if it be cast down Though the root thereof wax old and the stock thereof die in the ground yet when it senteth the water it will bud and bring forth boughes like a Plant. But man dyeth and wasteth away yea man giveth up the Ghost and where is he and verse 12. man lyeth down and riseth not till the heavens be no more But when is it that the heavens shall be no more St. Peter tells us that it is at the generall Resurrection For in his 2. Epistle 3. Chapter and 7 verse he saith that the Heavens and the Earth that are now are reserved unto fire against the day of Iudgment and perdition of ungodly men and verse 12. looking for and hasting to the comming of God wherein the Heavens shall be on fire and shall be dissolved and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat Neverthelesse we according to the promise look for new Heavens and a new Earth wherein dwelleth righteousnesse Therefore where Job saith man riseth not till the Heavens be no more it is all one as if he had said the Immortall Life and Soule and Life in the Scripture do usually signifie the same thing beginneth not in man till the Resurrection and day of Judgement and hath for cause not his specificall nature and generation but the Promise For St. Peter saies not Wee look for new heavens and a new earth from Nature but from Promise Lastly seeing it hath been already proved out of divers evident places of Scripture in the 35. chapter of this book that the Kingdom of God is a Civil Common-wealth where God himself is Soveraign by vertue first of the Old and since of the New Covenant wherein he reigneth by his Vicar or Lieutenant the same places do therefore also prove that after the comming again of our Saviour in his Majesty and glory to reign actually and Eternally the Kingdom of God is to be on Earth But because this doctrine though proved out of places of Scripture not few nor obscure will appear to most men a novelty I doe but propound it maintaining nothing in this or any other paradox of Religion but attending the end of that dispute of the sword concerning the Authority not yet amongst my Countrey-men decided by which all sorts of doctrine are to bee approved or rejected and whose commands both in speech and writing whatsoever be the opinions of private men must by all men that mean to be protected by their Laws be obeyed For the points of doctrine concerning the Kingdome God have so great influence on the Kingdome of Man as not to be determined but by them that under God have the Soveraign Power As the Kingdome of God and Eternall Life so also Gods Enemies and their Torments after Judgment appear by the Scripture to have their place on Earth The name of the place where all men remain till the Resurrection that were either buryed or swallowed up of the Earth is usually called in Scripture by words that signifie under ground which the Latines read generally Infernus and Inferi and the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say a place where men cannot see and containeth as well the Grave as any other deeper place But for the place of the damned after the Resurrection it is not determined neither in the Old nor New Testament by any note of situation but onely by the company as that it shall bee where such wicked men were as God in former times in extraordinary and miraculous manner had destroyed from off the face of the Earth As for example that they are in Inferno in Tartarus or in the bottomelesse pit because Corah Dathan and Abirom were swallowed up alive into the earth Not that the Writers of the Scripture would have us beleeve there could be in the globe of the Earth which is not only finite but also compared to the height of the Stars of no considerable magnitude a pit without a bottome that is a hole of infinite depth such as the Greeks in their Daemonologie that is to say in their doctrine concerning Daemons and after them the Romans called Tartarus of which Virgill sayes Bis patet in praeceps tantum tenditque sub umbras Quantus ad â—…thereum coeli suspectus Olympum for that is a thing the proportion of Earth to Heaven cannot bear but that wee should beleeve them there indefinitely where those men are on whom God inflicted that Exemplary punnishment Again hecause those mighty men of the Earth that lived in the time of Noah before the floud which the Greeks called Heroes and the Scripture Giants and both say were begotten by copulation of the children of God with the children of men were for their wicked life destroyed by the generall deluge the place of the Damned is therefore also sometimes marked out by the company of those deceased Giants as Proverbs 21. 16. The man that wandreth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the Giants and Job 26. 5. Behold the Giants groan under water and they that dwell with them Here the place of the Damned is under the water And Isaiah 14. 9. Hell is troubled how to meet thee that is the King of Babylon and will displace the Giants for thee and here again the place of the Damned if the sense be literall is to be under water Thirdly because the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by the extraordinary wrath of God were consumed for their wickednesse with Fire and Brimstone and together with them the countrey about made a stinking bituminous Lake the place of the Damned is sometimes expressed by Fire and a Fiery Lake as in the Apocalypse ch 21. 8. But the timorous incredulous and abominable and Murderers and Whoremongers and Sorcerers and Idolaters and all Lyars shall have their part in the Lake that burnetb with Fire and Brimstone which is the second Death So that it is manifest that Hell Fire which is here expressed by Metaphor from the reall Fire of Sodome signifieth not any certain kind or place of Torment but is to be taken indefinitely for Destruction as it is in the 20. Chapter at the 14. verse where it is said that Death and Hell were cast into the Lake of Fire that is to say were abolished and destroyed as if after the day of Judgment there shall be no more Dying nor no more going into Hell that is no more going to Hades from which word perhaps our word Hell is derived which is the same with no more Dying Fourthly from the Plague of Darknesse inflicted on the Egyptians of which it is written Exod. 10. 23. They saw not one another neither rose any man from his place for three days but all the Children of Israel had light in their dwellings the place of the wicked after Judgment is called Vtter Darknesse or as it is in the originall Darknesse without And so it is expressed Mat. 22. 13. where the King commandeth his
any Coelum Empyreum or other aetheriall Region saving that it is called the Kingdome of Heaven which name it may have because God that was King of the Jews governed them by his commands sent to Moses by Angels from Heaven and after their revolt sent his Son from Heaven to reduce them to their obedience and shall send him thence again to rule both them and all other faithfull men from the day of Judgment Everlastingly or from that that the Throne of this our Great King is in Heaven whereas the Earth is but his Footstoole But that the Subjects of God should have any place as high as his Throne or higher than his Footstoole it seemeth not sutable to the dignity of a King nor can I find any evident text for it in holy Scripture From this that hath been said of the Kingdom of God and of Salvation it is not hard to interpret what is meant by the WORLD TO COME There are three worlds mentioned in Scripture the Old World the Present VVorld and the VVorld to come Of the first St. Peter speaks If God spared not the Old VVorld but saved Noah the eighth person a Preacher of righteousnesse bringing the flood upon the world of the ungodly c. So the first World was from Adam to the generall Flood Of the present World our Saviour speaks Iohn 18. 36. My Kingdome is not of this VVorld For he came onely to teach men the way of Salvation and to renew the Kingdome of his Father by his doctrine Of the World to come St. Peter speaks Neverthelesse we according to his promise look for new Heavens and a new Earth This is that WORLD wherein Christ coming down from Heaven in the clouds with great power and glory shall send his Angels and shall gather together his elect from the four winds and from the uttermost parts of the Earth and thence forth reign over them under his Father Everlastingly Salvation of a sinner suppposeth a precedent REDEMPTION for he that is once guilty of Sin is obnoxious to the Penalty of the same and must pay or some other for him such Ransome as he that is offended and has him in his power shall require And seeing the person offended is Almighty God in whose power are all things such Ransome is to be paid before Salvation can be acquired as God hath been pleased to require By this Ransome is not intended a satisfaction for Sin equivalent to the Offence which no sinner for himselfe nor righteous man can ever be able to make for another The dammage a man does to another he may make amends for by restitution or recompence but sin cannot be taken away by recompence for that were to make the liberty to sin a thing vendible But sins may bee pardoned to the repentant either gratis or upon such penalty as God is pleased to accept That which God usually accepted in the Old Testament was some Sacrifice or Oblation To forgive sin is not an act of Injustice though the punishment have been threatned Even amongst men though the promise of Good bind the promiser yet threats that is to say promises of Evill bind them not much lesse shall they bind God who is infinitely more mercifull then men Our Saviour Christ therefore to Redeem us did not in that sense satisfie for the Sins of men as that his Death of its own vertue could make it unjust in God to punish sinners with Eternall death but did make that Sacrifice and Oblation of himself at his first coming which God was pleased to require for the Salvation at his second coming of such as in the mean time should repent and beleeve in him And though this act of our Redemption be not alwaies in Scripture called a Sacrifice and Oblation but sometimes a Price yet by Price we are not to understand any thing by the value whereof he could claim right to a pardon for us from his offended Father but that Price which God the Father was pleased in mercy to demand CHAP. XXXIX Of the signification in Scripture of the word CHURCH THe word Church Ecclesia signifieth in the Books of Holy Scripture divers things Sometimes though not often it is taken for Gods House that is to say for a Temple wherein Christians assemble to perform holy duties publiquely as 1 Cor. 14. ver 34. Let your women keep silence in the Churches but this is Metaphorically put for the Congregation there assembled and hath been since used for the Edifice it self to distinguish between the Temples of Christians and Idolaters The Temple of Jerusalem was Gods house and the House of Prayer and so is any Edifice dedicated by Christians to the worship of Christ Christs house and therefore the Greek Fathers call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lords house and thence in our language it came to be called Kyrke and Church Church when not taken for a House signifieth the same that Ecclesia signified in the Grecian Common-wealths that is to say a Congregation or an Assembly of Citizens called forth to hear the Magistrate speak unto them and which in the Common-wealth of Rome was called Concio as he that spake was called Ecclesiastes and Concionator And when they were called forth by lawfull Authority it was Ecclesia legitima a Lawfull Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But when they were excited by tumultuous and seditious clamor then it was a confused Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is taken also sometimes for the men that have right to be of the Congregation though not actually assembled that is to say for the whole multitude of Christian men how far soever they be dispersed as Act. 8. 3. where it is said that Saul made havock of the Church And in this sense is Christ said to be Head of the Church And sometimes for a certain part of Christians as Col. 4. 15. Salute the Church that is in his house Sometimes also for the Elect onely as Ephes. 5. 27. A Glorious Church without spot or wrinkle holy and without blemâ—…sh which is meant of the Church triumphant or Church to come Sometimes for a Congregation assembled of professors of Christianity whether their profession be true or counterfeit as it is understood Mat. 18. 17. where it is said Tell it to the Church and if hee neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as a Gentile or Publican And in this last sense only it is that the Church can be taken for one Person that is to say that it can be said to have power to will to pronounce to command to be obeyed to make laws or to doe any other action whatsoever For without authority from a lawfull Congregation whatsoever act be done in a concourse of people it is the particular act of every one of those that were present and gave their aid to the performance of it and not the act of them all in grosse as of one body much lesse the act
fault that Jonathan had committed in eating a honey-comb contrary to the oath taken by the people And Iosh. 18. 10. God divided the land of Canaan amongst the Israelite by the lots that Ioshua did cast before the Lord in Shiloh In the same manner it seemeth to be that God discovered Ioshua 7. 16 c. the crime of Achan And these are the wayes whereby God declared his Will in the Old Testament All which ways he used also in the New Testament To the Virgin Mary by a Vision of an Angel To Ioseph in a Dream again to Paul in the way to Damascus in a Vision of our Saviour and to Peter in the Vision of a sheet let down from heaven with divers sorts of flesh of clean and unclean beasts and in prison by Vision of an Angel And to all the Apostles and Writers of the New Testament by the graces of his Spirit and to the Apostles again at the choosing of Matthias in the place of Judas Iscariot by lot Seeing then all Prophecy supposeth Vision or Dream which two when they be naturall are the same or some especiall gift of God so rarely observed in mankind as to be admired where observed And seeing as well such gifts as the most extraordinary Dreams and Visions may proceed from God not onely by his supernaturall and immediate but also by his naturall operation and by mediation of second causes there is need of Reason and Judgment to discern between naturall and supernaturall Gifts and between naturall and supernaturall Visions or Dreams And consequently men had need to be very circumspect aud wary in obeying the voice of man that pretending himself to be a Prophet requires us to obey God in that way which he in Gods name telleth us to be the way to happinesse For he that pretends to teach men the way of so great felicity pretends to govern them that is to say to rule and reign over them which is a thing that all men naturally desire and is therefore worthy to be suspected of Ambition and Imposture and consequently ought to be examined and tryed by every man before hee yeeld them obedience unlesse he have yeelded it them already in the institution of a Common-wealth as when the Prophet is the Civill Soveraign or by the Civil Soveraign Authorized And if this examination of Prophets and Spirits were not allowed to every one of the people it had been to no purpose to set out the marks by which every man might be able to distinguish between those whom they ought and those whom they ought not to follow Seeing therefore such marks are set out Deut. 13. 1 c. to know a Prophet by and 1 Iohn 4. 1. c. to know a Spirit by and seeing there is so much Prophecying in the Old Testament and so much Preaching in the New Testament against Prophets and so much greater a number ordinarily of false Prophets then of true every one is to beware of obeying their directions at their own perill And first that there were many more false then true Prophets appears by this that when Ahab 1 Kings 12. consulted four hundred Prophets they were all false Impostors but onely one Michaiah And a little before the time of the Captivity the Prophets were generally lyars The Prophets saith the Lord by Ieremy cha 14. verse 14. prophecy Lies in my name I sent them not neither have I commanded them nor spake unto them they prophecy to you a false Vision a thing of naught and the deceit of their heart In so much as God commanded the People by the mouth of the Prophet Iâ—…remiah chap. 23. 16. not to obey them Thus saith the Lord of Hosts hearken not unto the words of the Prophets that prophecy to you They make you vain they speak a Vision of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord. Seeing then there was in the time of the Old Testament such quarrells amongst the Visionary Prophets one contesting with another and asking When departed the Spirit from me to go to thee as between Michaiah and the rest of the four hundred and such giving of the Lye to one another as in Ierem. 14. 14. and such controversies in the New Testament at this day amongst the Spirituall Prophets Every man then was and now is bound to make use of his Naturall Reason to apply to all Prophecy those Rules which God hath given us to discern the true from the false Of which Rules in the Old Testament one was conformable doctrine to that which Moses the Soveraign Prophet had taught them and the other the miraculous power of foretelling what God would bring to passe as I have already shewn out of Deut. 13. 1. c. And in the New Testament there was but one onely mark and that was the preaching of this Doctrine That Iesus is the Christ that is the King of the Jews promised in the Old Testament Whosoever denyed that Article he was a false Prophet whatsoever miracles he might seem to work and he that taught it was a true Prophet For St. Iohn 1 Epist. 4. 2 c. speaking expressely of the means to examine Spirits whether they be of God or not after he had told them that there would arise false Prophets saith thus Hereby know ye the Spirit of God Every Spirit that confesseth that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God that is is approved and allowed as a Prophet of God not that he is a godly man or one of the Elect for this that he confesseth professeth or preacheth Jesus to be the Christ but for that he is a Prophet avowed For God sometimes speaketh by Prophets whose persons he hath not accepted as he did by Baalam and as he foretold Saul of his death by the Witch of Endor Again in the next verse Every Spirit that confesseth not that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of Christ. And this is the Spirit of Antichrist So that the Rule is perfect on both sides that he is a true Prophet which preacheth the Messiah already come in the person of Jesus and he a false one that denyeth him come and looketh for him in some future Impostor that shall take upon him that honour falsely whom the Apostle there properly calleth Antichrist Every man therefore ought to consider who is the Soveraign Prophet that is to say who it is that is Gods Vicegerent on Earth and hath next under God the Authority of Governing Christian men and to observe for a Rule that Doctrine which in the name of God hee hath commanded to bee taught and thereby to examine and try out the truth of those Doctrines which pretended Prophets with miracle or without shall at any time advance and if they find it contrary to that Rule to doe as they did that came to Moses and complained that there were some that Propecyed in the Campe whose Authority so to doe they doubted of and leave to the
