Church to be prophetick also For it being there said that the Kingdom of God is preached and every man presseth into it we cannot conceive it of any present pressing into the Church but as spoken of what should follow in the Churches encrease and splendor at which time there should follow the most frequent use of violence for possessing of Christian Kingship also And that by this Kingdom of God in this place spoken of is intended Gods own inward immediate rule he should have in our hearts was different from that outward exercise of outward jurisdiction which he should give to others in his Church called there the Kingdom of Heaven appears plainly in the occasion of delivery therof Because it was spoken to convince them that by reason of their own covetous humors had derided our Savior for saying No man can serve two masters but went about to justifie themselves before men by shews of legal or moral righteousness and could not yet well conceive how God should judge men according to their hearts such that could not believe that the single eye and light of love was the fullfilling of the Law even of every tittle thereof for the letter thereof was to last till John and after that time Gods Kingdom to be preached That is men were to be won thereunto by the milde and still voice of the Gospel whereas his outward Kingdom over mens persons was to be acquired and managed by the help of natural Reason and force together with such divine light as God should furnish the Prince with For although as the God of Nature and great preserver of men he do by the rule of Reason and by Precepts and Examples of Scripture plainly determine obedience and Monarchical Government as heretofore shewed yet doth he reserve to himself as Lord of hosts the secret approbation and disposal of those particular persons and Families that shal from time to time rule amongst us here as his deputies And hence it is that all Kings and free Princes write themselves Dei Gratia not Electione Populi for although prudence may many times lead Princes to make semblance of their having and relyance on the free consent or choice of the people even that they may be the more endeered towards him by this his professed acknowledgment and dependance on their favors yet that this election was never but by some party onely and a thing in it self not to be relyed upon will appear in that no Monarch being fully possessed was ever yet known to resign his other holds and wholly to submit thereunto for lawful title to be setled to him or his Nor looks it but with a plain face of partiality and injustice when we allow the Gentry and Nobility amongst our selves to be derived from the Arms and Ensigns of war and yet allow not unto Conquest it self the like force to estate Kingly right As though the same military Art or vertue did not adorn the leader as well as the follower or that Viriatus were not Vertus in the Chieftain more then in the ordinary souldier Whereupon fortitude being so much all other vertues as to be the hand or instrument wherby they are as to Society made useful and to be conveyor of them to the notice of others it hath made the world unanimously to submit to the plain eminence of this vertue as the steadiest rule for judging the hidden aboad of the rest But although our Savior make that additional expression of until now the onely reason for the answering the Jews why he undertook not this Kingdom himself yet were there many other important reasons for it besides As first the assumption of any such like State was not congruous to him that was in his own person so ignominiously to suffer Then if he had sat down in Davids right onely as the Jews expected he had lost right unto the Gentile Church Then again wanting lyneal race of his own to succeed after him he could not have stayed but encreased the Churches division To prevent which should he have set down rules to any other for succession it would have been called partiality by the persons neglected especially in the disposition of Christian Kingdoms where he could not as son of David claim power at all and wherein until his Gospel had been entertained he could not expect obedience as Christ neither In regard of which it chiefly may be understood why our Saviour should so often be found saying I came not to send peace but sword and such like Prophesies of the necessary following wars and contentions which should arise for the obtaining those Governments amongst men So that we must say that as the Prince of each Country sits down in the natural right of strength and first possessor and thereby in the positive right of elder brother so doth he thereby also silence and extinguish all right in the use of force to any other under his jurisdiction and obeysance even because their proprieties have their separation and assurance from his For as we formerly noted in right of that part of his Office over his subjects namely to judge them he was to be indisputably submitted unto in matters of legality and morality so is he in the other part also namely for fighting their battails and that of both sorts as well that of publike protection whereby the whole Kingdoms Proprieties are defended from forraign invasion as that of separate protection whereby each particular subject is defended from the force of each other For since none of the Subjects in each Kingdom can say of his Lands and Possessions that they were gotten by any independent force and manner of acquisition but were both gained and held by him in the relation of a Subject and that by such ways and courses as were by the Laws of that Country prescribed or allowed there can be no reason why unto Subjects as such there should be any such absoluteness of propriety granted nor other way of gain from one another allowed then what the publike Laws for Commerce do set down For although one Prince to another be left to the natural way of force for decision of Propriety where Religion bindes not yet have their Subjects no right to encroach or possess the Proprieties of one another by other way of acquisition then that of allowable commerce as heretofore declared But be these things as cleer and apparent in Scripture or Reason as they will it is not to be presumed but that those different interests which will be still arising from those daily changings of Governments and Governors will through that different hope of advantage to be gained by one form of Government or person governing more then another be continually prompting them with Arguments of contradiction at such time as they shall apprehend that person in whom their hopes do lye and whom they would have seated in the Soveraignty to be by any of these discourses disadvantaged in his claim In which regard large
far the vertue and merit of obedience must cease So that now to conclude this discouâ—â—â— of Law and Justice we are to esteem them the proper right and honor of him that hath the soveraignty who being to judge his subjects and fight their battailes is to have this prime and inseparable mark of his office preserved inviolable For unless we will be again content to be let loose to our first natural liberty of having no certain proprieties but make dominion again fleeting and dependant on the issue of each mans occasional strength to hold or acquire and in pursuance thereof to his own censure of right and wrong to possess there is no remedy but we must submit in matters of judgement and sense of legality and morality to the same person we now publikely submit our bodily force unless we should fondly think that it were fit men should be put by rules of true policy in such a wretched condition as to be left free to judge of right and wrong that to their greater torment they may be by force deprived Or unless we shall farther suppose that use of force and resistance was in these cases remitted also and so absurdly make each subject a superior by being his own judge and Magistrate CHAP. IX Of the Publike good Common good or Commonweal WHat hath been hitherto spoken of the necessity of self-seeking as to the preservation of that whole species which must consist of those particulars must upon like reason be now considered in the justification of whaâ— each Kingdom doth for its separate good apart without equal regard to â—e good of one another For although the good of the whole race of mankinde be in common reason preferable to that of any Kingdom yet since neither men themselves nor all Countries in general can be so reduced or associated under one entire government and care as to Call any man father or master on earth it must therefore fall out that this general good subsisting by and arising according to that of particulars the necessity of each kingdoms having separate propriety and interest and of an understanding and will proper to it self will to it be the same I mean to the preservation of each kingdom as the having proprieties distinct to the particular subjects of the same kingdom is to the saubsistance and advancement of the general propriety of the whole kingdome or as having distinct understanding and will is necessary to constitute each single person And as God who is and can onely be the universal Monarch of all mankinde doth so fasten mans specifical being and preservation by pleasurable objects accompanying his generation and food or the contrary on things contrary in such sort as we are thereby preserved from danger of total decay so are particular parcels hereof left to the particular guidance of stewards and officers of his own appointing who having their distinct allotments for improvement are through the natural sense of honor and greatness provoked to look to the encreasing thereof as their proper duties and that although in their exchange or usury of these talents other kingdoms be proportionable or greater losers From all which gathering how each kingdome is to be justified in prosecuting their own good apart we are next to consider what this good is In this case also we must as conceiving these notions of Kingdom or Commonwealth to include a distinct multitude of mankind there associated by union of a common head attribute unto them the same end we did unto men in general before namely the prosecution of pleasure although under another name to wit that of plenty which doâ—h suppose and imply that stock or store of things pleasurable which each kingdome is to have for the use and benefit thereof But because the care and charge for acquisition and preservation of the particulars that serve to promote and make up this plenty or pleasure doth belong to the Prince we shall not here speak thereof In the mean time considering all political happiness united and that under the general notion of pleasure we must say that as other pleasures of privat persons so the different pleasures of one Kingdome or Common-wealth above another is in vigor and sincerity of fruition or in continuance and extent thereof For if a people should be pleased with appearing contents or with riches and its appurtenances onely as ease dainty fair fine cloaths houses or the like these as they came short of what might have been added in the same kinds and as they stood unaccompanied of other political benefits as Religion Fertility Arts Militia c. and as again they wanted certainty for continuing in their possession or esteem they wanted also of degree for compleating their political happiness Nay farther collecting the happiness of each Kingdom into a total it is not onely needful that all and every member thereof be so far as may be made sensible thereof but because goodness and benefit is more or less as it is extended each Kingdom is also more or less happy as it hath more or fewer to participate thereof For as the happiness of a whole Kingdome must collectively considered be greater then the happiness of any single person or order in the same so must the happiness of one Kingdom increase above that of another in proportion as the persons by them made happy do differ in number And therefore we must also say that by Happiness of a Kingdom we understand that whole stock of pleasures and benefits of all sorts wherewith each Kingdom is furnished and withal the fit application and distribution thereof according to the general capacities and numbers of the subjects As for example if one party of the kingdom being too strong to be awed by the supreme power do enrich themselves by the spoile and plunder of other subjects it is not their taking upon them the shew of the whole people or Commonwealth that can make their particular gain the gain of the whole kingdom but it is rather really the loss whilst besides what is truely spoiled by fire rapine other mischiefs accompanying Civil war so many men as must be imployed for souldiers are kept not only from agriculture manifacture and other necessary imployments for publike encrease but also to live luxuriously upon the labor of others to their disheartening and decay of the Publike stock as famine the consequent of Civil war doth well declare But all this is little to the most considerable loss of so many mens lives which as man is more valuable then any thing else is the greatest loss can befal any Kingdom not onely as in its self but as it is wholly irreparable No when we see the ploughman the shepherd the spinster or the like to be intent in their labors and providing food and clothing for us These we may truely call Commonwealths-men forasmuch as they do by their occupations make real improvement without the loss of others Whereas he that through publike disturbance hath
seated himself as high in Office and Power as his ambitious heart can desire cannot at all be called a Commonwealths-man in what he hath done nor in what he shal do in this his imployment and power otherwise then as directed and warranted by his Soveraign Even because in all distributions and disposals made by any Magistrate of any of the Kingdoms stock already gained a consequential loss must light on them that were before possessed when as they that make an encrease from nature or art as they do thereby empoverish none so are they alwayes to be held publikely beneficial whilst they manage their proper imployments And as publike good may be thus damnified by private actings of subjects one upon another by force so may it by commerce also For if some persons or degrees of subjects do encrease their happiness or riches onely by consequent affliction or poverty of others none can call this an addition of happiness to the Commonwealth or Kingdome in general But if this be effected by lawful and usual wayes of contract commerce and traffick of subjects amongst themselves then at the worst what one looseth another gets and so the whole Kingdom neither gets nor loses in the general or whole stock thereof But if this way of acquiring from one another be without publike leave then by destruction and neglect of so much of that Kingdomes stock and improvement as great lots must follow to the whole thereupon For since to the whole Kingdom there can be no improvement but what is acquired either from nature or husbandry or invention of Arts or from other kingdoms as by Merchants Arms or the like so can nothing be lost to the whole but by neglect of these through diversion of endeavor or by actual destruction of what hath been so gained We may therefore well compare those distributions and partitions of honors lands c. made amongst subjects by the Prince unto that dole of bread or the like which upon pre-regard had to each parties wants is distinctly and orderly given according to the direction of authority and so nothing comes to be lost Whereas we may compare that way of partition which subjects do factiously and partially take one them to make amongst themselves to a kind of scrambling wherein while each party or person is confusedly endeavouring to engross to himself without considering the wants of others a great part comes to be spoiled in the contest and by neglect besides that danger of quarrelling which must follow thereupon Upon consideration of all which it will appear that as the publike or whole good of the kingdom is not to be estimated by every private possession but by all in general so can it have no competent judge of its reality and extent but that publik person that hath universal share therein And so farther that none but he that hath common interest in all the persons of his subjects can be well able impartially to minde their universal contents and provide against the covetous engrossements of publike and common benefits And this not only for deviding the present stocks of riches honors offices arms amongst subjects but also in differencing and setting the true value and proportions of each of them according to publike benefits one in comparison of another Else may his subjects place all their delight in riches and so neglect Religion and Gods service or growing thereby secure neglect the means of their preservation and acknowledge of arms Or they may set their mindes wholly on honour so as through emulation to fall into faction and civil war For as in our natural bodies although the humors themselves be necessary for our preservation yet if they exceed in quantity so as to defeat and interupt one anothers workings or be not in that proportion as the state of that body requires they then destroy the body so in politick bodies although the having of all politicke benefits be useful therein yet may the unequal and immoderate possession of some so them destroy without good care the enjoyment and good of the whole And thereforefore as the proper will and appetite of each person is in him supreme and uncontrolable Judge against all other foraign wills and also over the private and single appetites of his own particular members so is the will of the publike person in the same kingdom uncontrolable judge of that kingdoms benefit both against the publike judgement of other kingdoms and also against the judgement of any of its own private members or else there will at last be no such thing as publike good at all For when one Faction doth prevail on another or one Community or Corporation upon another so far as to encrease in riches or other necessary appurtenances of pleasure since what is by one order of Subjects gained is in the same proportion lost to another order the gain of the Kingdom can be no otherwise conceited to encrease in the whole then as these tradings and gainings one upon another had licence and direction from publike Reason even therein foreseeing how that Kingdoms publike stock might be therein encreased by forraign supply or kept undiminished by avoiding home neglect In the first case prevailing by way of acquisition and gain in the other by way of parsimony and thrift No it is not the assuming to themselves the name and notion of the Commonwealth and so by reason of their present supreme and uncontroleable power commanding without general agreement or leave of the common head that can make the actings of any prevailing party or faction to be rightly and justly called the Government of that Commonwealth much less can it be conceiveable how the particular gain of this powerful ruling Faction and that separate and distinct encrease which is thereby raised to themselves and their party by the consequential loss of a greater number of the people and inhabitants of the same place by them kept in subjection can in any true sence be called the gain of the Commonwealth let their pretensions of acting for and in name of the Commonwealth or people be as fair and plausible as they will CHAP. X. Of Paction and Commerce· VNder God Almighty who alone is Omnipotent and in himself All-sufficient there is no sensitive Agent but stands in need of security and advantage to be obtained elsewhere and which according to the sence and knowledge thereof doth not to the utmost of its power finde out means of trust for avoiding the objects of its fear or attaining those of its hopes Thus the Lion hath his Teeth and Tallons as his confidence to defend himself and also to obtain his prey The Fox trusts to his craft for both But generally all Beasts Fishes and Birds seek to shun their present fears by the nimbleness of their Legs Fins and Wings their food being usually so ready to all that live not on prey that little provision or care need to be taken In men the weapons offensive and defensive are
so continually nor Vniversally resident as to be able to determine all differences nay they may be conceived included in the injunction too because they exercised their present power in a patriarchal right and way as shall be hereafter noted So that in regard of this injunction to obedience under the notion of Father c. the Christian Church had resemblance with the Jewish also for their laws and commandments being given by God before they were at that heigt as to be fitted to enjoy that statute officer who should as a constant publick Father command amongst them they had likewise their precept for obedience and respect couched under the notion of Father too in the fifth Commandment within the generality thereof including as well such temporary publick officers as should immediately command as that future setled officer of King prophetically designed to be over them in both Churches Now as these Fathers and Masters had and have entire jurisdiction in their families and Kingdomes because these could have but one head in chief so must it be granted that since there can be but one Church that is to say Catholick because Christ can have but one body and that body again but one head that therefore proportionably as any other authority and head shall come between Christ and this body so much will the separation and disunion of him with his body be encreased For to represent Christ in the whole Catholick Church is not so much to represent him as head as to be head in his room And in abatement of this ambitious humour is our Saviours reply to be construed which he made to the Children of Zebedee who would have transcended their Apostolical rank of parity and have been alone sitting above their fellow heads of Churches at the right and left hand of Christ. For if their suit had been but for equality they needed not to ask it nor do I see why any of the rest should have been so angry at it But to answer these it was that our Saviour sayes that those that had highest abilities in close and holy following of him might expect a reward or Crown in heaven for it but they were not after the manner of the Gentiles to exercise domini-over one another here The like are we to conceive of that example of washing his Disciples feet and many other places where he purposely gives directions and precepts against this ayme of Vniversal Government of most of which we shall have occasion to speak in discourses following As for the other Government by an independent consistory of the Clergy it must to all unbiassed judgements appear unreasonable for since as Subjects they are included in the general jurisdiction and authority of each kingdome so for order and peace sake they should by the same authority be subject to their diocessans as they again are to be to the Prince the head of that particular Church Where by the word Church is meant that assembly of Christian Believers which is divided from others by an entire jurisdiction of their owne and do thereupon come to be called this or that Church Noâ— Clergy men onely as if these were the sole members of Christs body and so as being more immediately imployed by authority about Church matters they as more strictly called Church men and spiritual guides might be judged as some do do have the sole and absolute power of the Church and to be the onely watch-men and guide of souls No their mission and power as immediately received from Christ is onely inward unto us that is over Gods kingdome therâ— they are perswade men to turn to the Lord with purpose of heart that is so settle in our hearts the foundations of faith and love which being wroucht in us by the holy Spirit they become thereupon so far as they are Gods Ministers to be Ministers of the Spirit not of the Letter being for directing men in their outward duties to have their power from that Church and Christian authority unto which themselves are subject But because that error grew from an in considerate necessity of our imitation of the primitive Church according to its first manner of Government it will be necessary to speak something thereof As God hath power and will have glory alone so it is necessary in the constitution of those things in which he will have his glory more eminently to abide that he have his power making and stateing them to be more remarkably and particularly manifest Thus in the Creation that was the foundation of all things else he acts alone and so much alone that his very word was the deed In that particular designation of a Church for his glory to be more eminent amongst men that the honour of doing might be more his owne he did first make use of the weakest means in humane reason for the foundation and establishment thereof In the first Church amongst the Jews and whilst they were in their weak and wandering condition as their need was greater so his personal protection and guidance of them was more express and apparent And therefore whilst they were in this Theocraty their government was not to be managed by any setled Vniversal authority besides himself or any one who took not in all weighty things immediate direction from him least the eminence of his owne glory should be hereby abated but they were to continue in their wonted obedience to the natural fathers of their families and tribes until such time as being throughly setled in peace and security from their enemies he might make his recess and according to his former promises permit and appoint them a King of their owne Nation Who as standing in his stead and authority now and being entrusted with the future preservation and guidance of that which God had so carefully brought to perfection there was the same reason why he should have remarkable eminence and authority then as why he should not at all have it before The same course we may see taken in the founding of the Christian Church also for they during the time of their owne persecution were as their weakness required in a Theocraty too that is to say guided by the express direction of our Saviour himself given to his Apostles during the time he was on earth and particularly as being conversant with them for the space of fourty dayes and speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdome of God And in those things wherein his direction was wanting they were to wait for the promise of the Father even the promise of the holy Ghost who should lead them into all truth Thereby came those spiritual Guides and Priests of the primitive Church to be sometime called Ministers and Pastors but commonly Presbyter from which the Dutch word Priester and our English word Priest are derived being a notion in the sence of antiquity importing Seniority jurisdiction and power whereby they coming to be enabled notwithstanding the
