before that so upon a due comparison of his condition to that of others he may make a true estimate and judgement of a method and way of discourse and delivery most fit for the others instruction therein From all which we may discover that some of late have been too inconsiderately hasty in their censures put upon those ancient assignments of wisdom and knowledge to the heart There is no doubt but when God calls for and claims mens hearts to be exercised his service and worship and when Solomon prays for an understanding heart to know good evil but that both of them did very well know whence our actions and indeavours took their source and original that is from the affections and as our moral abearances as well one towards another as in carrying our selves in a right and steady course of subjection towards God was the thing chiefly aimed at and not Philosophical speculation so may we finde reason why we should be so often minded of searching and examining our hearts because from them and the affections therein abiding the issues of life and death did proceed And certainly had Solomon been endued with a little more melancholy hesitation and suffered the passion of fear to have been more often made use of as a stop and temperament to those jolities and enjoyments which in his greatness were so frequently presented unto him as the objects of hope and desire and had not so inconsiderately trusted to his own heart he would have proved himself more wise then by that book written of all things from the Cedar in Lebanon to the Moss on the Wall If he had I say but suffered the reverential fear of offending God to have come in with an arrest of judgement and so by its counterpoise call him to a deliberate examination before execution he would then no doubt have been as happy and famous for the wise guidance of himself and for giving a right sentence between his Passions and Affections within and at home as he was in that sentence he gave between the Harlots In which case of advisement and deliberation we may look upon the Brain as the Judgement-seat where the Affections in competition being by the heart summoned to plead each one calls up and assists it self with such figurate Presidents and Examples as it thinks fit to imploy as evidences on its own side the heart as from a majestick Throne or Tribunal may be supposed to give that determination which is called Will. But it is by the way to be conceived that when the Ancients attributed Wisdom to the Heart as the seat of affections and the source from whence appetites and actions did proceed they then reputed it as the noblest and chief of the inward parts and did not thereby intend to deny that serviceableness both for raising and resenting of objects which come from the stomack the Diaphragm and other membranous and highly sensible parts nor how other Affections by long contract may be induced upon other parts of the body even as that more natural resentment of the kinde before spoken of may be by this means well thought seated in the Liver But now to make farther application of some of these Discourses since Affections have arisen for the most part from society and the example and imitation of others it seems most requisite that in society such means of prevention should be used that their exorbitance be not the destruction therof Our general custom of living is that which pleaseth us even upon no other reason but because it is so and is the ground of what in each Nation called Fundamental and Common Law that is to say common custom Now although a man may love his own home or manner of living better then another yet to be confined to the same house food c. would be but imprisonment so the desire of Liberty in sociable living is the same with that of variety in private usages and Liberty in Government is nothing else but freedom of choice to follow mine own will in the various prosecution of mine own customs And publike Law is nothing else but the restraint of this liberty in some particular usages For the Laws of no Government prescribe to men all they shall do or forbear but onely direct and stint them in such and such practises wherein custom and affection to some things above others were otherwise like to prevail upon them to publike prejudice And so again since understanding is as beforeshewed so fallible and must be so differing in its grounds it will appear necessary for avoiding contention and disturbance that each one in things of common concern do submit to a common understanding For in this case we may regard the appetites and affections as they are conceived in the subjects in their separate orders and factions to be unto the Prince as those single figurate objects or inductions conceived in each ones brain which are not to carry any peremptoriness of conclusion as in themselves but to serve as evidences and instances of choice unto him how to proceed in the execution of them as they shall be found agreeable and approved by his experimented method and rule of publike good So that in all differences which shall arise between one order and another or between party and party in the Kingdom the King is in the body politick to resemble the heart in the body natural in bearing sway and determination between the disagreeing affections and interests of his subjects after the same manner as Solomon did between the Harlots as before set down By which means subjects enuring themselves to a constant way of decision and reconciling of differences and thereby also being reduced into a constant course in the observation of uniform and fixed Laws Custom of observation and practise will make the same generally pleasant upon the like reason that through use each mans particular customs were to him pleasant before insomuch as it may be a doubt whether all customs were not from positive Laws at first so that men having from the usual practise of their superiors commands throughly habituated themselves therein they may at last be thought to perform them with delight the Law it self becoming exolete and forgotten as to its letter and affection and custom serving to the upholding thereof And this may seem the reason also why not onely one kingdom differs from another in Customs and Fundamentals but divers places of the same kingdom do differ amongst themselves namely from divers Authorities which have therein born sway And as in nature we may observe that such Creatures as have dread of others are notwithstanding by cohabitation brought to liking of each others company so when the first terrors of oppression and severity which all Government is accompanied with are by indurance made familiar as commonly coming under the rate they were feared it comes then to be so pleasant also that all governable people will be found averse from change Whereas else if
injustice of some particular persons hath hitherto deprived me of In the mean time as in many other of my afflictions I have found the good hand of Providence turning all things for the best and bringing good out of evil so do I now with greater comfort submit to this diversion as foreseeing that if I had not upon these unhappy occasions been brought to discourse of the sins and remedies of uncharitableness and disobedience the usual consequents of plenty and pleasure I should then it is like have been so taken up with mens more general and more present and sensible contents arising by the other as to have rested inconsiderate and silent of these mischiefs which the enjoyments in this kinde might produce In these and other speculations and discourses as I may generally say that I am neither Thief nor prisoner to the Text or Tenet of any man so do I desire to be understood that I was not hereunto induced through arrogance or affected singularity but the small proficience in Arts towards mans use and the daily failing of publick peace and agreement notwithstanding those Rules and Maxims hitherto delivered together with the diversity of opinions concerning them causeed me for a while to lay aside all Authority but that of Scripture or Reason to see what a new disquition from these would afford In any of which if too great zeal to the Cause and end in hand have led me into error and to deviate and transcend these my propounded warrants I do here profess to be ingenuously ready to acknowledge my self a debtor to any sober and reasonable conviction In the mean time I am expecting that some mens interest should lead them to clamour and outcry on my more severe dissections made towards the cure of publick Peace which have been by others but slightly healed and skinned over But as many Land discoveries had not been had not some more daring travellers adventured beyond the road of common belief and opinion so to the increase of knowledge a latitude of enquiry and judgement must be allowed although it may in some things thwart the ordinary current of tradition For I finde that Truth and Knowledge have not a greater and more common enemy then fear of reproach that is whilst writers through fear of contradiction strive to confine themselves to the sense of such as they hold of greatest reputation for ability in that whereof they treat they leave but where they begun and proceed with such wariness to themselves that it makes them forget the errand they go about which is the farther infirmation and benefit of others In my following Discourse as I undertake to cleer things from the sinister constructions which ambitious heads have heretofore given so I doubt not but I shall be by many therein construed and my Arguments prejudiced as if coming from a Court or a Kings parasite and an a better to Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government But because they that are so do it in hope of reward from those they flatter and my self not having any encouragement therein from the present fortune or affection of any now I know not why any should think me less indulgent to my self and posterity as considered in this common relation then others to theirs so as to imploy so much labour to court and countenance our common misery For could it ever have entred into a steady thought to have enthralled whole mankinde as they stand separated amongst us in Kingdoms to no other end then to advance here and there a single person to dignity in comparison of whom thousands of themselves were and might ordinarily be presumed superior in merit And I must confess I was my self a great while pleased with the seeming reasonableness of such like common maxims how unfit it was that all should be subject to the arbitrary Government of any one and much attentive I was to all those fine inventions and contrivances for his constraint herein but when I saw that Soveraingnty must at last be somewhere and that to divide it if it might be was not to lessen but to encrease its yoak when I saw that Covernment a Government must be Arbitrary I then concluded that the burthen of one Tyrant if it must be so was easier then that of many I am not ignorant of the natural sweetness of Liberty not in man onely but in all things that have life and sense For to what end these if when by them I am made perceptible of a benefit to my self I shall at the will of another be deprived and but rendred the more miserable by being desirous It were no doubt a happy estate could a man tell how to fancy it without utter extirpation of Nature if there were sufficient of things created not onely to satisfie the use but to satiate the most greedy appetite of each thing living in such sort that each one might not covet any thing enjoyed by his equal or of others above him It were then again necessary for compleating universal content that each one had over each and every one such full and absolute Dominion that he could not by any aversion of Power or Will in them be restrained Seem these things as large and as impossible for performance as they will yet appetite as appetite cannot otherwise stint it self but the desire for enjoyment possession of power over all things and persons is as natural as over any one Creatures below us have their appetites but few so that in injoying what they seek they are but seldom and then not lasting disturbers of one another But as for man there is not from the greatest to the lowest any that desireth not the increase of his power and he that like Alexander should command all would not yet rest both from wishing more worlds to command and it is like had he been entred among the Gods would have strove for command there also Look we to things again how shall we think what is within the verge of humane reach should now pease all men when all of it formerly could not please one For so our first Parents themselves must encroach on the propriety of Deity in desiring to know good and evil And think we yet that the poorest creature living would not be immortal if the flaming sword of impossibility kept him not off But now as nature hath bordered us by her Law of irresistability so that age sickness infirmities with all their attendants are not by any attempt or insurrection of ours against her avoidable even so I could wish that some way might be had to prevent mens risings against one another Yet then since some must be subject to others what course can we fancy to make them subject and not subject that is that their obedience shall be their liberty shall we wish that every man had his desires in all things so moderated that having or not having or his having or anothers having were alike contentible then indeed would no subjection be