Christ all shall bee made alive then all men shall be made to live on Earth for else the comparison were not proper Hereunto seemeth to agree that of the Psalmist Psal. 133. 3. Vpon Zion God commanded the blessing even Life for evermore for Zion is in Jerusalem upon Earth as also that of S. Joh. Rev. 2. 7. To him that overcommeth I will give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God This was the tree of Adams Eternall life but his life was to have been on Earth The same seemeth to be confirmed again by St. Joh. Rev. 21. 2. where he saith I Iohn saw the Holy City New Ierusalem coming down from God out of heaven prepared as a Bride adorned for her husband and again v. 10. to the same effect As if he should say the new Jerusalem the Paradise of God at the coming again of Christ should come down to Gods people from Heaven and not they goe up to it from Earth And this differs nothing from that which the two men in white clothing that is the two Angels said to the Apostles that were looking upon Christ ascending Acts 1. 11. This same Iesus who is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come as you have seen him go up into Heaven Which soundeth as if they had said he should come down to govern them under his Father Eternally here and not take them up to govern them in Heaven and is conformable to the Restauration of the Kingdom of God instituted under Moses which was a Political government of the Jews on Earth Again that saying of our Saviour Mat. 22. 30. that in the Resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the Angels of God in heaven is a description of an Eternall Life resembling that which we lost in Adam in the point of Marriage For seeing Adam and Eve if they had not sinned had lived on Earth Eternally in their individuall persons it is manifest they should not continually have procreated their kind For if Immortals should have generated as Mankind doth now the Earth in a small time would not have been able to afford them place to stand on The Jews that asked our Saviour the question whose wife the woman that had married many brothers should be in the resurrection knew not what were the consequences of Life Eternall and therefore our Saviour puts them in mind of this consequence of Immortality that there shal be no Generation and consequētly no marriage no more then there is marriage or generatiō among the Angels The comparison between that Eternall life which Adam lost and our Saviour by his Victory over death hath recovered holdeth also in this that as Adam lost Eternall Life by his sin and yet lived after it for a time so the faithful Christian hath recovered Eternal Life by Christs passion though he die a natural death and remaine dead for a time namely till the Resurrection For as Death is reckoned from the Condemnation of Adam not from the Execution so Life is reckoned from the Absolution not from the Resurrection of them that are elected in Christ. That the place wherein men are to live Eternally after the Resurrection is the Heavens meaning by Heaven those parts of the world which are the most remote from Earth as where the stars are or above the stars in another Higher Heaven called Coelum Empyreum whereof there is no mention in Scripture nor ground in Reason is not easily to be drawn from any text that I can find By the Kingdome of Heaven is meant the Kingdom of the King that dwelleth in Heaven and his Kingdome was the people of Israel whom he ruled by the Prophets his Lieutenants first Moses and after him Eleazar and the Soveraign Priests till in the days of Samuel they rebelled and would have a mortall man for their King after the manner of other Nations And when our Saviour Christ by the preaching of his Ministers shall have perswaded the Jews to return and called the Gentiles to his obedience then shall there be a new Kingdom of Heaven because our King shall then be God whose throne is Heaven without any necessity evident in the Scripture that man shall ascend to his happinesse any higher than Gods footstool the Earth On the contrary we find written Ioh. 3. 13. that no man hath ascended into Heaven but he that came down from Heaven even the Son of man that is in Heaven Where I observe by the way that these words are not as those which go immediately before the words of our Saviour but of St. John himself for Christ was then not in Heaven but upon the Earth The like is said of David Acts 2. 34. where St. Peter to prove the Ascension of Christ using the words of the Psalmist Psal. 16. 10. Thou wilt not leave my soule in Hell not suffer thine Holy one to see corruption saith they were spoken not of David but of Christ and to prove it addeth this Reason For David is not ascended into Heaven But to this a man may easily answer and say that though their bodies were not to ascend till the generall day of Judgment yet their souls were in Heaven as soon as they were departed from their bodies which also seemeth to be confirmed by the words of our Saviour Luke 20. 37 38. who proving the Resurrection out of the words of Moses saith thus That the dead are raised even Moses shewed at the bush when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Iacob For he is not a God of the Dead but of the Living for they all live to him But if these words be to be understood only of the Immortality of the Soul they prove not at all that which our Saviour intended to prove which was the Resurrection of the Body that is to say the Immortality of the Man Therefore our Saviour meaneth that those Patriarchs were Immortall not by a property consequent to the essence and nature of mankind but by the will of God that was pleased of his mere grace to bestow Eternall life upon the faithfull And though at that time the Patriarchs and many other faithfull men were dead yet as it is in the text they lived to God that is they were written in the Book of Life with them that were absolved of their sinnes and ordained to Life eternall at the Resurrection That the Soul of man is in its own nature Eternall and a living Creature inpedendent on the body or that any meer man is Immortall otherwise than by the Resurrection in the last day except Enos and Elias is a doctrine nor apparent in Scripture The whole 14. Chapter of Iob which is the speech not of his friends but of himselfe is a complaint of this Mortality of Nature and yet no contradiction of the Immortality at the Resurrection There is hope of a tree saith hee verse 7.
us And therefore in the Holy Scripture Remission of Sinne and Salvation from Death and Misery is the same thing as it appears by the words of our Saviour who having cured a man sick of the Palsey by saying Mat. 9. 2. Son be of good cheer thy Sins be forgiven thee and knowing that the Scribes took for blasphemy that a man should pretend to forgive Sins asked them v. 5. whether it were easier to say Thy Sinnes be forgiven thee or Arise and walk signifying thereby that it was all one as to the saving of the sick to say Thy Sins are forgiven and Arise and walk and that he used that form of speech onely to shew he had power to forgive Sins And it is besides evident in reason that since Death and Misery were the punishments of Sin the discharge of Sinne must also be a discharge of Death and Misery that is to say Salvation absolute such as the faithfull are to enjoy after the day of Judgment by the power and favour of Jesus Christ who for that cause is called our SAVIOUR Concerning Particular Salvations such as are understood 1 Sam. 14. 39. as the Lord liveth that saveth Israel that is from their temporary enemies and 2 Sam. 22. 4. Thou art my Saviour thou savest me from violence and 2 Kings 13. 5. God gave the Israelites a Saviour and so they were delivered from the hand of the Assyrians and the like I need say nothing there being neither difficulty nor interest to corrupt the interpretation of texts of that kind But concerning the Generall Salvation hecause it must be in the Kingdome of Heaven there is great difficulty concerning the Place On one side by Kingdome which is an estate ordained by men for their perpetuall security against enemies and want it seemeth that this Salvation should be on Earth For by Salvation is set forth unto us a glorious Reign of our King by Conquest not a safety by Escape and therefore there where we look for Salvation we must look also for Triumph and before Triumph for Victory and before Victory for Battell which cannot well be supposed shall be in Heaven But how good soever this reason may be I will not trust to it without very evident places of Scripture The state of Salvation is described at large Isaiah 33. ver 20 21 22 23 24. Look upon Zion the City of our solemnities thine eyes shall see Ierusalem a quiet habitation a tabernacle that shall not be taken down not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed neither shâ—…ll any of the cords thereof be broken But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams wherein shall goe no Gally with oares neither shall gallant ship passe â—…hereby For the Lord is our Iudge the Lord is our Lawgiver the Lord is our King he will save us Thy tacklings are loosed they could not well strengthen their mast they could not spread the sail then is the prey of a great spoil divided the lame take the prey And the Inhabitant shall not say I am sicke the people that shall dwell therein shall be forgiven their Iniquity In which words wee have the place from whence Salvation is to proceed Ierusalem a quiet habitation the Eternity of it a tabernacle that shall not be taken down c. The Saviour of it the Lord their Iudge their Lawgiver their King he will save us the Salvation the Lord shall be to them as abroad mote of swift waters c. the condition of their Enemies their tacklings are loose their masts weak the lame shal take the spoil of them The condition of the Saved The Inhabitant shal not say I am sick And lastly all this is comprehended in Forgivenesse of sin The people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity By which â—…t is evident that Salvation shall be on Earth then when God shall reign at the coming again of Christ in Jerusalem and from Jerusalem shall proceed the Salvation of the Gentiles that shall be received into Gods Kingdome as is also more expressely declared by the same Prophet Chap. 65. 20 21. And they that is the Gentiles who had any Jew in bondage shall bring all your brethren for an offering to the Lord out of all nations upon horses and in charets and in litters and upon mules and upon swift beasts to my holy mountain Ierusalem saith the Lord as the Children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessell into the House of the Lord. And I will also take of them for Priests and for Levâ—…tes saith the Lord Whereby it is manifest that the chief seat of Gods Kingdome which is the Place from whence the Salvation of us that were Gentiles shall proceed shall be Jerusalem And the same is also confirmed by our Saviour in his discourse with the woman of Samaria concerning the place of Gods worship to whom he saith Iohn 4. 22. that the Samaritans worshipped they knew not what but the Jews worship what they knew For Salvation is of the Iews ex Iudae is that is begins at the Jews as if he should say you worship God but know not by whom he wil save you as we doe that know it shall be by one of the tribe of Judah a Jew not a Samaritan And therefore also the woman not impertinently answered him again We know the Messias shall come So that which out Saviour saith Salvation is from the Iews is the same that Paul sayes Rom. 1. 16 17. The Gospel is the power of God to Salvation to every one that beleeveth To the Iew first and also to the Greek For therein is the righteousnesse of God revealed from faith to faith from the faith of the Jew to the faith of the Gentile In the like sense the Prophet Ioel describing the day of Judgment chap. 2. 30 31. that God 〈◊〉 shew wonders in heaven and in earth bloud and fire and pillars os smoak The Sun should be turned to darknesse and the Moon into bloud before the great and terrible day of the Lord come he addeth verse 32. and it shall come to passe that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved For in Mount Zion and in Ierusalem shall be Salvation And Obadiah verse 17. saith the same Vpon Mount Zion shall be Deliverance and there shall be holinesse and the house of Iacob shall possesse their possessions that is the possessions of the Heathen which possessions he expresseth more particularly in the following verses by the mount of Esau the Land of the Philistines the fields of Ephraim of Samaria Gilead and the Cities of the South and concludes with these words the Kingdom shall be the Lords All these places are for Salvation and the Kingdome of God after the day of Judgement upon Earth On the other side I have not found any text that can probably be drawn to prove any Ascension of the Saints into Heaven that is to say into
have all manner of Power over their Subjects that can be given to man for the government of mens externall actions both in Policy and Religion and may make such Laws as themselves shall judge fittest for the government of their own Subjects both as they are the Common-wealth and as they are the Church for both State and Church are the same men If they please therefore they may as many Christian Kings now doe commit the government of their Subjects in matters of Religion to the Pope but then the Pope is in that point Subordinate to them and exerciseth that Charge in anothers Dominion Iure Civili in the Right of the Civill Soveraign not Iure Divino in Gods Right and may therefore be discharged of that Office when the Soveraign for the good of his Subjects shall think it necessary They may also if they please commit the care of Religion to one Supreme Pastor or to an Assembly of Pastors and give them what power over the Church or one over another they think most convenient and what titles of honor as of Bishops Archbishops Priests or Presbyters they will and make such Laws for their maintenance either by Tithes or otherwise as they please so they doe it out of a sincere conscience of which God onely is the Judge It is the Civill Soveraign that is to appoint Judges and Interpreters of the Canonicall Scriptures for it is he that maketh them Laws It is he also that giveth strength to Excommunications which but for such Laws and Punishments as may humble obstinate Libertines and reduce them to union with the rest of the Church would bee contemned In summe he hath the Supreme Power in all causes as well Ecclesiasticall as Civill as far as concerneth actions and words for those onely are known and may be accused and of that which cannot be accused there is no Judg at all but God that knoweth the heart And these Rights are incident to all Soveraigns whether Monarchs or Assemblies for they that are the Representants of a Christian People are Representants of the Church for a Church and a Common-wealth of Christian People are the same thing Though this that I have here said and in other places of this Book seem cleer enough for the asserting of the Supreme Ecclesiasticall Power to Christian Soveraigns yet because the Pope of Romes challenge to that Power universally hath been maintained chiefly and I think as strongly as is possible by Cardinall Bellarmine in his Controversie De Summo Pontifice I have thought it necessary as briefly as I can to examine the grounds and strength of his Discourse Of five Books he hath written of this subject the first containeth three Questions One Which is simply the best government Monarchy Aristocracy or Democracy and concludeth for neither but for a government mixt of all three Another which of these is the best Government of the Church and concludeth for the mixt but which should most participate of Monarchy The third whether in this mixt Monarchy St. Peter had the place of Monarch Concerning his first Conclusion I have already sufficiently proved chapt 18. that all Governments which men are bound to obey are Simple and Absolute In Monarchy there is but One Man Supreme and all other men that have any kind of Power in the State have it by his Commission during his pleasure and execute it in his name And in Aristocracy and Democracy but One Supreme Assembly with the same Power that in Monarchy belongeth to the Monarch which is not a Mixt but an Absolute Soveraignty And of the three sorts which is the best is not to be disputed where any one of them is already established but the present ought alwaies to be preferred maintained and accounted best because it is against both the Law of Nature and the Divine positive Law to doe any thing tending to the subversion thereof Besides it maketh nothing to the Power of any Pastor unlesse he have the Civill Soveraignty what kind of Government is the best because their Calling is not to govern men by Commandement but to teach them and perswade them by Arguments and leave it to them to consider whether they shall embrace or reject the Doctrine taught For Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy do mark out unto us three sorts of Soveraigns not of Pastors or as we may say three sorts of Masters of Families not three sorts of Schoolmasters for their children And therefore the second Conclusion concerning the best form of Government of the Church is nothing to the question of the Popes Power without his own Dominions For in all other Common-wealths his Power if hee have any at all is that of the Schoolmaster onely and not of the Master of the Family For the third Conclusion which is that St. Peter was Monarch of the Church he bringeth for his chiefe argument the place of S. Matth. chap. 16. 