the Commands of God for in obeying them we obey God who commandeth by their Mouths and willeth by their Laws and Edicts and as he who refuseth to obey the Vice-Roy's command doth in so doing disobey the King himself unless he commandeth the contrary so he who disobeyeth his Sovereign who is God's Vice-Roy doth in so doing disobey God unless it be where God hath countermanded him So that while he commandeth only lawful things he hath an undoubted Right to be obeyed because his Commands are stamped with Divine Authority and are thereby rendered sacred and inviolable Again since Sovereigns are the supreme Representatives of God's Power and Majesty upon Earth as being his immediate Substitutes they have also an unalienable Right to be honoured and reverenced by their Subjects because they bear God's Character and do shine with the Rays of his Majesty before which every Creature in Heaven and Earth ought to bow and lye prostrate and therefore for Subjects to contemn and vilifie their Sovereigns to expose their faults and uncover their nakedness and Lampoon and Libel their Persons and Actions is an Affront to God's own Majesty and an unjust and impious Prophanation of that Divine Character they bear about them Once more since Sovereigns are substituted by God for the Common Good to protect the Innocent and avenge the Injured and guard the Rights of their People against Foreign and Intestine Fraud and Violence they must hereupon have an undoubted Right to be aided and assisted by their Subjects because without their Aid it will be impossible for them to accomplish the Ends of their Sovereignty And therefore for Subjects to refuse to Aid their Sovereign with their Purses or Persons when legally required or by any indirect means to withdraw themselves from his Assistance whenever his Necessities call for it is to detain from him a just Right that is owing to his Character and Relation And as these Rights are all implyed in the Relation of a Sovereign so are there others implyed in the Relation of a Subject for Sovereign Power being ordained by God for a publick Good to guard and defend the Innocent to shelter and relieve the Oppressed to fence and propagate true Religion and adjust and ballance private Rights and Interests Every Subject hath a Right to be protected by it so far as it is able in his Person and Legal Rights in his just Liberties and Privileges and sincere Profession of true Religion and that Sovereign who doth not employ his power to these purposes but through wilful and affected Error or Ignorance imposeth a false Religion on his People or betrayeth oppresseth or inslaveth them himself or permits others to do it either out of Malice or Carelesness is an injurious Invader of their Rights and Properties and though he be not accountable to any Earthly Tribunal shall one day answer for it at the Tribunal of God II. THERE is the Relation of Subordinate Magistrates to the Sovereign and People such are the Judges and Justices the Governours of Towns Cities and Provinces and the like who by vertue of that Authority which is stamped upon them and which they derive as I told you from God who is the Head and Spring of all Power and Dominion have by vertue of that a Right to be honoured and reverenced and obeyed by the People according to the Degree and extent of their Authority For wherever it is placed Authority is a Sacred thing as being a Ray and Impress of the Divine Majesty and as such may justly claim honour and reverence from all Men and whoever contemneth the lowest Degree of it offereth an Affront to the highest He who contemneth Subordinate Magistrates who are vested with the King's Authority doth therein contemn the King and he who contemneth the King who is vested with God's Authority doth therein contemn God Whatsoever therefore the personal faults and defects of Magistrates may be Men ought to consider that their Authority is a Sacred thing and as such challengeth their Reverence and Obedience by an unalienable Right and that therefore to behave themselves frowardly stubbornly or irreverently towards a lawful Magistrate is to detain from him his Rights and offer an unjust Affront to his Character which how good soever they may be in other Instances doth in this bespeak them highly dishonest and injurious And as the Relation of Subordinate Magistrates intitleth them to the Peoples Reverence and Obedience so the Relation which the Prince and People bear to them intitleth them both to their Fidelity Vigilance and Iustice. For Subordinate Magistrates are the King's Trustees for himself and his People and in their hands he depositeth the Honour Security and Rights of his own Crown and Dominion together with the Safeguard and Protection of the Just and Legal Rights of his People So that upon their acceptance of this Trust by which they engage themselves faithfully to discharge it the King acquireth a Right to their faithful and vigilant Care to see that his Authority be Reverenced his Laws Obeyed his Person Government and Properties Secured the People acquire a Right to be Protected by them in their Persons Reputations Liberties and Estates and so far as they are wilfully failing either towards the King or the People in any of these Matters they do unjustly detain the King's or the Peoples Rights or both they betray the Trust committed to them falsifie their own Engagements and under the Mask of Authority are publick Robbers of Mankind III. THERE is the Relation of Pastors and People for since out of his tender care to the Souls of Men God hath instituted an Order of Men to Administer to them those holy Ordinances by which he conveyeth his Grace and Spirit to instruct them in their Duties admonish them of their Errors and warn them of their Dangers and guide them to eternal Happiness there doth from hence arise a near and sacred Relation between the People and their respective Guides and Pastors They are joined together by the Tyes and Obligations of Religion which giveth them a mutual Right in one another and which giveth the Pastor a Right to be diligently attended to by the People in his religious Ministrations to be Construed in the best Sense and fairly treated and complyed with in all his pious Reproofs and Admonitions to be honoured and reverenced for his Work 's sake to partake with the People in their Temporals as they do with him in his Spirituals and to be supported by them according to their Ability with a fair and honourable Maintenance and they who are wanting to their Pastor in any of these particulars deprive him of that which is as much his Right in Conscience as any thing can be theirs in Law And then as for the People They have also a Right to have holy Things duly and regularly Administred to them