and preservation that action that tends to the more universal Preservation of the Species having greater delight annexed to it then that of food that maintains the individual only So that Creation is but Providence begun as Providence is but Creaation compleat and however Creation did precede Providence in the execution yet doth Providence that in dignity as being the end and aym thereof even as that again is excelled by its end also which the glory of God CHAP. III. Of particular or self Providence AS the Preservation of the several Races and Kindes of Creatures was unto the continuance and supply of the whole Creation necessary So again to the Preservation of each Species the Preservation of Individuals was necessary also and that consequently there should be appetites implanted in them leading thereunto For although some lower sort of creatures have no individual Perfections at all to seek but as parts of a greater mass being parcels of earth water stone mettals c. have with things of like kindes their welfares by Nature readily furnished yet creatures of life which thereupon come to be called individuals must have this appetite of Self-good and Preservation conferred on it with such degrees of intention as to aim at the utmost Perfection in its power without such sense of duty elsewhere as might cause it to intermit its proper care and it may be in its divided endeavour be negligent of the good of both For to think there could be separate subsistences and yet depend on forreign Preservation only were impossible because if Thomas his being should depend on Johns Johns must again depent on Williams and so infinitely till one Person had all dependencies which should not then be many but one man Or should they reciprocally change and the reason and will that Thomas now hath be in William and so Williams in Thomas or John how should either know the others wants and consequently provide for his good and safety And therefore this endowment of separate-sense will and understanding whereby each particular is enabled to provide and have regard unto it self apart makes it manifest that the maintenance of Creatures as before said was necessary to be kept up by this appetite of self-seeking and following a private end and soveraign good respective to it self only For although the many mischiefs hereafter to be spoken of arose from hence yet on the other side was it the fountain of all the good they had inasmuch as good men we cannot be except we be men and well-being must presuppose being which had herein its necessary foundation It was again necessary in maintenance of that variety of Creation and of that Oeconomy and rule of Providence God had appointed For should all creatures have passively and unwittingly followed impulsive directions as inanimates do their Instincts and Properties this had been to overthrow Sense Reason and Will as things useless and to forbid the Almighties goodness in some resemblance to himself to make creatures sensible of felicity and thereupon lessening our benefit so should it abate his praise and thanks And further it would stint the race of Creatures from coming above that of Vegetables Or should God have furnished all creatures with reason sufficâ—ent to have known good and evil perfectly unto the degree of Angels so as to have followed it without reluctancy in themselves or injury to others this had been to overthrow both man and all degrees of Species below him Or should again all creatures have had sense and an end apart of their own to follow this must have put a great stop to those many affordments and offices which inanimates now supply to sensitives as seemâ—ng made wholly for them For so for example should the Sun the Earth the Water c. have had private and self-desires would not the good of both vegetives and sensitives be interrupted and many times fore-slowed And so also if vegetives should have had life and thereupon sense of those many sufferings which the continual imployments of men and other sensitives put them unto both for food and otherwise would it not on the other hand have been inconsistent with the goodness of God to have thus inevitably tyed his Creatures to perpetual torment and affliction even to their equals in nature for so to sensitives they must have been if they had been sensitives also and on the other hand would not the knowledge and sense of these hâ—rms have made them shrink and decline that readiness wherewith they now stand serviceable Whereas now by this appetite and ability of self-preservation prosecuted in some willingly and in others not they keep up their several Species and are thereby enabled in the variety and order appointed them severally to set forth the praise of their Maker Upon this it follows that although the act of Generation which tends to specifical Preservation be in each creature hotlier pursued then any that reacheth to individual conservation onely yet it is done and maintained out of self-respect either in sensitives voluntarily as being thereto allured by the greatness of pleasure which is their private end or in inanimates necessarily where Self-Preservation their general end is by natural instinct so closely involved therein that the whole Perfection of the thing it self dependeth thereupon And so far are creatures herein from intending any thing beyond themselves or shewing specifical aim that their endeavours stint themselves to the individuals of their own race it being done in so high a degree of Propriety as having therein as it were transplanted their whole strength it obtains by this transmigration a kinde of Identity In pursuit of this appetite of Philautia we may observe Plants and Vegetables to follow their individual Preservations so greedily that they are ready to rob of growth and nourishment all within the verge of their own activity even of their own kind nay each single fruit grain or berry of the same Plant will do the like to his fellow and by too covetous engrossing the common sap leave many of the same stock to pine and wither And so again creatures of sense having life and motion and a greater desire and ability to attain then them the objects of their use and dâ—light are ready with all kinde of violence to enter possession without due consideration of their fellows like desires and wants Upon this ground depend all those conflicts for mastery amongst beasts which reach many times to mutual slaughter the most harmless creatures exercising this force in some kinde or time or other But above all man being a Creature of most divine resemblance and his Preservation of higher esteem had this Philautia more strongly implanted For with inanimates he resembles him in positive existence or being with creatures of life and sense in being capable of pleasure and content but above them all he comes nearest by much in strength of reason and understanding And as sensitives go beyond inanimates in enjoying the benefits of Natures store so have
to impower their Father or Master then must he get them and take them in all at once or else upon the birth and admission of every new childe and servant they must all pact anew for fear that these new ones for want of being Covenanters should be injured when any thing is by their Father or Master done against their liking And then what shall we say of the Wifes subjection Must the husband have many Wives that one may pact with another to empower him Can he not also have Fatherly or Masterly power while he hath but one childe or one servant for the like reason At what yeers must Children be supposed able to pact And by what Authority must the Father command in the mean time Some that first founded Government and power on this supposed way of pacting have reckoned amongst sociable creatures Bees Pismires c. which being bred all at once do romain as it were but one litter And again they being of equality for wit Courage Size Strength c. must have according to their agreement in these things and shortness of life their particular sense of good undistinguished from that which is common and are therefore onely instances amongst sensitive Agents for an independent Community as heretofore shewed But how shall these things be fancied amongst men What are our supposed Pactions no more then theirs It is like indeed But how shall we contrive men to be so contemtemporary or in such equality oâ— Birth Appetite c. to resemble them Suppose a Collony of men agree to go to a new Plantation their agreement to future Government will have example and reason from former sense and Education in Governments whereupon to found it self And although with them force prevailes not for the present establishing one man above another yet riches or craft will so as by the unequal power thereof to destroy that supposed equal Paction upon their coming to this new Colony and also in receiving others to them towards whom if they proceed not by open force yet in their new Agreements as formerly amongst themselves they prevail on one another by opinion of Power and Force which must consequently overthrow supposition of equal Community For the share of Power cannot be equal amongst such as have it in degree one more then another and where then is their formal consenting to set up others in power above them since it arose but from the considerations they could not avoid it And men may make suppositions this way while they please yet it is in truth no more possible for men in a perfect state of freedom to consent to any degree of subjection then to consent to endure any other evil For when men in this new Collony or in any other condition do submit to another as in discretion and out of choice of two evils to choose the less it is but the same thing as to submit to a conquering Monarch In which case as the feared evil is more plain so will it more prudentially justifie their submission The benefit and design of this prudential choice of subjection is lively set down by Jacob in Issacars blessing viz. He saw that rest was good and the Land that it was pleasant and bowed his shoulder to bear and became a servant to tribute That is he finding that it was not to probable that he should gain perfect Freedom or Dominion by resistance as it was apparent that he should thereby hazard and lose the benefits arising by subjection he therefore of two evils chose the less and since he could not avoid the choice of subjection it self he discreetly chose that kinde of submission therein as should render him most happy And this kinde of prudential Freedom is not onely all that humane condition is capable of in matters of subjection but in all things else For absolute freedom that is not to be liable to inconvenencies in the entertainment of the objects of choice so far as that which shall be in it self most pleasing shall not upon other consequential and unavoidable inconveniences be often subject to be past by is a prerogative of him that is omnipotent onely as having his power in all things equal to his will and not of mankind who as bounded by the Laws of God Nature and other his superiors hath his power alwayes so stinted by his own imbecillity and the will of others that the objects of his liking can be none other free to him then as quallified and accompanied with such continual difficulties and hazards as must render it inconsideration thereof the object of deliberation whether to take or leave and not of absolute freedom whether to take or leave that particular object simply and in it self alone considered If sense of tast or honor prompt us to the enjoyment of any particular food or place of preferment these objects in themselves desirable do through those abatements of dangers and inconveniencies arising in their acquisition or possession become so far still the object of deliberation that we many times decline as evil the prosecution of what we apprehend or know to be good and whether we choose or leave our freedom is not higher then of two evils to choose the less that is the evil of want of the object we desire or the evil of presence of it with its inconveniencies Our liberty being never higher nor lower in any thing then absence of constraint in taking or leaving Nay more he that in the highest objects of his delight is not bounded by laws of superiors as not being under government yet since these usually are by others desireable aswel as himself he will have the consideration of feared prejudice of his equals still make it the object of deliberation whereas the same liberty of choice and deliberation cannot be so taken off by the highest and most severe law and penalty set down by authority but that there will still be absence from constraint and place left for deliberation and consequently for volition either way For as God alone is onely altogether unsubjected to the will of others so inanimates and creatures below us that wholly want will of their own can be onely wholly subjected to the will of others And therefore to return to farther examination of the Princes power as grounded on the content of the community and particularly by oaths we say that if things be duely searcht the Princes oath is only voluntary and subjects to be enforced by Law of the Country or Law of nature in prudence to his security And oaths proceed not from mutual trust but distrust If either of them break these oaths they are so far only punishable by God For the Prince punisheth his Rebellious subjects not as perjured but as they are offenders and subject to the laws And therefore those that take not these oaths are for such offences equally punishable herein to those that do And the truth is that without these oaths both King and People stood obliged