their measure use it by the vertue of his authority who said whose sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose sins ye retain they are retained Whereupon we may collect that as the power of the keyes is originally in Christ the Churches universal head and was by him given to the heads of Churches onely so it can be in the whole Church or in its subordinate members no otherwise then as received from their head according to that of Saint Paul When ye are met together and my Spirit c. And therefore to make it farther evident that the heads of Churches are to be understood in the direction of tell it to the Church we are to denote that the power of the keyes in the next verse was directed to the Apostles in the word ye when it was said Whatsoever ye bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever ye loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven for unto them was most of this chapter directed the which was the reason of Saint Peters interogating him presently hereupon How oft shall my brother offend c. This power comonly called the power of the keyes and by the Romanists appropriate to the chief of that Sea only is that divine obsignation of Christian authority and precept whereby those laws and edicts of him that sitteth in the seat of judgment as the head of each Church that were but civilly or morally criminal in their own nature and obnoxious to temporal wrath onely for their breach come now to be sinful and damnable as being violations against God and the heavenly thrown it self by whom they are impowred and whose authority they do represent according to that sentence to be given at the last day inasmuch as ye have or have not done it c. Upon which grounds we may know what to conceive of that article of our Creed I believe the holy Catholike Church which some would wrest and make use of to draw mens obedience which way they pleased by proposing unto us what they pleased for Catholike doctrine But we are to conceive that this primitive form of profession of Christian faith therefore called the Apostles Creed was offered to and taken by such as were to be admitted into the Christian Church to shew and state their beliefe before their admittance and not to direct their obedience afterwards For although to believe in God in Christ in the holy Ghost do together with the acknowledgement of their deity draw on obedience by just consequence yet was this form of profession of faith therefore called the Creed made but to denote their beliefe of their true existence by which means being received into the Church their obedience was thence to be learnt For strange it had been for the Church to have proposed to men the matter of obedience to any of whom as yet they had no beliefe in And therefore when I profess to believe the holy Catholike Church the word holy will make it unconceiveable how it should directly import my profession of obedience and that not onely because the Catholike Church or Christs universal body cannot as before noted be ever comprehended under one notion and conception so as to be definitive to me concerning their determinations but also because I can never rightly say of the present or past militant Church to whom I seek for direction that they are all holy nor can men that live in a particular Church be ordinarily able to know what is and what is not Catholike doctrine besides that which is proposeth Whereupon understanding our belief in or of the holy Catholike Church to import our beliefe that Christ hath a true sanctified body which being so made by means of the holy Ghost in the article foregoing comes through their union in Christ and his Spirit to be of one communion from the rest of the world and so to be the Communion of Saints as in the article following So that then although the Creed as a Creed cannot of it self oblige to obedience yet since the beliefe of the articles thereof do by consequent bring men to Christs Church and out of desire to attain that Communion of Saints doth also farther prompt me to acts of obedience to that Church to whom I made this profession it will therefore follow that that obedience which I cannot give to the Catholick Church as such must be to this end given to that part of it under which I live since that I cannot otherwise obey the Catholike then by obeying the particular All which will be cleared by one instance of Saint Pauls who as the present head of that Church gives liberty to the Corinthians in eating of things offered to Idols notwithstanding that the then Catholike representative Church at Jerusalem and he himself amongst them had decreed otherwise Clearly evincing that the power of binding and loosing was to reside in each Churches own head and that they were to perform their obedience to the same party by whom they had learned their Creed who had been their spiritual father and begotten them in Christ. And that this power of the keyes was not given to the Apostles onely as a collective body of Church heads and so to the Catholike Church onely but was also conferred upon the particular heads of the Churches appears in that it was upon occasion particularly given to Saint Peter so that whatsoever head or chief governour should like him acknowledge Christ to be the true spiritual foundation and rock he should from Christ have power also to be herein a rock to others and to bind and loose And both places must contradistinguish the persons binding from those that shall be so bound and the persons telling and complaining to the Church from those that are to hear and have power of redress And as they were in one place spoken to Saint Peter alone to declare against consistorial parity so were they elsewhere given joyntly to all the Apostles the then visible heads of Churches to abate Popish usurpation For they were not to be commanding one another out of their Churches as they might those within them which was forbidden them in the persons of Zebedees Children But in those equalities they were in love to serve one another and in this their parity obeying the precept of submit your selves one to another he that should do it most and thereupon become a Minister and Servant to his fellows will even thereby make himselfe chief among them By which means being converted and become as little Children they shall then be greatest in the kingdome of heaven or have great and kingly power in the Church from the power of Christ that hath taken them into the arms of his acknowledgement From whence it will again follow that Who so shall receive one such little Child in my name receiveth me that is in hearing and obeying him he shal hear and obey me but Who so
shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me it were better a milstone were hanged about his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the sea As there is a distinction of the greatest in the kingdom of heaven verse 4 to note that these things could not be spoken of Christians universally for then received and receiving should be confounded and still the same so to shew it could not be meant of many in each Kingdom or Church that should by us be thus received it follows in the singular number in the fifth verse Who so shall receive one and so in the sixth verse Who so shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me c. By which last expression of believe in me as we finde children in the litteral sence excluded so may we finde our obedience to Christ to be unquestionably due to such our rightful Superiours as are Christians and believing on him But because Christ himself had formerly foreseen that our owne natural pride and lusts would ordinarily draw us both to Antichristian disobedience against our Superiours and unto neglect of the dutyes of love and charity to our neighbours it was the occasion of his expressions that he came to send fire on earth and that he came not to send peace c. For in that consideration he here saith that it must needs be that offences must come but then he also gives a wo to them by whom the offence cometh and admonisheth that it were better to cast from us those lusts and enticements hereunto although they be as deer to us as our owne hands or eyes then we should be in danger of hell by dispising one of these little ones who were by office to prevent and decide those offences and breaches of charity which our lusts should produce And that because they having charge of flockes committed unto them from Christ who came to save that which was lost so it was also their duty to regard the strayings of every particular sheep in their foulds and it came thereupon to be the will of God that none of these little ones should parish that is perish by violence and insurrection The farther proof that these phrases of little and least were parabolically meant of persons to be substituted in Christs power appears in that through all the three forementioned Evangelists the immediate following discourses do set out unto us the plain description of some persons by Christ in that sort owned Saint Mark and Saint Luke do it as of one that had no direct mission from him who yet is by Christ owned because he did his works of power in his name and owned also according to Saint Marke under the same expression for obedience as he had formerly set downe to the little Children viz. whosoever shall offend c. Nay Saint Mark takes in that discourse of him that acted in Christs name and authority so as he intermingles it with the description of these little ones as all one And to ascertain us that by them he intended his Disciples and his succeeding deputyes he directs his speech of receipt to them directly Whosoever shall give you a Cup of water to drinke in my name because ye belong to Christ Verily I say unto you he shall not lose his reward and whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me c. by that means making them and these little ones all one As for Saint Matthew he sets downe the description of the Apostles power of the keyes immediately after the discourse of these little ones so that by setting downe the chief mark of the power of the Churches head next we have farther instruction that both discourses belong to the same person Our Saviour in setting downe the office of the Churches heads under these notions of little ones and little Children and of defining their duty of humility answerable thereunto might have allusion unto the like manner of expressions used by his typical Father David who was usually personated as the Churches head as we find it expressed in the 131 Psalm saying My heart is not haughty c. and again surely I have behaved and quieted my self as a child that is weaned of his Mother my soul is even as a weaned child And as thus he answers for his mind and inward behaviour so is it to be noted that himself as the Paragon king was in his person very little whereas his predecessour Saul was not onely haughty but also higher then others by the shoulders and so not so fit as David to be one of these little ones by our Saviour spoken of And indeed this caveat for humility given by our Saviour to such as were to succeed as heads and guides in the Christian Church is but the same in effect that was given in the Jewish Church to be put in practise by their Kings that his heart be not lift up above his brethren And although our Saviour do thus set downe obedience to the Church heads under the notion of little ones to take off occasion of their pride yet that he intended such persons as should be in greater charge then ordinary appears notably by his telling us by way of terror of their power namely that in heaven their Angels do alwayes behold the face of God that is they have in regard of their great trust amongst us their eminent guardian Angels appointed By which we may know how to interpret Saint Paul concerning the Angels which should be judged at the last Judgement that is that such of them as had been more particularly trusted with the guardianship of particular Churches should give accompt thereof to these that had formerly been heads of Churches themselves as to the Apostles and the like And that we were to distinguish these little ones or the Churches rulers here spoken of from her other members commonly called Children but without the addition of little will farther appear by the observation of what was spoken of before For unless we so construe them I see not how that discourse can be direct in answer to the Disciples question of who shall be greatest that is whom he would make governor over the rest which is in three places done And although he deny them this power over one another yet doth he not theirs or others having it over ordinary Church-members upon condition they must be converted from pride and become humble and little before God And by the word little thus received may we interpret that speech of our Saviours concerning Iohn the Baptist He that is least in the Kingdome of heaven is greater then he For as by the kingdome of heaven we are to understand the Church because in heaven it self every one shall not be greater then he so are we not to understand that every one here either should exceed in greatness him that was the greatest of those which were born of
first Office by suffering here and the other not till he enter into his glory he therefore answers It is not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Father hath put into his own power but ye shall receive power after that the holy Ghost is come upon you and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Ierusalem and in all Iudea and in Samaria and unto the utmost part of the earth whereby it appears that the time appointed by God for the exercise of compleat Monarchical power in the Church was not yet come and therefore he tells them of that power that should in the mean time be exercised by them Of which Apostolical power we have spoken somewhat before and therewith shewed how their Government was Monarchical and that by reason of Unction of power from Christ they had the right to be his chief Deputies in all things in each Church where they did preside although their modesty and the Heathen Magistrates usurpation would not suffer them then to shew it And if we mark the precedent discourse Christ may be found giving them this real power of Headship proportionable to that degree of glory the Church was then in For it would have been strange for a distressed and despised Church to have had a glorious or high tituled Head So that although that sort of glorious Kingdom which they fancied could not yet be restored to the Church yet that they should in the mean time be his sole Deputies in the managery of this Kingdom appears in that he was with them forty days giving them commandment and speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God and so he bids them abide at Ierusalem for the promised baptism of the Holy Ghost or to be endued with power from on high The which we may conceive to be the Unction of Church power because this promise is made a reason of this their demand about the execution thereof viz. When they therefore were come together they asked him saying Lord wilt thou c. And his answer is negative only to the glorious exercise thereof as yet but affirmative to their doing it by that power which they should receive from the Holy Ghost Whereby and by the words Witnesses to me we may well understand represent me in my power both of doing and suffering according to that Commission which he elsewhere gives them As my father sent me so send I you So that the sum of all is that as it behoved him that was the head to be made perfect by sufferings even so his Church to arise to her glory and particularly to the glory of Kingship by such degrees of sufferings as her great King should be pleased to appoint In the mean time how unlike soever the means seemed to them yet should the advancement of his Kingdom thereby be to his greater honor that could give them power by sending of the Holy Ghost to be witnesses and promoters thereof And therefore as God before in the Theocrity appeared in setting up the Church of the Jews so Christ in the beginning acts more powerfully from Heaven in his it seeming a thing unreasonable to make a recess and to give over his miraculous assistance until the work it self had attained such height and strength as to be fit to be performed by Deputies and that in a Monarchical form according to the patern of Government used in Heaven it self But it is like that the Apostles had more confidently made this Interrogation upon mistake of our Saviours speeches unto them First Of giving them the Kingdom and afterwards in bidding them now provide themselves of swords As if their former way of dependance on extraordinary providence were to be now abandoned and this Kingly way of acquisition and administration to be by them exercised And that they thought this way proper to themselves may appear by their present shewing him two swords and of S. Peters hasty using one of them afterwards But the Kingdom in the first place promised to these his little flock or flock of little ones was the Kingdom that is the Kingdom of Heaven and not any glorious Judicature here more then he their present Master had No they were first to seek the righteousness of the Kingdom of God after the same way their Master had done which as it was most proportionable during the Theocraty so should it be to them more glorious then the Royal Robes of any Solomon even then those more majestick robes which succeeding Christian Kings should wear To which purpose they might have considered his former designation of their manner of Glory and Judicature wherein he he saith that he that serveth should not expect to be greater then he that sitteth at meat And that therefore they who had continued with him as his companions should have a kingdom appointed to them as his Father had appointed one to him and not have their time of Judicature till the last judgement at which time they that had followed him in the regeneration that is had here mostly executed the Offices of Evangelists when the Son of man should sit on the throne of his glory they also should sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel In the mean time they were to resemble Christ in much patience in afflictions in stripes c. So that then their exercise of Kingship being to be like that of their Master namely by witnessing for him and his Gospel in Judea c. as he had already witnessed a good witness before Pontius Pilate and so making up what was behind of the affliâ—tion of Christ for his bodies sake the Church we are to enterpret the other part of Christs speech to them which might import their now making themselves friends of the unrighteous Mammon and of taking to themselves Purses and Scrips and especially by taking to themselves swords when he said but now He that hath a purse let him take it and likewise his scrip and he that hath no sword let him sell his garments and buy one to be made good and accomplished upon the glorious establishment of his Church under his glorious Deputies At which time his Vice-roys should be in a capacity to provide for themselves and others by these swords and were not under pain of tempting God again to grow altogether careless of supplying themselves as the former labourers were And that his meaning herein was prophetique and future they might have gathered by that which followed saying That the things written must yet or first be accomplished in me that is as he was numbred amongst the transgressors so must he himself suffer as one also Which having had an end concerning him then should the power and eminence of his Church so arise by degrees that through the glory of his succeeding deputed Christs which exercised their dominion in his name the rest of the prophesie should be made good unto him viz.
certain nobleman went into a far Country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return and he called his ten servants and delivered them ten pounds and said occupy till I come By which is set forth that trust of power which in his absence should be committed to the several Heads of Churches But his Citizens hated him and sent a message after him saying we will not have this man raign over us Where we may see Antichrianism stated and defined that is when such as are members of Christs Church or his Citizens do so far express their hatred unto him as to deny his deputed Christs to Raign or have power over them And therefore after he hath taken the accompt of his Deputies trusted talents he then comes to censure these Rebels against his Vice-gerents just as if they had been so to himself saying But these mine enemies which would not that I should raign over them bring them hither and slay them before me And that this sentence was directly intended to such as refuse this his power in his Deputies and not of his Deputies disobedience to him appears in that S. Matthew setting down the like Parable of trusted talents but without mention of the particular fact of the Citizenâ— hath no such expression in his relation thereof although he record afterwards Christs owning his Ministers as himself as elsewhere shewed So that now who is a lyar but he that denyeth that Jesus is the Christ he is Antichrist that denieth the father and the Son It is not said he that denieth the Holy Ghost or he that denyeth Jesus that is the belief of his Saviourship for this being wrought inwardly by the work of the Holy Ghost it maketh its denial or refusal more properly the sin against the Holy Ghost casting Christ forth from within us as an unholy thing but offending against Christs regency or power over us outwardly offends also against Charity and so by destroying Monarchy or Union hinders our wel fares here as infidelity doth our welfares hereafter And that this mysterie of Antichristianism is the denial of the Father and the Son and that in regard of power to be exercised by persons here below and from them sent and empowered may be notably gathered from these very words of Mission and Delegation which Christ always used at the empowering of any from him using stil these speeches or the like He that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me In which there being always mention of delegation of power from the Father and the Son and never from the Holy Ghost it comes to pass that Antichristianism is plainly opposition in the execution of such power as is from God the Father and Christ delegated In which delegation because Christ is to them the immediate Donor it therefore takes the name of Antichristianism For these being anointed and established by God in Christ although they are not to personate Christ in having dominion over ther faith as being the object thereof yet are they to personate Christ in claiming their obedience in all things and so forgive also as in the person of Christ lest Satan should have advantage over them as seeming to be done out of original power in themselves and not as acted in Christs Name and Authority So that now the means of accomplishment of our welfare here being by Christ reckoned as his service under the notions of Love and Charity and our obedience to him therein making us participants with him of what he meritoriously did in obedience to God in performance of the Moral Law for us it follows that as we deny the Holy Ghost in denial of Jesuship so also God the Father in denial of his Christ-ship For all things being ours through Christ and as through him that was both God and man all mankind came to be capable of the benefits and favor of the Godhead so single men being members of particular Churches through obedience to particular Christs under him come to be participant of Christ also and of those benefits promised to the whole Church his body under the condition of obedience Again as by faith we lay immediate hold on him the second Adam for forgiveness of original sin so by obedience to him and his Church we attain the benefit of his obedience and remission of actual sins In the first way by our particular offerings to him of inward faith and love we are all of us through Christ made Kings and Priests to God on our own behalfs in the second way we as members of particular Churches must have for what we do warrant and direction on from other Kings and Priests having therein Authority from him Nor are Kings Supreme Deputies as Christi only that is because their oyl and unction is ever in Scripture distinguished from what is ordinary but they are also his most immediate and eminent Deputies for execution and accomplishment of his Jesu-ship I mean so much of it as concerns the Churches temporal safety which was part of that work which as King Christ was to do as appears by that his speech The son of man came not to destroy mens lives but to save them But because it could not be personally compleated by that the son of man himself it must be presumed entrusted to those who to that purpose are so often in Scripture eminently adorned with this title of Saviour Nay it is taken as an office so proper to Kings that God for his peoples greater assurance puts himself under that notion The Lord is our king he will save us so likewise is Christ called A Prince and Saviour as he is also called the Saviour of the body that is of his whole Church by his deputed Saviours in the several parts thereof But most remarkably clear to this purpose and also to shew the following advancement of the Church by these Saviours under the Saviour and that this Church in that glorious condition is that which is to be called Gods Kingdom is that last verse of Obadiah And Saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau and the kingdom shall be the Lords For the Prophet having before set forth the Churches enemies and oppressors under the notion of Edom doth at length foretel all their deliverance and glory to arise by the means of these Saviours and that in regard of this more eminent and glorious condition of the Church at that time then before it shall be more remaâ—kably owned by God as his Kingdom And the kingdom shall be the Lords And so being his and Christs by means of these Deputies it will follow that they that oppose them oppose Christ and so are Antichrists But to know these things the better and the persons defined we will more particularly take notice of two places set down amongst many in the New Testament to this purpose The one is of the lesser and many