18 19. Thou art Peter And upon this rock I will build my Church c. And I will give thee the keyes of Heaven whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven Which place well considered proveth no more but that the Church of Christ hath for foundation one onely Article namely that which Peter in the name of all the Apostles professing gave occasion to our Saviour to speak the words here cited which that wee may cleerly understand we are to consider that our Saviour preached by himself by John Baptist and by his Apostles nothing but this Article of Faith that he was the Christ all other Articles requiring faith no otherwise than as founded on that John began first Mat. 3. 2. preaching only this The Kingdome of God is at hand Then our Saviour himself Mat. 4. 17. preached the same And to his Twelve Apostles when he gave them their Commission Mat. 10. 7. there is no mention of preaching any other Article but that This was the fundamentall Article that is the Foundation of the Churches Faith Afterwards the Apostles being returned to him he asketh them all Mat. 16. 13. not Peter onely Who men said he was and they answered that some said he was Iohn the Baptist some Elias and others Ieremias or one of the Prophets Then ver 15. he asked them all again not Peter onely Whom say yee that I am Therefore S. Peter answered for them all Thou art Christ the Son of the Living God which I said is the Foundation of the Faith of the whole Church from which our Saviour takes the occasion of saying Vpon this stone I will build my Church By which it is manifest that by the Foundation-Stone of the Church was meant the Fundamentall Article of the Churches Faith But why then will some object doth our Saviour interpose these words Thou art Peter If the originall of this text had been rigidly translated the reason would easily have appeared We are therefore to consider that the
WORTHINESSE is a thing different from the worth or value of a man and also from his merit or desert and consisteth in a particular power or ability for that whereof he is said to be worthy which particular ability is usually named FITNESSE or Aptitude For he is Worthiest to be a Commander to be a Judge or to have any other charge that is best fitted with the qualities required to the well discharging of it and Worthiest of Riches that has the qualities most requisite for the well using of them any of which qualities being absent one may neverthelesse be a Worthy man and valuable for some thing else Again a man may be Worthy of Riches Office and Employment that neverthelesse can plead no right to have it before another and therefore cannot be said to merit or deserve it For Merit praesupposeth a right and that the thing deserved is due by promise Of which I shall say more hereafter when I shall speak of Contracts CHAP. XI Of the difference of MANNERS BY MANNERS I mean not here Decency of behaviour as how one man should salute another or how a man should wash his mouth or pick his teeth before company and such other points of the Small Moralls But those qualities of man-kind that concern their living together in Peace and Unity To which end we are to consider that the Felicity of this life consisteth not in the repose of a mind satisfied For there is no such Finis ultimus utmost ayme nor Summum Bonum greatest Good as is spoken of in the Books of the old Morall Philosophers Nor can a man any more live whose Desires are at an end than he whose Senses and Imaginations are at a stand Felicity is a continuall progresse of the desire from one object to another the attaining of the former being still but the way to the later The cause whereof is That the Object of mans desire is not to enjoy once onely and for one instant of time but to assure for ever the way of his future desire And therefore the voluntary actions and inclinations of all men tend not onely to the procuring but also to the assuring of a contented life and differ onely in the way which ariseth partly from the diversity of passions in divers men and partly from the difference of the knowledge or opinion each one has of the causes which produce the effect desired So that in the first place I put for a generall inclination of all mankind a perpetuall and restlesse desire of Power after power that ceaseth onely in Death And the cause of this is not alwayes that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to or that he cannot be content with a moderate power but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well which he hath present without the acquisition of more And from hence it is that Kings whose power is greatest turn their endeavours to the assuring it at home by Lawes or abroad by Wars and when that is done there succeedeth a new desire in some of Fame from new Conquest in others of ease and sensuall pleasure in others of admiration or being flattered for excellence in some art or other ability of the mind Competition of Riches Honour Command or other power enclineth to Contention Enmity and War Because the way of one Competitor to the attaining of his desire is to kill subdue supplant or repell the other Particularly competition of praise enclineth to a reverence of Antiquity For men contend with the living not with the dead to these ascribing more than due that they may obscure the glory of the other Desire of Ease and sensuall Delight disposeth men to obey a common Power Because by such Desires a man doth abandon the protection might be hoped for from his own Industry and labour Fear of Death and Wounds disposeth to the same and for the same reason On the contrary needy men and hardy not contented with their present condition as also all men that are ambitious of Military command are enclined to continue the causes of warre and to stirre up trouble and sedition for there is no honour Military but by warre nor any such hope to mend an ill game as by causing a new shuffle Desire of Knowledge and Arts of Peace enclineth men to obey a common Power For such Desire containeth a desire of leasure and consequently protection from some other Power than their own Desire of Praise disposeth to laudable actions such as please them whose judgement they value for of those men whom we contemn we contemn also the Praises Desire of Fame after death does the same And though after death there be no sense of the praise given us on Earth as being joyes that are either swallowed up in the unspeakable joyes of Heaven or extinguished in the extreme torments of Hell yet is not such Fame vain because men have a present delâ—…ght therein from the foresight of it and of the benefit that may redoâ—…nd thereby to their posterity which though they now see not yet they imagine and any thing that is pleasure in the sense the same also is pleasure in the imagination To have received from one to whom we think our selves equall greater benefits than there is hope to Requite disposeth to counterfeit love but really secret hatred and puts a man into the estate of a desperate debtor that in declining the sight of his creditor tacitely wishes him there where he might never see him more For benefits oblige and obligation is thraldome and unrequitable obligation perpetuall thraldome which is to ones equall hatefull But to have received benefits from one whom we acknowledge for superiour enclines to love because the obligation is no new depression and cheerfull acceptation which men call Gratitude is such an honour done to the obliger as is taken generally for retribution Also to receive benefits though from an equall or inferiour as long as there is hope of requitall disposeth to love for in the intention of the receiver the obligation is of ayd and service mutuall from whence proceedeth an Emulation of who shall exceed in benefiting the most noble and profitable contention possible wherein the victor is pleased with his victory and the other revenged by confessing it To have done more hurt to a man than he can or is willing to expiate enclineth the doer to hate the sufferer For he must expect revenge or forgivenesse both which are hatefull Feare of oppression disposeth a man to anticipate or to seek ayd by society for there is no other way by which a man can secure his life and liberty Men that distrust their own subtilty are in tumult and sedition better disposed for victory than they that suppose themselves wife or crafty For these love to consult the other fearing to be circumvented to strike first And in sedition men being alwayes in
above their understanding than to define his Nature by Spirit Incorporeall and then confesse their definition to be unintelligible or if they give him such a title it is not Dogmatically with intention to make the Divine Nature understood but Piously to honour him with attributes of significations as remote as they can from the grossenesse of Bodies Visible Then for the way by which they think these Invisible Agents wrought their effects that is to say what immediate causes they used in bringing things to passe men that know not what it is that we call causing that is almost all men have no other rule to guesse by but by observing and remembring what they have seen to precede the like effect at some other time or times before without seeing between the antecedent and subsequent Event any dependance or connexion at all And therefore from the like things past they expect the like things to come and hope for good or evill luck superstitiously from things that have no part at all in the causing of it As the Athenians did for their war at Lepanto demand another Phormio The Pompeian faction for their warre in Afrique another Scipio and others have done in divers other occasions since In like manner they attribute their fortune to a stander by to a lucky or unlucky place to words spoken especially if the name of God be amongst them as Charming and Conjuring the Leiturgy of Witches insomuch as to believe they have power to turn a stone into bread bread into a man or any thing into any thing Thirdly for the worship which naturally men exhibite to Powers invisible it can be no other but such expressions of their reverence as they would use towards men Gifts Petitions Thanks Submission of Body Considerate Addresses sober Behaviour premeditated Words Swearing that is assuring one another of their promises by invoking them Beyond that reason suggesteth nothing but leaves them either to rest there or for further ceremonies to rely on those they believe to be wiser than themselves Lastly concerning how these Invisible Powers declare to men the things which shall hereafter come to passe especially concerning their good or evill fortune in generall or good or ill successe in any particular undertaking men are naturally at a stand save that using to conjecture of the time to come by the time past they are very apt not onely to take casuall things after one or two encounters for Prognostiques of the like encounter ever after but also to believe the like Prognostiques from other men of whom they have once conceived a good opinion And in these foure things Opinion of Ghosts Ignorance of second causes Devotion towards what men fear and Taking of things Casuall for Prognostiques consisteth the Naturall seed of Religion which by reason of the different Fancies Judgements and Passions of severall men hath grown up into ceremonies so different that those which are used by one man are for the most part ridiculous to another For these seeds have received culture from two sorts of men One sort have been they that have nourished and ordered them according to their own invention The other have done it by Gods commandement and direction but both sorts have done it with a purpose to make those men that relyed on them the more apt to Obedience Lawes Peace Charity and civill Society So that the Religion of the former sort is a part of humane Politiques and teacheth part of the duty which Earthly Kings require of their Subjects And the Religion of the later sort is Divine Politiques and containeth Precepts to those that have yeelded themselves subjects in the Kingdome of God Of the former sort were all the founders of Common-wealths and the Law-givers of the Gentiles Of the later sort were Abraham Moses and our Blessed Saviour by whom have been derived unto us the Lawes of the Kingdome of God And for that part of Religion which consisteth in opinions concerning the nature of Powers Invisible there is almost nothing that has a name that has not been esteemed amongst the Gentiles in one place or another a God or Divell or by their Poets feigned to be inanimated inhabited or possessed by some Spirit or other The unformed matter of the World was a God by the name of Chaos The Heaven the Ocean the Planets the Fire the Earth the Winds were so many Gods Men Women a Bird a Crocodile a Calf a Dogge a Snake an Onion a Leeke Deâ—…fied Besides that they filled almost all places with spirits called Daemons the plains with Pan and Panises or Satyres the Woods with Fawnes and Nymphs the Sea with Tritons and other Nymphs every River and Fountayn with a Ghost of his name and with Nymphs every house with its Lares or Familiars every man with his Genius Hell with Ghosts and spirituall Officers as Charon Cerberus and the Furies and in the night time all places with Larvae Lemures Ghosts of men deceased and a whole kingdome of Fayries and Bugbears They have also ascribed Divinity and built Temples to meer Accidenâ—…s and Qualities such as are Time Night Day Peace Concord Love Contention Vertue Honour Health Rust Fever and the like which when they prayed for or against they prayed to as if there were Ghosts of those names hanging over their heads and letting fall or withholding that Good or Evill for or against which they prayed They invoked also their own Wit by the name of Muses their own Ignorance by the name of Fortune their own Lust by the name of Cupid their own Rage by the name Furies their own privy members by the name of Priapus and attributed their pollutions to â—…ncubi and Succubae insomuch as there was nothing which a Poet could introduce as a person in his Poem which they did not make either a God or a Divel The same authors of the Religion of the Gentiles observing the second ground for Religion which is mens Ignorance of causes and thereby their aptnesse to attribute their fortune to causes on which there was no dependance at all apparent took occasion to obtrude on their ignorance in stead of second causes a kind of second and ministeriall Gods ascribing the cause of Foecundity to Venus the cause of Arts to Apolla of Subtilty and Craft to Mercury of Tempests and stormes to Aeolus and of other effects to other Gods insomuch as there was amongst the Heathen almost as great variety of Gods as of businesse And to the Worship which naturally men conceived fit to bee used towards their Gods namely Oblations Prayers Thanks and the rest formerly named the same Legislators of the Gentiles have added their Images both in Picture and Sculpture that the more ignorant sort that is to say the most part or generality of the people thinking the Gods for whose representation they were made were really included and as it were housed within them might so much the more stand in feare of them And endowed them