being so over righteous and overwise That is to say by private useing and applying the rules of do as thou wouldest be done unto and love thy Neighbour as thy self not left unto him by the higher power Whereupon being over wise that is wise in his owne conceit he neglects the precept that said Honour thy Father and thy Mother and thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self and so doth not as he would be done unto And againe he that hath not these charitable rules deep enough in his heart but shall act contrary in things remitted to him or shall strain the letter of the law to countenance his malice or private interest onely he is over much wicked and a fool and offending against charity puts himself into the same danger also For although obedience be in it self matter of Apostolical precept and rejoycing yet should we be wise unto that whis is good and simple concerning evil For alas the uncharitable designes of self interest do so often intermingle in what we do even in order to superiour command that we shall not need to fear men will not have sins enough to answer for We are all of us God knows so far the sons of Adam as to be too prone to yeild to the temptatiof tasting of the forbiddin fruit of good and evil in what is commanded whereby we lose the innocence of doves and not to be wise enough again in doing that good to our Neighbour which is left and referred to our owne discretion and power whereby we fail of the wisdome of Serpents But however if we will be innocent it must be by casting of our owne wisdome and by implicite following Christs precepts for obedience and charity to our neighbour and for what we have done otherwise we must re-estate our selves in innocence by repentance even to the degree of little children who we know obey implicitely and act without malice And this is the scope of Christs thanks giving that these things were hid from the wise and prudent that is such as trusted in their moral righteousness and were revealed unto Babes that is to such as considering the load of legal precepts should like men regenerate again in Christ take his easie yoke upon them and by lowliness and meekness the two concomitants of obedience find rest for their souls And this is the effect of our new birth whereby being as the sons of God in Christ restored to a state of innocence we come to be freed of the old leaven and that guilt of morality incurred by the old Adam And in this sence are all those and the like places to be understood how the children of God sin not Whosoever is borne of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God Which places may well allude unto and are explained by our Saviour himself in his answer to the Pharisees a people that use to mak religious pretences to discountenance lawful obedience and would have made their unauthorised interpretations of the law in superstitious observation of the Sabboth and some other things act their militious designes against Christs honour and their neighbours good If ye were blinde saith Christ ye would have no sin but now ye say we see therefore your sin remaineth if they had not opposed their owne prying humour in the literal morality of the law against Christs authority obedience had kept them innocent but going about to establish their owne righteousness have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God For by means of their insubjection unto that manner of judgement for the which Christ came into the world they trusting to their own may of seeing came to be made blind whereas others that pretended not to see of themselves through obedience to him were made to see And if the forementioned places of Saint Matthew be well consulted we shall find the interpretation and guidance of religious precepts and duties left wholly to the supream Magistrate and that Christ by this liberty in the great legal injunction of the Sabboth shews that offices of Charity or judgment mercy and faith are the end or weightier matters of the law mercy better then sacrifice And therefore although he aver his owne authority in Church matters as being greater then the Temple yet he saith the Son of man Lord also of the Sabboth If he had said the Son of God had been Lord thereof it had been but to assert what was not questioned but as he here calls himself Son of man to countenance his deputies and stop the mouths of such as under colour of the weakness of humane authority would deny the supream Magistrates power herein so he did before instance what men they are that have it that is Kings personated in David and Priests alluded unto in Abiathar in whose dayes it was done both of them having sole trust of law And therefore as they in the law so he as a great King and Priest in the Gospel had this power also Whereupon since the observation of legal precepts as barely such cannot have as from us alone any such exact performance as to be justifiable and meritorious but this being done by Christ the morality of our works can be justified but as through him that is as done in obedience to his authority who hath bin fully meritorious therein already Hereupon it must be plicite where direct precept is or according to the general precepts of love in things remitted to us And this was the great mystery of Godliness God manifest in the flesh through obedience to which manifestation we come to be justified in the Spirit For Christ saith of himself as long as I am in the world I am the light of the world but being we are bidden to be obedient to our Superiour Masters in the flesh as unto Christ and in the Lord that is in his stead it follows that he that dispiseth them dispiseth him that sent them And therefore Christians in their obedience and discipleship to Christ are compared to sheep a creature best setting forth their duty of obedience by their ready simple and implicite following their Shephard and also the general duty of Christian love and charity by their inoffensive and harmless deportments one towards another And to prove that this obedience to Christs Minister is to be the pre-required condition that should justifie men in their Christian deportments we shall finde that the Apostles and such as he was to delegate as his Ambassadours are by Christ not onely called the lights of the world a City on a hill and the like to shew the largeness of their illumination but farther to shew the necessity of the conformity of our outward deportments to their directions they are also by Christ appointed to be the salt of the earth And he expresly sayes that every one shall be salted with fire that
men beyond them again an appetite above comparison both in the generality of desiring and the ability of attaining Insomuch as both in regard of their serviceableness and readiness and the largeness of mans appetite to entertain and make use of them as beforesaid we may be called little worlds by our selves having in us their vertues epitomized as well as uses stinted All things seeming but made for us and no creature exempt and useless from our imployment for benefit or pleasure What can he wish above him is an indulgent God enduing him with appetites and reason to desire and attain the objects of his content in abundant variety Below him all creatures standing obedient and thereunto serviceable CHAP. IV. Of Government as it stands in Natural Reason and of its reputed Original IN this happy estate of innocent coveting and enjoying we at first stood by the goodness of him that made the delight of all things ours and ours his until ungratefully intermitting our acknowledgement and delight upwards we forfeited our delight below by breaking that command which should have been the pledge and type of both Wherein besides Ingratitude mans fault seemed Pride or Presumption in ayming to break the link of that Golden chain and rank of Subordination wherein Nature had limited us and so balking our dependance on God be as it were gods unto our selves in the knowledge of good and evil Now is it that the most ordinary and useful parts of our bodies come to be accompted nakedness or sin which had we been content to enjoy according to the natural simplicity of our first state and the example of other creatures we had continued innocent in their use and other injuries done by self-seeking being according to nature and she being content with self-sufficency she had therein been as well our warrant as our spur Whereas now our unbridled lusts leading us beyond all bounds and measure and then having those former innocent acts mingled with our inordinate desires and so with them taken upon our own scores they thereby become sin also From hence come we to be assaulted from without with the revolt of the creature and from within by our own concupiscence which proves now both our sin and our punishment For whilst in our greedy and hasty pursuits Reason wants either ability or time to consult of good or bad our wo instead of our weal is many times embraced Before when we were content to follow the natural Laws of our kinde we could do nothing ill and now trusting to our selves we can do nothing well And seeming not content with those miseries that singly assail us our unsociable dispositions finding occasion to make others the objects of our malice and revenge pull on our selves the like or greater punishment then they did strive to inflict And again instead of those reciprocal helps in our decay which should have grown from consort-ship our enterfering desires continually engage us to mutual prejudice And then when the whole store and variety of nature can hardly satisfie the boundles appetite of one man how should they content all Whereas beasts neither covetous of Propriety nor relishing their price by difficulty are content with the simple and ready food of grass or the like They quietly and peaceably enjoy their loves and rest and after their own repasts can without envy or dislike see the satisfaction of others Whereas man in his unlimited appetite seeking to engross the common revenue of Nature and esteeming the content of others a privation to himself in a restless covetousness makes a dearth in plenty For be himself never so throughly glutted he yet grudges at the satisfaction of another and would at least have it his bounty It would trouble our Arithmetique to sum up the variety of our food apparel and other delights wherewith not nature but the satisfaction of our inordinate desires makes us perpetually industrious and when all is done it is not self-sufficiency that can please us but we become as unsatiable for quantity as kinde And further since equal things cannot but have equal desire and claim and since neither mens prerogatives amongst themselves nor proprieties over other Creatures are by Nature distinguished how should the possession of one happen without the discontent of another what 's the issue of this discontent but strife and fighting and of fighting but death to the disturbance of Nature and destruction of her chief Master-Piece The riches of the earth that without labour sprang up and satisfied the desires of our innocent Parents must now only be the reward of our travel but who will till the field before he can be assured of the Crop and if when Nature out of her general regard and intending the good of all set no bounds or distinctions for the private possession of any but that all may lay equal claim to the soil and fruit why should any take more pains when afterwards his propriety shall be but equal and as the issues of his labour so himself in defence thereof but rendred a more probable prey to the next violent hand To sum up all consider on one side the variety of Nature and the Creatures in objects for our use and delight and on the other side our proness to strife for their possession or for better instance suppose all those things free again wherein men now enjoy their unquestioned propriety and Nature as loose to make equal tender of them to all what but hatred confusion and destruction could we imagine would follow instead of our now peaceable agreement Therefore supposing as is usually done mankinde to have at first lived in this confused condition wherein equality of persons and community of goods set every one against another where while all things were all mens no man had the enjoyment of any thing and then no doubt this sense of the miseries arising by dissention would be the chief motive to bring men to submit to Government and think of some way of unity For partly out of remorse of the slaughter of others and partly out of just fear that the like might befal themselves or friends the occasions of their miseries would begin to be enquired and withal the likeliest means of preservation and peace And because quarrels had for the most part arisen about propriety propriety would be the chief thing which by Laws and Rules amongst themselves they would go about to establish In which doing besides the abatement of strife they foresaw a general positive benefit to ensue for where before they found that what was every mans profit was no mans care and while all might reap none would plough or while the herd and fleece was common the breed was neglected fear of famine and other humane indigencies quickly taught them with most reason to expect the best return of publique utility and trust where private hands might gain by managery and to make the wheel of common concentrique with that of private advantage They quickly found
such commands as will cut off the chief branches of our quarrels he now by saying Thou shalt not covet kills them in the root For because I cannot commit external upon another but what I had first approved and contrived in my self even so if I had not first by covetous desire invaded my neighbours property in my thoughts I should not have attempted his disseisin by act or force which force will then occasion resistance resistance quarrel and quarrel death And this death being against the whole course and rule of Gods providence Multiply increase and replenish the earth and in the noblest race of his Creatures man we may see plain reason why God should be so careful in giving these and other Rules for our preservation and why to enforce those Rules the better he should be so express and careful of his own honour and service as their ground and foundation Nor doth the Moral Law and Old Testament look this way onely but Gospel-Precepts by comparing those cardinal vertues of Faith Hope and Charity and giving to Charity the precedence as their end do teach us the same thing also For though Faith was enjoyned in the first place it was not for its pre-excellence but because as my belief of Deity or hope of Heaven stands in measure and degree increased or remitted so in proportion my practice in Precepts of Charity will follow Which vertue of Charity being the end thereof and the true substance of al other Graces they without it come to be reckoned but as sounding brass and tinkling Cymballs For as we before shewed that Gods glory is the end of all things and of man more especially so we must according to the precepts and rules of Charity take care of the life and welfare of our neighbor as we tender in any sort the glory and service of God And to the end this peace and safety may be the better acquired submit to the authority of such as have the soveraignty and command over us which shall now be our next discourse CHAP. VIII Of the Master of the Family THe discourses hitherto have been to shew the end of Government which is Peace and the foundation of it unity and subjection and the tye and Authority for both which is Religion For