these things was despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him and we esteemed him not performing onely in himself as after followeth the work of Jesuship and so healing his Church by his wounds and stripes And therefore as we are to interpret those many promises of prosperity made to the Church in general under a Jewish figure to be accomplished in the prosperity of the Christian Church so must also many of those other Promises made of the Churches Kings in the name of David and Solomon be interpreted of Christian Kings Else we shall not know how to make good those sure mercies of David those many Prophesies that his kingdom should be established for ever in his seed and that his mercy should not depart from him as it did from Saul who was taken away from before him The same again repeated 1 Chron. 17.13 promising that as his Temple should be built by Solomon who was a Type of Christian Kings as David was of Christ so God says I will not take my mercy from him as I took it from him that was before thee but I will settle him in mine house and in my kingdom for ever and his Throne shall be estaalished for ever And David himself did so understand it also and therefore said Now O Lord let the thing that thou hast spoken concernig thy servant and concerning his house be established for ever and do as thou hast said And so he proceeds with a reason for establishment of that Government Let it even be established that thy name may be magnified for ever saying the Lord of hosts is the God of Israel even a God to Israel and let the house of thy servant be established before thee And in the next verse he intimates the manner how it should be For thou O Lord God hast told thy servant that thou wilt build him a house that is supply it by adopted Children for so the word wilt build must import beyond Solomon already born Therefore understanding and interpreting the conditonal promises made to Solomon and David to extend and have been fulfilled in their own personal loyns according to Nature and these by default on their part to be cut off and understanding again that succession of perpetuity and the glorious Promises of the Church to be made good in Solomons typified sons the Christian Monarchs these seeming contradictions may be easily reconciled as having been both made good And it is observable by the way that the expressions used verse the 14. shew that the kingdom of God here is the Kings as before shewed in the Petition Thy Kingdom come and that again the Kingship of Kings is Gods for so the words run I will settle him in mine house and my Kingdom for ever and his Throne shall be established for evermore to the end that Gods will may be done in earth as it is in Heaven But since for the far greater part of the time past we cannot find as aforesaid these Promises fulfilled to the natural or direct seed of Solomon or David in the kingdoms of Israel or Judah we cannot without great partiality and prejudice but conceive that they must typically be accomplished in Christian Kings in like manner as we are to understand that the many Promises of Judah and Israel and the Jewish Church and Temples happiness and perpetuity are to be made good in the Christian Church answerable to that prophetical description of the Christian Church under the Jewish figure made by David himself viz. For there are set Thrones of Iudgement the Thrones of the house of David Where the names of Thrones being twice set in the plural number must signifie succession of Kingship which coming to Christ as naturally Davids son and to Kings as Christs adopted sons it follows that the opposers of them do oppose Christ and so are Antichrists And without the like interpretation and taking in the adopted Christian Kings as with Christ typified in Solomon Psal. 72 it will be hard to be understood how many of those Prophesies of prosperity and outward greatness here and in other Prophesies given to Christ can personally be made good in him considering that mean condition Christ himself lived in amongst us where he was so far from expressing or exercising any thing like the Throne or judgement of a King or Kings son that he had not whereon to lay his head But there can be no more better Commentator of the meaning of these Promises then David himself who in his last words cleerly explains to us that they were prophetick to those Thrones which should be established under the Types of him and Solomon by Christ and Christian Kings in the Christian Church and not by him and his direct natural seed in the Jewish Church For there we shall finde him confessing that he was but the Prophet of these things that should after come to pass and not the present object otherwise then in type the spirit of the Lord spake by me and his word was in my tongue Afterwards we shall finde that that perfection of the Ruler he speaks of belongs to his typified son Christ and not to himself because it speaks of a perfection and an extent of Dominion which he in his own person was not capable of He that ruleth over men or is appointed Ruler over mankinde which David nor his natural race as Kings of the Jews could not claim to be must be just ruling in the fear of God And he shall be as the light of the morning when the sun ariseth even a morning without clouds as the tender grass springing out of the earth by cleer shining after rain All which are expressions of excellence which David could not personally essume and therefore he adds although my house be not so with God yet he hath made me an everlasting Covenant ordered in all things and sure for this is all my salvatin and all my desire although he make it not to grow That is although neither I nor my present more natural house do thus grow yet it is my comfort that it shall be accompplished in my typifyed son Christ and the Christian Kings after him In him from whom all Crowns are derived and in whom all Justice is originally inherent is this Prophesie in the first place to be fulfilled And then by vertue of that Unction which those other Christi shall have from him all the world over they also shall be enabled in their several jurisdictions to rule over men in the fear of God and by vertue of their derived power be as the light of the morning even as a morning without clouds when the Sun ariseth or after this Son of Righteousness is arisen and be as the tender grass springing out of the earth by cleer shineing after rain that is that cleer shining light of Justice from
administration of power there also is unity of Doctrine lost and schism is also brought into the Church as well as confusion into the State The which needs the less to be wondered at in us on whom the ends of the earth are come if we consider what befel the Jews themselves when there was no King in Israel For although they had the oracles of God committed unto them that is they had not only more aboundance of divine precepts but had God himself also by his Priests and Prophets always ready to give them express direction in all doubts as from an oracle yet how plainly doth the instance of Micahs Idols tells us how subject each one is at such times to fraim to themselves not only new forms of Worship but new gods of their own devising and setting up Which by little and little may come to be taken up and countenanced by their divided authority as that was by the Danites who had many equal to and under them to be seduced by an evil example but none above them to keep them and all others conformable All which well considered may instruct us of the reason of our Saviours dark answer to such as had no minde to believe him therein when he saith My kingdom is not of this world This was true first in that this worlds kingdom being not to be compared to his Kingdom in heaven with his Father did not therefore deserve comparatively to be called his or had in that esteem which they that made this question did think of And then we must understand this denial not to reach to his right of Kingship or Super-eminence in the Church and Kingdoms of this world but to the present execution thereof by himself that probably being the very cause of Pilates demand Unto whom he having been by some reported as King of the Jews and he beholding his present mean condition so unlike that of a King it made him scornfully ask Art thou a King then aswel as afterwards scornfully write that he was so And therefore our Saviours answer can import no farther abnegation of his Kingship amongst us then to his own personal execution meaning not to be by him immediately managed here now but by Deputies whom he shall own and empower as King of Kings Whereupon he also saith The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgement to the Son And he is so far from renouncing his true being a King and title hereto that he says I am a King and that the testification of this truth meaning his right in this Office was the cause of his coming into the world adding that every one that is of the truth heareth his voyce that is he believeth and obeyeth him accordingly So that we are to interpret this denial of our Saviours Kingship to be upon the same reason at this time done as he had formerly charged his Disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. For although he had wrought all those miracles to evince so much yet would he have them carefull not to cast pearls before swine that is he would have them to be wary in declaring his Divinity before unbelieving Jews as himself was now reserved in publishing his Kingship before a scornful Roman lest he being so straitly bound to another Master might be but the more moved thereupon to turn upon him with reproach And therefore they that think that Christ did deny his true Kingly Right and Office by that answer Thou sayest it may also by the same rule say that at the same time he did also deny himself to be Christ the Son of the living God because he also answereth to that question made by the high Priest Thou hast said it But in this place being newly spoken before the other he may be conceived to have made answer enough for both and so to adjoyn that time of fuller manifestation of his external regency and glory which was the occasion of their demand namely at that time when he as Son of man shall be sitting at the right hand of the power of God By which means his Deputies shall be endued with power of earthly dominion and at that time also when he shall make his own personal appearance in the clouds of Heaven to judge all men at the last day And that he had openly acknowledged this truth himself before appears by that request made to Pilate Write not the King of the Jews but that he said I am king of the Jews So that now unto the deniers or opposers of this truth of his Kingship by obejection of any other truth we may make demand with Pilate What is truth Unto which I suppose they can make no answer but by proposing to us some wilde fancies and collections of their own For whilst they would make the known duty of Charity producing real good by peace be interrupted by some of their speculative duties which cause division and all under pretence of preferring truth to peace they would have us leave that good which evidence of sense and experience tells us to be so in hope to enjoy some contemplative good by them called truth which we cannot apprehend But we conceive that when Christ the Way the Truth and the Life is once on our parts entertained and believed when we have once sought and attained the kingdom of God and its righteousness that is have to our utmost endeavoured to promote the glory and Administration of Christs regency in his Church the pillar and ground of truth then and there are we with gratitude to enjoy those additional blessings which peace bringeth Then and there are we to study to be quiet to seek peace and ensue it and the like which are the proper duties of such as being by Gods grace called are by the God of peace called unto peace And therefore although the Prophet Zachery speaking of the restauration of the Jews and their receipt of the Gospel would have them seek peace after truth that is prefer that truth before all worldly blessings yet where this truth is once received there peace is to be preferred to lesser truths according to good Hezekiahs saying now settled and confirmed in Gods Worship Peace and truth shall be in my days The like was promised to the Jews in their restauration or rather to the Gentile Church abundance of peace and truth And to doth holy David also put mercy before it in his blessing to Ittai saying Mercy and truth be with thee And other graces and blessings are elsewhere more often put before then after truth Nay of such advantage to the preservation of truth it self and of sanctify of life this grace is that we shall find it put first as the way to that Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord looking diligently lest any man should fail of
injustice of some particular persons hath hitherto deprived me of In the mean time as in many other of my afflictions I have found the good hand of Providence turning all things for the best and bringing good out of evil so do I now with greater comfort submit to this diversion as foreseeing that if I had not upon these unhappy occasions been brought to discourse of the sins and remedies of uncharitableness and disobedience the usual consequents of plenty and pleasure I should then it is like have been so taken up with mens more general and more present and sensible contents arising by the other as to have rested inconsiderate and silent of these mischiefs which the enjoyments in this kinde might produce In these and other speculations and discourses as I may generally say that I am neither Thief nor prisoner to the Text or Tenet of any man so do I desire to be understood that I was not hereunto induced through arrogance or affected singularity but the small proficience in Arts towards mans use and the daily failing of publick peace and agreement notwithstanding those Rules and Maxims hitherto delivered together with the diversity of opinions concerning them causeed me for a while to lay aside all Authority but that of Scripture or Reason to see what a new disquition from these would afford In any of which if too great zeal to the Cause and end in hand have led me into error and to deviate and transcend these my propounded warrants I do here profess to be ingenuously ready to acknowledge my self a debtor to any sober and reasonable conviction In the mean time I am expecting that some mens interest should lead them to clamour and outcry on my more severe dissections made towards the cure of publick Peace which have been by others but slightly healed and skinned over But as many Land discoveries had not been had not some more daring travellers adventured beyond the road of common belief and opinion so to the increase of knowledge a latitude of enquiry and judgement must be allowed although it may in some things thwart the ordinary current of tradition For I finde that Truth and Knowledge have not a greater and more common enemy then fear of reproach that is whilst writers through fear of contradiction strive to confine themselves to the sense of such as they hold of greatest reputation for ability in that whereof they treat they leave but where they begun and proceed with such wariness to themselves that it makes them forget the errand they go about which is the farther infirmation and benefit of others In my following Discourse as I undertake to cleer things from the sinister constructions which ambitious heads have heretofore given so I doubt not but I shall be by many therein construed and my Arguments prejudiced as if coming from a Court or a Kings parasite and an a better to Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government But because they that are so do it in hope of reward from those they flatter and my self not having any encouragement therein from the present fortune or affection of any now I know not why any should think me less indulgent to my self and posterity as considered in this common relation then others to theirs so as to imploy so much labour to court and countenance our common misery For could it ever have entred into a steady thought to have enthralled whole mankinde as they stand separated amongst us in Kingdoms to no other end then to advance here and there a single person to dignity in comparison of whom thousands of themselves were and might ordinarily be presumed superior in merit And I must confess I was my self a great while pleased with the seeming reasonableness of such like common maxims how unfit it was that all should be subject to the arbitrary Government of any one and much attentive I was to all those fine inventions and contrivances for his constraint herein but when I saw that Soveraingnty must at last be somewhere and that to divide it if it might be was not to lessen but to encrease its yoak when I saw that Covernment a Government must be Arbitrary I then concluded that the burthen of one Tyrant if it must be so was easier then that of many I am not ignorant of the natural sweetness of Liberty not in man onely but in all things that have life and sense For to what end these if when by them I am made perceptible of a benefit to my self I shall at the will of another be deprived and but rendred the more miserable by being desirous It were no doubt a happy estate could a man tell how to fancy it without utter extirpation of Nature if there were sufficient of things created not onely to satisfie the use but to satiate the most greedy appetite of each thing living in such sort that each one might not covet any thing enjoyed by his equal or of others above him It were then again necessary for compleating universal content that each one had over each and every one such full and absolute Dominion that he could not by any aversion of Power or Will in them be restrained Seem these things as large and as impossible for performance as they will yet appetite as appetite cannot otherwise stint it self but the desire for enjoyment possession of power over all things and persons is as natural as over any one Creatures below us have their appetites but few so that in injoying what they seek they are but seldom and then not lasting disturbers of one another But as for man there is not from the greatest to the lowest any that desireth not the increase of his power and he that like Alexander should command all would not yet rest both from wishing more worlds to command and it is like had he been entred among the Gods would have strove for command there also Look we to things again how shall we think what is within the verge of humane reach should now pease all men when all of it formerly could not please one For so our first Parents themselves must encroach on the propriety of Deity in desiring to know good and evil And think we yet that the poorest creature living would not be immortal if the flaming sword of impossibility kept him not off But now as nature hath bordered us by her Law of irresistability so that age sickness infirmities with all their attendants are not by any attempt or insurrection of ours against her avoidable even so I could wish that some way might be had to prevent mens risings against one another Yet then since some must be subject to others what course can we fancy to make them subject and not subject that is that their obedience shall be their liberty shall we wish that every man had his desires in all things so moderated that having or not having or his having or anothers having were alike contentible then indeed would no subjection be
unto me seventy men of the Elders of Israel whom thou knowest to be Elders of the people c. and I will come down and talk with thee and will take of the spirit which is upon thee and will put it upon them and they shall bear the burthen of the people with thee that thou bear it not thy self alone Which places plainly shew that although God at Moses suit did give others power to bear part of the burthen yet is their manner of constitution so ordered as to minde them of subordination to the Monarch and again there is nothing of popular consent herein All which would be well considered by such as are so credulous of the soveraign power of the Sanhedrim This delegation of power from God to Kings was usually conferred under the name of Unction for so saith Samuel in annointing Saul is it not because the Lord hath annointed thee to be Captain over his inheritance plainly implying the power and office to be conferred with the unction and that also as coming from God the Lord hath annointed thee And therefore under this incommunicable and sacred title of Gods anointed their protection is again by God more expresly owned then of other persons This unction or mark of power is in the first place due and proper to Christ thereupon called the Christ or the annointed of God Hereupon all the kingdoms of the earth are our Lords and he also is King of kings and Lord of lords and prince of the Kings of the earth Moreover he being the eternal wisdom of his father by and under him it is that kings raign and princes decree justice nay the very heathen are his inheritance and the utmost ends of the earth his possession And as in acknowledgement of derivation of office and power from Christ Kings as anointed under him do waer his cross on their Crowns so by vertue of this Unction as by a kinde of Sacrament it is that their persons have ever been held so sacred that none have ever yet found out a way or dared to practice the annihilation of the stile it self of King more then that of Father from the same persons that were really so as in other officers set up by humane authority is usually done by way of degradation The which amongst Christians hath been chiefly confirmed by the example of Davids usage towards Saul and Ishbosheth both of them his open and professed enemies Against the first of which although there might be high faults objected and that against God also who did thereupon by Samuel make so much known of his will of rejecting him that the people could not be ignorant thereof yet because they wanted express warrant from God to be actors therein as Jehu had they durst not presume to lift up their hands against the Lords annointed Nay David himself durst not do it although his advantage by his overthrow and his oportunity to do it were most apparant and who also had as high provocations from Saul as might have tempted any ordinary humor of revenge and had farther beyond the pretence of any ordinary subject or any order of them as great a presumption of insubjection as could be because of his own Unction by Gods appointment and from his knowdledge of Sauls rejection Yet he in proof of derivation of kingly Power from God only findes nothing but express authority from that God that hath set them up to be warrantable for the pulling them down they were the Lords anointed not the peoples It was therefore his part and much more is it the part of others now to permit that powerful hand that brought this rod upon them to have liberty to remove it in a way and time of his own For how can they do it as subjects and from whence should they derive insubjection If then they be Gods anointed the rightful power to govern accordingly must be therewith conferred or else the Unction were vaine and in a mockery of God If the politick corporation confer the power let the charter and seal of Office that speaks it be produced let us see the hands and seals of those that conferred this power as also their Commissions and authorities for so doing that we may be satisfied with the just derivation thereof But now as donations and assignations of humane interests use to pass and be conferred from one party to another by such like wayes of conveyance and none else so this passing by anointing it must shew it to be confessedly of a different nature But to give a cleerer light to the comprehension and distinction of Divine Right and Authority in these things we shall here take leave a little to digress As to deny God Almighty to be the prime and supreme cause of all things and of those vertues and abilities whereby each thing is effected is perfect Atheism so on the other hand to submit and fasten on him as immediate Agent those operations which by the ordinary course of his Providence he hath appointed to be the productions of natural causes doth as strongly argue ignorance but if in those effects and productions which may to our sense be observed to come to pass by the interposition of such second Agents as neither by any naturalness in themselves nor observation of ours could be reasonably concluded the causes of them in that case again to deny divine power and ascribe to Nature and second Agents what is above their reach is both Athiesm and folly too To ascribe the hardening of the Clay to God Almighty and not to the Sun or Fire is to be foolishly derogatory to him even as it is also to deny him to be the cause of that heat and vertue in the Sun or Fire whereby it came to pass And no less then so it is to ascribe to the vertue of the Clay that Cure which our Saviour wrought on the blinde man for neither any known naturalness in that Agent nor observation of the like elswhere could reasonably warrant such presumption therein As thus in Inanimates and the general course of Providence there ought to be a discreet distinction made by us in the setting down of what operations are immediately Divine and what Natural so much more in those things which are wrought by Creatures reasonable and where as well the Agent as Patient are voluntary as in Matters of Government and instruction it fareth In which respect since there cannot be any natural Reason or Cause assigned why the will of one should be efficatious to the Government of the will of another as in it self it must follow that that constant course and setled way of so doing must be attributed to Divine Authority only Constant and setled way I say for that there may many humane contrivances be made to introduce temporary subjection and agreement which cannot lay claim to be of divine institution and because again although this Monarchical Government be alone Jure Divino and so onely
to inherit and when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about so that ye dwell in safety which they had not nor did not at their election of Saul then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall coohse to cause his name to dwell there That is more eminently to dwell there in respect of the greater glory of this one place and this one deputy so much more lively representing the unity and glory of him that thus miraculously procured their rest and safety therein It savoured of ingratitude to Samuel also who now grown old in their service they might have patiently attended to have let him honorably end his dayes in the government And besides that Gods granting it makes the having of a King lawful they that then refused or slighted the Office saying How shall this man save us are called sons of Belial that is men without yoak or rebels And we may farther conclude Gods decree for establishment of this Office in that is was before promised as a dignity and reward to Samuel himself that he should walk before Gods anointed for ever which must express the Office of a King shortly to ensue for Judges were not anointed even as it must also import that it should be an honor for him to attend him They that would urge this expression of they have not rejected thee but me they have rejected to import their direct abandoning Gods regency as God and not their desire onely of the change of the Function and Officer he had before deputed over them and so think that now Princes had not their power from God as his Ministers but were to derive it from the peoples pactions should rather methinks have grounded their opinion on the Israelites former expression at their election and submission to their first earthly governor in chief Moses For thereby a refusal of God and Paction with Moses may be rather inferred Speak thou with us and we will hear but let not God speak with us least we dye Here the people are set down as expresly declining Gods immediate government and as choosing and treating with another for the exercise thereof Whereas in this place they object nothing against Gods more immediate medling with them at all And therefore this phrase of rejected me is to be construed as in relation to their disobedience and rejecting of Gods commands onely and not of his person but as by consequence In which way of interpretation there are many places of Scripture that may warrant us but none that can instance where the Jews or any of the Gentile Churches or people did either wholly or at all so abandon Gods or Christs regency as to choose or submit to any absolute or Independent Prince or governor and not rather as to Gods Deputy and Minister think themselves obliged to obedience unto him aswel in conscience as for fear of wrath and bare political respect And if any think these expressions I will set a King over me like c. and again him thou shalt set over thee c. do import that therefore their power is from the people they may observe the people to come to Samuel to make a King over them and although he delayed it yet they knowing of no such power of themselves come to him again inasmuch as Samuel said unall Israel Behold I have hearkened unto your voice in all that you said unto me and have made a King over you and verse the 13 it is said Behold the Lord hath set a King over you as truely shewing whence his power came for however as aforesaid circumstances made it evil as good things may be evilly done yet their having and desiring a King were both from God And that the Office was given to them as a blessing may be farther noted from Gods speech to Samuel To morrow about this time I will send thee a man out of the land Benjamin and thou shalt anoint him to be Captain over my people Israel that he may save my people out of the hand of the Philistines for I have looked upon my people because their cry is come unto me Which last words do plainly declare the intended end and benefit of this Kingly Function and they may well prove Gods designation thereof as the means even as he had designed the end the safety and good of his people And as these words prove the constitution of the Office and that in kindeness although their hasty demand might make the person given as a punishment even so the former part of the verse Thou shalt anoint him to be Captain over my people must shew both his supreme power and from whence the Authority of this Officer was derived that is from God not from the People A farther proof that the desire of Kingship was not a fault in the Jews is that neither David nor Stephen nor any else reckoning up the faults of that Nation committed from time to time against God did account this for one Nay this particular person and his power were from God in such sort that it was no more in their power to refuse then to steal or murther and yet be innocent and therefore we must interpret that which is called the renewing of the kingdom at Gilgal with him and the Covenanting of the Israelites with David to be nothing else but to shew to the people the person whom God had chosen that they might continue in obedience to him and his stock Whereupon as this was necessary in Saul and David because the first of their Families so was it after left off in their Children who still raigned in their stead that is in their right onely according to Gods promise to David to establish the Throne upon his seed for ever And therefore I hope it was not in the peoples power as in right of their paramount Soveraignty to refuse this Family or take another if it had sure God did them great wrong to settle it thus without their just consents So that Gods not shewing them these Kings till himself had determinately anointed and appointed them that Power and Office shews he acknowledged no Negative voice of Government to reside in them but onely the duty of subjection to which end their Oaths and Promises of Alleageance were to be made before him as is signified by the offering Sacrifice at Gilgal of which more hereafter And as the fore-cited Prophecy and Direction of Moses did plainly shew Kingship to follow this first setling the Jewish Nation in safety and honor so almost all the Prophesies of their restauration do again run in the same manner But because we shall speak of some of the rest elsewhere we will here onely speak of that set forth in these eight last Chapters of Ezechiel which is undeniably pregnant and express herein There this Office of kingship is so particularly described that the usual gloss of Antimonarchical men in attributing to