of its benign Influences and altogether indisposed to be wrought upon by it For as the Sun enlightens not the inward parts of an impervious Dunghil and hath no other effect upon it but only to draw out its filthy Reeks and Steams though as soon as he lifts his head above the Hemisphere he immediately transforms into his own Likeness all that vast Space whether he can diffuse his Beams and turns it into a Region of Light even so the divine Glory and Beauty which is the Object of the beatifical Vision will never illustrate lewd and filthy Souls their Temper being impervious unto his heavenly Irradiations and wholly indisposed to be enlightned by it but instead of that it will irritate their devilish Rage against it and provoke them to bark at that Light which they cannot endure whereas it no sooner arises upon well-disposed Minds but it will immediately chase away all those Reliques of Darkness remaining in them and transform them into its own Likeness But doubtless the Sight of the divine Purity and Goodness will be so far from exciting sensual and devilish Spirits to transcribe and imitate it that it will rather inspire them with Indignation against it and provoke them to curse and blaspheme the Author of it Fourthly and Lastly IN every sensual and devilish Soul there is an utter Incongruity and Disagreement to the Society of the Spirits of just Men made perfect For even in this Life we see how ungrateful the Society of good Men is unto those that are wicked it spoils them of their fulsome Mirth and checks them in those Riots and Scurrilities which are the Life and Piquancy of their Conversation So that when the good Man takes his leave they reckon themselves deliver'd his Presence being a Confinement to their Folly and Wickedness And as it is in this so doubtless it will be in the other World for how is it possible there should be any Agreement between such distant and contrary Tempers between such sensual and malicious and such pure and benigne Spirits What a Torment would it be to a spightful and devilish Spirit to be confined to a Society that is governed by the Laws of Love and Friendship What an Infelicity to a carnalized Soul that nauseates all Pleasures but what are fleshly and sensual to be shut up among those pure and abstracted Spirits that live wholly upon the Pleasures of Wisdom and Holiness and Love Doubtless it would be as agreeable to a Wolf to be governed by the Ten Commandments and fed with Lectures of Philosophy as for such a Soul to live under the Laws and be entertained with the Delights of the heavenly Society So that could these wicked Spirits be admitted into the Company of the Blessed they would soon be weary of it and perhaps it would be so tedious and irksom to them that they would rather chuse to associate themselves with Devils and damned Ghosts than to undergoe the Torment of a Conversation so infinitely repugnant to their Natures accounting it more eligible to live in the dismal Clamour of hellish Threnes and Blasphemies than to have a tedious Din of heavenly Praises and Hallelujahs perpetually ringing in their Ears And indeed considering the hellish Nature of a wicked Soul how contrary it is to the Goodness and Purity of Heaven I have sometimes been apt to think that it will be less miserable in those dismal Shades where the wretched Furies like so many Snakes and Adders do nothing but hiss at and sting one another for ever than it would be were it admitted into the glorious Society of heavenly Lovers whose whole Conversation consists in loving and reloving and is nothing else but a perpetual Intercourse of mutual Indearments For this would be an Employment so infinitely repugnant to its black and devilish Disposition that rather than endure so much Outrage and Violence it would of its own accord forsake the blessed Abodes to flee to Hell for Sanctuary from the Torment of being in Heaven But this however we may rationally conclude that so long as the prevailing Temper of our Souls is sensual and devilish we are incapable of the Society of blessed Spirits and that if it were possible for us to be admitted into it our Condition would be very unhappy till our Temper was chang'd so that it is a plain Case both from God's Ordination and from the Nature of the Thing that our eternal Happiness and Welfare depends upon our mortifying the deeds of the Body To offer some Practical Inferences from hence I. WE may perceive how unreasonable it is for any Man to presume upon going to Heaven upon any account whatsoever without mortifying his Lusts. For he that thinks to go to Heaven without Mortification and Amendment presumes both against the Decrees of God and the Nature of Things he believes all the Threatnings of the Gospel to be nothing else but so many Bugs and Scare-crows and though God hath told him again and again that unless he forsake his sins he shall never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven yet he fondly imagines that when it comes to the Trial God will never be so severe as he pretends but will rather revoke the Decree that is gone out of his mouth than exclude out of the Paradise of endless Delights a Soul that is infinitely offensive to him As if God were so invincibly fond and indulgent as that rather than excommunicate an obstinate Rebel from Happiness he would chuse to prostitute the Honour of his Laws and Government and commit an Outrage upon the Rectitude and Purity of his own Nature For so long as he is a pure God he cannot but be displeased with impure Souls and so long as he is a wise Governour he cannot but be offended with those that trample upon his Laws so that before he can admit a wicked Soul into Heaven he must have extinguish'd all his natural Antipathy to Sin and stifled his just Resentment of our wilful Affronts to his Authority When therefore we can find any reason to imagine that God is no Enemy to sin and that he hath no regard of his own Authority then and not till then we may have some Pretence to presume upon going to Heaven without Mortification and Amendment But supposing this Hinderance were removed and that God were so easie as to be induced to prefer the Happiness of a wicked Soul before the Honour of his Government and the Purity of his Nature yet still there is an invincible Obstacle behind that renders her future Felicity impossible and that is that it cannot be without a plain Contradiction to the Nature of Things For as I have shewed you already the Genius and Temper of a wicked Soul is wholly repugnant to all the Felicities of the other World so that if they were set before her She would not be able to enjoy them but must be forced to pine and famish amidst all that Plenty of Delights there being not one Viand in all