without this how could Nature have set one man above another And if reason grounded on such agreement and consent as before supposed should have done it yet what Obligation for continuance longer then the same reason of respective good that set them up should in the same measure make it reasonable for continuance For the same natural tye of self-seeking that caused men to submit at one time would be as available and just for them to take contrary course at another nor could Contract or Paction be then in force because a stronger Obligation then seeking our own could not be had Therefore untill the fear of an irresistable Power for punishing this breach was added that first conceit of mine own particular benefit which caused me to make my promise would also warrant me if I saw cause to break it Nor can fear of punishment from those to whom I submitted or fear of suffering my self by consequent or example from others prevail otherwise then as in my apprehension over-poyzing that benefit I expect which if yet by force fraud faction or other practice I can secure my self against and avoid the best course for my self is the most justifiable And until a positive Law comes from God to state and make sin sin there cannot be but folly there may be and is if through neglect or weakness I stray from Nature and prefer anothers benefit to mine own by any tye above self-consideration For Man considered in meer Nature must be presumed as inculpable in pursuit of his desires and remove of obstacles as all things else though like them it should extend to the death of the Oponent For that which warrants the end warrants the means and except the difference be made else how be they greater or less they are equally allowable And till Religion be Conscience or fear of guilt cannot be Therefore we may see just cause that God himself should come in with his Commands amongst us and enjoyn us so often to make him our onely fear for Precepts or Religion as they give us great light what to do in policy so are they the onely strong Obligations to make it valid Because from hence it comes to pass that men considered in Nature as self-seekers onely and thereby destructive to one another are now by policy made to do the same still and therewith to promote that good of others also so that whilst it is impossible without Natures subversion but for individuals as such to minde their own benefit onely they have now their hopes and fears arising out of all things to be done or omitted in their power so increased by promises and threats annexed to divine Precepts that the guidance of divine light and not of our own must be the choice of our reasonable Will Therefore if I do injure or do not love my neighbour as my self as God Commands I do thereby not love my self as Nature enjoyns and do in committing sin against Religion commit also folly against Reason by so much injuring my self And so again for keeping Commerce and Society He that sweareth to his neighbour and disappointeth him not though it be to his hinderance shall have the greatest of rewards And so further for honoring and obeying of Parents and Princes how many are the rewards and threats running that way So that should we not by natural Reason be led to see and follow those our benefits arising by obedience to those politick Governments yet out of natural prudence when such large good or evil to fall on our particulars is annexed we cannot without self-prejudice refuse And therefore being now come to set these Monarchies on their true foundations we will speak more particularly of their Powers and Jurisdictions beginning with the Father of the Family who in his less Territory is a little Prince as the other is a Master of a greater Family In the treating of this Oeconomical policy it is not to be expected that I should in this place descend to particulars so far as to set out the respective duties of all the Members of the Family one to another more then I do in Kingdoms but onely to set out the power of the Governor thereof and the grounds of the others obedience and that upon the like grounds of Reason and Scripture as I do in the other So that in the confirmation of the power of this Master whereby Children and Servants were to obey in all things we finde in holy Writ those many Precepts for perfect obedience and that Abraham had it as well in his power as duty to command his children and houshold to keep the way of the Lord and to do judgement and justice
establisheth true policy is an apparent certain and accessible union of irresistable power Apparent and certain I say for else how shall littigant parties know where to make their addresses accessible it must be also both for the last appeals sake or what else it shall choose to act by it self otherwise it s being is in vain And thereupon union it must have in it self how else can it give to others For in this respect it must be as before said like the Center in a circle for there as the singleness of the Center makes the union and meeting of the circumference and consequently but one Circle so two Centers though never so like and neer yet having circumferences drawn from them will make two Circles And further as the Center gives being to the circumference so the circumference to it again for until this be drawn the center is but a point as untill the subjects be the King is but as another man And as until this Center be fixed whereby to measure equal distances on all hands it will remaine an uncertain round and not a Circle so in policy till the body of the people are fixed upon an unity as upon a Center they have no assurance of equal and certain proportions amongst themselves but as all lines are made of points so these individuals striving to make up this Circle without a Center or making two or more Centers they will in the latter case make two or more Circles or Common-weales and in the other as wanting a common and perfect rule or measure make it like an unequal round or circumference to consist of many irregularities and factions And then again as the Center of the earth hath in its union the vertue of the whole Globe insomuch as the desire of approach of massy bodies which we commonly call motion of gravity is directed to it and not to all or any part of the circumference besides so this union of property and power must first be united in one Center of Soveraignty that so the whole force and vigour resting now there like as one foot of the compass must fix and make the Center before the other can make the Circle subjects may be capable of an harmonious receit and direction from thence againe by the strait lines of attraction and entercourse which as it will prove neerest their journeys end namely the attaining political good called peace plenty so will it also keep them from justling or enterfering upon one another in their addresses and desires and thereby avoid political evil which is civil war For if any faction of the people should grow to that greatness and temerity as to disanul soveraign command then should soveraignty be no soveraignty nor political happiness at all attainable the measure or way thereunto being thus lost or uncertain no more then if the force of union or attraction should be greater or equal in any part of the earths circumference then in the Center it could still keep its round figure or indeed have any determinate figure at all but by this uncertain or unequal direction and addition of massy bodies some one part of the circumference unproportionably swelling the Center must alter also whereby for want of setled place in that element it should not be able to operate in due manner So in States and Kingdomes if they have not a common Center of desire and good or have not the same so definite and certain but that all or any parts of the people may take upon them according to their separate appetites to judge and determine of good and bad what equality or proportion can the whole have for this differing and doubtful application will not onely render it weak and disfigured but also one part destructive to another So that no government can be rightly called a Commonwealth or one Commonwealth where the supreme power and interest is not centred in one person For in Monarchy as there is a personal so is there a natural and necessary union when as in all Pollarchies there is still a natural and necessary division of persons and interest and only an accidental and contingent union occasioned by some foraign fear In which case they may be supposed for a time strengthened and united by way of Antiperistasis only Whereas the Monarch having an unity in himself must constantly remain so As we have a pertinent simile of this agreggation of power property c. in the Monarch in that vision of Nebuchadnezzar wherein himself as that great goodly tree is represented as the common author of protection and food for all sorts even so we have a plain direction to this unity from God himself For after that he had given command for making of Judges and Officers throughout all the tribes by whose number the people might be supplied with means of decision he then to unite and Center them saith If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgement between blood and blood between plea and plea and between stroak and stroak being matters of controversie within thy gates then shalt thou rise and get thee to the place which the Lord thy God shall choose and thou shalt come unto the Priests and Levits meaning for decision in matters of Religion and unto the Judge that shall be in those dayes and enquire and they shall shew thee the sentence of judgement and thou shalt do according to the sentence of judgement which they of that place which the Lord thy God shall choose shall shew thee and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee according to the sentence of law which they shall teach thee and according to the judgement which they shal tell thee thou shalt do thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall shew thee to the right hand or to the left and the man that will do presumptously and will not hearken unto the Priest that standeth to Minister before the Lord thy God or unto the Judge even that man shall dye and thou shalt put away evil from Israel and all the people shall hear and fear and do no more presumptuously Here we finde an express and direct injunction to obey the supreme definitive sentence aswell as a promise to constitute one no pretence of our private judgements can warrant us to decline from their sentence to the right hand nor to the left Marke we not how many strong and urgent commands here are and how often pressed and repeated for maintenance of this Soveraigne united power in the person of one Judge For as all Israel was contained in the tribes and every tribe united in its own Fathers and Elders so for common unity and quieting their differences again amongst themselves being there called Blood and blood and between plea and plea one common and uncontroleable Judge is to be set up and obeyed from whose sentence they are not to depart under any pretence of law or equity to the contrary
litter but rather as formerly discoursed like Cadmus-brood by Poets feined to that purpose in their different appetites pursuing one another in a confusion of every one against every one and that from thence they come to be a community then they make a community and agreement to arise from that which is quite contrary for how shall these disagreers be brought to voluntary and equal Parity and Paction Therefore there is no way but to say Anarchy is absence of Unity or the exercise of power without it For it is not only a privation of good by destroying precedent union in the single person that did govern but also an infliction of evil by setting up contention in the many heads now ruling And therefore to say that Anarchy is then onely when there is such a condition as that every one should be against every one is to deny that it can be For how should it come to pass Because as no settled government can be overthrown but by union of opposition and men cannot live without such relations of kindred and other interests as must keep them bound in some associations so cannot they as ab origines such as the Greeks to this purpose supposed themselves be so born or brought together without all union by former friendship and relation as to be each one to each one contra-distinguished and equal in all things Without due consideration of which impossibility and of the intervenient degrees between the perfection of unity which true Monarchy will afford and that confusion which the extream of Anarchy will yeild men are usually led to this mistake For as we may and justly do stile that a Monarchy where the last appeal and some other inseparable marks of Soveraignty do remain in one man although many prerogatives may be parted with even so on the contrary we must judge Anarchy to be where the Soveraignty is in more and if we do not this there cannot be such a thing as Monarchy aswell as no such thing as Anarchy Because as disability and remisness will occasionally more or less make Princes leave and entrust their power to others so in like manner are we to conceive of Anarchy namely that although the people viritim cannot or do not personally act or agree in all administrations to Soveraignty proper but that some one man at once may be trusted in several parts thereof whereby in respect of their approach to Monarch they are for the present so far kept from the mischiefs of absolute Anarchy yet since the right of government is at liberty claimed to be exercised by all the government must be Anarchical too although as we said one Anarchy may be less Anarchical then another in regard of their approach to unity and Monarchical administration like as also one Monarchy may be less so then another even so far as these Anarchical forms shall be mingled therewith Nor hath Monarchy gained precedence as aforesaid by the confessions of Polarchical writers but it 's open and active enemies the Polarchs themselves by their endeavors to resemble the real unity thereof in those representations of themselves by presidents speakers or the like and by contrivances to unite their votes and opinions in such sort as to be