degree of submission yet more apparent which was to be given to this high Officer who should succeed in this Divine place of Authority which as it might subject them to many unavoidable miseries when evil Kings came so on the other hand they might foresee much benefit to ensue when good ones came as it proved shortly after in the days of David and Solomon So that untill this latter age of the world that men through vulgar and popular flattery could be brought both to forget Gods precepts and their own reason such Maximes and positions as are now frequent in the mouths of some seditious persons would have been abandoned as undutiful aswell as scorned as ridiculous It would have sounded strange in their ears to have heard men affirm That they had contrived a way of limitation for Kings whereby he should yet have all power left him to do good unto his people but none at all to hurt them and yet such is our present aversion to government that the hasty and inconsiderate swallowing down of such like Maxims for the limitation of Monarchical Power hath been the cause of all our publike disturbances All which right reason must say we are ever in danger of whilst Soveraignty is not entire and perfect in the person it ought to be For what shall he have such power of doing good as it shall not be in the power of others to hinder it if so then supposing him a voluntary Agent you must also suppose that if he think fit he hath power of forbearing it and so doth ill by not doing good Or if he work as an instrument and necessary Agent by the force and impulsion of another then is the power of doing good to be properly ascribed where this direction is because the Ministerial Vertue or Power of the instrument may be thereby implyed other wayes or not at all And so if you make him to carry the same force in the work of government as the Carpenters chizel doth in all his work then how shall a voluntary Agent be imagined such or what is the difference of the Kings power from that of the meanest subject when he must do so as he is directed and no otherwise And so lastly how can that be called good which is done necessarily and unwillingly But these things will be best seen by instance The power of each kingdom is in the Militia now as he that hath power hereof may benefit the kingdom by the invasion of another or by defence of his own and as he may use the same at home in maintenance of laws and equity against opposers so may he thereby do the contrary Whereupon Reason and Experience tells us how ridiculous this their device is For since the Militia must be somwhere and of absolute power if it be not in one mans hand it will be in more What will they then be the neer will they now set some in trust over these again to the end that as those were trusted above the King to hinder him from doing wrong so these again shall have power to be over them that they abuse not that their power which they before had over the King when will they have done setting of watchmen upon watchmen and must they not be men still that they shall so entrust In which respect being alike subject to transgress will they not necessarily be more in danger of injury being now under the power of many then they were before while under one And truely they that thus can fancy a possibility of stating a person in such a condition as he should alwayes have power to do good must next contrive him such a will as he shall be doing it also or else this power is but vain because he may do ill in forbearing it And they again that on the other side would take from him all power to do evil and yet think he may be all this while a voluntary Agent do in both respects seem to me to condemn God Almighty of imprudence or injustice in not governing all men in the world as these would do some in kingdoms That is not knowing how thus to take from men the power of doing ill without taking from them thereby also the power of doing well but suffering sin thus needlesly to raigne in the world Out of what hath been hitherto spoken we may gather the reason both for the establishment of Monarchy and also for annexing unto it those absolute degrees of Soveraignty not to be wrested or alienated from the person of the Prince by any of his subjects who cannot without overthrow of Monarchy be such sharers or engrossers of the Soveraignty as under pretence of bridling him from evil To say unto him what dost thou because he hath power by his Office to do whatsoever pleaseth him To which end we may also see the reason why Oaths of obedience and subjection are by subjects taken as for other ends so in case of resistance to take their part against all others The people being for this very subjection sake called the subjects of such and such Kings And this Oath in regard it is made in Gods name and presence and in regard it is the tye and obligation to maintaine policy and peace and thereby humane preservation the end of God also it is called the Oath of God as aforesaid And therefore to Kings are we to give obedience not onely for wrath but for conscience sake for so Solomon directs it the fear of a King is as the roaring of a Lyon he that provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul it is not a crime in policy onely to disobey and resist him whose wrath is as messengers of death but a sin also against Religion And least any should use their Christian liberty for a cloak to their maliciousness and the better to act their own revenge or ambition pretend that in unlawful commands obedience is not due which once granted how easie would it be to make any thing unlawful we had no minde to obey we are enjoyned to be subject Not onely to the good and gentle superiors but also to the froward for this is thank worthy if a man for conscience towards God endure grief suffering wrongfully for what glory is it if when we be buffeted for our faults we take it patiently but if when we do well and suffer for it we take it patiently this is acceptible with God for even hereunto were we called because Christ also suffered as leaving us an example that we should follow his steps who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth who when he was reviled reviled not again when he suffered threatned not but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously What could have been more expresly and rationally said for perfect submission to our superiors then here for first whereas the glory of God consists as amongst other things in the prâ—servation of man and that againe by
Tribes for want of a common Head exercising over one another as men of renown the whole earth came to be filled with violence For although each Family had its Government within it self and so all men within one Government or other yet since there wanted a definitive sentence or Monarch to unite these Governors amongst themselves they were in the true estate of Anarchy But to Noah and his sons that were to people the world afterwards as these mischiefs were well known so were they avoided For after that the earth came to be so fully inhabited that now Families must interfere one upon another and could not part peaceable as Abraham and Lot did we finde them under Kings as a necessary form for preservation of mankinde Which blessed Government was ever accompanied with Gods promises of fruitfulness as before recited But if by accident they were removed these people were in the sense of Antiquity if without Kings without Government also and in the estate of Anarchy and confusion And thereupon we finde it threatned Isa. 7.16 that before the overthrow of Judah and Israel the Land should be forsaken of both her Kings And so much as will suffice to convince Anarchy to be absence of Monarchy is in Holy Writ implyed when in the inter-regnum of the Judges it is said there was no King in Israel but every man did that which was righteous in his own eyes And yet were all men at the same time subject to the Fathers and chief of their Tribes as appears by the act of the Danites they had also the same Laws they had before for their direction But because there was now no single judge who might interpret and inforce this Law and give direction and command in chief it was reckoned a state of Anarchy The like at that time was imputed to the men of Laish and made a reason of their easie destruction for there was no Magistrate in the Land that might put them to shame in any thing Where by Magistrate in the singular number or heir of restraint for so the original will bear we may conceive their want of Monarchy was intended for it was always esteemed as a wo to a Land when many were the Princes thereof And indeed is the punishment of rebellion for casting off the one first head and so making many in their divided Factions and Tribes And again the state thereof is in the Text counted as preserved by having one Prince called there a man of understanding and knowledge Meaning one of such capacity as can act by himself and not leave the kingdom to be governed by others after Democratick principles They that think understanding and knowledge was here more pointed at then the unity of the person will be then troubled to finde why the plurality of Princes should be disliked since in that respect many understanding men must in quantity be more then one And again likely it was for one single person to want it and almost impossible for a number of any greatness whereupon it might upon that supposition have been set down but by many men of understanding c. But the truth is the curse and malediction is in the word many or else many understanding Princes might have been a blessing as well as one But why this one Prince is here set down on the other side as a man of understanding is because Princes that want understanding are great oppressors and so could not be counted as the preservers of Countries Whereas we shall never finde the having of one Prince as one to be otherwise given then as a blessing nor of many as many and that in supreme Authority at once to be otherwise given then as a punishment It being for the inconvenience of being governed by Democratick principles in the interim of any Monarchs insufficiency that makes the nonage and other disabilities of Princes come to be esteemed the Lands woe For if at all the equal Government of Peers or People either independently amongst themselves or as joyntly sharing therein with the King had been good or commendable then this nonage of the King which must necessarily produce it should not have been reckoned as in it self a woe But so we shall finde it undenyably to be accompted if we look into the third chapter of Isa. where God threatens the Jews to give them Children to be their Princes and Babes to rule over them And in the next verse tells the consequential punishment that should follow the Anarchical rule of others in their names and rooms viz. and the people shall be oppressed every one by another and every one by his neighbor And there being want of power in the person that should be the fountain of power and Government it shall soon follow in the inferior relations so that the childe shall behave himself proudly against the ancient and the base against the honorable But then because these mischiefs had been by them observed to rise from want of Monarchical power a man shall take hold of his Brother of the house of his Father saying Thou hast cloathing be thou our Ruler and let this ruine be under thy hand But because God had determined to punish them they shall be herein denyed also Which desolation to follow the absence or inability of the Monarch is again expressed in the twelfth verse viz. as for my people children are their oppressors and women rule ever them under which notions of women and children oppressors we are to conceive persons disabled in the execution of their Governments themselves through personal disability and want of power and judgement For since we cannot think women and children could do it most in their own persons we must thereupon conceive their punishment oppression to arise from that divided Aristocratick way of Government which the Nobility or others should act by reason of this want of superior restraint Whereupon in the following verses God in the disability or absence of his Deputy undertakes the cause of the oppressed himself The Lord standeth up to plead and standeth up to judge the people the Lord will enter into judgement with the ancient of his people and the Princes thereof for ye have eaten up the vineyard the spoile of the poor is in your houses what mean you that you beat my people to pieces and grinde the faces of the poor saith the Lord of hosts And if we look into the New-Testament and the time of our Saviour we shall finde not onely this malediction actually removed from the world by the presence of him that came not to destroy mens lives but to save them but it will also appear that this error and absurdity of Polarchy was by that time so well known that the fountain of truth makes the impossibility of its right in Government amongst men to be the medium of his Argument against admission of any equality in our subjection to
overborn be obliged to the determinations of a major Vote not by them elected or entrusted if by their joynt subordination to the Monarch who did before give them power thus to elect they stood not still obliged So that they that alleadge a major Vote ought of it self to prevail because it is to be presumed that in case of opposition even by by strength it would so fall out where is then their Government founded on pretended consent if meer force must be the rule For what think they shall become of Equity which alone should take place as having Reason and Wisdom for its guide what doth Equity and Reason so abound as that the major part of men in general or of any Society in particular should be always the juster and wiser if not what do we but endanger to follow a multitude to do evil and speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgement For if the minor side must acquiesse onely because it is the minor and weaker in number and power what differs this from the Government of Beasts and Fishes which prevail not by strength of Reason or Argument but by force of body and number Again if the fewer must be always overborn and governed who shall govern the other Or how can the major part be without subjection or government and yet the whole State or Society be truely said to be governed And while they shall pretend to determine the differences of the people who shall have power to determine theirs Will they set a major Vote upon a major Vote or will they as most usually remain so many Ex Lex or unbridled persons in pursuit of their own Wills onely In a word in this fained Government or political Paction how can Peace or Unity be expected where it is not so much as designed in shew or appearance For whereas the submission of all in general to some kinde of coercive and superior power is in Government on all hands necessary here the greater part are exempted and left at liberty And where political order appoints an Union in the body by means of an Union in the head in Democracy the head is made of many and by a monstrous deformity made biger then the body And where again in Monarchy the whole people are subject to the Prince and he to God so that there remains but one personate Liberty as to the Laws of the Kingdom here the greater part have no Laws to restrain them but according to the dictates of unbridled Nature good and bad Justice and injustice are at their own determination Against which it will be bootless to object that the good of the major part is in reason to be preferred to that of the fewer for that none will deny supposing it in things equally concerning them but who shall judge of that when instead of one person of common concern and interest in the whole people one faction shall thus be still judging another and so reckoning themselves the whole State endeavor the subversion of their opposites without conceit of publike detriment But that which is most direct to shew this Government null or unlawful is their want of Authority For their deriving power from the people onely must argue they sâ—ill want it because the people having it not themselves they cannot as elsewhere proved give it to others For how can the people give power to the people more then a man can be said to give power to himself whereupon these Polarchs having no mission from God or Authority from that rule of Government by him set down how can they be but in their administrations tyrannical and be in danger when they put any man to death to commit murther with the sword of Justice And where again it is alleadged That all power is founded in the Will and that voluntary submission makes Authority lawful and tolerable these forms are but so in pretence and carry on their executions by continual and irresistable terror and force in regard of their number not to be withstood Whereas the single Prince can be obeyed but voluntarily according as sense of Loyalty Duty or Love shall direct and when or so far as he shall use force so as to be called tyranny or oppression this must arise as he makes use of a major number or strength and by the force of other men prevails against a minor part which he thinks fit to punish but as King or as one person in himself considered he can never be but voluntarily obeyed For it is the gross vulgar mistake that because there is in some Republikes freedom to elect Representatives allowed to the people by such as sway in the present domineering faction that therefore they are also free and personally consenting in what these Representatives do And under this flattering disguise popular Orators prevail affirming that as we singly cannot will to destroy or harm our selves so communities also cannot be supposed to injure themselves For although say they they should enact a Law of some universal damage yet since their enacting of it must conclude this damage was to them insensible they cannot therein be harmful to themselves in general or injurious to others in particular Not harmful to themselves because upon any experience thereof they may alter it not injurious to others because according to the foresaid supposition each one being consenting the Maxim of volenti non fit injuria acquits them thereof Whereas in truth these formal Elections can never be general nor free nor can the particular actings and Laws of Governors be any more stiled the voluntary actings of the governed then any other arbitrary Authoriry for such it must be if it be any can be called the voluntary act of such as must obey But when they say a Community cannot harm it self the falacy lies under the notion of Community For they would have it comprehend in our conceits the whole people as though each one should be still personally acting and consenting in all things concerning their own harm or benefit It is true this community of Trustees and Representatives who indeed usually make themselves signifie the whole Community can never as taking them to be of one minde and interest hurt themselves irremediably but why may they not nay why must they not as a separate body have a separate interest from the people under them and so joyn for enacting such things as may concern their power or riches in general And why must they not again as having several proprieties and seperate places of Honor and Power of their own to seek seperate from these of their fellow Senators and divide amongst themselves likewise and also divide the people by siding to gain and joyn a major Vote to attain them at which time truely those that are of that part of the Community which is on the minor and weaker side will think and finde themselves harmed although the major community taking on them to be the whole community do
binde the people as having their power vertually in their several members by them chosen to that purpose yet this domineering power of a major Vote will prove unlawful as having nothing of the pretended paction and consent or political association therein whose end and aime was chiefly protection or defending the minor or weaker side against the stronger if justice so required at least not to suffer the major part to judge of their own cause but to appoint a definitive and certain determination that might be above all orders numbers and degrees So that Anarchy is where the major and stronger do alwayes govern the less and weaker and is it self not subject to any third differenced authority And true policy is where this tyrannical force is avoided and that by a just submision of the major aswel as of the minor unto a third common and indivissible judge who thereupon becomes stronger then them both And although in all disputes there must be disagreement and a major and minor side yet he being the vertual whole and both parts submitting to him union and peace must follow Till this be done nature is not holpen by policy For if government imply no more then the exercise of force or power answerable onely to such rules as the stronger shall judge fitting beasts have it aswel as men who by numbers and strength prevaile upon one another But unto men this decision seemed too unreasonable For they found it on all hands prejudicial Inasmuch as themselves that were on the major side in one case might anon be on the minor in another and that then as they would be themselves protected from violence being weak so they should not inflict or use it being strong They found that whilst this way of prevailing was continued men studied not equity but association not to get right but force and numbers on their side And they found that as each man judgeth for himself so did each faction and party also In which controversies the dangers of mens lives were more to be feared in relation to the whole State whilst they thus contended in multitudes then while they strove singly as set battailes destroy more then duels and the two Israelites striving in Moses time before the Law made not equal destruction to the combination of Israel and Benjamin against each other after the Law On all sides they confessed that right and not force should prevaile in decision but who should judge of this right Would not each party pretend to it was it to be expected that either should say we contend for what belongs not to us Therefore while this course held right had no certain aboad in causes or persons but fleeted up and down as the major side did Should any third person interpose out of charity and to reconcile them both sides would answer as the said Israelite to Moses Who made thee a Prince and a Judge over us They had no doubt the Rules of Do as thou wouldst be done unto or because I would receive no harm I should therefore do none With such other common maximes of equity amongst men and these from the very first acknowledged and assented unto They had no doubt customes and rules of decision besides other positive laws to that purpose But to what availe For those rules and laws which should decide their quarrels needed decision themselves because each one pretended and interpreted them for himself Therefore till they placed some supreme person to interpret their law unto whom as unto the last appeal in all questions all persons assemblies orders and degrees besides might be subordinate and inferiour Anarchy was not avoided Neither was any law then of just force but on the contrary when seeming Law and equity was now easily assumed by a major vote and faction it was heightned and established And if any should argue That since the number of contenders in these state assemblies are not to be presumed so great as when before the people judged themselves and that therefore the danger and mischief to follow the disagreements will probably not be so great and general We will therefore suppose them least namely an Aristocracy or Oligarchy of two persons yet the danger of disagreement will be then most Suppose them for peace sake three because two being alwayes on a side it will probably scare the third to agreement yet then will not there be the continual terror of a major part upon the minor wil not the force be equal or more as of 2 against one of the 1000 people against 600 or of 40 Senators against 30 In which cases the people by their elections and resignations have not lost but changed their miseries For first the manner and fear of disagreement is the same amongst their pretended peacemakers now as it was with them before and the mischief in prosecution thereof is not abated neither because in then disagreements the people cannot secure themselves as lookers on they cannot shift their own interests but will in the conâ—ention be engaged on one side or other And therefore it is now manifest that Anarchy is not want of government but want of unity and being the same with Poliarchy is not where no governors are for no people can be so but where there is equality and power alike or in more then one as the word orâ—ginally doth import As in the Inter-regnum of the Judges before mentioned because there was no single authority or King in Israel it was said Every man did that which was right in his own eyes It could not be meant of single persons for as they belonged to some Tribe or other so were they unde the authority of the Fathers thereof but of the plurality of governors and their equality amongst themselves whereby the leaders not their whole tribes following them did what seemed good in their own eyes vvithout any controle or coercive povver above them And Anarchy is vvhere such equal authorities are as while some condemn others may acquit so that at the end it will be as with the people of Laish in their inter-regnum Wherein was no Magistrate that should put them to shame for any thing And is onely avoidable by entrusting one governor with unrepealable power of punishment and protection For as in a family whose head is wanting or otherwise disabled although the wife children or some more eminent person may as they can raise strength by faction and association exercise authority over the rest yet because this cannot be called the right government that family is in the true state of Anarchy as being destitute of its head as is also that state or Kingdome which hath the like want And lastly Anarchy is worse after the abandoning or removal of this unity in government tâ—en is the approach or preparation to it as a relapse is worse in our natural bodies then a state of recovery And so it is also where the factions are fevver then vvhere they are more as appears by the