enemy of the Common-wealth that banished him as being no more a Member of the same But if he be withall deprived of his Lands or Goods then the Punishment lyeth not in the Exile but is to be reckoned amongst Punishments Pecuniary All Punishments of Innocent subjects be they great or little are against the Law of Nature For Punishment is only for Transgression of the Law and therefore there can be no Punishment of the Innocent It is therefore a violation First of that Law of Nature which forbiddeth all men in their Revenges to look at any thing but some future good For there can arrive no good to the Common-wealth by Punishing the Innocent Secondly of that which forbiddeth Ingratitude For seeing all Soveraign Power is originally given by the consent of every one of the Subjects to the end they should as long as they are obedient be protected thereby the Punishment of the Innocent is a rendring of Evill for Good And thirdly of the Law that commandeth Equity that is to say an equall distribution of Justice which in Punishing the Innocent is not observed But the Infliction of what evill soever on an Innocent man that is not a Subject if it be for the benefit of the Common-wealth and without violation of any former Covenant is no breach of the Law of Nature For all men that are not Subjects are either Enemies or else they have ceased from being so by some precedent covenants But against Enemies whom the Common-wealth judgeth capable to do them hurt it is lawfull by the originall Right of Nature to make warre wherein the Sword Judgeth not nor doth the Victor make distinction of Nocent and Innocent as to the time past nor has other respect of mercy than as it conduceth to the good of his own People And upon this ground it is that also in Subjects who deliberatly deny the Authority of the Common-wealth established the vengeance is lawfully extended not onely to the Fathers but also to the third and fourth generation not yet in being and consequently innocent of the fact for which they are afflicted because the nature of this offence consisteth in the renouncing of subjection which is a relapse into the condition of warre commonly called Rebellion and they that so offend suffer not as Subjects but as Enemies For Rebellion is but warre renewed REWARD is either of Gift or by Contract When by Contract it is called Salary and Wages which is benefit due for service performed or promised When of Gift it is benefit proceeding from the grace of them that bestow it to encourage or enable men to do them service And therefore when the Soveraign of a Common wealth appointeth a Salary to any publique Office he that receiveth it is bound in Justice to performe his office otherwise he is bound onely in honour to acknowledgement and an endeavour of requitall For though men have no lawfull remedy when they be commanded to quit their private businesse to serve the publique without Reward or Salary yet they are not bound thereto by the Law of Nature nor by the Institution of the Common-wealth unlesse the service cannot otherwise be done because it is supposed the Soveraign may make use of all their means insomuch as the most common Souldier may demand the wages of his warrefare as a debt The benefit which a Soveraign bestoweth on a Subject for fear of some power and ability he hath to do hurt to the Common-wealth are not properly Rewards for they are not Salaryes because there is in this case no contract supposed every man being obliged already not to do the Common-wealth disservice nor are they Graces because they be extorted by fear which ought not to be incident to the Soveraign Power but are rather Sacrifices which the Soveraign considered in his naturall person and not in the person of the Common-wealth makes for the appeasing the discontent of him he thinks more potent than himselfe and encourage not to obedience but on the contrary to the continuance and increasing of further extortion And whereas some Salaries are certain and proceed from the publique Treasure and others uncertain and casuall proceeding from the execution of the Office for which the Salary is ordained the later is in some cases hurtfull to the Common-wealth as in the case of Judicature For where the benefit of the Judges and Ministers of a Court of Justice ariseth for the multitude of Causes that are brought to their cognisance there must needs follow two Inconveniences One is the nourishing of sutes for the more sutes the greater benefit and another that depends on that which is contention about Jurisdiction each Court drawing to it selfe as many Causes as it can But in offices of Execution there are not those Inconveniences because their employment cannot be encreased by any endeavour of their own And thus much shall suffice for the nature of Punishment and Reward which are as it were the Nerves and Tendons that move the limbes and joynts of a Common-wealth Hitherto I have set forth the nature of Man whose Pride and other Passions have compelled him to submit himselfe to Government together with the great power of his Governour whom I compared to Leviathan taking that comparison out of the two last verses of the one and fortieth of Job where God having set forth the great power of Leviathan calleth him King of the Proud There is nothing saith he on earth to be compared with him He is made so as not to be afraid Hee seeth every high thing below him and is King of all the children of pride But because he is mortall and subject to decay as all other Earthly creatures are and because there is that in heaven though not on earth that he should stand in fear of and whose Lawes he ought to obey I shall in the next following Chapters speak of his Diseases and the causes of his Mortality and of what Lawes of Nature he is bound to obey CHAP. XXIX Of those things that Weaken or tend to the DISSOLUTION of a Common-wealth THough nothing can be immortall which mortals make yet if men had the use of reason they pretend to their Common-wealths might be secured at least from perishing by internall diseases For by the nature of their Institution they are designed to live as long as Man-kind or as the Lawes of Nature or as Justice it selfe which gives them life Therefore when they come to be dissolved not by externall violence but intestine disorder the fault is not in men as they are the Matter but as they are the Makers and orderers of them For men as they become at last weary of irregular justling and hewing one another and desire with all their hearts to conforme themselves into one firme and lasting edifice so for want both of the art of making fit Lawes to square their actions by and also of humility and patience to suffer the rude and combersome points of
understood in the same manner For we read Gen. 16. that the same apparition is called not onely an Angel but God where that which verse 7. is called the Angel of the Lord in the tenth verse saith to Agar I will multiply thy seed exceedingly that is speaketh in the person of God Neither was this apparition a Fancy figured but a Voice By which it is manifest that Angel signifieth there nothing but God himself that caused Agar supernaturally to apprehend a voice from heaven or rather nothing else but a Voice supernaturall testifying Gods speciall presence there Why therefore may not the Angels that appeared to Lot and are called Gen. 19. 13. Men and to whom though they were two Lot speaketh ver 18. as but to one and that one as God for the words are Lot said unto them Oh not so my Lord be understood of images of men supernaturally formed in the Fancy as well as before by Angel was understood a fancyed Voice When the Angel called to Abraham out of heaven to stay his hand Gen. 22. 11. from slaying Isaac there was no Apparition but a Voice which neverthelesse was called properly enough a Messenger or Angel of God because it declared Gods will supernaturally and saves the labour of supposing any permanent Ghosts The Angels which Jacob saw on the Ladder of Heaven Gen. 28. 12. were a Vision of his sleep therefore onely Fancy and a Dream yet being supernaturall and signs of Gods speciall presence those apparitions are not improperly called Angels The same is to be understood Gen. 31. 11. where Jacob saith thus The Angel of the Lord appeared to mee in my sleep For an apparition made to a man in his sleep is that which all men call a Dreame whether such Dreame be naturall or supernaturall and that which there Jacob calleth an Angel was God himselfe for the same Angel saith verse 13. I am the God of Bethel Alfo Exod. 14. 9. the Angel that went before the Army of Israel to the Red Sea and then came behind it is verse 19. the Lord himself and he appeared not in the form of a beautifull man but in form by day of a pillar of cloud and by night in form of a pillar of fire and yet this Pillar was all the apparition and Angel promised to Moses Exod. 14. 9. for the Armies guide For this cloudy pillar is said to have descended and stood at the dore of the Tabernacle and to have talked with Moses There you see Motion and Speech which are commonly attributed to Angels attributed to a Cloud because the Cloud served as a sign of Gods preâ—…ence and was no lesse an Angel then if it had had the form of a Man or Child of never so great beauty or Wings as usually they are painted for the false instruction of common people For it is not the shape but their use that makes them Angels But their use is to be significations of Gods presence in supernaturall operations As when Moses Exod. 33. 14. had desired God to goe along with the Campe as he had done alwaies before the making of the Golden Calfe God did not answer I will goe nor I will send an Angell in my stead but thus my presence shall goe 〈◊〉 thee To mention all the places of the Old Testament where the name of Angel is found would be too long Therefore to comprehend them all at once I say there is no text in that part of the Old Testament which the Church of England holdeth for Canonicall from which we can conclude there is or hath been created any permanent thing understood by the name of Spirit or Angel that hath not quantity and that may not be by the understanding divided that is to say considered by parts so as one part may bee in one place and the next part in the next place to it and in summe which is not taking Body for that which is some what or some where Corporeall but in every place the sense will bear the interpretation of Angel for Messenger as John Baptist is called an Angel and Christ the Angel of the Covenant and as according to the same Analogy the Dove and the Fiery Tongues in that they were signes of Gods speciall presence might also be called Angels Though we find in Daniel two names of Angels Gabriel and Michael yet it is cleer out of the text it selfe Dan. 12. 1. that by Michael is meant Christ not as an Angel but as a Prince and that Gabriel as the like apparitions made to other holy men in their sleep was nothing but a supernaturall phantasme by which it seemed to Daniel in his dream that two Saints being in talke one of them said to the other Gabriel let us make this man understand his Vision For God needeth not to distinguish his Celestiall servants by names which are usefull onely to the short memories of Mortalls Nor in the New Testament is there any place out of which it can be proved that Angels except when they are put for such men as God hath made the Messengers and Ministers of his word or works are things permanent and withall incorporeall That they are permanent may bee gathered from the words of our Saviour himselfe Mat. 25. 41. where he saith it shall be said to the wicked in the last day Go ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels which place is manifest for the permanence of Evill Angels unlesse wee might think the name of Devill and his Angels may be understood of the Churches Adversaries and their Ministers but then it is repugnant to their Immateriality because Everlasting fire is no punishment to impatible substances such as are all things Incorporeall Angels therefore are not thence proved to be Incorporeall In like manner where St. Paul sayes 1 Cor. 6. 3. Know ye not that wee shall judge the Angels And 2 Pet. 2. 4. For if God spared not the Angels that sinned but cast them down into hell And Iude 1 6. And the Angels that kept not their first estate but left their owne habitation hee hath reserved in everlasting chaines under darknesse unto the Iudgment of the last day though it prove the Permanence of Angelicall nature it confirmeth also their Materiality And Mat. 22. 30. In the resurrection men doe neither marry nor give in marriage but are as the Angels of God in heaven but in the resurrection men shall be Permanent and not Incorporeall so therefore also are the Angels There be divers other places out of which may be drawn the like conclusion To men that understand the signification of these words Substance and Incorporeall as Incorporeall is taken not for subtile body but for not Body they imply a contradiction insomuch as to say an Angel or Spirit is in that sense an Incorporeall Substance is to say in effect there is no Angel nor Spirit at all Considering therefore the signification of the word Angel in the Old Testament and the
scorn with a crown of Thornes and for the proclaiming of him it is said of the Disciples Acts 17. 7. That they did all of them contrary to the decrees of Caesar saying there was another King one Iesus The Kingdome therefore of God is a reall not a metaphoricall Kingdome and so taken not onely in the Old Testament but the New when we say For thine is the Kingdome the Power and Glory it is to be understood of Gods Kingdome by force of our Covenant not by the Right of Gods Power for such a Kingdome God alwaies hath so that it were superfluous to say in our prayer Thy Kingdome come unlesse it be meant of the Restauration of that Kingdome of God by Christ which by revolt of the Israelites had been interrupted in the election of Saul Nor had it been proper to say The Kingdome of Heaven is at hand ot to pray Thy Kingdome come if it had still continued There be so-many other places that confirm this interpretation that it were a wonder there is no greater notice taken of it but that it gives too much light to Christian Kings to see their right of Ecclesiasticall Government This they have observed that in stead of a Sacerdotall Kingdome translate a Kingdome of Priests for they may as well translate a Royall Priesthood as it is in St. Peter into a Priesthood of Kings And whereas for a peculiar people they put a pretious jewel or treasure a man might as well call the speciall Regiment or Company of a Generall the Generalls pretious Jewel or his Treasure In short the Kingdome of God is a Civill Kingdome which consisted first in the obligation of the people of Israel to those Laws which Moses should bring unto them from Mount Sinai and which afterwards the High Priest for the time being should deliver to them from before the Cherubins in the Sanctum Sanctorum and which Kingdome having been cast off in the election of Saul the Prophets foretold should be restored by Christ and the Restauration whereof we daily pray for when we say in the Lords Prayer Thy Kingdome come and the Right whereof we acknowledge when we adde For thine is the Kingdome the Power and Glory for ever and ever Amen and the Proclaiming whereof was the Preaching of the Apostles and to which men are prepared by the Teachers of the Gospel to embrace which Gospel that is to say to promise obedience to Gods government is to bee in the Kingdome of Grace because God hath gratis given to such the power to bee the Subjects that is Children of God hereafter when Christ shall come in Majesty to judge the world and actually to govern his owne people which is called the Kingdome of Glory If the Kingdome of God called also the Kingdome of Heaven from the gloriousnesse and admirable height of that throne were not a Kingdome which God by his Lieutenants or Vicars who deliver his Commandements to the people did exercise on Earth there would not have been so much contention and warre about who it is by whom God speaketh to us neither would many Priests have troubled themselves with Spirituall Jurisdiction nor any King have denied it them Out of this literall interpretation of the Kingdome of God ariseth also the true interpretation of the word HOLY For it is a word which in Gods Kingdome answereth to that which men in their Kingdomes use to call Publique or the Kings The King of any Countrey is the Publique Person or Representative of all his own Subjects And God the King of Israel was the Holy one of Israel The Nation which is subject to one earthly Soveraign is the Nation of that Soveraign that is of the Publique Person So the Jews who were Gods Nation were called Exod. 19. 6. a Holy Nation For by Holy is alwaies understood either God himselfe or that which is Gods in propriety as by Publique is alwaies meant either the Person of the Common-wealth it self or something that is so the Common-wealths as no private person can claim any propriety therein Therefore the Sabbath Gods day is a Holy day the Temple Gods house a Holy house Sacrifices Tithes and Offerings Gods tribute Holy duties Priests Prophets and anointed Kings under Christ Gods Ministers Holy men the Coelestiall ministring Spirits Gods Messengers Holy Angels and the like and wheresoever the word Holy is taken properly there is still something signified of Propriety gotten by consent In saying Hallowed be thy name we do but pray to God for grace to keep the first Commandement of having no other Gods but him Mankind is Gods Nation in propriety but the Jews only were a Holy Nation Why but because they became his Propriety by covenant And the word Profane is usually taken in the Scripture for the same with Common and consequently their contraries Holy and Proper in the Kingdome of God must be the same also But figuratively those men also are called Holy that led such godly lives as if they had forsaken all worldly designs and wholly devoted and given themselves to God In the proper sense that which is made Holy by Gods appropriating or separating it to his own use is said to be sanctified by God as the Seventh day in the fourth Commandement and as the Elect in the New Testament were said to bee sanctified when they were endued with the Spirit of godlinesse And that which is made Holy by the dedication of men and given to God so as to be used onely in his publique service is called aso SACRED and said to be consecrated as Temples and other Houses of Publique Prayer and their Utensils Priests and Ministers Victimes Offerings and the externall matter of Sacraments Of Holinesse there be degrees for of those things that are set apart for the service of God there may bee some set apart again for a neerer and more especial service The whole Nation of the Israelites were a people Holy to God yet the tribe of Levi was amongst the Israelites a Holy tribe and amongst the Levites the Priests were yet more Holy and amongst the Priests the High Priest was the most Holy So the Land of Judea was the Holy Land but the Holy City wherein God was to be worshipped was more Holy and again the Temple more Holy than the City and the Sanctum Sanctorum more Holy than the rest of the Temple A SACRAMENT is a separation of some visible thing from common use and a consecration of it to Gods service for a sign either of our admission into the Kingdome of God to be of the number of his peculiar people or for a Commemoration of the same In the Old Testament the sign of Admission was Circumcision in the New Testament Baptisme The Commemoration of it in the Old Testament was the Eating at a certaine time which was Anniversary of the Paschall Lamb by which they were put in mind of the night wherein they were delivered out of their bondage in