capable of command and government by making their many wills seem but one do all of them by deed and experience confess that they have neither worth nor fitness for government in themselves and are so far only good or rather so far distanced from ill as they can approach that exemplar of union which in Monarchy is essential Again if we shall observe them in their fundamentals for laws and forms of execution of their governments we shall farther finde that as themselves are usually but some fragments and scraps of Monarchies rent off by Rebellion so will the main body of their laws and semblance of policy be found such onely as were by their former Soveraigns and Kings enacted and contrived But to return if Anarchy must be supposed but the first beginnings to the overthrow of established government what shall we say of lawful conquest Or if it be in civil or intestine strifes onely then since in these men cannot strive singly but as united in Factions when shall it begin and when shall Anarchy end Shall it begin from the first underminings or from the first overt act or from which or what sort of them Shall it end when the other government is overthrown and there be no enemy left to hinder its peaceable settlement in an union by it self How shall it be known and who shall judge when this government or other opposition is wholly subdued or so far as is requisite to its establishment in a government by it self What if this government be thirty or fourty yeers destroying And what if at last it stand still on its own strength without farther fear from this opposing faction which it may be now hath set up for it self also and as a free State as they call them entred into aliance or agreement with them In which and other cases since the form of government in the faction established is the same in prevailing over one another now as it was over those that held the government before that is by force of a major part why should not the same government aswel be an Anarchy now as before And if there must be a set time when this prevailing faction ought and may though still the same people and faction take on them the title of lawful government which is it If you say when they have made agreement or utterly subdued their former Prince this I conceive can at best but acquit them of rebellion in order to himself because done against him and thereupon for a Monarchy so gained it will serve to make it a just government afterwards because it is so in its form But since Anarchy consisting in division must arise from the form of government that is from the divided heads and persons whereby it is enforced and not from the divers hands used in the managery for all governments must have such it must be confessed that Anarchy must be distinguished as a different thing from rebellion and remaine in the form of government and not in the manner or circumstances of beginning or using it or else such a thing as Anarchy cannot be at all I know the common division of government was formerly into Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy and their deviations Tyranny Oligarchy and Anarchy so making six sorts But as it is since found that there is but three sorts by including their deviations as Tyranny into Monarcy Oligarchy into Aristocracy and Anarchy into Democracy so I concluding but one onely right government viz. of Monarchy have reckonnd both the other under the common deviation of Anarchy esteeming it all one whither a lesser or greater number of people preside therein which only thing doth difference Aristocracy from Democracy And as for that fancy of co-ordination it may be
Kings as Supreum or unto others as sent of him As thus in many matters of Charity divine direction was usefull so to the particular direction of our Christian faith on which as a ground-work our Charity was to be built this direction was much more necessary For since none could come to God except he first know that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him so the stating our faith standing necessary as to the stating our obedience we we may see cause for the frequent commendation and injunctions thereof in the New Testament where it is expresly said that without it t is impossible to please God that is without confidence of his being and of his rewards and punishments following our good or bad actions we shall not be zealous of good works or duties of Charity And having so far shewed what the ground of Religion should be we will next shew what it usually is both in ground and practice CHAP. II. Of Religion as commonly received BEfore the knowledge of good and evil entred into man Nature was his religion and what was by her law done was also thereby justified But being once possessed with the apprehension of this discovery all our thoughts and actions were so involved herein that nothing we said or did could escape censure on one side or other and so consequently for well or ill doing we could not but expect reward or punishment But because on the one hand the natural pride and arrogancy of each man was ready to put a greater rate and desert upon his intents and doings then he saw them rewarded with in this life and on the other side knowing the great and many faults that had escaped him or others not at all espied by men or by law so throughly punished as he thought their gift required the two main guides of our nature hope and fear led on our expectations to a future reckoning in such a sort that where the souls immortallity and our resurrection are not by special revelation manifested men are yet generally found believing thereof the craft of persons in authority many times helping on and biassing these Superstitions of inferiours to sociable advantages or self respects Now the wayes men take for the obtaining of this future reward or a voiding the like punishment is their religion And then religion having its ground from conscience and each mans conscience following the light of his understanding in judging good and bad and their degree from the diversity of understanding followeth the diversity of religions which as they had their first rise and fashion from their several Authours so each one yeilds himself a Disciple as he findes his hopes or the fears of his owne conscience therewith satisfied Therefore now concluding mens religion and conscience to be according to their understanding and their understandings being not onely differing but altogether imperfect it is impossible that any Religion should be true but what is from God himself received But then again because truth doth not move by being but by being apparent and because there is no way for this apparency till it be made conceivable to my understanding will it not follow that therein also we must be subject to much difference uncertainty So that men generally acknowledging a deity that no religion can be true but what shal be from him received they do by means of this fallible guide so usually mistake in their choice For knowledg in this kinde is not innate but acquired for why else are not Children and innocents as well as men of riper capacity by priviledge of birth and species without more ado instructed Why is that long stay made until by natural course the sences and organs of the body receiving their due growth and perfection the understanding together therewith arrive also at a sufficient capacity for the same reason to work by So that then the priority and worth of divine truths being not able of themselves to enter our capacities otherwise then as let in by the senses or else made familiar by such things as formerly were so as types parables similitudes and the like it comes to pass that according to the several prepossessions of men and their several fashions in entertaining them our several beliefes and opinions do arise And although we are seldome able to remember those sensible inductions out of which they grew yet from such they must needs at first grow inasmuch as had they come in without mixture they would like truths have remained to all men the same and alike whereas now their variety shews the variety of their entertainment and admittance And therefore although naturally as men and for satisfaction of our hope and fears sake we generally adhere to one sort of Religion or another yet when we come to entertain the kindes we stand not onely disabled in our Election but for the most part use no Election at all depending rather on chance then choice For what one is there of a thousand that ever doubts of or alters the religion he was brought up in For do we not Scholly and Catechise our Children in the same opinion with our selves do we not carry and send them with directions for beliefe and attention unto such Churches and Preachers where we are sure the truth and benefit of this and the falsehood and dangers of all others shall be exemplified to the height What probability then that he should prefer an opinion unknown at least alwayes discommended before one he doth know and hears alwaies praised Whereupon we shall finde preoccupation of judgement of such force that whether they be Christian Jew Mahumetan Heathen or a distinct Sect under any of these generals yet all of them to resolute to their owne side that they will embrace Martyrdom rather then a recantation Not that all in any kinde will do so for all men stand differenced between perfect Atheism and height of belief but where such tenderness of conscience and disposition is met withall as can be subdued to entertain Myrterdome on one side the same party would also have entertained it on another had education and other fore-stalling arguments been applyed unto him And even as in Christianity it self and the sects thereof we may find both Martyrs and Renegates as strength of belief leades them so in other religions also upon tryal these kindes have been apparent For as the Magitians feigned Miracles found greater belief with the Egyptians then the true ones of Moses so a false information having nothing to contradict it or education having forestalled our judgements prevailes as true with us and the contradictory thereof as false For all men thinking it reasonable that the proof of divine authority should be evinced by something more then humane and that supernatural truths otherwaies not conceiveable by sense and so demonstrable should be ascertained and illustrated by such as were it made the founders of all Religions pretend miracles as thinking their endeavours
should through subtilty be beguiled as the Serpent beguiled Eve from the simplicity that was in Christ. That is least as Eve in a desire and presumption of farther knowledg was by the Serpent tempted to disobey God so they by listening to such superstructures as were taught by others might be drawn to neglect those Fundamentall directions which he as their Master-builder had laid and wherewith he had espoused them to Christ and so suffer themselves to be brought into bondage by relying on the wisdomes of such false Apostles and deceitfull workers as transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ would under colour of Mission and authority immediately received from God be directing men in their Christian Morall duties contrary or above the direction of their own generall and authorized head who must now be in danger to be accounted as a fool in comparison of these transformed Angels of light and Ministers of righteousness To warn us against which seduction and to shew that the interpretation of Divine rules and precepts were by God and Christ now referred to that person who was next representing them it is observable that whensoever Christ is urged with the text of the Law or when himself is expounding it he always makes the sense thereof other then was formerly received releasing it to the generall law of reason or morality and not tying himself to the Letter as it was particularly morall to the Jews as by making Murther and Adultery to be inward and releasing by his Power sometimes the outward acts as by dispencing with that strict precept of the Sabbath and other instances may appear These precepts binding the Jews as Divinely Morall but Christians no farther then as rationally or politically so And St Paul having thus largely in the fore-recited and in the next Chapter spoken to the Colossians of our participation of God through â—hrist and of Christ through Christian obedience in this precept of love he then particularly instances how this love is to be outwardly stated and made perfect by obedience to rightfull Superiours in Christ naming such Masters in the flesh as were then Christians and saying Whatever yee doe doe it heartily as to the Lord And not unto men Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of his inheritance for we serve the Lord Christ that is we serve him by these in his stead But he that doth wrong that is disobeys or serves him according to his own will which must cause wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done and there is no respect of persons Clergy and Laâ—ety high and low are made culpable by disobedience And in the next Epistle being the first to the Thessalonians having set down some particular commands for them to follow saying Yee know what Commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus he after adds He that despiseth despiseth not man but God who hath also given to us his holy spirit meaning this authority which he might be bold in as the Apostle of Christ. And this he doth as presuming them inwardly guided and instructed from God himself in the generall precept of love saying but as touching brotherly Love ye need not that I write unto you for your selves are taught of God to love one another Meaning that this precept onely is of immediate Divine direction and injunction being able if rightly performed to estate us innocent according as he noted in his former prayer for them saying The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one towards another and towards all men even as we doe towards you to the end he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before God even our Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his Saints At which time it will be found that Charity shall cover the multitude of sins or make us innocent And so