be few Besides as Nature in all things being left to her own working will by gentle and orderly steps tend to that perfection she was forcibly deprived of so it may be observed how by degrees all Governments do of their own nature and uninterrupted by violence always lead to that perfection and state of Unity again from which by force onely they were hitherto debarred And unto the undeniable proof of the natural right of Monarchical Government it may be asserted that as no Government of it self let alone in the hands of the governors without the forcible intermedling of the governed but would still come to be Monarchy so no government was ever brought from fewer to more but by the force and terror of the people upon the Governors themselves who now as in the Fable of the Serpent that would be governed by his own Tayl will be governing themselves and so make all lawfulness of Government at last vanish into forcible obtrusion There are many other particulars by which Faction useth to make its rise and support which shall be spoken of in the next chapter of Rebellion amongst other things which are the originals of that also For these two are of such like extraction and so neer a kin that what is properly the cause to one is for the most part so to the other Faction being but Rebellion in its birth and as yet but in devise and contrivance and Rebellion being but Faction brought into act and execution even as Polarchy or Anarchy is but both of them brought to such maturity and perfection as to be capable of self-subsistance CHAP. III. Of Rebellion and its most notable Causes and Pretences AS the inordinate thirst of pleasure and its consequent Liberty to attain it is in us all both natural and unlimited so where Rules and Laws of Polity and Government the onely means of restraint are not strictly enjoyned or duely obeyed it commonly falls out that what should have been a bridle proves rather a Spur and the possession of one inordinate lust doth by it self make way for another even as the abundance of drink to the drunkard is the cause of greater thirst to ensue Observe we this First in that lesser Government of a Family and you shall finde Children and Servants nowhere so unquiet and discontented as where the indulgencies of the Parent or Master do most appear And so it is in Kingdoms also where Subjects that have soft and mild spirited Princes and from whose more gentle and easie natures they having already attained many things of Liberty and Freedom do come at last to forget how inconsistent these things may be with their duty or publike peace and to think that their very asking should now be the onely rule for his granting Whereupon as it happens that there is most brawling contention and unquietness in such Families so in such Commonweals Mutinies and Rebellions do ever abound And to keep the Scripture president herein what other Reason can be given of those many murmurrings and insurrections of the Jews even while under the government of Moses one so far from oppressing their liberty that he was the meekest man on the earth And when again they had all things in such plenty as even their very Lust was supplyed with miracles what followed but that which was given for quieting them at one time proved the occasion of their mutiny at another For so while he smote the rock and the water gushed out they are still asking can he give bread can he provide flesh for his people And when they had this flesh this manna it was found too light food for their satisfaction and this very food of Angels was insufficient to stint their boundless desires Therefore while the very meat was in their mouths God was forced to cure by severity those breaches of obedience which abused Mercy and Clemency had made Look again to them under their Kings and you shall finde none so ill used as the best of them even David and Solomon In the last of whose time it is expressed Judah and all Israel was then many as the sand which is by the sea in a multitude eating and drinking and making merry And again Judah and all Israel dwelt safely every man under his own vine and under his own fig. tree from Dan to Beersheba all the days of Solomon And in whose time as the wisest and most peaceful of Kings that Kingdom had the greatest eminency and happiness of any their persons free as expresly said of the children of Israel did Solomon make no bondmen and having riches in such abundance amongst them that he made silver and gold to be in Jerusalem as stones c. And yet as in a kinde of wantonness and surfet they come to his son Rehoboam to ask release of this grievous yoak of Solomon his Father But in truth we can interpret this their coming to Sechem to no other end then to make a Covenant and association to rebel and the pretence to make Rehoboam King was but the outside of their appearance when they intended to unmake him For first Rehoboams raign was not Elective but in right of his Father and Grandfather as heretofore noted and he might as well have reigned in their stead without the peoples approbation as Ishbosheth Sauls son did over them in Davids time or as Nadab in Jeroboams stead over the same Israelites without any such confirmation So that this Assembly was indeed to settle Jeroboams new Principality and not to confirm Rehoboams And therefore since they first sent for him to come in the head of them whom they knew to lay claim to the Crown this action looks purposely to aim at a quarrel and gain a denyal whereby to get a pretence to rebel And was indeed the threatned punishment of Solomons offence against God and not of Rehoboams to the people and so suffered to be done in pursuance of that end namely the punishing his offence with the rod of the children of men Whereupon this his refusing the councel of the old men must be considered as a fit and necessary means thereunto And this may seem the reason of Rehoboams answer importing a denial to the ground of the peoples Petition and answering in that manner as though experience had fully told him that since too much indulgence and concession had lost to his Father he would recover it by rigor and severity But to affirm that this Rebellion was a punishment of Rehoboams answer onely were to give God the lye both for the reasons already mentioned and as plainly crossing his direct Promise to Jeroboam saying I will rent the Kingdom out of the hands of his son and give it unto thee even ten Tribes Plainly arguing a forepassed fault to God and not of oppression to the people upon which onely Reason he is warned to desist For of that war what good issue could be To have Jeroboam beaten
are equal by their own supposition But if they in their supposed way of conferring of power shall exclude children and servants and leave none but the Master power to elect then break they their supposition of equal and native freedom because the major part is excluded If they have power to elect then being so much the greater number I hope they will chuse such a government as shall now binde their Master and Father and not he them But let us go on by way of supposition These selected heads are met to chuse and empower a governor and to give them all their power that is their power of their several families that so he having power of all families may consequently have power of the whole kingdom which done they intend belike to give up house-keeping If so he will have a great task indeed If not I would know whether they mean to have less power over their families then before No they say they mean to govern them under him Well I suppose you can give this power you have over them so far as you had it and over your self too but then since the power of life and death and other things necessary for the Prince to have you neither had over them nor your self how can you give what you have not Again suppose the people the original of power and farther to make this power useful suppose they may recal it to right themselves when they finde it abused and that thereupon the liberty to appeal to them must ever lye open why then this serves to defeat the power of their representatives aswel as of Princes For these being set up also for the peoples good have no farther power neither then while they act that way the people must still retain power to hinder them from doing otherwise and consequently must have power to judge whether they do so or not And then this power must extend and exercise it self in all causes because their good or ill must be therein concerned And so I pray how shall business go on must the governor ask the governed their consent before he command What is this but as in mockery to say to them Do as you list or I will make you What is this but for people to command and Magistrates to obey Again although that maxime Salus populi suprema lex may be good in popular governments as shall be shewed anone where governing and governed are supposed alternative and the same because all come to be included but yet where there is difference there the good of both as making up the whole must be taken into proportionable and joynt consideration unless they can imagine that by contract the King should render himself purposly miserable to make others happy by his infelicity If so David and others that had promises of kingship from God by way of reward had certainly no such benefit And if this right and duty of resistance were so in the people as is alleaged why in so many thousand yeers and in the raign of so many unjust and evil Kings as are set down in the Old and New Testament do we never find Prophet Apostle or other men instructing the people in a duty of so great concern They if they had liked might as easily have said fight as obey and resist as not resist As for the Kings observation of the Laws and seeking the good of the people I believe no good Kings but will make it their imployment and in order to it no discret people but must thereupon grant that it is his part to to know and interpret what this law and good is for if it be left to be done by any other Party or Faction not he but they have now the charge For to say they will submit in all things just and reasonable and no farther is to appeal back to themselves and is not submission to another but all things are left to their private determination as before and just and reasonable must be but what they will esteem such For as before shewed men could not make question whether reason or equity should take place or no it was by all agreed it should but men differing amongst themselves on which side this right was and both parties confident of their own cause there was no possibility to avoid destraction and attain peace but by this voluntary and joynt submission to be herein governed by others So that laws of equity peace and government require that all parties submit to their common and appointed judge and sentence For as each man singly becomes a man by having a proper will and understanding even so it comes to pass that there can arise no difference against himself because understanding and will do in him alwayes unite Whereas if Thomas his will were to be guided by Iohns understand or contrary and either of them want will or understanding or have them over-born by another it were in the first place to overthrow the personal being of men and in the other to make it useless For should or could my will incline to nothing but what aforaign understanding saw good it would then be the will of him that had and not of him that wanted this understanding and for want of understanding I should want will also Or should I suppose there could be an understanding that could submit to that of another this were to destroy personality by confounding it and to imagine an impossibility fancing an understanding which should be and not to be at the same time Therefore when by the help of anothers understanding mine is so cleared as to see reason to consent to what it saw not before and upon it my will inclined to action this assent of my will is the issue of the light now apprehended in mine own understanding and not as it was before in anothers So in the body politick to keep the essence and union thereof entire there must be the same residence for understanding and councel at least for the last result thereof as is for will and execution And therefore as it would argue high arogance in any single subject to presume his own judgement better then anothers especially then his superiors so is it but the same thing from subjects to commend that councel themselves follow before that which their Prince follows For since goodness of councel doth not move by being but by being apparent and since this trial and apparency must depend on the ability and judgement of him that chuseth it none being able to take good councel but he that is in measureable to give it it must therefore be granted that the following of anothers councel after mine own choice differs little from following mine own If it should be argued that Princes may be carried away by partiallity and private interest and so some should think that the Councel of subjects should in that regard take place this were to beg the question upon a supposition against all apparant reason For
Gods and so they being but Stewards or Tennants no humane right of prescription can prevail against his original right And in a word to keep his right and our gratitude in continual memory were all those sacrifices and other feasts instituted serving but as so many Indexes and Lessons to shew that the earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof And although we on whom the dregs of Time are come are too prone to forget this everlasting precept of honouring God with our substance yet as a continual remembrance of his undoubted propriety it is our custome and duty as to pray to him for what we want so to thank him for all we receive which thanks in the receit of our ordinary food is called grace as denying all right of our own and acknowledging all to be his grace and bounty Which being so all Societies and men must be looked upon but as Tennant for such term and condition as the Landlord pleaseth So that when this great King after the manner of going into a far country shall be pleased not so immediately to operate in worldly affairs and dispensations but trust the several talents of his bounty to others as namely to Kings from whom he expects account to himself onely as by him onely trusted we are still to acknowledge Gods propriety in them and For this cause are to pay tribute for they are Gods Ministers attending continually upon this very thing That is for to be as Gods unto us aswel in fastening and assuring our proprieties amongst our selves by his laws which could not be else distinguished from the common natural claim to one man more then another by any meer humane right as they are to continue again Gods universal claim and propriety by taking and demanding some part to keep us in continual memory and acknowledgement of Gods supreme right still and of this establishment of propriety by loyalty and obedience And as for Gods acknowledging his Minister herein for himself it is well set forth by that speech of Zelophedads daughters pleading that their inheritances should still remaine in propriety to them because their father had not forfeited them by any rebellion against Gods chief Minister that is against Moses the then King of Jesurun or Israel saying Our father died in the wilderness and was not in the company of them that gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Rorah but died in his own sin By which we may plainly perceive that they claim right for continuance of those the proprieties of their family which were by Gods Minister formerly settled because their family had not made any such forfeiture by Rebellion as to cause them to revert again to the first Proprietor God and the Prince Which was the reason why in the case of Naboths vineyard before mentioned Jezabel did advise to have him accused For blaspheming God and the King that under colour of these crimes she might cause that inheritance to return which could not be otherwise done And therefore as Kings are Gods Deputies and Vicegerents to us in representation of his power so are they to be acknowledged his Deputies amongst us in respect of his undoubted and unquestionable propriety even by their receit of such proportions back from their subjects out of those their proprieties by their laws made as those Ministers of God attending continually upon this very thing shall see fit either for advancement of Gods the great owners service or the good of himself or others in order thereunto Which portions in the New Testament are usually included under the general names of custome and tribute because amongst the Romans to whom these taxes and contributions were given they were the usual appellations for publike leavies And this precept of Saint Paul for acknowledging the Prince his paramount propriety under the notion of paying tribute is answerable to another of our Saviours including Caesars propriety in all things under the proper notion of money For in deciding that question of the lawfulness of paying tribute he takes a sure way towards making our proprieties to be Caesars In that calling the piece of money Caesars because it had Caesars image upon it he concludes him to have the same right to all money as to that peice for that all money had his image upon it He doth not say give unto Caesar of your money but give him his own Or give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars concluding that Gods immediate propriety being for the present entrusted and delegated to these in his stead we were now to acknowledge them so far as by our readiness in yeilding of tribute to whom tribute custome to whom custome c. we should thereby amidst our common duties of giving to all their dues give to God his due also And by our readiness in yeilding to his Ministers to this end appointed testifie our proportionable readiness to have done the like to himself in case he had demanded it And demand it no doubt he doth aswel from Christians now as from the Jews formerly nor hath he lost his true right although he be not so immediate in his claim For then because the law was instituted in the time when God himself was King that is had no such direct Officer under him amongst the Jews the acknowledgement of his propriety as under the notion of tenths and offerings was claimed in his own name and God having thereupon disposed of it takes the wrong done in Tythes and offerings as robberies of himself But although these tenths and offerings as Gods gift to them instituted by that Law which was still to continue were to remain to the Priests and Levites unalterably without the impeachment of those Kings that succeeded inasmuch as they had their taxes besides yet now amongst Christians whom that Law binds not as positive but as natural those Tythes where they are collected are or should be paid to Princes in the first place as Gods next Ministers And although Princes do upon just grounds appropriate them to the Clergies maintenance yet in acknowledgement of his headship and propriety above them also he hath tenths fifteens c. reserved from them again And this is done to each King under the Gospel even as King that is as Christs Deputy after the example of Abraham Who on the behalf of the Levites paid Tythes of all he had For as Melchisedeck the King of righteousness and of peace was a Type of our Saviour unto whom all kingdoms do belong so do the tenths and tributes as Gods and Christs right belong to Kings their Deputies now unto whose Office that of High Priest is subordinately annexed Whereupon as Kings are Tenants to God for their whole territories be they greater or less so are the people again Tenants to him according to their several allotments and trusts Upon which ground we may observe that as every Prince hath the whole power and propriety of all within
whereupon those commands are grounded or else it will be to be really superior and to be under but in shew onely For if the Prince like an ordinary Subject must submit his Will to the guidance of a superior understanding he is himself a Subject and if you take away his negative voice you take away his Soveraignty Which thing you also do when you deprive him of his rightful power either to chose publick Councellors or to admit of things Councelable and to limit proceedings in debates For as no man can command in what he is not himself free or with Justice demand Obedience from another to what he hath not yet approved as just in himself so ought Princes to have their Understandings and Consciences satisfied and free in themselves before they should impose on their subjects Therefore I should think that those which meet in Parliaments to represent the desires of such and such particular places and people can neither of right assemble without leave from the Prince whose Authority can onely make them a publike and lawful Convention nor Debate or Councel remedies further then they have leave and direction from him too or else they shall become both Parties and Judges Because in these expedients the whole Kingdom or a greater part then themselves and those they stand for coming many times to be involved their private interest and judgement must in reason and duty submit to that which is impartial and common Nay if the Prince should give them leave to Debate and Vote and they by joyning many private interests should by a kinde of confederacy make a joint claim to the effecting any thing to the ruine of a few all were yet free for the Prince out of his common and impartial relation to them all to approve or deny as shall stand most valuable by generality or neerness of concern according to the rules before spoken of But when persons representing particular places shall so far be suffered to proceed in Debates of remedies as to come to Vote conclude and councel what is to be done and have for their so doing no Authority but what was issuing from themselves there can be nothing more destructive to the good government of a Kingdom then it for it quite subverts the whole frame of Monarchy and runs that nation into the mischiefs of Anarchy whose absurdities have been formerly spoken off And this is none other then if a single induction or else some single appetite or affection should of it self and by its own presure upon us prevail to the determination or execution of any thing we do without taking notice of that general appetite and affection in us called Will which by reason it hath been founded upon the continual experience of the different concerns and issues of these lesser appetites can be onely able to say which and how far any of them should prevail For subjects are to be taken onely as competent Judges of pleasant and unpleasant but it is the Prince his Prerogative from God to judge of good and bad And again although a negative voice of Soveraignty should be allowed to restrain execution in these debates yet the inconvenience of the subjects discontent will necessarily follow Inasmuch as they shall finde their desires now ackowledged fit in the resolutions of so many and onely crossed by one which shall never fail to be construed out of some private interest of his own or of some neer about him Therefore as these Assemblies of Parliaments are necessary that thereby the wants and grievances of subjects may be known so do some Kingdoms wisely order to have many of them that is in every Province or Shire one by which means the peoples desires might be more particularly and distinctly known and accordingly represented to the Prince in a more general Councel to be considered of Whereupon these Assemblies of several Provinces meeting in several places cannot at the same time joyn in the same Vote as out of plot in their desires and remedies but their several requests and opinions being referred to a superior common censure and determination each one will conclude that their private desires were denyed or delayed out of publike regard And then the Prince truely knowing the general desire and grievance of his subjects may accordingly provide for them without endangering publike discontent which is like to fall out when people shall be puâ— in minde of any new suit by knowledge of their Representatives Votes which they will be always thinking the most equal and just rule to follow especially while they are consonant to their own desires And yet in truth nothing more unreasonable For suppose the major number wise and unprejudiced yet when the number of dissenters are taken out of them the over number can be onely taken as concluding that way who cannot avail in credit against the Prince the representative whole And therefore he for that very cause and for that general account and trust sake he is put into he ought in all reason to have his Conscience and judgement left free and to be first satisfied whether these proposals are correspondent to the Laws of God and Nature and truely conducent to publike benefit But partiality and interest doth so commonly cloud and byass subjects in these kinde of determinations that we may observe that in those places and those very men that do most enveigh against this negative voice in the King as leaving too arbitrary a power in him that is to rule are all that while assuming to themselves that should be ruled an indisputable power of suspention or refusal in any Law or Precept of his in case they in their judgements finde them contrary to the rules of Religion or publike Justice And since all the reason which private persons can give for this their denyal is but for some particular danger and hazard to themselves they must thereupon grant that he that is to answer for the welfare and safeties of others ought much more to have this liberty allowed him But certainly had not Scripture and Antiquity acknowledged the Prince to have an indisputable right unto a Negative voice and to be himself so supreme in all Councels and Debates as that their chief value and reputation should depend on him and not on them I see not how the frequent threats of giving Children Babes and Women to be Kings and Princes could be taken as a true woe or malediction but rather otherwise For that in such places where their Kings were restrained from personal medling by such disability it must follow that the Councellors proceeding with greater freedom in the deliberations and conclusions they shall proportionably also cause the happiness of that State or Kingdom to encrease by that encrease of uncontrolable Authority they shall by this means have By all which we may finde that it is so far from being Tyranny or Oppression that it is true prudence and duty in Princes as to admit of no Councels or Councellors
