presently after Which things are commonly taken as the emblems of Justice For so it is said A just weight and ballance are the Lords all the weights of the bag are his work By which words God owning the original of the measure of Justice to be from himself which we know he doth no otherwise execute and manage then by that divine sentence he put into the Kings mouth it must follow that as the proportion of Justice in all things is rated by those Standards which are by his Authority appointed so also as his Authority is uncontroleable in setting the Standard for the Pound the Bushel and the like his Authority in stating and deciding other controversies and things must be uncontroleable also even for that all things done by a different Standard of Justice are for the same cause unjust For as there can be but one Standard as by the context of the other place appeareth saying Divers weights and divers measures are both of them alike abomination to the Lord it is in effect to conclude as aforesaid that at the first definition of the size of the Pound Bushel c. were from Authority even so the measure of Justice in all things else must rest on his determination and that the difference from that is inequity because departing from the rule to appointed and not as out of inherent justice in the things themselves For had Authority appointed any other different weight or measure which is now disallowable to have been the true Standard then had the other that is now the rule of Justice against it been the faulty one to it even as those faulty ones are now so to this which is by Authority set down For except there be such a positive and standing way and rule for establishment and defining righteousness and judgement as by a King sitting in the Throne of judgement who can say as in the next verse follows I have made my heart clean I am pure from my sin because if his appointment and allowance of such callings and ways of comerce make not our gainings upon one another lawful farther then the rule Do as thou wouldst be done unto hath first been reciprocally examined and assented unto by the particular dealers then are all dealings unlawful forasmuch as intent of separate advantage is still in each ones design and the others benefit or suffering never openly and impartially considered therewith of which more anon Whereupon we must say that since Laws are necessary in Government and since a publike definitive sentence in their interpretation is necessary to Peace and since in the Cases and Questions of misgovernment the breach of Laws is as well denyed on the part of the Governors as affirmed on the part of the governed it is against all Reason and Rule of Equity for any body or order of the people to usurp this inseparable and prime mark of Soveraignty and become judge to their fellows and to judge those that should have been their Judges also And if it be granted Princes to have power to make Laws it must be presumed that themselves should best know their own meanings And a thing against reason it must seem first to affirm that Rulers or Princes are to govern according to Law and yet deny them the power of knowing and interpreting them What would they have him follow a rule he understands not how shall it be a rule then Therefore when men think it necessary for Kings to be sworn to govern according to Law they must conclude they have liberty of interpretation allowed them or his oath is null and useless And so we must conclude that since all positive Laws are to be founded on those of God and Nature for Law-makers can have no Laws but these above them and since the meaning and measuring of these are disputable as hath been hitherto shewed Reason and Duty do enjoyn us to submit to the known and undenyable precept of obedience rather then after the sin of breach hereof we should be but at the same uncertainty of interpretation as before with this aggravation that in the first case our excuse for failing is easie but in this last it is no better then pride But they that yet think there are within the compass of natural Reason such general rules and maxims of Justice and Equity as to enable men to judge of right and wrong in things done by Superiors let them tell me why Ely of whom we finde nothing of ill mentioned besides should be so severely punished for his sons faults whom he did reprove and why Samuel should escape that shewed greater indulgence to his that were as bad If in these and other like instances they will say as they must that the judge of all the word doth right in respect of his equal and paramount propriety in persons and things they must then confess that his deputy therein which shall be amongst us must be holden as uncontrolable judge of right in his jurisdiction also So that for David to take away half Mephibosheths Land who was loyal and give it to Ziba his servant whom he knew had both abused his Master and him and that without any legal form of process must yet be acknowledged as rightly done by that supreme Officer who being substituted in Elohims prime right of Mishpat amongst us cannot therein be controled or censured by any else And if any will yet say that these former instances might have been found right even by the rules of common Equity had we been knowing of all the circumstances of them they do thereby also confess that since the Judge hath his secret reasons proper to himself to judge by so can there be no definitive proportion of Equity but what is from his sentence proceeding until there can be some way found to search into Gods secret Counsels or the heart of the King which is unsearchable For as it is the glory of God to conceal a thing that is to keep his judgements from common apprehension so it is the honor of Kings to search out a matter and by vertue of his deputation from God to give always a divine sentence whereby not to err in judgement that is not so to err as not to be the rule of Justice to those below although it may be erronious and unjust in it self in relation to that full and high interest and jurisdiction which God hath above him And therefore that wise King makes Understanding Wisdom Instruction Justice Iudgement and Equity depending on obedience and attention to God and our lawful superiors when he says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom but fools despise wisdom and Instruction that is all that are disobedient and conceitedly wise are fools and when he next says My son hear the instruction of thy Father and forsake not the Law of thy Mother that is learn Religion Law Equity c. from thy ghostly and civil