and they that were governed did all expect the Messiah and Kingdome of God which they could not have done if their Laws had forbidden him when he came to manifest and declare himself Seeing therefore he did nothing but by Preaching and Miracles go about to prove himselfe to be that Messiah hee did therein nothing against their laws The Kingdome hee claimed was to bee in another world He taught all men to obey in the mean time them that sate in Moses seat He allowed them to give Caesar his tribute and refused to take upon himselfe to be a Judg. How then could his words or actions bee seditious or tend to the overthrow of their then Civill Government But God having determined his sacrifice for the reduction of his elect to their former covenanted obedience for the means whereby he would bring the same to effect made use of their malice and ingratitude Nor was it contrary to the laws of Caesar. For though Pilate himself to gratifie the Jews delivered him to be crucified yet before he did so he pronounced openly that he found no fault in him And put for title of his condemnation not as the Jews required that he pretended to bee King bnt simply That hee was King of the Iews and notwithstanding their clamour refused to alter it saying What I have written I have written As for the third part of his Office which was to be King I have already shewn that his Kingdome was not to begin till the Resurrection But then he shall be King not onely as God in which sense he is King already and ever shall be of all the Earth in vertue of his omnipotence but also peculiarly of his own Elect by vertue of the pact they make with him in their Baptisme And therefore it is that our Saviour saith Mat. 19. 28. that his Apostles should sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel When the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory whereby he signified that he should reign then in his humane nature and Mat. 16. 27. The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his Angels and then he shall reward every man according to his works The same we may read Marke 13. 26. and 14. 62. and more expressely for the time Luke 22. 29 30. I appoint unto you a Kingdome as my Father hath appointed to mee that you may eat and drink at my table in my Kingdome and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel By which it is manifest that the Kingdome of Christ appointed to him by his Father is not to be before the Son of Man shall come in Glory and make his Apostles Judges of the twelve tribes of Israel But a man may here ask seeing there is no marriage in the Kingdome of Heaven whether men shall then eat and drink what eating therefore is meant in this place This is expounded by our Saviour Iohn 6. 27. where he saith Labour not for the meat which perisheth but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life which the Son of man shall give you So that by eating at Christs table is meant the eating of the Tree of Life that is to say the enjoying of Immortality in the Kingdome of the Son of Man By which places and many more it is evident that our Saviours Kingdome is to bee exercised by him in his humane nature Again he is to be King then no otherwise than as subordinate or Vicegerent of God the Father as Moses was in the wildernesse and as the High Priests were before the reign of Saul and as the Kings were after it For it is one of the Prophecies concerning Christ that he should be like in Office to Moses I will raise them up a Prophet saith the Lord Deut. 18. 18. from amongst their Brethren like unto thee and will put my words into his mouth and this similitude with Moses is also apparent in the actions of our Saviour himself whilest he was conversant on Earth For as Moses chose twelve Princes of the tribes to govern under him so did our Saviour choose twelve Apostles who shall sit on twelve thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel And as Moses authorized Seventy Elders to receive the Spirit of God and to Prophecy to the people that is as I have said before to speak unto them in the name of God so our Saviour also ordained seventy Disciples to preach his Kingdome and Salvation to all Nations And as when a complaint was made to Moses against those of the Seventy that prophecyed in the camp of Israel he justified them in it as being subservient therein to his government so also our Saviour when St. John complained to him of a certain man that cast out Devills in his name justified him therein saying Luke 9. 50. Forbid him not for hee that is not against us is on our part Again our Saviour resembled Moses in the institution of Sacraments both of Admission into the Kingdome of God and of Commemoration of his deliverance of his Elect from their miserable condition As the Children of Israel had for Sacrament of their Reception into the Kingdome of God before the time of Moses the rite of Circumcision which rite having been omitted in the Wildernesse was again restored as soon as they came into the land of Promise so also tâ—…e Jews before the coming of our Saviour had a rite of Baptizing that is of washing with water all those that being Gentiles embraced the God of Israel This rite St. John the Baptist used in the reception of all them that gave their names to the Christ whom hee preached to bee already come into the world and our Saviour instituted the same for a Sacrament to be taken by all that beleeved in him From what cause the rite of Baptisme first proceeded is not expressed formally in the Scripture but it may be probably thought to be an imitation of the law of Moses concerning Leprousie wherein the Leprous man was commanded to be kept out of the campe of Israel for a certain time after which time being judged by the Priest to be clean hee was admitted into the campe after a solemne Washing And this may therefore bee a type of the Washing in Baptisme wherein such men as are cleansed of the Leprousie of Sin by Faith are received into the Church with the solemnity of Baptisme There is another conjecture drawn from the Ceremonies of the Gentiles in a certain case that rarely happens and that is when a man that was thought dead chanced to recover other men made scruple to converse with him as they would doe to converse with a Ghost unlesse hee were received again into the number of men by Washing as Children new born were washed from the uncleannesse of their nativity which was a kind of new birth This ceremony of the Greeks in the time that Judaea was under the Dominion of Alexander and the Greeks
Witnesse in himself In this Trinity on Earth the Unity is not of the thing for the Spirit the Water and the Bloud are not the same substance though they give the same testimony But in the Trinity of Heaven the Persons are the persons of one and the same God though Represented in three different times and occasions To conclude the doctrine of the Trinity as far as can be gathered directly from the Scripture is in substance this that the God who is alwaies One and the same was the Person Represented by Moses the Person Represented by his Son Incarnate and the Person Represented by the Apostles As Represented by the Apostles the Holy Spirit by which they spake is God As Represented by his Son that was God and Man the Son is that God As represented by Moses and the High Priests the Father that is to say the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is that God From whence we may gather the reason why those names Father Son and Holy Spirit in the signification of the Godhead are never used in the Old Testament For they are Persons that is they have their names from Representing which could not be till divers men had Represented Gods Person in ruling or in directing under him Thus wee see how the Power Ecclesiasticall was left by our Saviour to the Apostles and how they were to the end they might the better exercise that Power endued with the Holy Spirit which is therefore called sometime in the New Testament Paracletus which signifieth an Assister or one called to for helpe though it bee commonly translated a Comforter Let us now consider the Power it selfe what it was and over whom Cardinall Bellarmine in his third generall Controversie hath handled a great many questions concerning the Ecclesiasticall Power of the Pope of Rome and begins with this Whether it ought to be Monarchicall Aristocraticall or Democraticall All which sorts of Power are Soveraign and Coercive If now it should appear that there is no Coercive Power left them by our Saviour but onely a Power to proclaim the Kingdom of Christ and to perswade men to submit themselves thereunto and by precepts and good counsell to teach them that have submitted what they are to do that they may be received into the Kingdom of God when it comes and that the Apostles and other Ministers of the Gospel are our Schoolemasters and not our Commanders and their Precepts not Laws but wholesome Counsells then were all that dispute in vain I have shewn already in the last Chapter that the Kingdome of Christ is not of this world therefore neither can his Ministers unlesse they be Kings require obedience in his name For if the Supreme King have not his Regall Power in this world by what authority can obedience be required to his Officers As my Father sent me so saith our Saviour I send you But our Saviour was sent to perswade the Jews to return to and to invite the Gentiles to receive the Kingdome of his Father and not to reign in Majesty no not as his Fathers Lieutenant till the day of Judgment The time between the Ascension and the generall Resurrection is called not a Reigning but a Regeneration that is a Preparatiof men for the second and glorious coming of Christ at the day of Judgment as appeareth by the words of our Saviour Mat. 19. 28. You that have followed me in the Regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory you shall also sit upon twelve Thrones And of St. Paul Ephes. 6. 15. Having your feet shod with the Preparation of the Gospell of Peace And is compared by our Saviour to Fishing that is to winning men to obedience not by Coercion and Punishing but by Perswasion and therefore he said not to his Apostles hee would make them so many Nimrods Hunters of men but Fishers of men It is compared also to Leaven to Sowing of Seed and to the Multiplication of a grain of Mustard-seed by all which Compulsion is excluded and consequently there can in that time be no actual Râ—…igning The work of Christs Ministers is Evangelization that is a Proclamation of Christ and a preparation for his second comming as the Evangelization of John Baptist was a preparation to his first coming Again the Office of Christs Ministers in this world is to make men Beleeve and have Faith in Christ But Faith hath no relation to nor dependence at all upon Compulsion or Commandement but onely upon certainty or probability of Arguments drawn from Reason or from something men beleeve already Therefore the Ministers of Christ in this world have no Power by that title to Punish any man for not Beleeving or for Contradicting what they say they have I say no Power by that title of Christs Ministers to Punish such but if they have Soveraign Civill Power by politick institution then they may indeed lawfully Punish any Contradiction to their laws whatsoever And St. Paul of himselfe and other the then Preachers of the Gospell saith in expresse words Wee have no Dominion over your Faith but are Helpers of your Ioy. Another Argument that the Ministers of Christ in this present world have no right of Commanding may be drawn from the lawfull Authority which Christ hath left to all Princes as well Christians as Infidels St. Paul saith Col. 3. 20. Children obey your Parents in all things for this is well pleasing to the Lord. And ver 22. Servants obey in all things your Masters according to the flesh not with eye-service as meâ—…-pleasers but in singlenesse of heart as fearing the Lord This is spoken to them whose Masters were Infidells and yet they are bidden to obey them in all things And again concerning obedience to Princes Rom. 13. the first 6. verses exhorting to be subject to the Higher Powers he saith that all Power is ordained of God and that we ought to be subject to them not onely for fear of incurring their wrath but also for conscience sake And St. Peter 1 Epist. chap. 2. ver 13 14 15. Submit your selves to every Ordinance of Man for the Lords sake whether it bee to the King as Supreme or unto Governours as to them that be sent by him for the punishment of evill doers and for the praise of them that doe well for so is the will of God And again St. Paul Tit. 3. 1. Put men in mind to be subject to Principalities and Powers and to obey Magistrates These Princes and Powers whereof St. Peter and St. Paul here speak were all Infidels much more therefore we are to observe those Christians whom God hath ordained to have Soveraign Power over us How then can wee be obliged to obey any Minister of Christ if he should command us to doe any thing contrary the Command of the King or other Soveraign Representant of the Common-wealth whereof we are members and by whom we look to be protected It is
take with thee one or two more And if he shall neglect to hear them tell it unto the Church but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen man and a Publican By which it is manifest that the Judgment concerning the truth of Repentance belonged not to any one Man but to the Church that is to the Assembly of the Faithull or to them that have authority to bee their Representant But besides the Judgment there is necessary also the pronouncing of Sentence And this belonged alwaies to the Apostle or some Pastor of the Church as Prolocutor and of this our Saviour speaketh in the 18 verse Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven And conformable hereunto was the practise of St. Paul 1 Cor. 5. 3 4 5. where he saith For I verily as absent in body but present in spirit have determined already as though I were present concerning him that hath so done this deed In the name of our Lord Iesus Christ when ye are gathered together and my spirit with the power of our Lord Iesus Christ To deliver such a one to Satan that is to say to cast him out of the Châ—…rch as a man whose Sins are not Forgiven Paul here pronounceth the Sentence but the Assembly was first to hear the Cause for St. Paul was absent and by consequence to condemn him But in the same chapter ver 11 12. the Judgment in such a case is more expressely attributed to the Assembly But now I have written unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a Brother be a Fornicator c. with such a one no not to eat For what have I to do to judg them that are without Do not ye judg them that are within The Sentence therefore by which a man was put out of Church was pronounced by the Apostle or Pastor but the Judgment concerning the merit of the cause was in the Church that is to say as the times were before the conversion of Kings and men that had Soveraign Authority in the Common-wealth the Assembly of the Christians dwelling in the same City as in Corinth in the Assembly of the Christians of Corinth This part of the Power of the Keyes by which men were thrust out from the Kingdom of God is that which is called Excommunication and to excommunicate is in the Originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to cast out of the Synagogue that is out of the place of Divine service a word drawn from the custome of the Jews to cast out of their Synagogues such as they thought in manners or doctrine contagious as Lepers were by the Law of Moses separated from the congregation of Israel till such time as they should be by the Priest pronounced clean The Use and Effect of Excommunication whilest it was not yet strengthened with the Civill Power was no more than that they who were not Excommunicate were to avoid the company of them that were It was not enough to repute them as Heathen that never had been Christians for with such they might eate and drink which with Excommunicate persons they might not do as appeareth by the words of St. Paul 1 Cor. 5. ver 9 10 c. where he telleth them he had formerly forbidden them to company with Fornicators but because that could not bee without going out of the world he restraineth it to such Fornicators and otherwise vicious persons as were of the brethren with such a one he saith they ought not to keep company no not to eat And this is no more than our Saviour saith Mat. 18. 17. Let him be to thee as a Heathen and as a Publican For Publicans which signifieth Farmers and Receivers of the revenue of the Common-wealth were so hated and detested by the Jews that were to pay it as that Publican and Sinner were taken amongst them for the same thing Insomuch as when our Saviour accepted the invitation of Zacchaeus a Publican though it were to Convert him yet it was ohjected to him as a Crime And therefore when our Saviour to Heathen added Publican he did forbid them to eat with a man Excommunicate As for keeping them out of their Synagogues or places of Assembly they had no Power to do it but that of the owner of the place whether he were Christian or Heathen And because all places are by right in the Dominion of the Common-wealth as well hee that was Excommunicated as hee that never was Baptized might enter inter into them by Commission from the Civill Magistrate as Paul before his conversion entred into their Synagogues at Damascus to apprehend Christians men and women and to carry them bound to Jerusalem by Commission from the High Priest By which it appears that upon a Christian that should become an Apostate in a place where the Civill Power did persecute or not assist the Church the effect of Excommunication had nothiug in it neither of dammage in this world nor of terrour Not of terrour because of their unbeleef nor of dammage because they are retâ—…rned thereby into the favour of the world and in the world to come were to be in no worse estate then they which never had beleeved The dammage redounded rather to the Church by provocation of them they cast out to a freer execution of their malice Excommunication therefore had its effect onely upon those that beleeved that Jesus Christ was to come again in Glory to reign over and to judge both the quick and the dead and should therefore refuse entrance into his Kingdom to those whose Sins were Retained that is to those that were Excommunicated by the Church And thence it is that St. Paul calleth Excommunication a delivery of the ExcoÌ„municate person to Satan For without the Kingdom of Christ all other Kingdomes after Judgment are comprehended in the Kingdome of Satan This is it that the faithfull stood in fear of as long as they stood Excommunicate that is to say in an estate wherein their sins were not Forgiven Whereby wee may understand that Excommunication in the time that Christian Religion was not authorized by the Civill Power was used onely for a correction of manners not of errours in opinion for it is a punishment whereof none could be sensible but such as beleeved and expected the coming again of our Saviour to judge the world and they who so beleeved needed no other opinion but onely uprightnesse of life to be saved There lyeth Excommunication for Injustice as Mat. 18. If thy Brother offend thee tell it him privately then with Witnesses lastly tell the Church and then if he obey not Let him be to thee as an Heathen man and a Publican And there lieth Excommunication for a Scandalous Life as 1 Cor. 5. 11. If any man that is called a Brother be a Fornicator or Covetous or an Idolater