of whose sufficiency and integrity themselves are not satisfied so never to grant them general and arbitrary power to conclude or vote thereby to have their sense of things published till they shall be his too For as it is distastful to do things without Councel so much more against it And it will be prudence in him too by no means to add their Authority to his acts or very seldom to do it because it will in time eat out his power by its growing reputation or cause Rebellion when he shall withdraw And again the Nature of the thing it self will require this superintendency for nothing more incident to Councels then partiality and siding according to interest either of bribes kindred or friendship in debates that concern parties and affairs in the same Kingdom Or if it concern other Kingdoms or States there is nothing more usual then to have them Pensioners to forraigners All which the Prince is in reason free from For as he hath alike interest to all within his own Kingdom so can he not have an equal wish to the welfare of himself and another Prince which the Councellors may have through ambition bribery or revenge to him or others as Ahitophel and Abner and other examples do declare Again as in all other meetings of equals Councels cannot be without faction where some one mans reputation wins many after him like flocks of sheep which way he shall encline In which case I see not how poling and numbring of the persons voting can justly estimate right and wrong or the result of the Councel either for that these cannot be reckoned in the number of Counsellors to the Prince but as servants to others Add to this that usual height of arrogance which men ordinarily take to themselves in presumption of their abilities in this kinde insomuch as truth is not so much desired as victory All which Passions as they shall come to be by the Prince discovered it were strange if an odds of two or three in a number should be thought sufficient to conclude against the stronger integrity and Reason that shall appear to him to be in a less number of persons as though the whole number of any Councel could be for Wisdom and Honesty equal or that these things must ever follow the greater number But in these last discourses I would not be again understood as teaching Princes in this place what to do otherwise then may serve to let subjects know what they are to obey Now concerning Magistrates and the reasons both for institution and limitation of their Offices it may well appear out of what hath been hitherto spoken of Councellors For as the one being chosen or admitted to be helpers to the Prince in the farther information of his Understanding are not thereupon to be so far consultative or deliberative as by their peremptoriness therein to overthrow and exclude that very end for which they were ordained even so also Magistrates being by him chosen or admitted as helpers to his Will in the better execution of what shall be by him decreed and appointed are not thereupon to proceed upon their own Decrees without leave of him that authorized them Else it may happen that Councellors determining as in their own rights and Magistrates acting so too they should as too often it cometh to pass thrust out and seclude that Soveraignty that set them up and engross it to themselves So that we may call the Magistrate a publike Officer appointed and authorized by his Superior power for the oversight and execution of so much of his authority as he shall command and entrust unto him From whence the Magistrates may be apprehended to be of divers sorts according to the nature of those trusts which that superior power shall commit unto them For as he shall delegate them as chief Judges and disposers of things either in Ecclesiastical Civil or Martial affairs so may they come to differ in denominations as Bishops Judges Commissioners Ambassadors and such like But as by the words appointed and authorised he must be presumed under the Soveraign especially when he is present so by the word oversight he must be taken as of absolute power in his absence or else his deputation and power is useless And therefore when some are saying Magistrates are bound to the Laws so as to rule according to them this is true as far as concerns their trust and charge received from those above them But as for such as are to be ruled by them they must be in the Soveraigns stead absolutely above them and the whole interpretation and enforcement of the Law must depend on them also So that from hence it will appear that none but God Almighty is an absolute Soveraign because Princes being by him intrusted with Divine and Natural Laws are but as Magistrates under him For when he shall immediately appear in any thing by voice from himself or by extraordinary direction from some Prophet which for our belief he attests by miracle their power is to cease upon the same reason that the power of their own Magistrates ceases or alters when themselves appear or give to others more late or extraordinary Commission under their hands and seals But although it be true that in respect of God above they be but Magistrates yet the usual calling them Magistrates as thereby making them but of equal rank and power with others hath bred the fame misapprehension to abate their just power as the calling Subjects People hath prevailed towards the belief of the encrease of theirs For as Magistrates and people are republike compellations which subsisting by and aiming at equality do by their expressions signifie as much so Prince and subjects are onely proper in a Kingdom where greater disparity is the foundation thereof But while the King hath the title of supreme Magistrate given him as importing his more large power from God he is still in his true seat of power for while he is such he must in all Gods Laws and where God presides not himself be obeyed as in his stead as that Statute and setled Officer for execution of his will according to all Laws already received But if God send any Ambassador or Commissioner or Prophet or Apostle with an extraordinary message of his pleasure as before shewed then is he to be obeyed upon our knowledge thereof as having neerer instructions from the fountain of power For as it would be unreasonable for the Axe to boast it self against him that heweth therewith c. In like manner would it also be if Magistrates made by Princes should arrogate against them But now as for such who doe acknowledge it unreasonable for the Magistrate or subordinate Officer to resist or rise up against that power that gave it Essence to be such and would yet countenance disobedience against Princes by affirming Magistrates and Officers in their Kingdomes to be in some Employments and cases so far from being Subordinate and his Magistrates
or to be the sons of God but will also redound to God and his Gospels glory when men like the Philippians amongst the rebellions Greeks shall shine by exemplary submission to authority as lights in the world or as directors to humane preservations and peace And it will cause them that have this guide over them to do it as aforesaid with joy â—nd not with grief so that both here and in the day of Christ they shall have comfort when being to give account for their souls it shall appear that they have not run in vain nor laboured in vain And if the end and occasion of this precept for implicite obedience be marked it will make it clearly maninfest that the same is this way and by no othea means to be accomplished For what way so likely to have their conversation honest amongst the Gentiles and such as becometh the Gospel of Christ even the Gospel of him who being equal with God yet to be an example of obedience took on him the form of a servant and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross as by continuance of this their obedience unto him not in his presence onely but now much more in his absence whereby working out their Salvations with fear and trembling they might then shine as lights in the world when their obedience shall be thus known unto all men what way so likely to stand fast in one Spirit with one mind to be like minded having the same love being of one accord of one mind but to have nothing done through strife or vain glory but in lowliness of mind or by putting on the form of a Servant each one to esteem other especialy his Superiors better then himself For by this renouncing our own things that is the reliance on our owne wisdomes or increase of our owne interests which might be expected by murmurings and disputings we shall unquestionably preserve and encrease the publick good or things of others even by maintenance of publick peace and agreement Whereby we may more assuredly enjoy the consolation of Christ the comfort of love the fellowship of the Spirit in this our charitable communion and also thereby fulfil the joy of such as are by Christ set over us For the only ready way to walk by the same rule to mind the same thing is to be followers together of these and to mark those that walk so as they have them for an example Whereas if men shall be left to walk otherwise as enemies to the cross of Christ and shall be left to dispute and contrive wayes of Salvation to themselves their end will be destruction and love charity and union will be quite lost through their division and disobedience whilst one shall say I am of Paul and I of Apollos and I of Cephas and I of Christ and so prove themselves not followers of the God of peace whilst not doing thes things as learned and received and heard and seen in our owne Christian Superiour In these admonitions to the Philippians where Saint Paul had entire jurisdiction as being a Gentile Church under him we may observe him directing this perfect obedience unto himself as their owne unquestionable head when he sayes that I may rejoyce that I have not c. whereas he that was the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews sets down the persons in general terms unto whom this obedience is to be given as obey them that have the rule over you c. and remember them that have the rule over you For neither was Saint Paul their head himself nor had these Jews that still remained in Judea as yet any setled single head because the most of the Apostles were there resident and still in equal authority amongst them And as for the dispersed Jewes it was to the Author of that Epistle uncertain who was their rulers as also how many they had they being not improbably at that present governed by Elders after a Synagogue fashion and not having a single supream head constantly residing amongst them And such as would go about to interpret that these words cannot be construed for estating the Prince or Civil Magistrate as they call him in the capacity of religious authority because at that time they were heathens and therefore say it must intend Apostolical or Church teachers onely they do thereupon confess the same thing to be now due to that Supream Magistrate which is a Christian and hath Church jurisdiction as well as civil For if then perfect obedience both in the one and the other sort were to be given by each member to several persons then claiming it it must follow that it must be in like manner done entirely to that one now that hath the united supream power in both CHAP. V. Of the forms of the Church Government and of the jurisdiction claimed by Church men ALthough those that would disturbe the peace of Kingdomes by setting up an Universal Monarch in Church affaires and they that would set up the whole Clergy uncontrolable to govern in each Kingdome after a democratique fashion are both of them dissalowably out of what hath been already spoken yet for mens better information we will hear speak more particularly of both The first I conceive cannot be at all both for the reasons before given in the discourse of the Church and because it is that particular prerogative which Christ hath reserved to himself of being with them as Catholick head to the end of the world And as in particular Kingdomes and parts thereof Christ presides by special deputies as King of Kings even so upon the same reason of Universal jurisction and care he is to take the immediate charge of the whole unto himself In which regard as there should be no man called Father on earth or general Monarch of the whole earth or mandkind in derogation to Gods prerogative of Vniversal Kingdome power and glory so are not the heads of any particular Church to transcend their Apostolical paâ—ity and encroach on Christs prerogative of Universal Church power because one is their Master even Christ and they are brethren In which words Father and Master in the singler number as we may note one person in supream authority to be meant so will they serve to explain unto us who is meant and entended when in so many places we are bidden to obey in all things under these notions of Father and Master namely that it is that our particular Master or Father who hath now as supream authority over us in his own territory and jurisdiction as the former Masters and Fathers had in their families who were then the onely persons that could be Vniversally obeyed in all things because they were then the onely proper denominations of such as were in supream authority as Christians Apostles Patriarchs Bishops and the like being not Officers to continue in supream authority as such nor being
and trust being above mine the fault must light on him according to his determination that said He that shall break one of the least of these Commandments and shall teach men so he shall be least in the Kingdome of heaven that is shall have no share in heaven or be most punished hereafter But he that shall do and teach them he shall be greatest in the Kingdome of Heaven or in heavenly reward Which words as they shew the following power that some must have of teaching others so do they declare their greater punishment or reward to follow their trust therein according to that other saying Unto whomsoever much is given of him much shall be required and to whom men have committed much of him will they ask the more And that this was meant in regard of power of government intrusted and that also of that particular deligation of power and trust made to the higher powers in the Church appears by the occasion of its delivery having relation to the foregoing parable and admonition where the Church under the notion of the house of Christ its Lord is to be carefully watched by its present overseer put in authority by Christ from whom these Stewards are to expect their reward or punishment according to their behaviour in this charge Where by the way we may note the Monarchical designation of each Churches government because the Steward or Master of the house is still set downe and alluded unto in the singular number And we may also note that it could not be meant as appropriate to the Apostles or others as they were Ecclesiastical men and preachers onely but must intend such as are to have civil authority also as appeares by that prohibition of beating the men servants and maidens which as it must import an Officer of authority to inflict such severe and tyrannical punishments so these punishments being corporal could not denote the function of any spiritual person because they could not pretend any right hereunto From all which our benefit and duty in obedience being apparent we are not to be carryed about with every winde of doctrine So that whilst striving to serve God according to his will revealed in Scripture we might neither on the one hand be in danger to be entrapped by the wiser sort and such as have worldly ends even by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in wait to deceive nor on the other hand fall into the danger of such as may seem more simple and uninterested because the unlearned and unwary do rest Scripture to their own damnation But we are to know that no Scripture of God is of private interpretation that is to be interpreted by private persons but that its chief drift being to instruct us in the fundamentals of our salvation and in order thereunto to declare those misteries and general precepts that were necessary to our belief practise therein it left private men for particular guidance to the authorised interpreters thereof At first it was the Prâ—ests lips should preserve knowledge and thou shalt seek the law at his mouth they having this their law particularly set down by Moses And so also when they were to have kings he was to have a book thereof and to do thereafter But now in the Gospel as these particular legal precepts stood not of litteral divine authority but as presidents useful upon occasion so the Ministers thereof were Ministers not of the Letter but of the Spirit Whereupon it still appears that the whole drift of the Gospel and new Testament were but to set forth Christ the foundation unto us and to leave us unto the present higher powers for direction of our practice thereafter according to the light of Scripture or natural reason Therefore as we first find the scope of each Gospel to record the miracles Christ did in proof hereof so shall we finde the other discourses and doctrines therein contained usually to follow but as occasioned thereupon For Saint Iohn speaks plainly That if all that Iesus did should be written the whole world would not contain the books that should be written but these things are written that ye may believe that Jesus is Christ the son of God and that believing ye might have life through his name And so again for the other part of the New Testament namely the Epistles we are not to conceive that all that was written by the Apostles or such as had inspiration is now left unto us for of some of them there appears nothing at all and of some very little Nay Saint Paul that wrot most we may think yet wrot more then is come to our hands even as he had more gentile Churches in his charge then what his Epistles do mention by their directions and titles All which no doubt would have been divine and edifying also as well as those that are come had not want of care in those particular Churches or the calamitous condition of those times deprived us of them But now however we are to acknowledge and admire the care and providence of God and the Church in preserving and delivering to us those books and Epistles left yet in and by them we may observe that they were all but occasionally written and that no Writer did undertake to set down the whole platform of Christian obedience or to compose an entire and perfect body of Divinity but in delivery of these instructions they were still respective and even as they had particular and separate charge of Churches so wrote they unto them such instructions and precepts as they conceived most fit for their proper directions And therefore we may finde those writers not onely to differ from one another in those directions but also Saint Paul whose Epistles we have written to several Churches doth in them differ in his directions also according to that exigence and occasion which he foresaw the present condition of that people required For since at that time all Churches could not have all his or the other Apostles Epistles for if they could the same things needed not at all to have been repeated it must be supposed that what was to them already written was sufficient to instruct them in things necessary to salvation and that they in their other necessary Christian behaviours had direction by Tradition from him or elsewhere which was the occasion of that frequent admonition of keeping them And for what might be wanting in both these he refers them to be guided by the Church and such as had the rule over them under the general notions of whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any vertue if there be any praise think on these things and this most especially he doth to those he wrot least For it is likely that
women but because these little ones or these least in the Kingdome of heaven have as elsewhere shewed received from Christ the honour and trust of binding and loosing which Iohn had not therefore were they greater then he And so again when Christ brings in himself speaking at the last judgement he useth the like expressions Inasmuch as ye have done it or not done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it or not done it unto me By one of the least we are to understand such a single person to be meant as more eminently representing Christ may through obedience to him in Christs stead make charity extensive and useful to all occasions and not think that Christ made that charity best which was done but to any one ordinary man or that the particular works there mentioned were all that needed But rather that here as elsewhere these additions of least and little are added in the singular number to Children and Bretâ—ren that together with the distinction of them from other children and brethren he might both set forth that extraordinary humility that should be in all governours and might also relate litterally to that mean estate of his Disciples the Churches present governours who being probably to be most persecuted of any other therefore are those instances of charity brought in which become men in that condition That these Epithetes of little and least when added to children do both signifie persons substituted in Christs authority and was also given to teach humility and love especially one toward another will lastly appear by those passages discribed by the other Evangelist Saint Iohn because spoken while Christ is deligating his Apostles as is related in the 13 chapter and afterward For in these chapters his speech of little children cannot be taken otherwise then as a proper address to them By which and by that fact of washing their feet we may finde how desirous he is that that great power he had given them should not exalt them above one another but make them ready by that his example to do all loving offices one towards another since none of them could be so great over one another as he that had so done was over them all But although here as elsewhere he is most copious in putting them in mind of that duty of meekness and humility which becometh their large power yet that a great power was delegated unto them appeares in the beginning of the Chapter Now when Iesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father that is knowing he himself could be no longer the living light or guide of the world he therefore thought now time to delegate his own which were in the world and whom for that service he had chosen out of the world And therefore Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he was come from God and went to God that is knowing he had finished the work he had to do and being to return to him that gave him this mission and authority he then thinks it time to take care of his Churches charge in his absence and to go on with his mission of others in his name as he had been before sent in his fathers name This in the other Evangelists runs As my Father sent me so send I you and whosoever heareth you heareth me and the like but this beloved Disciple after his usual manner coucheth all under the notion of love And therefore their power or mission is amongst other things parabolically set downe As my Father hath loved me so have I loved you continue in my love that is as I have power had from God the Father as his beloved son so shall you from me as my beloved Disciples And this his deputation or mission thus given them he more clearly expresseth in his prayer As thou hast sent me into the world even so have I also sent them into the world All which and other considerations before spoken of in confirming the Churches power under her owne Ministers should methinks be sufficient to stop the haste of such as do so headily obtrude their owne private interpretation of Scripture against that which is publike and made by lawful authority For unless they can make some extraordinary mission appear whereby God hath something to say by them not said before why should men be so beguiled as to think them not subject to like passions and infirmities with those that have the interpretation of Gods word already And truly their crying out for obedience to Gods word onely and yet proposing it as such when guided according to their sence onely imports none other then an ayme thereby to engross all honour and authority to themselves only And therefore that command appears at this time extreamly necessary to put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers to obey Magistrates to be ready to every good work to speak evil of no man to be no brawlers but gentle shewing meekness to all men And a greater truth cannot be spoken nor a moâ—e seasonable admonition given then to mark them that cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which they have learned and to avoid them for they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their owne belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple For so long as the foundation is not destroyed so long as Christ is not deceived but our faith is entire in him the prosecution of particular sects under that of Paul Apollo or Cephas and our hatred varience emulations wrath strife seditions envyings murthers c. are works of the flesh not of the spirit and are because we are carnal and walk as men But yet because we are to know that it is not faith alone that is our duty and can secure our salvation but faith and love or faith that worketh holy love we will now speak more fully of that grace of love or charity which must be joyned to keep us innocent and also of that other grace of obedience which is requisite to make charity effectual CHAP. VII Of love and obedience and of our state of innocence thereby TO be sensible of good or happiness is to be living and to be the more hereof sensible is to be more living For as there is a positive dignity by sensation it self that is of sensitive above Inanimates so is there a comparative exellence therein again arising from degree thereof Whereby each thing stands in degree of happiness and excellence differenced by that degree of vigour and intensness in apprehension and also by degree of steadiness and continuance in possession Now as experience in the natural course of things doth inform that in all progression there must be a perfection and summety so in this case
delay or divert him from some course he had headily undertaken which in the pursuit would have proved more destructive to him either in his spiritual or temporal condition then are those opportunities and advantages which divine Providence hath now brought him unto Oh thou admirable and blessed Grace of Charity How dost thou by thy due exercise at once both make us good and happy as well in exciting us to acts of beneficence as delighting and rewarding us for doing them To call thee a moral Vertue is too low thou art them all and their Crown For in order to humane preservation and of all things that have sense and will thou art of as large and necessary extent as is that Vertue of Union and Sympathy which is the preserver of the whole worlds Fabrick besides Nay in us thou art the same Union and Sympathy under the name of Love doing the same thing that is hereby preventing the destruction of voluntary Agents as that doth of all natural ones and so being not onely like that providence her right hand but also so much more above it as thy execution is more above it in difficulty and the object of thy imployment more noble How much below thee stand all other Graces and Vertues Even so far as to be of no use without thee like as thou also art again so much more worthy as thou art more thy self that is art more extensive For when by any of them alone I chuse to exercise any moral duty if thou take it not by the hand how will self-respect byass it to pride Or if without thee I imploy my zeal it will be found little other then a gilded trifle or a Sacrifice of that which costs me nothing as being commonly but the imployment of an hours time or less which I had beforehand so ordered as to have nothing else to do therein Or did I exercise my devotion in real expence of part of my deerly esteemed estate and that in Alms or building of Temples or the like how will that present requital of foreseen honor make me usually a willing dispenser of my fortunes even to be seen of men and that either by thanks from the poor or by having my name set or known in the Temple by which means carrying a face and design towards pride how will it take off from that freeness which should Crown Devotion But when against my will it may be all my fortune and that which is yet dearest my good name is now snatcht from me and that by my professed enemies and I can yet be joyful as well as patient hence together with the difficulty must arise the highest pitch of honor Difficulty did I say nay impossibility for naturally it is so inasmuch as in so doing I do make contradictions both true at once For if my deprivation or suffering be in a thing I esteem not or am not sensible of what need or use of Patience And if I must be willing to suffer what I am unwilling to suffer as it can onely be done by a miraculous and divine help so the Vertue thereby wrought must be most highly divine also How is a natural perfection put into a non-plus herein My injury must be the reason of my patience my wrong of my forgiveness nay more I must in the highest measure be actively charitable to this my known enemy even because he is so expressing it in the highest degrees feed him cloath him if he want and above all pray for him howsoever Compare that which great ones deserve with this and you may call it Pride and Arrogance For with what ease do they sit and command and then assume the atchievement of publike Utility and Peace as proper to themselves when alas the true burthen and thanks for these things rests on the part of the obedient For what use of power but through submission and how soon without Patience would prosecution of revenge set whole Kingdoms in a civil flame whilst revenge should thus generate and my revenge on him call for his revenge on me Therefore as Charity is the preserver and establisher of other Vertues and Graces so is Patience and subjection the true tryal and establisher of Charity For Kings and great ones have their honor and power but from this relation of subjection and obedience and so far onely as they have first submitted their Wills to God and are themselves obedient and truely passive under his Authority and command can they have true power to act upon or command others By which means patience under subjection will prove the best Jewel in their Crowns as well as a Crown to other Vertues of their Subjects Nor can Princes be excused from the personal exercise of this Vertue of Patience also by being sometimes sharers in those chastisments which must testifie them to be sons and no bastards And that not onely when their own iniquity shall be punished with the rod of the children of men that is rebellion but also when they according to the Will and appointment of God shall fill up that which is behinde of the afflictions of Christ in the flesh for his bodies sake which is the Church Not that they can add in merit but like as every particular Christian must estate himself in Christ and his Church by their following him in sufferings and obedience so must great ones measure herein be higher then others upon occasion even as their honor and reward is proportionably more eminent in regard of that great trust of the Church put into their hands For as Saint Paul and other holy and eminent members and guides of the Church did formerly by their particular and more remarkable sufferings and patience in and for their separate Churches more fully and speedily fill up that measure of wickedness which unto their oppressive and persecuting adversaries was by divine permission allotted and thereby the sooner call for Gods Vengeance on them and compassion towards the relief of that Church for whose sake they suffered even so each separate Church may be supposed to have its measure of temporal afflictions more remarkably and fully compleated by the afflictions and sufferings of its own head and guide in chief whereby the sooner to move God in compassion of their sufferings as of the whole to regard and relieve the distresses of that particular Church in their temporal sufferings no otherwise then as Christ as head of the Catholike did by his sufferings generally merit salvation both temporal and eternal for the whole Church his body And therefore although the sons of Zebedee were not able to drink so great a a draught nor suffer in so high a measure as being to have but a subordinate and particular charge under our Savior yet that they were able to drink of that cup and should also bear a share in this Baptism is there ascertained when as yet the entrance and admission into Dominion and Power as on the right hand and