far would he have them seek Peace the fruit of this love That they should study to be quiet and to doe their own business not taking upon them to censure the actions of others especially of those that are their Superiors And the means to accomplish and perfect this he after sets down We beseech you Brethren to know them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in love for their works sake That is count them directors of your love so far as it is operative and be at Peace among your selves Which is the same with the precept of study to be quiet Because being obedient to them we shall be at peace with one another but if we follow and beleeve them not in the manner how Christ is to be served and this our love to be exercised outwardly as well as we have already believed that these things are to be inwardly embraced it will follow that our private Will-worships to him and private apprehensions of love to our Brother will by their Crossings and thwartings one upon another prove to be their mutuall subversion and upon occasion of division and discontent hereabouts rankor and malice will break in to the reall overthrow of both true Faith and Charity It being impossible that any voluntary particular act of my love to any Neighbor can be so great and extensive as that more generall good to all which obedience must produce Whereupon follow directions both to Superiors and others for effecting it Warn them that are unruly comfort the feeble minded support the weak be patient towards all men that is see that no man render evill for evill unto any man or take upon him to avenge his own wrong but ever follow that which is good both among your selves and to all men That is let your Obedience be continuall that your Charity may be Universall For if you should be so unruly as to raise Civill commotions and quarrels upon the score of your own particular enmity and revenge how would this confused return of evil for evil by the severall Members of a Kingdom one against another dissolve all bonds of Peace and Charity whilst every man should be both persecuting and persecuted Whereas by a joynt submission and acknowledgment of them that are over them in the Lord and acquiescence to them in their publick Charge and Trust all rankor will cease and generall Amity be preserved And these two fundamentall precepts of Faith and Love wrought by God in the Thessalonians he again mentions in his second Epistle to them as he had done in his former Epistle for as there he thanks God alwayes for them in his prayers remembring without ceasing their work of faith and labor of love So here he saith We are bound to thank God always for you Brethren as it is meet because that your faith groweth exceedingly and the Charity of every one of you all towards each other aboundeth So that we our selâ—es glory for you in the Church
in it self worthy of preservation doth by Grace restore and rectifie what in our fall had been corrupted Thus that love which Nature provokes me to express out of inward delight Religion enjoyns and directs me to execute according to explicite precept That good which for Honor or Vertue sake I seek to act as a moral man I must now for Duty and Conscience sake re-inforce and prosecute as a Christian. That degree of beneficence which in nature I might arbitrarily and differently dispense according to mine own relations of Family Friends or the like I must now according to the tye of conscience and subjection distribute indifferently or according to such rules as he that hath publike charge shall direct For our state of innocency consisteth more in negative then in positive acts that is more in being harmless then beneficial because innocence or abstinence from harm is always a praise and compatible to all men inferior as well as others but to be positively beneficial is the attribute and sole honor of the Fountain of good and is to mankind no otherwise communicable and proper then as impowered and deputed from him and acting in his stead And therefore is Lord said to be the fulfilling of the Law because it worketh no ill to his neighbor And in that Chapter as obedience to the Higher Power is most strictly enjoyned and may be understood compleating the Precepts of the first Table and so inclusive of that Law of Honor thy father and mother So is the love of our neighbors as our selves set all down in negative Precepts Thou shalt not commit adultery Thou shalt not steal c. Nay our justification and the forgiveness of our offences and sins against God is made to depend most on our forgiving one another which was chiefly hinted at in that perfect model of Prayer Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us Heaven it self being the reward of our innocence not of our merit and that because we cannot without derogation to Gods honor take on us to act in matters of beneficence without him And so again the Devil being the father of malice the more we take upon us to act therein the more we shew our selves his servants Of which his delight in malice contrary to the Precept of love we have a plain instance in Witches who spend their whole power in things destructive and mischievous being wholly swayed by desire of revenge which as it did at first grow from being crossed in their own designs so they had beneficence in their aims And therefore so far as any is malicious to others that is is wilfully set to prosecute his own ways of doing future good by present evil so far hath he listed himself under this Destroyer and thrust himself out of Divine favour and protection by renouncing Divine obedience whereas others may know they are passed from death to life not only because they love the brethren but also for that they are obedient to Gods minister in the manner thereof For without God every one may be truly said to act that hath not from him as great and full direction and authority as was in his power to procure even in that particular in which he acts but doth relie only on such general directions as were for ought he knows not proper to the cause in question And so not being by Gods Minister interpreted and warranted as to license therein he must remain still as much as before without true warrant to act on another and the other again without just cause of suffering at his hands For since both of these having from Reason and Scripture alike power to judge interpret and impose upon each other he must be concluded to have been most innocent and obeyed God most that hath most obeyed his Vicegerent and stuck to his direction therein And this because the positive Precepts of Scripture and Religion coming only to supply and make more applyable those general and ambiguous rules of natural reason to which end determinate Interpreters were again put to see the meaning of these Scriptures applyed to these cases and persons unto which they are proper it must thereupon follow that as those that undertake to judge cases by the light of nature only without regard therein had to Scripture cannot in so doing be guiltless so also they that undertake to be their own judges from the immediate rules of Scripture and do balk the the direction of the authorized Intepreter and Keeper they must thereby become lyable to guilt also So that now to sum up all these Discourses concerning love and obedience it is still to shew how men under the second Adam stand in respect of works in a like condition for innocence as they did at first For as then the only Precept was to forbear tasting of the knowledge of good and evil even so it is the only Precept still For so much in brief our Saviour explains saying For judgement am I come into this world that they which see not might see and they that see might be made blind And again as before noted answered those that presumed to derive Innocence and Righteousness from their own light If ye were blind ye should have no sin But now ye say we see therefore your sin remaineth The which and other places are certainly plain enough to convince any whom The God of this World hath not blinded to their own destruction And however formerly amongst the Jews where God was immediate Law-giver and by plain litteral Precepts did set down his pleasure to be observed by each one in particular the differencing of obedience into active and passive was useful that thereby upon occasion subjects might perform their duties to God and his Vicegerent also as also it was before the higher Powers were Christians yet now unto Christian Subjects that have not from Christ rules set down for their external abearance one towards another but they are to be taught his commands from his Deputies and Ambassadors the case is otherwise For so the words are Teaching them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you not what I have commanded them So that when subjects are by their Christian head now commanded to be actively obedient in any thing they are then disobedient if they are not so because where doing is required their doing to their power and not their suffering must shew their obedience For as I cannot find that the Crown of Martyrdom was promised to any but such as were persecuted for the name of Christ or Christianity which in Heathenish persecutions was to come to pass so cannot I tell what other title then that of Rebel to give to such as oppose or resist their Christian Prince Nor can I find what other reason to give for that expression of our Saviours saying that God hath given him authority to execute judgement because he is the son of man then thereby to shew how
of having truly served God and my neighbour although to the world it were not otherwise apparent then by my suffering for both And the like condition no doubt will be found in all dutiful sufferings by all that can lay aside all malice hypocrisie guil anger and evil speaking and can as new born babes with patience and humility commit all to him that judgeth righteously even these I say if they have but tasted that the Lord is gracious and found the fruits of that blessed and promised Comforter shall quickly feel the sting of worldly afflictions so taken out by him that hath undergone and overcome them for him that in the midst of Prisons and Confinements they shall sing with more real solace and delight in their magnimous sustentation of any injury or Cross then their adversary can do in the infliction of his revenge For be it never so great yet when I by my patience have proved my self Superior in all that his malice could reach unto I shall thereby at once both repel his strokes and also return them upon himself to the redoubling of his angry and revengeful torment even to see himself thus miserably defeated by my resolution When as on the other side also he cannot but deny his own want of courage and true fortitude in being so highly sensible or affected with a mistaken small or occasional injury as to lead him to this fruitless reparation And then further Patience having had its perfect work so as not only to suffer the spoiling of our Goods but even to glory in tribulation it will estate men in a condition of outward felicity also For as none but children are satisfied with the strokes which are given to the stones against which they fell so when besides insensibility through patience our adversaries shall perceive us advantaged by such misuage he will then leave to do us evil even for fear of doing us good And as thus in single persons so will this height of fortitude be prudentially found the steady and true promoter of Political and State interest as well as of all vertue besides For how can Justice Honesty or any true vertue be duly expected while terror of any sort shall stand up to amate the Actor from Execution And since in wordly Dispensations the gain of one must be the loss of another and since again the fear or hope of rewards from great and rich men prevails most will not hope of gain and fear of opposition continually endanger justice and bring on the oppression of the poor For say men what they will no man as a natural man can have that degree of fortitude as not to be many times awed by political greatness or personal courage And could we suppose some person informidable so as in things of inconcern to himself he could dare to act according to the true sense of Justice must it not still follow that when again his interest is mixed therewith the same want of true fear must render him as partial to himself So that in a meer natural man you cannot so place fortitude as to make it always a Vertue whereas he that hath God in all causes for his second and Judge making him his onely fear as on the one hand he will not fear what flesh can do unto him so on the other side will he always fear what he doth unto them By which means being habituated to a steady Vertuous deportment in all his actions he shall finde honesty even in this worlds respect to prove the best policy Inasmuch as all advantage and gain in that kinde arising according to the value of trust and employment his approved fidelity and integrity will so far advance him herein as to make honor and preferment attend him as his due The proof and discourse of all which as the sure Crown and reward of Devotion Humility and Patience takes up by Precepts and Examples the greatest part of Holy Writ it self as if on purpose to shew us that its chief aim were to exhort and encourage us herein And the humble and devout searcher of the Scriptures shall be sure never to return empty of this blessing whereas he that is not grounded in love but carries with him the spirit of Pride and â—ontention returns usually ten times more the Childe of the devil then before But that which most of all is the occasion of this present discourse and comes neerest our present business is to let Subjects hereby see that that degree of submission and Patience I had formerly commended unto them was a state of happiness as well as duty and that especially for Christian subjects towards Christian Princes Against whom Anger Malice and Revenge in all their degrees must most of all be laid aside Whatsoever we suffer from them we must look upon as coming from him that set them up in this high power and who hath their hearts so always in his hand as to turn them which way he pleaseth either making them instruments of his anger upon us or tryals of our trust and Patience towards him Whereupon we cannot more lawfully think of retaliation and resistance towards them against whom there is no rising up then against God himself for in vain expect we the reward of suffering wrongfully if we allow them not a power of doing so and that beyond any warrantable restraint of ours Those evils that come from the hands of others without Authority from them I may prevent or resist as mine own discretion and Conscience shall direct with consideration had to the Precepts of Love and Charity and in this kinde we commonly make a Vertue of necessity But where lawful Authority doth impose the ties of publike Charity and Obedience do both lye upon me and although I may do my best by petition or perswasion to alter his Will from prosecution yet can I not at all use mine own will for resisting him therein All which will not prove of great difficulty to him that shall remember his Saviours prophesie that in the world we should have afflictions and that promise also annexed therewith in me ye shall have peace This man I say in hope of that high price and reward which is set before him will be ever running his race with all cheerfulness And while he is running to that heavenly Goal it will be easie for him to read the hand of Providence to be many times writing and engraving Characters of temporal advantage also out of those malicious plots of his enemies no otherwise then as it was with Joseph who through envy being sold and put from home was thereby delivered from famine and brought into a richer soyl and greater preferment elsewhere whereupon he might now have power to express true goodness in returning good for evil And upon a discreet examination he shall also generally finde that these Crosses were but the effects of love and put in his way like so many pauses and stops to