Apostle Simon was surnamed Stone which is the signification of the Syriacke word Cephas and of the Greek word Petrus Our Saviour therefore after the confession of that Fundamentall Article alluding to his name said as if it were in English thus Thou art Stone and upon this Stone I will build my Church which is as much as to say this Article that I am the Christ is the Foundation of all the Faith I require in those that are to bee members of my Church Neither is this allusion to a name an unusuall thing in common speech But it had been a strange and obscure speech if our Saviour intending to build his Church on the Person of S. Peter had said thou art a Stone and upon this Stone I will build my Church when it was so obvious without ambiguity to have said I will build my Church on thee and yet there had been still the same allusion to his name And for the following words I will give thee the Keyes of Heaven c. it is no more than what our Saviour gave also to all the rest of his Disciples Matth. 18. 18. Whatsoever yee shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven And whatsoever ye shall loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven But howsoever this be interpreted there is no doubt but the Power here granted belongs to all Supreme Pastors such as are all Christian Civill Soveraignes in their own Dominions In so much as if St. Peter or our Saviour himself had converted any of them to beleeve him and to acknowledge his Kingdome yet because his Kingdome is not of this world he had left the supreme care of converting his subjects to none but him or else hee must have deprived him of the Soveraignty to which the Right of Teaching is inseparably annexed And thus much in refutation of his first Book wherein hee would prove St. Peter to have been the Monarch Universall of the Church that is to say of all the Christians in the world The second Book hath two Conclusions One that S. Peter was Bishop of Rome and there dyed The other that the Popes of Rome are his Successors Both which have been disputed by others But supposing them true yet if by Bishop of Rome bee understood either the Monarch of the Church or the Supreme Pastor of it not Silvester but Constantine who was the first Christian Emperour was that Bishop and as Constantine so all other Christian Emperors were of Right supreme Bishops of the Roman Empire I say of the Roman Empire not of all Christendome For other Christian Soveraigns had the same Right in their severall Territories as to an Office essentially adhaerent to their Soveraignty Which shall serve for answer to his second Book In the third Book he handleth the question whether the Pope be Antichrist For my part I see no argument that proves he is so in that sense the Scripture useth the name nor will I take any argument from the quality of Antichrist to contradict the Authority he exerciseth or hath heretofore exercised in the Dominions of any other Prince or State It is evident that the Prophets of the Old Testament foretold and the Jews expected a Messiah that is a Christ that should re-establish amongst them the kingdom of God which had been rejected by them in the time of Samuel when they required a King after the manner of other Nations This expectation of theirs made them obnoxious to the Imposture of all such as had both the ambition to attempt the attaining of the Kingdome and the art to deceive the People by counterfeit miracles by hypocriticall life or by orations and doctrine plausible Our Saviour therefore and his Apostles forewarned men of False Prophets and of False Christs False Christs are such as pretend to be the Christ but are not and are called properly Antichrists in such sense as when there happeneth a Schisme in the Church by the election of two Popes the one calleth the other Antipapa or the false Pope And therefore Antichrist in the proper signification hath two essentiall marks One that he denyeth Jesus to be Christ and another that he professeth himselfe to bee Christ. The first Mark is set down by S. Iohn in his 1 Epist. 4. ch 3. ver Every Spirit that confesseth not that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God And this is the Spirit of Antichrist The other Mark is expressed in the words of our Saviour Mat. 24. 5. Many shall come in my name saying I am Christ and again If any man shall say unto you Lâ—…e here is Christ there is Christ beleeve it not And therefore Antichrist must be a False Christ that is some one of them that shall pretend themselves to be Christ. And out of these two Marks to deny Iesus to be the Christ and to affirm himselfe to be the Christ it followeth that he must also be an Adversary of Iesus the true Christ which is another usuall signification of the word Antichrist But of these many Antichrists there is one speciall one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Antichrist or Antichrist definitely as one certaine person not indefinitely an Antichrist Now seeing the Pope of Rome neither pretendeth himself nor denyeth Jesus to bee the Christ I perceive not how he can be called Antichrist by which word is not meant one that falsely pretendeth to be His Lieutenant or Vicar generall but to be Hee There is also some Mark of the time of this speciall Antichrist as Mat. 24. 15. when that abominable Destroyer spoken of by Daniel shall stand in the Holy place and such tribulation as was not since the beginning of the world nor ever shall be again insomuch as if it were to last long ver 22. no flesh could be saved but for the elects sake those days shall be shortened made fewer But that tribulation is not yet come for it is to be followed immediately ver 29. by a darkening of the Sun and Moon a falling of the Stars a concussion of the Heavens and the glorious coming again of our Saviour in the cloudes And therefore The Antichrist is not yet come whereas many Popes are both come and gone It is true the Pope in taking upon him to give Laws to all Christian Kings and Nations usurpeth a Kingdome in this world which Christ took not on him but he doth it not as Christ but as for Christ wherein there is nothing of The Antichrist In the fourth Book to prove the Pope to be the supreme Judg in all questions of Faith and Manners which is as much as to be the absolute Monarch of all Christians in the world he bringeth three Propositions The first that his Judgments are Infallible The second that he can make very Laws and punish those that observe them not The third that our Saviour conferred all Jurisdiction Ecclesiasticall on the Pope of Rome For the Infallibility of his Judgments he alledgeth the Scriptures and
Article Iesus is the Christ. The summe of St. Matthews Gospell is this That Jesus was of the stock of David Born of a Virgin which are the Marks of the true Christ That the Magi came to worship him as King of the Jews That Herod for the same cause sought to kill him That John Baptist proclaimed him That he preached by himselfe and his Apostles that he was that King That he taught the Law not as a Scribe but as a man of Authority That he cured diseases by his Word onely and did many other Miracles which were foretold the Christ should doe That he was saluted King when hee entred into Jerusalem That he fore-warned them to beware of all others that should pretend to be Christ That he was taken accused and put to death for saying hee was King That the cause of his condemnation written on the Crosse was JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEVVES All which tend to no other end than this that men should beleeve that Iesus is the Christ. Such therefore was the Scope of St. Matthews Gospel But the Scope of all the Evangelists as may appear by reading them was the same Therefore the Scope of the whole Gospell was the establishing of that onely Article And St. John expressely makes it his conclusion Iohn 20. 31. These things are written that you may know that Iesus is the Christ the Son of the living God My second Argument is taken from the Subject of the Sermons of the Apostles both whilest our Saviour lived on earth aud after his Ascension The Apostles in our Saviours time were sent Luke 9. 2. to Preach the Kingdome of God For neither there nor Mat. 10. 7. giveth he any Commission to them other than this As ye go Preach saying the Kingdome of Heaven is at hand that is that Iesus is the Messiah the Christ the King which was to come That their Preaching also after his ascension was the same is manifest out of Acts 17. 6. They drew saith St. Luke Iason and certain Brethren unto the Rulers of the City crying These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also whom Iason hath received And these all do contrary to the Decrees of Caesar saying that there is another King one Iesus And out of the 2. 3. verses of the same Chapter where it is said that St. Paul as his manner was went in unto them and three Sabbath dayes reasoned with them out of the Scriptures opening and alledging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen againe from the dead and that this Iesus whom hee preached is Christ. The third Argument is from those places of Scripture by which all the Faith required to Salvation is declared to be Easie. For if an inward assent of the mind to all the Doctrines concerning Christian Faith now taught whereof the greatest part are disputed were necessary to Salvation there would be nothing in the world so hard as to be a Christian. The Thief upon the Crosse though repenting could not have been saved for saying Lord remember me when thou commest into thy Kinâ—…dome by which he testified no beleefe of any other Article but this That Iesus was the King Nor could it bee said as it is Mat. 11. 30. that Christs yoke is Easy and his burthen Light Nor that Little Children beleeve in him as it is Matth. 18. 6. Nor could St. Paul have said 1 Cor. 1. 21. It pleased God by the Foolishnesse of preaching to save them that beleeve Nor could St. Paul himself have been saved much lesse have been so great a Doctor of the Church so suddenly that never perhaps thought of Transubstantiation nor Purgatory nor many other Articles now obtruded The fourth Argument is taken from places expresse and such as receive no controversie of Interpretation as first Iohn 5. 39. Search the Scriptures for in them yee thinke yee have eternall life and they are they that testifie of mee Our Saviour here speaketh of the Scriptures onely of the Old Testament for the Jews at that time could not search the Scriptures of the New Testament which were not written But the Old Testament hath nothing of Christ but the Markes by which men might know him when hee came as that he should descend from David be born at Bethlem and of a Virgin doe great Miracles and the like Therefore to beleeve that this Jesus was He was sufficient to eternall life but more than sufficient is not Necessary and consequently no other Article is required Again Iohn 11. 26. Whosoever liveth and beleeveth in mee shall not die eternally Therefore to beleeve in Christ is faith sufficient to eternall life and consequently no more faith than that is Necessary But to beleeve in Jesus and to beleeve that Jesus is the Christ is all one as appeareth in the verses immediately following For when our Saviour verse 26. had said to Martha Beleevest thou this she answereth verse 27. Yea Lord I beleeve that thou art the Christ the Son of God which should come into the world Therefore this Article alone is faith sufficient to life eternall and more than sufficient is not Necessary Thirdly Iohn 20. 31. These things are written that yee might beleeve that Iesus is the Christ the Son of God and that beleeving yee might have life through his name There to beleeve that Iesus is the Christ is faith sufficient to the obtaining of life and therefore no other Article is Necessary Fourthly 1 Iohn 4. 2. Every spirit that confesseth that Iesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God And 1 Ioh. 5. 1. Whosoever beleeveth that Iesus is the Christ is born of God And verse 5. Who is hee that overcommeth the world but he that beleeveth that Iesus is the Son of God Fiftly Act. 8. ver 36 37. See saith the Eunuch here is water what doth hinder me to be baptized And Philip said If thou beleevest with all thy heart thou mayst And hee answered and said I beleeve that Iesus Christ is the Son of God Therefore this Article beleeved Iesus is the Christ is sufficient to Baptisme that is to say to our Reception into the Kingdome of God and by consequence onely Necessary And generally in all places where our Saviour saith to any man Thy faith hath saved thee the caâ—…se he saith it is some Confession which directly or by consequence implyeth a beleef that Jesus is the Christ. The last Argument is from the places where this Article is made the Foundation of Faith For he that holdeth the Foundation shall bee saved Which places are first Mat. 24. 23. If any man shall say unto you Loe here is Christ or there beleeve it not for there shall arise false Christs and false Prophets and shall shew great signes and wonders c. Here wee see this Article Jesus is the Christ must bee held though hee that shall teach the contrary should doe great miracles The second place is Gal. 1. 8. Though
we or an Angell from Heaven preach any other Gospell unto you than that wee have preached unto you let him bee accursed But the Gospell which Paul and the other Apostles preached was onely this Article that Jesus is the Christ Therefore for the Beleef of this Article we are to reject the Authority of an Angell from heaven much more of any mortall man if he teach the contrary This is therefore the Fundamentall Article of Christian Faith A third place is 1 Joh. 4. 1. Beloved beleâ—…ve not every spirit Hereby yee shall know the Spirit of God every spirit that confesseth that Iesus Christ is come in the flâ—…sh is of God By which it is evident that this Article is the measure and rule by which to estimate and examine all other Articles and is therefore onely Fundamentall A fourth is Matt. 16. 18. where after St. Peter had professed this Article saying to our Saviour Thou art Christ the Son of the living God Our Saviour answered Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church from whence I inferre that this Article is that on which all other Doctrines of the Church are built as on their Foundation A fift is 1 Cor. 3. ver 11 12 c. Other Foundation can no man lay than that which is laid Jesus is the Christ. Now if any man build upon this Foundation Gold Silver pretious Stones Wood Hay Stubble Every mans work shall be made manifest For the Day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire and the fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is If any mans work abide which he hath built thereupon he shall receive a reward If any mans work shall bee burnt he shall suffer losse but he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire Which words being partly plain and easie to understand and partly allegoricall and difficult out of that which is plain may be inferred that Pastors that teach this Foundation that Jesus is the Christ though they draw from it false consequences which all men are sometimes subject to they may neverthelesse bee saved much more that they may bee saved who being no Pastors but Hearers beleeve that which is by their lawfull Pastors taught them Therefore the beleef of this Article is sufficient and by consequence there is no other Article of Faith Necessarily required to Salvation Now for the part which is Allegoricall as That the fire shall try every mans work and that They shall be saved but so as by fire or through fire for the originall is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it maketh nothing against this conclusion which I have drawn from the other words that are plain Neverthelesse because upon this place there hath been an argument taken to prove the fire of Purgatory I will also here offer you my conjecture concerning the meaning of this triall of Doctrines and saving of men as by Fire The Apostle here seemeth to allude to the words of the Prophet Zachary Ch. 13. 