and on the contrary indignation and wrath unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth if besides the benefits arising to mankinde by this Vertue formerly spoken of we also consider its efficacy in advancement of the Praise and Honor of God amongst us also For where Patience and Humility are practised as all outward strife ceases so general contentment will arise Wherupon Kings as well as subjects being reciprocally pleased in having and yeilding ready obedience men on all hands will have cause to Thank and Praise their Maker whose greatest delight being in the good of his Creature and their grateful acknowledgement thereupon so is their murmuring and affliction to him most unpleasant as abating the sense of his goodness and praise From which grounds we may easily discern the Reason why this Vertue should be so especially commended to us by that great preserver of men So that since it was necessary that in token of our zeal and love to his service something of difficulty should be enjoyned what in the eye of his all-seeing Providence more fit then this whereby as his glory is upheld by the establishment of the Kingdoms peace here so are the Patient themselves besides the reward of his Grace in this life to receive the deserved Crown thereof in the world to come Wherefore now lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees and seeing also we are compassed with so great a cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every weight and the sin namely of rebellion that doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us looking unto c. For though no chastning for the present seemeth joyous but grievous nevertheless afterward it yeildeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby For although here at the pleasure of fleshly Fathers we be for a few days câ—astened yet God turns it to our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness By this proper note of persecutions and afflictions left unto us as a Legacy by him that was the Author and finisher of our Faith and that once so highly suffered for us we stand in a peculiar manner not onely distinguished from the rest of the world as in testimony of the truth of our Religion above theirs who as an Argument of their humane device and extraction are still closing with Nature in promises of sensual delights but according to the true and sanctified use of these afflictions again by the several members of the Church each Christian professor therein comes to be a more true Disciple and Christian one then another Inasmuch as my being by my profession and belief a Christian cannot of it self make me a true one because it may be a thing not of my choice or bestowed on me out of particular Grace and Election but happening for ought I know from no other ground or assurance nor having other reason or influence then the hazard of birth or Education Had I been born and educated where other Religions are professed I had in all probability been even such an one in belief as they and those others of those Religions had doubtless upon like change been of mine In which case as I should have thought it hard that they for their good fortune of being Christened when I was Circumcised should be thereupon rewarded and I punished so cannot I reasonably now think that as regeneration must be something else then this so also that that Baptism that must purge out the old man must be where it may be had something else then that of outward washing the Baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire must be added to that of John Yea and baptism of afflictions rightly applyed it must also be For that else it may be again that as they came but occasionally upon me so was I by my own natural constitution and softness of temper drawn both to the search after God by these afflictions and to the Patient enduring of them It may be ignorance or inability to resist or avoid my sufferings in the condition I am now in makes me as in a kinde of Melancholly revenge appeal to Heaven for reparation and for want of natural fortitude dejectedly to yeild and sit down in some Stoical contempt or melancholly retirement If so what praise can I expect for my seeming neglect thereof when it was but what I cannot overcome and avoid In which doing I may also naturally reap inward satisfaction and so far flatter my self in this my degree of Patience and well-doing that I may go yet one step farther and receive consolation and content by my endurance of those things and be yet no true partaker of that baptism with which the Captain of my salvation was made perfect If I finde not my self still ready for fresh encounters and that out of sense of duty and publike regard as one that is strengthened with all might according to his glorious power unto all Patience and Long-suffering with joyfulness but do now hide or cloyster up my self from being any more publikely beneficial to others onely because I am afraid I shall be thereby prejudiced my self and be rendred obnoxious again what do I but thereby acknowledge that I am both privately affected in being thus regardful to my self alone and also to be as poorly spirited since I am so over mastered by their weight that I can endure no more And as Patience may in it self alone be an uncertain sign of true Regeneration so may faith also For if in many a Christian we should examine the ground of this too it would be found grounded on Nature also even although it should be so strong as to submit to martyrdom For since I in another Religion or another in mine might have so dyed had we been so brought up it can in it self evidence little of the truth of that duty we profess but oftentimes may have issue from peevishness or stubbornness without respect to Love or Obedience And certainly to suffer for disobedience to Christian Authority can scarce deserve the honor of Martyrdom onely due to those that undergo it for the honor of Christs Name For that Childe deserves little pitty that would rather die under the rod and perish by famine then accept of such wholsom food as is appointed him by his Father onely because it is not such or so dressed as to be altogether suitable to his present fancy Nay neither is love only a sure sign of this Regeneration for this also may proceed from natural propension and respect to honor and thanks may make us Charitable as well as Martyrs Whereas he that is the true Christian and fitted with grace of Regeneration is never slothful but stands always diligent in works and labour of love because God who is not unrighteous will not forget to be continually assisting him with his grace of perseverance here or reward hereafter therefore
namely of our proneness to derogate from God through conceit of our Pâ—oprieties we may finde reason why in the Old-Testament where promises run in a temporal strain there should be such frequent admonitions of rejoycing before him with the first fruits and best of them For as else we in our pleasures had but thanked our selves so this being done we are then to provide what our souls lusteth after and the more we rejoyce before God the better But this course and way of honoring God seemed not yet refined and abstracted enough for cleering us of the old leaven and therefore in the Gospel our Saviour will have us wholly renouncing this trust to Propriety and with the Sparrows and Lillies of the field trust for our food and cloathing to general Providence again How this may be done by using them as if we used them not hath been partly heretofore shewed by declaring that we should not reckon our selves such absolute proprietors as to serve Mammon more or equal with God but should esteem our interests in them but so conditionate and usu-fructuary as not to take off our obligation of thanks to God in every particular we receive For when I can so forget and relinquish my trust and relyance on mine own Propriety as to count every new enjoyment to be as a new favor from God received I shall then be freed from Idolatry to Mammon and while remaining willing to relinquish my Propriety to Gods Ministers dispose in order to Gods service or publike good I may then reckon all lawful enjoyments and pleasure thereby attained to be sent me of God And so by making worldly things instrumental for the encrease of my joy in him I shall then make good that saying of Solomon There is nothing better for a man then that he should eat and drink and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor this I saw was from the hand of God And so again Go thy way eat thy bread with joy and drink thy wine with a merry heart for God now accepteth thy works We may then rejoyce and again rejoyce in the Lord when our moderation should be thus manifest and having banished from us the afflicting cares of things of this world place no other regard to them then as to things that were first obtained from God by supplication and received from him with thanksgiving Wherefore now for our spiritual way of pleasing God by our pleasures how great cause have we to acknowledge and admire that goodness and wisdom of his that whilest he is extolling his mercy in not taking the forfeiture of our inability of praising him expresly and sufficiently enough in every particular pleasure we enjoyed he had contrived this way of satisfying his justice without our destruction or subversion of the course of Nature formerly established For since in these pleasures that arise in us after our state of Regeneration it cannot be said that they come from depraved Nature or a cause barely Natural because effected in us by that which is rather contrary thereunto namely from what is in it self painful and troublesom it must therefore follow that in the pleasures and contents we now express after this renewing of our mindes we must in them praise God in a most spiritual and divine manner as being now again freed from the corruption of the old Adam In this new birth the Holy-Ghost is our Parent by whom presenting unto us the promises of the Gospel we come by the immortal seed of the word to be begotten unto a lively hope Which hope causing us more and more to adhere and be incorporate into Christ comes then to be called Faith By which we may say we come to receive our quickening and vivifycation After which we may call afflictions persecutions c. the throws and pangs of child-birth and those hands from whom we have them we may call our Midwives When we are brought into this new Kingdom of the Church then is the Grace of love to be that food and nourishment we are afterwards to receive and grow by at least it must serve us as that spiritual stomach whereby all things must be digested to our use and benefit Which time of new-birth being the time for casting forth this strong man armed by a stronger then he makes it to each one a time of more remarkable trouble not so much for the quantity of affliction as the strugling conflict made within us by that spirit now raging most when he is to be thrown out But this is not all for there is in all of us states and degrees of weaning necessarily following afterwards by the sufferings whereof we come by little and little farther to shake off those remaining corruptions of our former Nature until being at last so throughly rooted and grounded in love as to be spiritually united to God by our blessed Mediator we come then to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. In which second Adam our enjoyment of Eden or pleasure is now as innocent as it was at first to Adam in the Garden before his fall the reluctance and curse of the Creature that is the punishment of our sin which would not let us enjoy pleasure the natural way proving now the instrument for possession of pleasure in this way For they having their sting and venom taken out come to be but bruising of our heels by the goodness of that God that causeth the intended malice and mischief of them to light on the heads of that Serpent and his Agents For when the old Adam with the affections and lusts hath been so throughly crucified in us that we can neither look on our sufferings as ills nor their Authors as enemies we may be able then to say that the life we now live in the flesh we will live by the Faith of the son of God who loved us and gave himself for us But now although it be our parts always to be ayming at this mastery and perfection in which regard our life is compared to a race or warfare yet until we have in death concluded our sufferings and conquered our last enemy we shall never be able with the Captain of our salvation to say it is finished but must whilst we live be subject to divers fresh assaults and encounters one while provoking us to presumption through abundance of revelation one while to despair through thorns in the flesh in such measure that we shall need to be still taking to our assistance not only the inward weapons of humility and love but the outward exercises of all such religious duties and performances as may again strengthen these Graces or any way direct and incourage us in a steady course of recovery by the degrees of hope and faith and so re-estate us into the former degree of adherence until this faith the substance of things not seen shall grow into the fruition of God by love the
had mysterously thus avowed his own power and still used meek and loving intreaties whereas he might have come with a rod in vindication of his power in the kingdom of God it was out of jealousie of robbing God of his honor by thinking of men above what was written and to leave them also an example of greater humility since he that was chief amongst them took no more upon him Having also by this abatement of himself who as an Apostle was their chief Head an aim to reduce them from Schism caused through their esteeming too highly of others that were puffed up and yet had no Mission nothing written for their so doing as he had who was endued with power to command them in the Lord or in Christs name according to the written texts of He that receiveth you receiveth me c. So that we may see the mysterie of their duty of obedience to Christs Minister plainly inferred when by forbidding to think of men above what is written it must be supposed their duty to give what is written Without this way of interpretation and by consideration and regard had unto the Dignity and Authority of Christs Ministers and the Stewards of the Mysteries of God it will be very hard to make the word For to be pertinent in the said sentence That no one of you be puffed up for one against another Because we are to conceive that although faithfulness be required in Stewards yet it being not as heretofore noted subjected to mans judgement but to Gods whose Stewards they are the people are therefore to refer their censure of their Superiors power or prudence to him that is the Guide as well as the Searcher of their hearts When Christ at his second coming shall bring to light the hidden things of darkness that is shall discover the reason of this mystical way of empowering his Substitutes and shall then also by making manifest the counsel of hearts convince men that many things were by their Superiors done upon good counsel and consideration which they by hearkning to private Doctrines and Guides might misconstrue and so be led into schisms and seditions whilst they shall be thus puffed up for one another as they stood each one distinctly conceited and interessed in their several Congregations and Heads and thereby come to be really and effectually one against another in respect of that breach of publike Peace and Charity which this factious proceeding and dis-respect to one Head must produce And of this mystical delivery of his authority we shall farther instance in one place as particularly remarkable for setting the power of each Churches Head in such a way as not to be subject either to rob God of his honor or to give scandal by his own claiming authority to himself in too plain a manner He having praised the Corinthians for keeping the Ordinances delivered unto them whereby they had shewed themselves Disciples or followers of him as he was of Christ he then adds to take off all shew of boasting But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man and the head of Christ is God That is I would not be understood as claiming this obedience in mine own name but as under Christ the head of every man that is more especially of every man thus exalted in power For as we cannnot interpret Christ to be Head of every single man so as to exclude the whole sex of women no more can we think that in regard of power and subjection one to another which is the scope of what went before and what follows that every man stands in like relation to Christ. But that although all single men and women so far as they are Christians are alike his members yet do they differ as they stand in their Oeconomy relating as Ministers and Members in each particular Church Therefore we cannot conceive that all this serious discourse should be litterally taken as driving at nothing but womens covering their heads or of mens being bare-headed in time of praying or prophesying as if God cared for the one or the other as in themselves But to shew that according to the drift of the former Chapters there ought to be order kept in all our publike services and that also this order and uniformity is to be directed by obedience So that by Man we may understand the Head of each Church and by women the members thereof and most especially those of the Clergy who are as wives to be directed herein by their husbands And Praying and Prophesying we may understand put for the whole outward service That this was only Parabolically spoken of women with intention that under the instance of their subjection to their husbands general subjection might be inferred will appear in that the woman is herein proposed as doing that which she is not permitted to do that is to prophesie and especially publikely For so we shall find him presently saying Let your women keep silence in the Churches for it is not permitted unto them to speak but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the Law and if they will learn any thing let them ask their husbands at home for it is a shame for women to speak in the Church In which place the occasion of the speech was also the same namely the avoidance of Schisms by having all things done decently and in order that is by means of subordination and subjection of the second and third ranks of Prophets and Teachers unto Apostolical Authority which is the first and so established by Christ also Again it will appear parabollically put for that the tokens of subjection there put down are not pertinent to set forth the subordination of women to men litterally taken but are mysteriously proper to set forth the subjection of each Church to that husband unto whom in Christ she is married For being bare-headed did not signifie Power and Freedom nor being covered signifie servitude but the quite contrary both in the sense of those times and ours But if it be supposed not fit for the Head of the Church to pray with his head covered for dishonoring his head that is Christ from whom all his Authority is derived even so again by covering understanding publike Church Rights and Orders each Church is not then to be supposed left bare and at liberty in these things by her Head as the Head thereof is by Christ his Head But that she is to observe them as her covering or else renounce her obedience by being shorn Again apprehending the duties of obedience and subjection to be signified under signs contrary we may observe that the man ought not to cover his head forasmuch as he is the glory of God that is in his head he is more particularly representing his Authority and universal Headship in respect of his Government and Power amongst
faith is of a more spiritual allay then that former Covenant of works so is their promises of a higher nature also Insomuch as we shall not find any where in the Gospel that there is warrant given to make these things the object of our aims or hopes as to the Jews was usually done but rather to the contrary Whereupon we may say that however a Church or particular members may as additional blessings to the righteousness of the kingdom of God expect these blessings to follow yet have they no such particular right as for gain sake onely to dispossess the greatest infidel And much less can particular Christians under colour of distinctions by themselves made have right against one another and so make God the Author of Peace to be the Author of Confusion and Civil war And as the Scriptures and their meaning are thus difficult and subject to misinterpretation in regard of the temporal promises made in the Old-Testament so are the more spiritual promises of the Gospel and New-Testament for want of due regard to alteration of times and difference of persons made the occasions of much abuse and disquiet also through mens hasty and partial interpretations of all things as relating to their particulars and to their own benefits onely To avoid which we are to observe a difference of persons and to know that whereas our Saviour usually addressed his speech to his Disciples as those he chiefly intended to teach because they should teach others so many of those speeches concerned them as present Teachers and Guides chiefly and not their successors as that place fear not little flock c. and the directions following it sell what ye have and give Alms c. Some again concerned their successors and not them as those places before mentioned of taking the swords and making friendship with Mammon Some things again concerned both them and their successors as the power of the keys whatsoever ye shall binde on earth shall be bound in heaven and the power of Mission and Instruction as he that heareth you heareth me c. thereby making a necessary difference between such as should teach and govern and such as should learn and obey Which distinction hath been of late so little considered of in the world or rather so preposterously practiced that those that should be by their places obeyed as Governors and Teachers are now made the only objects of Discipline and Instruction For there is not the meanest Subject or Artisan but are daring to censure and direct both Prince and Priest in performance of their duties as if these Texts Do all things without murmuring and disputing c. and obey them that have the guide over you c. had been purposely spoken to Kings and Preachers that thereby they might learn submission and attention to their Subjects and and Auditors Some things were spoken that concerned other Christians also but themselves in the first place as whosoever will be my Disciple let him take up his Cross and follow me c. And lastly some things are generally set down as concerning all men as the Doctrines of Faith Love Humility Patience Obedience c. although men may differently be concerned in the outward exercise of them as heretofore related As concerning such Promises and Precepts as had different regard to Christians through alteration of times we shall finde some that concerned the primitive Believers and not those that followed in the latter age as in those glorious signes promised to accompany Believers to cast out devils to speak with tongues to heal the sick c. The which and other miraculous assistances and ways of inspiration and illumination heretofore promised and granted to such as should ask in Christs name and had but Faith to the quantity of a grain of Mustard-seed some in these latter times have been vainly boasting of whilst others have as disconsolately expected and for want of them been ready to think they must want Faith also Not rightly weighing how necessary these miraculous signes and wonders were to be then shown for the honoring Christs name from above which was as yet had in so little repute here below Insomuch as for that very cause we shall finde the gift of miracles granted to him that cast out devils in his name who for ought we finde pretended neither to follow nor at all to believe on him Nay to shew these extraordinary endowments were not sure signes of Faith we shall finde our Saviour condemning them that had them But when his name should be the most glorious of any and his Church should have attained that degree of strength and learning as to be able to provide for its own safety and illumination in an ordinary way then came the time again when upon the contrary reason these endowments to private persons ceasing we are to construe some admonitions as chiefly proper to Christians in the last times and to happen when his service shall be an honor as are these Admonitions to beware of pretenders to new lights such as shall say Lo here is Christ and loe there is Christ c. And having hitherto so largely endeavoured to prove our Assertions out of the Texts of the holy Scriptures and having done it with such strength of evidence as to me seemeth of value to convince any that hath real and firm belief that they are truely proceeding from God or that rather there is indeed any God at all it seems lastly necessary for conviction of both these sorts of men that is open Athiests and such secret ones that confessing a God and the Authority of Scripture the better to serve their own turns thereby do yet in their works deny him to say something for conviction of Deity and the daily exercise of divine Providence amongst us The which shall serve by way of addition to our first enterprize therein at the beginning of this work which for haste to other things was but cursorily there handled CHAP. XIV Of Athiesm AS the Nature of all kinde of vertue is to be operative so by the degree and extent of operation is the proportion and extent of the vertue to be measured For neither to do by help is so powerful as to act alone nor to do one or few things as many or all Again as extent of ability is best measured by extent of operation in the objects it undertakes so is the proportion of vigor by distance in execution even as that loadstone that can attract at greatest distance is best and that fire that can heat or burn farthest of is so also And as potency and vigour are to be thus measured by distance between Agent and Patient so much more when that distance shall be so encreased as the presence of the Agent shall not sensibly appear as to the present work but a weak or unlike thing having of it self no effectualness thereunto shâ—â—l by its power be made the Author of his proper