left hand of Christ in his Church should be left to the dispose of Providence as heretofore declared But now it is not every Patience or dull insensibility under every affliction that is to have this honor and reward but that Patience most properly that is accompanied with the duty of Obedience For I may give all I have to the poor nay my body to be burnt and yet be but charitable to my self in design to mine own honor But when I am so taken up with the good of others in order to my love of him whose image they bear that in sure token thereof I can forgive all injuries and them also that did them here is Charity upon Charity which in care of publike Peace and Good suffereth long is kinde envieth not is not puffed up but beareth all things Which expressions as they properly betoken the Vertues of such as are to be subject to Authority so may they serve to expound to us those sayings of our Saviour whosoever shall smite thee c. namely that the right use of Patience is thereby meant even Patience under Authority and not any stupid neglect of our own safeties For so in Saint Matthew it is whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek c. Whereby we are to understand that those evils are not to be resisted that come from men on our right hands that is are above us And so again Whosoever will sue thee at Law c. to him we must with Patience give our Cloak also if Law will take it away and being thereby compelled we are to do for any man more then he shall ask And these Gospel Precepts carry but the same meaning toward Patience and Humility under Authority as Solomons prudential Precept formerly did if the spirit of the Ruler rise up against thee leave not thy place for yielding pacifyeth great offences and all because of that relation of obedience we stand bound unto in regard of his Authority that thus commanded us And therefore when we finde these Graces of Humility and Meekness set down and commended unto us they are to be taken as necessarily implying the duty of obedience inasmuch as they are the onely proper Vertues of such as are stated in the relation of subjection For this Vertue of Patience is as necessary to the constitution of things voluntary in the relation of Patients towards the receit of the Vertue of that Agency which from the Governor is to be acted on the governed as is the endowment of other natural Vertues and Properties on inanimates to make them susceptible of that efficacy which on the part of their Agents is required also Whereupon Patience comes to be a Vertue of such great influence and concern in the establishment of Charity making the Precept of love useful to humane preservation and Gods honor that sometimes it supplies the place of Charity and is joyned to Faith in Christ as the other fundamental requisite to salvation nay sometimes goeth alone as the most sure ground-work thereof and true token also of Christian Faith it self For so runs our Saviors admonition in patience possess ye your souls And to that purpose saith Saint James the tryal of your Faith worketh Patience and then to shew the perfection that follows Patience he adds but let Patience have her perfect work that ye may be perfect and entire wanting nothing And St. Paul having set forth our access to God through Faith after adds and not onely so but we glory in tribulation also knowing that tribulation worketh Patience and Patience Experience and Experience Hope and Hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given us that is Tribulation and Patience do uphold and supply that fundamental and saving Grace of love which is wrought within us by the Holy Ghost And as in the Epistle to the Hebrews we are exhorted to be followers of them who through Faith and Patience inherit the Promises so doth St. Peter well â—et out what is or should be the sign and effect of this brotherly love viz. Not rendring evil for evil and railing for railing That is not resisting the evils suffered from Authority by Deed or by Word after the example of Christ formerly set down but contrariwise blessing knowing that ye are thereunto called that ye should inherit a blessing meaning the blessed reward of our Patience in suffering of that share of afflictions unto which we are in this life called For he that will love life and see good days that is he that desires to enjoy a future life or good days here let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips that they speak no guile let him eschew evil and do good Which is the same with the former admonition of not rendring evil for evil nor railing for railing onely there our resistance by act was put first but here the resistance by words is put first under the Precept of refraining our tongues from evil And then follows the admomonition for actions let him eschew evil and do good let him not onely forbear resistance but be obedient also and thereupon shall he be in a state both to seek peace and ensue it As generally thus amongst mankinde Patience is added to Faith to make us inheritors of the Promises and a necessity of compliance with Christ in sufferings that we may be also glorified together so unto the particular of women is Patience added also she shall be saved by childe-bearing if she continue in the Faith By which words as we are not to understand that none but Child-bearing women shall be saved or that the others should not be sharers also of these common sufferings incident to the rest of mankinde so may we perceive this particular instance of Childe-bearing put both to set out Patience in the highest degree of suffering known amongst us and also being put under the notion of Childe-bearers may be taken as comprehending such as are married who being subject to husbands may farther serve to shew that this Patience is occasioned from that degree of subjection and bondage which God by reason of their appointed subordination had put them under when he said In sorrow shalt thou conceive and thy desire shall be subject to thy husbands So that then each one that travelleth in pain under this yoak of bondage to the Laws of Superiors by reason of and for punishment of our corruption is to submit to the pleasure of him that subjected the same in hope and to reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed in us when we shall be restored to the glorious liberty of the sons of God Nor need we wonder why immortality and eternal life should be promised to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor
and in the heart and so may carry some flattery of conscience along with them like unto Balaam who thought he might now go so long as according to Gods direction yet in such cases where a plain Precept is transgressed even so plain that every vulgar capacity like Balaams Ass may reprove the madness of the Prophet for men to think of venturing upon their own interpretations and think they can stop soon enough in their rebellious journey must be always dangerous as rendring them subject to be beguiled by the Prince of the ayr instead of an Angel of Light And we are by so much the more in danger of abuse and misinterpretation of Scripture by how much the design and advantage thereby to arise is more general as leaving none to contradict or bring us to rights therein as doth too evidently appear in the interpretation of all those Texts where insubjection is aimed at For each one being himself a subject and having a desire and interest towards encrease of freedom it is to be expected that all wayes of plausible addition should be still found out for advancement of a speculation so pleasing to all Whereas in the divided interests and opinions between Sect and Sect the violence of one is kept in moderation by the fear of his opposite who will be sure to use all the skill and diligence he can to detect him of error and to extol his own contrary tenent even so that an indifferent adjudication may be made between them And therefore if we put not on the whole armour of God and have not our feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace that is with meekness and poorness of spirit we shall not be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil nor his stratagems devised to the breach of Charity nor be able to quench the fiery darts of the wicked Those many arguments which he and his children of disobedience make use of for setting whole Kingdoms on fire by Rebellion But because many now under the Gospel have been the more drawn into these and other errors in matter of their practise out of their mistaken liberty in the imitations of some such presidents as they find in the Old Testament recorded without reproof it will not be amiss to discourse somewhat of their and our different conditions that so making it appear how their doings might be lawful in such things and how it comes otherwise to pass in ours we may then take off the ground of so much abuse After man had taken on him the knowledge of good and evil he stood thereby obliged as heretofore declared to the performance of all such explicite pious duties as were requisite for Gods service and all such vertuous moral actions as were advantagious for the good of others And albeit under the Law these were abreviated and under the Gospel contracted again into one Precept yet until that time it still remained so much their duties that men were more or less good or evil as they more or less kept or violated these Rules And from thence it again followed that those promises made to Adam as in the state of innocence and those threats sentenced on him as lapsed remained for rewards and punishments differently due and proper to his race The first great transgressor in this kind was Cain in the cruel slaughter of his brother and on him and his race as now exiled from Gods more particular care and right of the Creature we shall find the first curse of sterility to be again particularly laid And so himself understands it as appears by his answer Thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth and from thy face shall I be hid c. But when Seth is born and his first son reckoned you will presently find the distinction of the righteous seed from the other and that it is said Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord And then we may next gather him and his for this cause estated in the right of their Fathers promises as the other was of his Curse For it is after said That Adam beg at a Son in his own likeness after his image and called his name Seth So that he being represented in his Sonship to Adam under very same expressions of Image and likeness as Adam was made the Son of God we may conclude their undoubted propriety But when afterwards these Sons of God began to mingle and learn the vices of the other then by degrees did the whole world become corrupt and had been universally involved in natural death and destruction by flood had not Noah as a person upright in his generations found favour with God and to stopped specifical ruine So that we are henceforth to look that those promises made to mankinde in Adam should be renewed to him and his righteous seed Amongst whom we may again find this separation made and men still to be distinguished in regard of more eminent acts of Justice and Iudgement until the promises come more remarkably to descend and be conferred on Abraham and on his seed that is to the particular Nation of the Jews Unto whom those common blessings of nature were so often particularly promised as if they were their onely right whereas we shall find little mention in Holy Writ of the rest of the world other then as in relation to their affairs with this peculiar people In which we shall find them blessed as they were to them more kind or punished or destroyed as to them more malignant as the utter overthrow of Amaleck and the compleating of those many prophesies against all Nations that had any ways distressed them makes it plainly to appear These considerations being well weighed we may find reason for that right which the Israelites had unto the Land of Canaan We may finde a good right they had unto the Egyptians goods And of that right also which Moses had of being a god unto Pharaoh in demanding liberty of him for the Israelites departure to wit because these things were done and enjoyned in the name of that God that was supreme Lord of all as it was both to the Israelites and Pharaoh evidenced by miracles And so we may find a good right Iacob had unto the Amorites goods too although his sons had unjustly taken them away because done without his authority and so of divers other instances which would be by men now adays reduced into practise not considering our different conditions and how our Saviour the second Adam took not on him to restore or establish the rights of any particular People or Nation but dyed for all mankind and that in him the right of the creature became equally and universally restored For that now the wall of Separation being taken down there is no distinction in these things between the posterities of Cain and Seth or Cham and Iaphet but as the Christian duty of