8 9. who speaking of the Restauration of the Kingdome of God saith thus Two parts therein shall be cut off and die but the third shall be left therein And I will bring the third part through the Fire and will refine them as Silver is refined and will try them as Gold is tryed they shall call on the name of the Lord and I will hear them The day of Judgment is the day of the Restauration of the Kingdome of God and at that day it is that St. Peter tells us * shall be the Conflagration of the world wherein the wicked shall perish but the remnant which God will save shall passe through that Fire unhurt and be therein as Silver and Gold are refined by the fire from their drosse tryed and refined from their Idolatry and be made to call upon the name of the true God Alluding whereto St. Paul here saith That the Day that is the Day of Judgment the Great Day of our Saviours comming to restore the Kingdome of God in Israel shall try every mans doctrine by Judging which are Gold Silver Pretious Stones Wood Hay Stubble And then they that have built false Consequences on the true Foundation shall see their Doctrines condemned neverthelesse they themselves shall be saved and passe unhurt through this universall Fire and live eternally to call upon the name of the true and onely God In which sense there is nothing that accordeth not with the rest of Holy Scripture or any glimpse of the fire of Purgatory But a man may here aske whether it bee not as necessary to Salvation to beleeve that God is Omnipotent Creator of the world that Jesus Christ is risen and that all men else shall rise again from the dead at the last day as to beleeve that Jesus is the Christ. To which I answer they are and so are many more Articles but they are such as are contained in this one and may be deduced from it with more or lesse difficulty For who is there that does not see that they who beleeve Jesus to be the Son of the God of Israel and that the Israelites had for God the Omnipotent Creator of all things doe therein also beleeve that God is the Omnipotent Creator of all things Or how can a man beleeve that Jesus is the King that shall reign eternally unlesse hee beleeve him also risen again from the dead For a dead man cannot exercise the Office of a King In summe he that holdeth this Foundation Jesus is the Christ holdeth Expressely all that hee seeth rightly deduced from it and Implicitely all that is consequent thereunto though he have not skill enough to discern the consequence And therefore it holdeth still good that the beleef of this one Article is sufficient faith to obtaine remission of sinnes to the Penitent and consequently to bring them into the Kingdome of Heaven Now that I have shewn that all the Obedience required to Salvation consisteth in the will to obey the Law of God that is to say in Repentance and all the Faith required to the same is comprehended in the beleef of this Article Jesus is the Christ I will further alledge those places of the Gospell that prove that all that is Necessary to Salvation is contained in both these joined together The men to whom St. Peter preached on the day of Pentecost next after the Ascension of our Saviour asked him and the rest of the Apostles saying Act. 2. 37. Men and Brethren what shall we doe To whom St. Peter answered in the next verse Repent and be Baptized every one of you for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost Therefore Repentance and Baptisme that is beleeving that Jesus is the Christ is all that is Necessary to Salvation Again our Saviour being asked by a certain Ruler Luke 18. 18. What shall I doe to inherite eternall life Answered verse 20. Thou knowest the Commandements Doe not commit
single Texts without considering the main Designe can derive no thing from them cleerly but rather by casting atomes of Scripture as dust before mens eyes make every thing more obscure than it is an ordinary artifice of those that seek not the truth but their own advantage OF THE KINGDOME OF DARKNESSE CHAP. XLIV Of Spirituall Darknesse from MISINTERPRETATION of Scripture BEsides these Soveraign Powers Divine and Humane of which I have hitherto discoursed there is mention in Scripture of another Power namely that of the Rulers of the Darknesse of this world the Kingdome of Sâ—…tan and the Princpality of 〈◊〉 over Daemons that is to say over Phantasmes that appear in the Air For which cause Satan is also called the Prince of the Power of the Air and because he ruleth in the darknesse of this world The Prince of this world And in consequence hereunto they who are under his Dominion in opposition to the faithfull who are the Children of the Light are called the Children of Darknesse For seeing Beelzebub is Prince of Phantasmes Inhabitants of his Dominion of Air and Darknesse the Children of Darknesse and these Daemons Phantasmes or Spirits of Illusion signifie allegorically the same thing This considered the Kingdome of Darknesse as it is set forth in these and other places of the Scripture is nothing else but a Confederacy of Deceâ—…vers that to obtain doâ—… over men in this present world endeavour by dark and erroneons Doctrines to extinguish in them the Light both of Nature and of the Gospell and so to dis-prepare them for the Kingdome of God to coâ—… As men that are utterly deprived from their Nativity of the light of the bodily Eye have no Idea at all of any such light and no man conceives in his imagination any greater light than he hath at some time or other perceived by his outward Senses so also is it of the light of the Gospel and of the light of the Understanding that no man can conceive there is any greater degree of it than that which he hath already attained unto And from hence it comes to passe that men have no other means to acknowledge their owne Darknesse but onely by reasoning from the un-foreseen mischances that befall them in their ways The Darkest part of the Kingdom of Satan is that which is without the Church of God that is to say amongst them that beleeve not in Jesus Christ. But we cannot say that therefore the Church enjoyeth as the land of Goshen all the light which to the performance of the work enjoined us by God is necessary Whence comes it that in Christendome there has been almost from the time of the Apostles such justling of one another out of their places both by forraign and Civill war such stumbling at every little asperity of their own fortune and every little eminence of that of other men and such diversity of ways in running to the same mark Felicity if it be not Night amongst us or at least a Mist wee are therefore yet in the Dark The Enemy has been here in the Night of our naturall Ignorance and sown the tares of Spirituall Errors and that First by abusing and putting out the light of the Scriptures For we erre not knowing the Scriptures Secondly by introducing the Daemonology of the Heathen Poets that is to say their fabulous Doctrine concerning Daemons which are but Idols or Phantasms of the braine without any reall nature of their own distinct from humane fancy such as are dead mens Ghosts and Fairies and other matter of old Wives tales Thirdly by mixing with the Scripture divers reliques of the Religion and much of the vain and erroneous Philosophy of the Greeks especially of Aristotle Fourthly by mingling with both these false or uncertain Traditions and fained or uncertain History And so we come to erre by giving heed to seducing Spirits and the Daemonology of such as speak lies in Hypocrisie or as it is in the Originall 1 Tim. 4. 1 2. of those that play the part of lyars with a seared conscience that is contrary to their own knowledge Concerning the first of these which is the Seducing of men by abuse of Scripture I intend to speak briefly in this Chapter The greatest and main abuse of Scripture and to which almost all the rest are either consequent or subservient is the wresting of it to prove that the Kingdome of God mentioned so often in the Scripture is the present Church or multitude of Christian men now living or that being dead are to rise again at the last day whereas the Kingdome of God was first instituted by the Ministery of Moses over the Jews onely who were therefore called his Peculiar People and ceased afterward in the election of Saul when they refused to be governed by God any more and demanded a King after the manner of the nations which God himself consented unto as I have more at large proved before in the 35. Chapter After that time there was no other Kingdome of God in the world by any Pact or otherwise than he ever was is and shall be King of all men and of all creatures as governing according to his Will by his infinite Power Neverthelesse he promised by his Prophets to restore this his Government to them again when the time he hath in his secret counsell appointed for it shall bee fully come and when they shall turn unto him by repentance and amendment of life and not onely so but he invited also the Gentiles to come in and enjoy the happinesse of his Reign on the same conditions of conversion and repentance and hee promised also to send his Son into the world to expiate the sins of them all by his death and to prepare them by his Doctrine to receive him at his second coming Which second coming not yet being the Kingdome of God is not yet come and wee are not now under any other Kings by Pact but our Civill Soveraigns saving onely that Christian men are already in the Kingdome of Grace in as much as they have already the Promise of being received at his comming againe Consequent to this Errour that the present Church is Christs Kingdome there ought to be some one Man or Assembly by whose mouth our Saviour now in heaven speaketh giveth law and which representeth his Person to all Christians or divers Men or divers Assemblies that doe the same to divers parts of Christendome This power Regal under Christ being challenged universally by the Pope and in particular Common-wealths by Assemblies of the Pastors of the place when the Scripture gives it to none but to Civill Soveraigns comes to be so passionately disputed that it putteth out the Light of Nature and causeth so great a Darknesse in mens understanding that they see not who it is to whom they have engaged their obedience Consequent to this claim of the Pope to Vicar Generall of Christ in the present
every Living Creature And likewise of Man God made him of the dust of the earth and breathed in his face the breath of Life factus est Homo in animam viventem that is and Man was made a Living Creature And after Noah came out of the Arke God saith hee will no more smite omnem animam viventem that is every Living Creature And Deut. 12. 23. Eate not the Bloud for the Bloud is the Soule that is the Life From which places if by Soule were meant a Substance Incorporeall with an existence separated from the Body it might as well be inferred of any other living Creature as of Man But that the Souls of the Faithfull are not of theirown Nature but by Gods speciall Grace to remaine in their Bodies from the Resurrection to all Eternity I have already I think sufficiently proved out of the Scriptures in the 38. Chapter And for the places of the New Testament where it is said that any man shall be cast Body and Soul into Hell fire it is no more than Body and Life that is to say they shall be cast alive into the perpetuall fire of Gehenna This window it is that gives entrance to the Dark Doctrine first of Eternall Torments and afterwards of Purgatory and consequently of the walking abroad especially in places Consecrated Solitary or Dark of the Ghosts of men deceased and thereby to the pretences of Exorcisme and Conjuration of Phantasmes as also of Invocation of men dead and to the Doctrine of Indulgences that is to say of exemption for a time or for ever from the fire of Purgatory wherein these Incorporeall Substances are pretended by burning to be cleansed and made fit for Heaven For men being generally possessed before the time of our Saviour by contagion of the Daemonology of the Greeks of an opinion that the Souls of men were substances distinct from their Bodies and therefore that when the Body was dead the Soulâ—… of every man whether godly or wicked must subsist somewhere by vertue of its own nature without acknowledging therein any supernaturall gift of Gods the Doctors of the Church doubted a long time what was the place which they were to abide in till they should be re-united to their Bodies in the Resurrection supposing for a while they lay under the Altars but afterward the Church of Rome found it more profitable to build for them this place of Purgatory which by some other Churches in this later age has been demolished Let us now consider what texts of Scripture seem most to confirm these three generall Errors I have here touched As for those which Cardinall Bellarmine hath alledged for the present Kingdome of God administred by the Pope than which there are none that make a better shew of proof I have already answered them and made it evident that the Kingdome of God instituted by Moses ended in the election of Saul After which time the Priest of his own authority never deposed any King That which the High Priest did to Athaliah was not done in his owne right but in the right of the young King Joash her Son But Solomon in his own right deposed the High Priest Abiathar and set up another in his place The most difficult place to answer of all those that can be brought to prove the Kingdome of God by Christ is already in this world is alledged not by Bellarmine nor any other of the Church of Rome but by Beza that will have it to begin from the Resurrection of Christ. But whether hee intend thereby to entitle the Presbytery to the Supreme Power Ecclesiasticall in the Common-wealth of Geneva and consequently to every Presbytery in every other Common-wealth or to Princes and other Civill Soveraigns I doe not know For the Presbytery hath challenged the power to Excomunicate their owne Kings and to bee the Supreme Moderators in Religion in the places where they have that form of Church government no lesse then the Pope callengeth it universally The words are Marke 9. 1. Verily I say unto you that there be some of them that stand here which shall not tast of death till they have seene the Kingdome of God come with power Which words if taken grammatically make it certaine that either some of those men that stood by Christ at that time are yet alive or else that the Kingdome of God must be now in this present world And then there is another place more difficult For when the Apostles after our Saviours Resurrection and immediately before his Ascension asked our Saviour saying Acts 1. 6. Wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdome to Israel he answered them It is not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power But ye shall receive power by the comming of the Holy Ghost upon you and yee shall be my Martyrs witnesses both in Ierusalem in all Iudaea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the Earth Which is as much as to say My Kingdome is not yet come nor shall you foreknow when it shall come for it shall come as a theefe in the night But I will send you the Holy Ghost and by him you shall have power to beare witnesse to all the world by your preaching of my Resurrection and the workes I have done and the doctrine I have taught that they may beleeve in me and expect eternall life at my comming againe How does this agree with the comming of Christs Kingdome at the Resurrection And that which St. Paul saies 1 Thessal 1. 9 10. That they turned from Idols to serve the living and true God and to waite for his Sonne from Heaven Where to waite for his Sonne from Heaven is to wait for his comming to be King in power which were not necessary if his Kingdome had beene then present Againe if the Kingdome of God began as Beza on that place Mark 9. 1. would have it at the Resurrection what reason is there for Christians ever since the Resurrection to say in their prayers Let thy Kingdome Come It is therefore manifest that the words of St. Mark are not so to be interpreted There be some of them that stand here saith our Saviour that shall not tast of death till they have seen the Kingdome of God come in power If then this Kingdome were to come at the Resurrection of Christ why is it said some of them rather than all For they all lived till after Christ was risen But they that require an exact interpretation of this text let them interpret first the like words of our Saviour to St. Peter concerning St. John chap. 21. 22. If I will that he tarry till I come what is that to thee upon which was grounded a report that hee should not dye Neverthelesse the truth of that report was neither confirmed as well grounded nor refuted as ill grounded on those words but left as a saying not understood