Author whose power is more rationally to be concluded the prime and sole cause of all things as standing in that supreme order he now doth then if he should be acting beneath and of but one thing at once And as he is more admirable in his own Throne of power ordering all things by his sole word and command then if he should descend to be personally doing of every thing so could we rightly consider it any one thing is in it self as miraculously and powerfully wrought in that kinde of efficiency which we call ordinary as when done in an extraordinary way So for example if wood should have been by God endued with power to draw Iron or one Iron to draw another as now the Load stone doth would not the ordinary effect that way have made the Load-stones attraction as great a miracle as it seemeth for wood to do it now And if none can give reason why other things should not have as great attractive force as these why should it not be a greater proof of Deity to be constantly powerful in all and every operation then to be so but now and then which is all the proof that miracles have And therefore as men of riper judgement and experience would much laugh at the folly and weakness of such as beholding the Mariners compass do ascribe the effect of the Needle to some hidden quality or secret property residing in it self and as again the ascribing and occult quality unto those operations of the Load-stone without farther knowledge or derivation of its cause is but a shift of ignorance as the setting down of all other hidden causes are each thing having a cause beyond it self so is there none but fools that say in their hearts or really think there is no God because they cannot discern his efficacy through and beyond intermediate causes And they are at most but middle witted men for that albeit they can from a little farther experience tell of Causes above the lowest degree of men yet are they not wise enough to search farther So that Athiesm is always bordering on folly and narrowness of comprehension being nothing else but a stubborn relyance on present sense as from the certainty of effects in things we ordinarily behold concluding those Causes within reach of our observation to be the most supreme And farther thinking that if a voluntary Agent were in those things universal Cause and Author he would as fancying his inclination by our own be more personally appearing for his greater credit-sake amongst us and make his present operation serve to direct our acknowledgements unto him Not duly considering that it would be so far from encreasing the worth as it would redound to the actors disesteem as arguing decay of the Vertue of Agency if the supreme and higher Cause should for want of strength otherwise be forced immediately to work on a lower effect for that hereby again the supreme Cause ceasing by becoming an intermediate one it must follow that as Causes were fewer Effects and Creatures must be fewer also And when all is done that supreme Cause that is now intermediate in operation would by its constancy in so doing be as far from discovering a Deity as the other was before unless they could imagine that for their onely satisfaction sake causes of things should not have been constant and uniform but on purpose various to have drawn on their notice Again if God Almighty should have been disabled to the degree of an humane Artificer and have been ineffectual farther then where his own hand hath been express as is the workmans in making the Watch then it must next follow that either Creatures must have been so few and perishable as Watches made by one hand or else they must have supposed this Agents power advanced to such degree that as a Monarch can manage a Kingdom by his Laws so as the same needed not to be afterwards guided by him but by instruments obedient to him or as the Artificer can frame and contrive a Watch to go for as long time as he pleaseth so as the same can now go without his appearance in like manner there should be also such procession of the first cause of operation and motion in these things as they shall be infinitely continued If this course could have gone on this first Cause would have been a God because his operation and existence must have been eternal But on it could not go to any degree of eternity inasmuch as all progressive operations and motions must be finite and determinate in regard that that end and rest which caused motion through desire of approach must cease it having now attained it And therefore to make things continue there must be a circulation of Causes and Effects allowed whereby each individual thing having attained that proper end for which its last Cause or next Agents produced it in Nature must return into its first matter through corruption and alteration of its last specifick forms and be ready to obey the more general Causes in Nature and the Laws of that matter which is most homogenius unto it in correspondence to the next more proper and powerful Agent Even as in the affairs and atchievements in kingdoms although the hands of the lowest sort of individual Officers is most immediate in the work yet these having their power from the next general Officer and so he again from next above him till these Officers growing higher and fewer do at last terminate in the King as Fountain of all their power so any of those next perishable individual Officers deceasing that formal power that made them such returns to the hands of those next Officers above him who constitutes others and those more or fewer in these places as they finde the exigence of that Kingdoms affairs call for in relation thereunto no otherwise then as with us a Constable dying the Justices as the more general Officers do by vertue of their Commissions and derived power constitute new in the place In which course as the affairs of the Kingdom is ordinarily managed without the Prince his appearance or again the spring can move the several wheels of the Watch without particular touch of any but that next him why may there not nay why must there not be a Deity to be the first mover in things of this universe Who according to his good pleasure ordering that the appointed continuance of this world should be maintained by perishable individuals hath in his providence to that end ordered that the corruption of one thing should be still progressive to the generation of another Why may he not again in the doing thereof be yet as far or more removed from our notice in ordinary operations as the cause of Government or the motion of Watches or the like is hid and unknown to the weaker sort of people and to other Creatures below us and are of them thought to proceed from no farther cause then what present sense can discover
where it cannot be master of method it undertakes nothing The Pye Crow Cucko and such Birds as have differing noats from the ordinary have not in our ears the same pleasure as the Nightingal who resembling in her several Noats that which is usual in other particular Birds differs only in generality of perfection and imitation and though the proper voyces of Pyes Crows c. are as usual to us as those of the Nightingal separately and apart considered yet are they not equally usual to those of the Nightingal and all other Birds besides of like tone And Parrats displease in their own singular and unusual tones but please us when they speak and resemble ours and then most when most imitating As for musick we see little children not yet acquainted or used to one voyce or tone more then another as soon stilled and pleased with any other noise as that which we have reduced into a method and call harmony discords and concords take them alike and a sixth is as pleasant as an eight But now as pleasure ariseth from custom so pleasure from continuance and custom may again decrease as to the present sense thereof and become that which we call nature which is nothing else but custom upon custom as we find it come to pass in matter of food aswel in choice of quantity as kind where custom manytimes so prevails upon appetite through frequency of admittance that from thence more then from sense it self now decayed it covets still to acts as formerly to the great prejudice of health For although the direct profluence and evaporation of the Spirit is its most natural way and means of release and thereupon yields greatest ease and delight yet is there a delight also arising from that freedom and exitation in motion which they are put into by means of those vapors that arise from the stomack whereupon it will come to pass that through custom of being so moved at such time as the stomack is so filled they wil be prompting him to the like degree of feeding through memory the former pleasures thence arising until by degrees it pass into such an habitual affection to delight that the thought of insufficiency or subsequent harms come to be unconsidered No otherwise then in Kingdoms where the benefits arising from Peace and Government it self or the particular indulgences of Princes are for the time our sense of want is fresh and our only guide taken with gratitude and true delight which when use and necessity are satisfied and coming to be desired by custom only do afterwards in our desires both exceed use and ungratefully and covetously are entertained as well to our own as that Kingdoms ruine Like as rich and great men also who from the custom of their voluptuousness and freedom of life are still impetuously pressing to fresh or like enjoyments even after the loss of their wealth or honor And the like may be also affirmed of pain grown otherwise by custom of indurance Prisoners Millers and Musicians distinguish little of dislike or content in those sents and noises they are habituated unto And so comes the motion of heart brain and bowels to be undiscerned and the touch of one finger or limb against another to pass without notice And yet is custom the relisher of new objects those smells and those colours that have greatest affinity to ayr and light do most please because these things are perpetually objected to the sense when any thing is and are the conveyers of other objects to the senses but yet the excess and quickness of pleasure and displeasure arising from particular smells and colours encreaseth or diminisheth by usuage and continuance For children we find at first little affected with any particular sort of them and Dogs which are creatures of quickest sent and can best make distinction do not yet choose or avoid any object or place for the smells sake only the smels of Roses Violets and other sweet flowers pleasing them no better then the various and more differing smells of those scarcer plants which we call weeds And this for want of customary usage sufficient whereby to make some sents affect above others for they stand not affected or dis-affected to any smell as of it self but as it came into notice or hath usually accompanied the prevalent appetites of food or resentment of the kind Which hath also great prevalence in men and things of longer life both to provoke to particular like and dislike of many objects out of no other rule but what ariseth from these or like customs and inducements for good smells and tastes in plants is the resemblance to what we use and therefore call esculent but Wormwood Rue c. cannot otherwise affect them through particular custom as Tobacco doth In which cases forestalled prejudice prevails no otherwise towards like and dislike then when by reason other interest we are wont to rate or set forth the praise or dispraise of any person calling him honest or vertuous whom we love most and who by relation or benefit are nearest unto us and rating otherwise again all such as disoblige us proceeding therein according to proportions and rules of self-consideration and charity only whereby out of private regard we impose upon persons the names of those vertues which have their true worth only by generallity of performance For so we are wont to find out abatements or denials of vertues themselves or to impose or insinuate what odiums or scandals we can on our enemies and competitioners against the first because we would give reason and satisfaction why we hate them against the latter because we would satisfie why we should be preferred before them in each condition striving to make publique good and concern to cover and be the same with ours After the same manner may be observed that the rank of subjects that is most commending and aiming at Democrates c. are such as have greatest hopes and probabilities to be Governors of others therein In which case our inbred pride and stubbornness may through the frequent contemplation of benefit therein to arise provoke to action as the smell or sight of food may excite and awaken the stomack And as thus in persons so in actions and things we strive always to have the like commended to what we have or do and so on the contrary For let a vice be cryed out upon unto which we are subject and we cannot forbid self-consideration to step in with some excuses and abatements making it look like vertue or let any vertue be extolled of which we are not in practise or ability we are then as prone with our abatements towards vice As for example when self-consideration and advantage hath caused us in civil factions and disturbances to choose one side before another we are then become prejudiced and shut up against all arguments to the contrary for to discommend our cause is to discommend us and we can be no more desirous to
in the brain hath its whole substance besides its two coats for inclosure And therefore it is to be considered that as the first spirit generated of the egg or the like was homogenious unto it so by degrees as bodies and the humours in them do receive mixture and alteration the spirit thereof generated doth suffer change also until in age the one do become as heavy and indigested as the other and the spirit to be wholly suffocated and lost in the humours But the first quickning spirit being by the means aforesaid raised up and invited unto a regular motion doth then through habit of so moving make it self the organical continents and enclosures of heart arteries brain nerves c. serving as well for methodical motion as for places of test and Rendezvouz to the spirits and humours being then called life And it is to be supposed that this confinement and imprisonment of spirits in bodies is in it self unnatural and at first a causer of pain and living Creatures are by degrees only released of the sense thereof through custom of indurance and diversion by the means of maintenance of this methodical inward motion So that so long as this is kept orderly and free pain is avoided but if it be excited through too great and unusual proportion of spirits as we find after drinking where the strength of the liquor doth excessively turn into spirit then the membranes of the bâ—ain being extraordinarily pressed the party grows from their restlesness to be restless also and prone to ways of evacuation as to venery and motion the one causing greater delight because it affords a more free and methodical delivery the other less and more insensible because more slow and difficult as forcing through the substance and coats of the nerves themselves In like manner as a Commonwealth is enlivened and preserved by having the natural vigour and spirit of the people kept in a regular and methodical motion by the due observation of such regular Customes and Laws as shall be by the Prince thereof established when as the intemperate use of things accordding to their own several and occasional likings would be subject to bring on change and alteration to the destruction of the Body Politique as well as the Natural And in the Kingdom we may account the Nobility and Gentry as answering the humour in the Arteries and by their middle temper and condition carrying great force to unite the other extreams that is that more sublime spirit remaining in the head thereof the Prince which is chiefly swayed by sense of honor and those more gross humors of the ordinary sort swayed by more earthly and sensual delights When as they being participant of both may attemperate the Prince against so great sublination in attempts of ambition and vain glory whereby to put his people into too violent heat and feverish motion And also raise up and quicken the more slow sense of the people from their aguish dulness in matters of obedience to be more apprehensive and respectful of their Princes commands even as the natural members are to the directions of their head Like as also doth the degree of Yeomanry unite the Gentry with the Peasant and thereby impart some influence of courage and civility into those of the lowest rank who else become heartless and unserviceable as experience tells us of those Countreys where they are not Through custom of Walking we make it so familiar that the fancy need not alwayes intend that action by expresse direction as in the extraordinary running it must But custome of so doing having made a fit collocation in the brain it is able while it continues that posture which is unto this notion requisite to intend other objects also But in this faculty of going we may from the daily observation of the practise of children herein be put in minde with what trouble we are at first reduced from our natural proneness to be leaping with both feet at once and from thence to be taught to set down one foot after another after the manner of going The which whilst it was in doing as a matter of great difficulty did although we have now quite forgot it take up the whole imployment of our fancy the trouble thereof abating by degreees as custom and practice made it easie and secured us against fear of falling incident to that first trust to a new support as well as fear generally is to all new objects But these things now over the custom of walking keepeth my brain from trouble as it doth my limbs from weariness For it is not any naturalness in this motion of walking that makes it thus easily indured Nay it seems that only Birds that have indeed but two legs are inartificial and upright walkers and that this posture in mankinde is at first forced For the infant comes from the womb with the knees up and what pains with swadling do we take to stretch his body in length and kept it so With what aversion doth every one of them submit to this inforcement and how pleased are they when released so as the knees may be gotten up again When we come afterwards to teach them to go how ready are they to lean forward and set their hands to the ground What strange footing do they at last make in this uncoth motion And after we are men we may finde the naturalness of four-footed goings still pointed at Inasmuch as the Arms when they are at liberty and not otherwise imployed do in our several gates keep pace with our legs especially in fast walking wherein greater strength being required we may observe men moving their Arms answerable to their Legs and that cross ways after the fashion of a trot And so again when they are to run the arms are gathered up close as ready to move in an exilient or leaping manner which is the usual way of procession of such things as have their hinde legs long In swiming also man imploys all four like other things especially like such as have broad forefeet and the hindparts long as Frogs and such like And as for any difference that is in the joynts between men and Apes c. they may well proceed but from custom as crookedness doth in which case experience tells us how that continuance and usage of any posture whilst the bones and gristles are yet tender will cause the same so to fix afterwards that unto that party it will be as it were natural and so encrease by traduction also And we may further observe that the legs and thighs of infants are so bent as not to be too long for the Armes the trunks of their bodies being then also proportionably much longer and the plants of the feet so turned as to be accommodated to a four-footed motion well enough especially after a leaping fashion And therefore mankinde seems only incident to crookedness in the distortion of the joynts of the back-bone for although shortness of the trunk follow
the publike and general way for decision of common Justice and good should be interrupted it would procure sickness and disease in the body politick no otherwise then obstructions do in our natural bodies For as each body hath its proper constitution and habit for measure and motition of its humors so hath each kingdom its proper method and proportion of Laws and politick executions the which when accordingly followed doth not onely keep that kingdom in health but also by their free passage according to custom administer content and delight to all the members And this is made most apparent in those two great objects of Government Liberty and Property It being evident that the happy and contented estate in either of them is not in greatness of extent and proportion but in that pleasure which custom bringeth For since the greatest possessors in these kindes have desire of addition and since in the lowest possession natural necessity is supplied all the rest will be but as coveted for Credit or Honor sake which honor and estimation being more sought by great and rich persons thereunto used then by the low and poor it will follow that the condition of the servant and poorer sort of men hath generally more steady and equal content and that therefore the stating and measuring the publike Liberty must be referred to publike judgement and care and that the grants herein must regard the real benefit of all and not importunity of demanders onely In which respect of judging and estimating of the reality and value of publike benefits the Prince as the heart in the body politick is again to be looked upon as doing that other office as in the body natural before set down that is by vertue that life and soul-ship whereby he animates the whole kingdom to be ready to give true evidence and demonstration whether the things disputed and stroven for are things that have real beings and entities or are not fictions and apparitions entertained by weak and credulous persons and how far also they are practicable and conducent to publike benefit Else it may happen with easie Princes as with indulgent Parents who to still their children leave them knives or the like which instead of use turn to their dammage no otherwise then uncontrolable priviledges of subjects turn to their ruine through civil dissention as heretofore observed And therefore we see by experience that those very children that have their private Wills and Affections least satisfied are in the general best pleased and contented as being least crossed through least coveting whereas those that have them most are most restless and clamorous for more For as that course and manner of life must be much more uniform and constant that is directed by Law or one universal method or order then that which having no certain and determinate restraint but being at liberty to and chose as it thinks good in objects that concern others as well as himself is left irregular and must consequently have more crosses by how much he deals with more objects and aims to hinder him by which means his liberty proving his restraint it were much better and happier for him to have his present liberty subjected by one to his momentany discontent then by taking it upon him to have it crossed by many to his continual torment For as an unusual posture will at first displease which yet through custom of enduring may become as pleasant as walking it self so when I using liberty in many things am thereby put to many postures of restraint this must continually displease no otherwise then when the parts of our natural bodies are put into any other method or posture then hath been hitherto familiar And as a natural body is not an individual longer then it is guided by a single Will no more is the body politick this or that kingdom that is guided in publick actions by more wills then one And as again the parts separated in a natural body do not by their absence demolish the essence of the whole while those that remain continue subject to uniform direction whenas by being seperate they fal like as natural divided parts do into the general accidents of corruption even so politick parts fall into Anarchy after their separation from the common Affection and Will But while they remain conformable thereto they will like bodily members gain to themselves joint content and the reputation of symetry and comeliness For if subjects do at at any time finde fault with their government it is either occasioned through some new and extraordinary injunctions in not keeping a way of Government constant enough which makes arbitrary Government so much cryed out upon or else because some other particular interest or pleasure draws their appetite so strongly another way that it grows weary and insensible of this No otherwise then dogs and other creatures who having the acquisition of food and generation only in pursuit and contemplation stand affected with those smells onely that tend thereunto through eagerness herein being made unapprehensive of the danger of runing into new pastures nor delighted with the content and security they enjoy already And the like as is said of liberty may be said of property wherein covetousness provokes to the same inconvenience which too much liberty doth for as one is covetousness of riches so is the other covetousness of Will and then as sense of want must precede desire so all covetousness is poverty and in these two cases men must be looked upon as so strongly respective to their own interests and concerns as hastily to fall upon schemes and methods of adjudication and contrivance without any equal regard to comprehend or take in the interests of others For if the partial desires of any party order or faction of the people should be suffered to pass and act for it self in relation to liberty or property or the like it would soon be found that all others would be thereby dis-impropriate and made slaves And this upon the same ground that in the course of Nature and Providence the good of Succession and Posterity would be defeated if that natural desire not to die might be fulfilled to such as are for the time alive For men that can from the pressure of their own affections well enough fancy themselves possessing of such a part of the earth and of being thereon as on a Stage acting their parts amongst amongst divers others cannot yet be ordinarily ingenuous and comprehensive enough to consider onward by enlarging of their figure that divers other persons are thereon to act their successive parts also and that thereupon it must necessarily follow as well for order sake as to make room for others that each person must withdraw when that part is acted which was assigned him for as himself is now possessing of his fathers stock and possession upon occasion of his death so must he by his death make room for the possession of others else the whole plot