power from the people did generally take encrease so came the lower house to be the upper house afterwards the sole house of Parliament as being thought the peoples only true Representors So that at last a King beset with all these limitations did look like a Duck in a Garden brought to eat up the Snailes and Worms and then tied up by the leg for fear of trampling over the flowers or meuting in the Walks But the examples of inconveniences arising from Kings exorbitant use of Power by their strong and fresh impression making me on the sudden heedless how by bridling his Power to do ill I did also take away the power of doing good and then also there having been no president in stories of a perpetual or unlimitted Parliament and consequently of any evil thence arising I came to be so taken up with the apprehension of the good they might do according to that power they had anciently practised that I did not then consider withal I mean for a great while I did not that if one man that did acknowledge himself subject to Law could by his power do so much mischief what then might be feared where a multitude shall joyn in a mischief who shall say they are above Law But it fareth with men in entertaining those narrow Schems for comprehension of any thing as it doth in making knots and plats for Gardens or Building which each one at the time of doing will think done after the best manner because done according to advisement of workmen or the like and according to that stock of materials he then knew of or stood furnished with But when he shall make observation farther and find both other materials and other methods more fit and capable of their receit he will then alter his own method of adjudication also For it is to be conceived that in this course of methodising our fancy carrieth the form of a Pyramid wherein the particulars observable in nature make the Basis which lessens towards the top as the particulars unite and agree in such generals as we may call notions But then as these notions come to be imployed and to receive approbation from experience they are again for ready ease and use collected into other totals called affections which having obtained settlement from the harmony of experiments come to guide us in what we do without reference back to particulars more then he that can now read should be put to make use of spelling For so Beauty Honor c. have place in my desire but the particulars out of which I did at first come to the general liking of them are out of my memory nor indeed could their variety and repetition be remembred being the observation of my whole life of the common rate and esteem of these things by others which could never serve us for use and proficience in knowledge unless we did proceed to this way of abreviation For particulars whilst they are remarkable are the objects of memory but after they are made familiar by instances of the like kind they are amassed altogether and pass into notions and affections Unto the constitution of which notions as each sense carrieth his part so are they soveraigns in their own order that is where they are not in particular objects dependent upon one another there their inductions pass as peremptorily and uncontroulably into affections one as another Even as we formerly noted in Religion and the Opinions and Doctrines thence derived which having not Charity for their object but depending on the ear only come through often repetition and commendation to prevail and pass into affections and sciences upon the same grounds that by sight this or that Figure Fashion or Face comes to please And so it is in the particular smells and tastes we are accustomed unto wherein former repetitions growing too numerous for memory of particulars custom is then uncontrolable and begets affections and science in inductions proceeding from them as observations from sight breed affections in things objected unto it In this way of discovering causes by various coincidence of effects and of common causes to them again according to their concurrence until we come to the prime cause of all things Gods glory we seem to reintegrate our knowledge and comprehension as if received from the fountain by intuition For hereby if rightly proceeded in we are able to judge of all things within the verge of humane sense even as taught by themselves And as we learn upwards so we judge and discourse downwards that is from general notions to particulars We will for better instance and application in these things look more nearly into our learning it self and the labour therein used We that read now having forgot the difficulties that attended us in our learning thereof do wonder at the backwardness of others First in distinguishing letters one from another then in knowing and distinguishing their several values and pronounciations then having understood their agreements and disagreements amongst themselves how to collect apply and place them in syllables Then how in like manner to make of these syllables words and of these words again to frame sentences or notions And lastly how to apply and judge of these sentences as they shall seem consonant and proper to those several artificial methods by me entertained already which we call Affections which having good for their object do accordingly relish and transmit things to the common affection the will to determine how it stands in interest with other affections and also to have the approbation of the understanding whether it be attainable or no For will disputes not whether the affections propound what is good that is to say pleasant or no but whether this pleasure be so continuing and attainable as to make it good But it is to be considered that the fancy doth differently imploy itself in the methodising of particulars towards the constitution of affections and passions over it doth in methodising and retaining such other particulars which are to be imployed by way of Discourse and Reason In the first way particulars are amassed according to their genus and so from a broad foot or basis as we said do agree and point in streight lines towards the constitution of some affection in us The which affection being that which provokes us to delight and action doth as the end by degrees instigate the fancy and fit it self therein with a proper method of comprehension how amongst all the other observations made and collected things may be so chosen and so ordered and placed as to be instrumental and serviceable to the furtherance of this end So far as impressions are topically figurately and particularly retained they have still reference to the objects and do penetrate the brain only being used but as instruments and servants to the attaining of that which each affection doth prompt to the enjoyment of For each affection and appetite hath its proper method of judication and
subjects should be thereby only told their duties and not to have Magistrates to see them do it and direct them in cases of doubt the same would also happen in the Laws of God himself which considering the blindness of our understandings and aversion of our wills and affections to obey at all as well as difference in doing it have much more need of such direction and constraint The Prince being always to be regarded as the living Law that is to say the life thereof because Law without an Interpreter to give it understanding and an inforcer to give it will is but a dead Letter and for the most part useless So that since Laws cannot live or go without the two supports of reward and punishment if there be not a present powerful judge to see these kept up the performance of Law will be but arbitrary for why should any fear a punishment or hope for a reward from a present authority that is uncertain or unable Nay unto those very Laws which by God himself are sent for our Government what from incredulity and what from natural reluctance little observance can be expected whilst his Minister shall be thought to bear the sword in vain For can men once find means to avoid his coercion therein they are then left to the partialities of their own interpretations to make them signifie but what they please And then considering the general infection of Atheism and the wrong and partial conceits of divine retribution what likelihood of terror or hopes of prevailing when the evil day or day of judgement shall be put so far from them since experience tells us present terrors cannot many times do it Upon no other consideration then this namely want of present appearance in acts of terror and Government it doth fall out as before noted that the divisions and differences between child and child and between subject and subject do by degrees amount unto such deadly heights they being nothing else but the mutual encroachments of censure and controul exercised upon one another after an extemporary and occasional way of rule and authority for want of a common and present superior Government for restraint of this liberty in them all For as it is most true that each one stands strongly perswaded towards the goodness of his own actions and enterprises or else he would not do them so must he of consequent dissent from those of others and also do his utmost for reducing them to conformity with himself which being nothing else but the execution of Power and Government it must follow that such families and Kingdoms which are under such indulgent Parents or milde and fearful Princes must be perpetually in danger of such mutinies and quarrels because for want of those bands of reverential fear and respect towards him that mutual â—ye of love towards each other comes to be dissolved For it being the nature of love as all things else to gather strength and steadiness by that confederacy and union which is made against it by an outward and common fear of disturbance so must it fall out that there being now no such binding dread of Authority kept up for the uniting and associating of them to one another through consent and fellow feeling of equal condition that thereupon there will be time and oportunity left to those natural apperites of Censure and Rule to break forth to publike disturbance For as the Prince or Parent shall defist or neglect to make use of fear and power those his proper instruments to rule by so consequently must subjects and children be supposed ready to take them up and in contention thereabouts to forget and neglect their own equal ties of Love and Charity And to speak directly if Gods and Natures Laws have not a living coercive force for obedience even as positive constitutions of the Supreme Magistrate they will be of much less avail to guide us in outward deportments then the Civil Constitutions of the Prince without subordinate Magistrates to determine their civil suites inasmuch as the Prince being more personally present with us might decide many of his subjects differences himself And therefore as God would have all obedience to him go by the name of fear and threatens even such large temporal punishments to the breakers of his Law as well knowing that we should be more certainly guided by an affection of such universal and near concern then by any other more private affection which would be but of doubtful concern so must it follow that as this fear will be more or less as it is more or less present there must therefore be some present Minister for our good or fâ—r wrath to execute rewards and punishments here accordingly For since in this life in respect of reward or punishment executed by God himself none is able to distinguish of good or evil of all that is before him so that we may observe with the wise man that all things come alike to all there is one event to tho righeeous and to the wicked to the good and to the clean and unclean to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not As is the good so is the sinner and he that sweareth as he that feareth an oath It must therefore be granted that fince these Laws were made for our guidance here they must have their living Magistrate here also to reinforce them as to execution in respect of those rewards and punishments which in regard of his present Power he is enabled to make use of And therefore in reference to this essential support and relation which fear carrieth towards the establishment of subjection and obedience we may call obedience a correspondence efâ—action and deportment of the inferior according to the command of the superior through the sense of duty and fear For as sense of duty or conscience must keep up obedience so sence of fear must keep up conscience By which definition as we may know how to distinguish between that subjection and obedâ—ence which other creatures give who obey out of fear only and not of sense of duty as wanting understanding to apprehend it so may we also perceive that since sense of duty must bring on a submission of will that therefore hope can be very seldom and love never made the proper cause of obedience as heretofore noted For hope of benefit or advantage to arise by any thing commanded to be done being the proper end and motive by which the superior was led to make this his command and direction it must therefore follow that hope of benefit cannot be also directly assigned as an end to him that obeys But here again degrees are to be admitted and considered of and that according as the Commander is more or less All-sufficient and powerful in himself or defective and obnoxious When God commands any thing as he cannot in himself be any ways respected as indigent or necessitated for assistance to the atchieuing his designs as to those