and not the Reprobate To the Reprobate there remaineth after the Resurrection a Second and Eternall Death between which Resurrection and their Second and Eternall death is but a time of Punishment and Torment and to last by succession of sinners thereunto as long as the kind of Man by propagation shall endure which is Eternally Upon this Doctrine of the Naturall Eternity of separated Soules is founded as I said the Doctrine of Purgatory For supposing Eternall Life by Grace onely there is no Life but the Life of the Body and no Immortality till the Resurrection The texts for Purgatory alledged by Bellarmine out of the Canonicall Scripture of the old Testament are first the Fasting of David for Saul and Ionathan mentioned 2 Kings 1. 12. and againe 2 Sam. 3. 35. for the death of Abner This Fasting of David he saith was for the obtaining of something for them at Gods hands after their death because after he had Fasted to procure the recovery of his owne child assoone as he knew it was dead he called for meate Seeing then the Soule hath an existence separate from the Body and nothing can be obtained by mens Fasting for the Soules that are already either in Heaven or Hell it followeth that there be some Soules of dead men that are neither in Heaven nor in Hell and therefore they must bee in some third place which must be Purgatory And thus with hard straining hee has wrested those places to the proofe of a Purgatory whereas it is manifest that the ceremonies of Mourning and Fasting when they are used for the death of men whose life was not profitable to the Mourners they are used for honours sake to their persons and when t is done for the death of them by whose life the Mourners had benefit it proceeds from their particular dammage And so David honoured Saul and Abner with his Fasting and in the death of his owne child recomforted himselfe by receiving his ordinary food In the other places which he alledgeth out of the old Testamēt there is not so much as any shew or colour of proofe He brings in every text wherein there is the word Anger or Fire or Burning or Purging or Clensing in case any of the Fathers have but in a Sermon rhetorically applied it to the Doctrine of Purgatory already beleeved The first verse of Psalme 37. O Lord rebuke me not in thy wrath nor chasten me in thy hot displeasure What were this to Purgatory if Augustine had not applied the Wrath to the fire of Hell and the Displeasure to that of Purgatory And what is it to Purgatory that of Psalme 66. 12. Wee went through fire and water and thou broughtest us to a moist place and other the like texts with which the Doctors of those times entended to adorne or extend their Sermons or Commentaries haled to their purposes by force of wit But he alledgeth other places of the New Testament that are not so easie to be answered And first that of Matth. 12. 32. Whosoever speaketh a word against the Sonne of man it shall be forgiven him but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost it shall not bee forgiven him neither in this world nor in the world to come Where he will have Purgatory to be the World to come wherein some sinnes may be forgiven which in this World were not forgiven notwithstanding that it is manifest there are but three Worlds one from the Creation to the Flood which was destroyed by Water and is called in Scripture the Old World another from the Flood to the day of Judgement which is the Present World and shall bee destroyed by Fire and the third which shall bee from the day of Judgement forward everlasting which is called the World to come and in which it is agreed by all there shall be no Purgatory And therefore the World to come and Purgatory are inconsistent But what then can bee the meaning of those our Saviours words I confesse they are very hardly to bee reconciled with all the Doctrines now unanimously received Nor is it any shame to confesse the profoundnesse of the Scripture to bee too great to be sounded by the shortnesse of humane understanding Neverthelesse I may propound such things to the consideration of more learned Divines as the text it selfe suggesteth And first seeing to speake against the Holy Ghost as being the third Person of the Trinity is to speake against the Church in which the Holy Ghost resideth it seemeth the comparison is made betweene the Easinesse of our Saviour in bearing with offences done to him while hee himselfe taught the world that is when he was on earth and the Severity of the Pastors after him against those which should deny their authority which was from the Holy Ghost As if he should say You that deny my Power nay you that shall crucifie me shall be pardoned by mee as often as you turne unto mee by Repentance But if you deny the Power of them that teach you hereafter by vertue of the Holy Ghost they shall be inexorable and shall not forgive you but persecute you in this World and leave you without absolution though you turn to me unlesse you turn also to them to the punishments as much as lies in them of the World to come And so the words may be taken as a Prophecy or Praediction concerning the times as they have along been in the Christian Church Or if this be not the meaning for I am not peremptory in such difficult places perhaps there may be place left after the Resurrection for the Repentance of some sinners And there is also another place that seemeth to agree therewith For considering the words of St. Paul 1 Cor. 15. 29. What shall they doe which are Baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all why also are they Baptized for the dead a man may probably inferre as some have done that in St. Pauls time there was a custome by receiving Baptisme for the dead as men that now beleeve are Sureties and Undertakers for the Faith of Infants that are not capable of beleeving to undertake for the persons of their deceased friends that they should be ready to obey and receive our Saviour for their King at his his coming again and then the forgivenesse of sins in the world to come has no need of a Purgatory But in both these interpretations there is so much of paradox that I trust not to them but propound them to those that are throughly versed in the Scripture to inquire if there be no clearer place that contradicts them Onely of thus much I see evident Scripture to perswade me that there is neither the word nor the thing of Purgatory neither in this nor any other text nor any thing that can prove a necessity of a place for the Soule without the Body neither for the Soule of Lazarus during the four days he was dead nor for the Soules of them which the
Attribute expresseth best his Nature which is Incomprehensible but what best expresseth our desire to honour Him To know now upon what grounds they say there be Essences Abstract or Substantiall Formes wee are to consider what those words do properly signifie The use of Words is to register to our selves and make manifest to others the Thoughts and Conceptions of our Minds Of which Words some are the names of the Things conceived as the names of all sorts of Bodies that work upon the Senses and leave an Impression in the Imagination Others are the names of the Imaginations themselves that is to say of those Ideas or mentall Images we have of all things wee see or remember And others againe are names of Names or of different sorts of Speech As Vniversall Plurall Singular are the names of Names and Definition Affirmation Negation True False Syllogisme Interrogation Promise Covenant are the names of certain Forms of Speech Others serve to shew the Consequence or Repugnance of one name to another as when one saith A Man is a Body hee intendeth that the name of Body is necessarily consequent to the name of Man as being but severall names of the same thing Man which Consequence is signified by coupling them together with the word Is. And as wee use the Verbe Is so the Latines use their Verbe Est and the Greeks their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 through all its Declinations Whether all other Nations of the world have in their severall languages a word that answereth to it or not I cannot tell but I am sure they have not need of it For the placing of two names in order may serve to signifie their Consequence if it were the custome for Custome is it that give words their force as well as the words Is or Bee or Are and the like And if it were so that there were a Language without any Verb answerable to Est or Is or Bee yet the men that used it would bee not a jot the lesse capable of Inferring Concluding and of all kind of Reasoning than were the Greeks and Latines But what then would become of these Terms of Entity Essence Essentiall â—…ssentiality that are derived from it and of many more that depend on these applyed as most commonly they are They are therefore no Names of Things but Signes by which wee make known that wee conceive the Consequence of one name or Attribute to another as when we say a Man is a living Body wee mean not that the Man is one thing the Living Body another and the Is or Beeing a third but that the Man and the Living Body is the same thing because the Consequence If hee bee a Man hee is a living Body is a true Consequence signified by that word Is. Therefore to bee a Body to Walke to bee Speaking to Live to See and the like Infinitives also Corpâ—…reity Walking Speaking Life Sight and the like that signifie just the same are the names of Nothing as I have elsewhere more amply expressed But to what purpose may some man say is such subtilty in a work of this nature where I pretend to nothing but what is necessary to the doctrine of Government and Obedience It is â—…o this purpose that men may no longer suffer themselves to be abused by them that by this doctrine of Separated Essences built on the Vain Philosophy of Aristotle would fright them from Obeying the Laws of their Countrey with empty names as men fright Birds from the Corn with an empty doublet a hat and a crooked stick For it is upon this ground that when a Man is dead and buried they say his Soule that is his Life can walk separated from his Body and is seen by night amongst the graves Upon the same ground they say that the Figure and Colour and Tast of a peece of Bread has a being there where they say there is no Bread And upon the same ground they say that Faith and Wisdome and other Vertues are sometimes powred into a man sometimes blown into him from Heaven as if the Vertuous and their Vertues could be asunder and a great many other things that serve to lessen the dependance of Subjects on the Soveraign Power of their Countrey For who will endeavour to obey the Laws if he expect Obedience to be Powred or Blown into him Or who will not obey a Priest that can make God rather than his Soveraign nay than God himselfe Or who that is in fear of Ghosts will not bear great respect to those that can make the Holy Water that drives them from him And this shall suffice for an example of the Errors which are brought into the Church from the Entities and Essences of Aristotle which it may be he knew to be false Philosophy but writ it as a thing consonant to and corroborative of their Religion and fearing the fate of Socrates Being once fallen into this Error of Separated Essences they are thereby necessarily involved in many other absurdities that follow it For seeing they will have these Forms to be reall they are obliged to assign them some place But because they hold them Incorporeall without all dimension of Quantity and all men know that Place is Dimension and not to be filled but by that which is Corporeall they are driven to uphold their credit with a distinction that they are not indeed any where Circumscriptivè but Definitivè Which Terms being meer Words and in this occasion insignificant passe onely in Latine that the vanity of them may bee concealed For the Circumscription of a thing is nothing else but the Determination or Defining of its Place and so both the Terms of the Distinction are the same And in particular of the Essence of a Man which they say is his Soule they affirm it to be All of it in his little Finger and All of it in every other Part how small soever of his Body and yet no more Soule in the Whole Body than in any one of those Parts Can any man think that God is served with such absurdities And yet all this is necessary to beleeve to those that will beleeve the Existence of an Incorporeall Soule Separated from the Body And when they come to give account how an Incorporeall Substance can be capable of Pain and be tormented in the fire of Hell or Purgatory they have nothing at all to answer but that it cannot be known how fire can burn Soules Again whereas Motion is change of Place and Incorporeall Substances are not capable of Place they are troubled to make it seem possible how a Soule can goe hence without the Body to Heaven Hell or Purgatory and how the Ghosts of men and I may adde of their clothes which they appear in can walk by night in Churches Church-yards and other places of Sepulture To which I know not what they can answer unlesse they will say they walke definitivè not circumscriptivè or spiritually not temporally for such egregious distinctions are
Examples of Impunity Extenuate Praemeditation Aggravateth Tacite approbation of the Soveraign Extenuates Comparison of Crimes from their Effects Laesa Majestas Bribery and False testimony Depeculation Counterfeiting Authority Crimes against private men compared Publique Crimes what The definition of Punishment Right to Punish whence derived Private injuries and revenges no Punishments Nor denyall of preferment Nor pain inflicted without publique hearing Nor pain inflicted by Usurped power Nor pain inflicted without respect to to the future good Naturall evill consequences no Punishments Hurt inflicted if lesse than the benefit of transgressing is not Punishment Where the Punishment is annexed to the Law a greater hurt is not Punishment but 〈◊〉 Hurt inflicted for a fact done before the Law no Punishment The Representative of the Common-wealth Unpunishable Hurt to Revolted Subjects is done by right of War not by way of Punishment Punishments Corporall Capitall Ignominy Imprisonment Exile The Punishment of Innocent Subjects is contrary to the Law of Nature But the Harme done to Innocents in War not so Nor that which is done to declared Rebels Reward is either Salary or Grace Benefits bestowed for fear are not Rewards Salaries Certain and Casuall Dissolution of Common-wealths proceedeth from their Imperfect Institution Want of Absolute power Private Judgement of Good and Evill Erroneous conscience Pretence of Inspiration Subjecting the Soveraign Power to Civill Lawes Attributing of absolute Propriâ—…ty to 〈◊〉 Dividing of the Soveraign Power Imitatioâ—… of Neighbour Natiouâ—… Imitation of the Greâ—…ks and Romans Mixt Government Want of Mony Monopolies and abuses of Publicans Popular men Excessive greatnesse of a â—…own multitude of Corporations Liberty of disputing against Soveraign Power Dissolution of the Common-wealth The Procuration of the Good of the People By Instrâ—…ction Lawes Against the duty of a Soveraign to relinquish any Essentiall Right of Soveraignty Or not to seâ—… the people taught the grounds of them Objection of those that say there are no Principles of Reason for absolute Soveraigâ—…ty Objection from the Incapacity of the vulgar Subjects are to be taught not to affect change of Government Nor adhere against the Soveraign to Popular men Nor to Dispute the Soveraign Power And to have dayes set apart to learn their Duty And to Honour their Parents And to avoyd doing of Injury And to do all this sincerely from the heart The use of Uâ—…iversities Equall â—…xes Publique Charity 〈◊〉 of Idlenesse Goâ—… Laweâ—… whâ—…t Such as are Necessary Such as are Perspicuous Punishments Rewards Counsellours Commanders The scope of the following Chapters Psal. 96 1. Psal. 98. 1. Who are subjects in the kingdome of God A Threefold Word of God Reason Revelation Prophâ—…y A twofold Kingdome of God Naturall and Prophetique The Right of Gods Soveraignty is derived from his Omnipotence Sinne not the cause of all Affliction Psal. 72. ver 1 2 3. Job 38. v. 4. Divine Lawes Honour and Worship what Severall signes of Honour Worship Naturall and Arbitrary Worship Commanded and Free Worship Publique and Private The End of Worship Attributes of Divine Honour Actions that are signes of Divine Honour Publique Worship consisteth in Uniformity All Attributes depend on the Lawes Civill Not all Actions Naturall Punishments The Conclusion of the Second Part. The Word of God delivered by Prophets is the mainprinciple of Christian Politiques Yet is not naturall Reason to be renounced What it is to captivate the Understanding How God speaketh to men By what marks Prophets are known 1 Kings 22. 1 Kings 13. Deut. 13. v. 1 2 3 4 5. Mat. 24. 24. Gal. 1. 8. The marks of a Prophet in the old law Miracles and Doctrin conformable to the law Miracles ceasing Prophets cease and the Scripture supplies their place Of the Books of Holy Scripture Their Antiquity The Pentaâ—… not written by Moses Deut. 31. 9. Deut. 31. 26. 2 King 22. 8. 23. 1 2 3. The Book of Joshua written after his time Josh. 4. 9. Josh. 5. 9. Josh. 7. 26. The Booke of Judges and Ruth written long after the Captivity The like of the Bookes of Samuel 2 Sam. 6. 4. The Books of the Kings and the Chronicles Ezra and Nehemiah Esther Job The Psalter The Proverbs Ecclesiastes and the Canticles The Prophets The New Testament Their Scope The question of the Authority of the Scriptures stated Their Authority and Interpretation Body and Spirit how taken in the Scripture The Spirit of God taken in the Scripture sometimes for a Wind or Breath Secondly for extraordinary gifts of the Vnderstanding Thirdly for extraordinary Affections Fourthly for the gift of Prediction by Dreams and Visions Fifâ—…ly for Life Sixtly for a subordination to authority Seventhly for Aeriall Bodies Angel what Inspiration what The Kingdom of God taken by Divines Metaphorically but in the Scriptures properly The originall of the Kingdome of God That the Kingdome of God is properly his Civill Soveraignty over a peculiar people by pact Holy what Sacred what Degrees of Sanctity Sacrament Word what The words spoken by God and concerning God both are called God 's Word in Scripture 1 Tim. 4. 1. The Word of God metaphorically used first for the Decrees and Power of God Secondly for the effect of his Word Acts 1. 4. Luke 24. 49. Thirdly for the words of reason and equity Divers acceptions of the word Prophet Praediction of future contingents not alwaies Prophecy The manner how God hath spoken to the Prophets To the Extraordinary Prophets of the Old Testament he spake by Dreams or Visions To Prophets of perpetuall Calling and Supreme God spake in the Old Testament from the Mercy Seat in a manner not expressed in the Scripture To Prophets of perpetuall Calling but subordinate God spake by the Spirit â—…od sometimes also spake by Lots Every man ought to examine the probability of a pretended Prophets Calling All prophecy but of the Soveraign Prophet is to be examined by every Subject A Miracle is a work that causeth Admiration And must therefore be rare and whereof there is no naturall cause known That which seemeth a Miracle to one man may seem otherwise to another The End of Miracles Exo. 4. 1 c. The definition of a Miracle Exod. 7. 11. Exod. 7. 22. Exod. 8. 7. That men are apt to be deceived by false Miracles Cautions against the Imposture of Miracles The place of Adams Eternity if he had not sinned had been the terrestiall Paradise Gen. 3. 22. Texts concerning the place of Life Eternall for Beleevers Ascension into heaven The place after Judgment of those who were never in the Kingdome of God 〈◊〉 having been in are cast out Tartarus The congregation of Giants Lake of Fire Vtter Darknesse Gehenna and Tophet Of the literall sense of the Scripture concerning Hell Satan Devill not Proper names but Appellatives Torments of Hell Apoc. 20. 13 14. The Joyes of Life Eternall and Salvation the same thing Salvation from Sin and from Misery all one The Place of Eternall Salvation 2 Pet. 2. 5. 2 Pet. 3. 13.