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
that they may as having power therein from God both refuse his commands and also subject him to the obedience of their own Authorities and Offices they should doe well to consider that God can have but one supreme Magistrate namely the King and that all others can have power but as sent of him They should consider that God hath made him Keeper of both Tables so as to preside over us in all things as well of Religious as Civill cognisance In which respects we can no more divide him in his entire Trust and delegation in these things then we can divide the author of these Trusts in his sole Power therein also Now it might be demanded of these men That since these Magistrates and intrusted Officers had their places from the Prince onely and since without Commission and power from him they could not have had Power in any thing outwardly to be exercised more then other ordinary Subjects how should it therefore come to pass that by vertue of a Deputation to serve and be subordinately assisting unto him they can claim right and power to be unsubjected and in any thing above him But we shall here somewhat examine the usuall ground of this stubbornness which is by distinguishing at their pleasures Religious and Civil duties one from another and then making men obliged to obedience in the first sort to Gods precepts onely with this farther supposition that themselves or such are they fancy are to be obeyed as his Magistrates therein And they then stint the Princes power to be onely exercised in what they refuse and shall call Civil matters of which distinction of duties we shall speak more fully anon In the mean time because the conceit of Magistrates distinct and unsubordinate power hath arisen from belief of this distinction of duties we are to consider in brief that being now Christians we cannot at our private pleasures renounce and take off that general relation and say that in such and such particulars we act as natural men in such as civil men and in such onely as Christians but since now all unrighteousness is sin and a sin against God too even to the degree of an idle word so hath God united the high trust and oversight of all these things to this his onely supreme Magistrate And this in so neer a tye of obedience as where he is not divided in himself that is to say differenced from us in Religion but is a Christian as well as we there we cannot more divide from his Authority in our Christian obedience then we can in our Civil without dividing Christ that gave him this Office and separating him likewise from his right of Kingship over us and so affirm that we are to obey Kings as Gods deputies in the State but not as Christs in the Church For albeit in some Assemblies of Christian Subjects where persons in holy Orders do more particularly appear and preside as being an Assembly by the Prince constituted for more neer examination and stating what in the Scripture is more particularly contayned or what is more expresly tending to Gods Worship and Service Princes may be thought thereupon secluded yet since they are still Christians Subjects as others and have as we said their whole Assembly and their particular powers therein authorized from the same head that other Assemblies have we may conclude that each Kingdom is as well such a Church as such a Kingdom And as Christ is head of the Church and King of Kings too so is each King under him head of both also and while he continues a Christian Magistrate he must be always so obeyed and acknowledged And although where the Prince or Supreme Magistrate is no Christian as in the infancie of Christianity it fared the saying is useful of giving to Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are Gods and of obeying God rather then man because in that case the Magistrate not undertaking to be Gods or Christs Vicegerent at all so as to promote their honor and worship but it may be the contrary it were strange to give him the power of the Church which he will not own but rather refuseth Therefore he refusing to act as a Christian Magistrate in matters of Divine Precept we must have recourse to Gods command our selves or to such representation as any Assembly of the Church at that time can have But where the supreme Magistrate is a Christian there as in all his relations he is supreme to the rest of his Subjects so is he in all his commands to be obeyed as a Christian Magistrate For if that rule of giving to Caesar c. be taken litterally and expresly so as to exclude Kings as Kings from being Gods Ministers and Magistrates in Church matters it must again exclude God from medling in secular affairs or matters of the Commonwealth doing thereby not so much wrong to Kings as to God himself For since without a Magistrate nothing can be done in the Law-makers absence all Laws of Religion must then remain arbitrary and useless and God would by consequent be as well thrust out of religious power as directly hereby excluded out of the Civil So that when that or the Precept of obeying God rather then man is to be taken of direct use and force it must be when Subjects stand subjected as aforesaid or else as we said in the case of new express command from God or Christ himself received who as the higher power must then be obeyed as in that particular case wherein this sentence was spoken may appear For Christ having himself particularly and expresly said to his Apostles Go teach all Nations for them to have obeyed Magistrates forbidding them to teach any more in his Name had been expresly to have obeyed man rather then God and to have put them in danger of Woe if they preach not Even as on the other side to hearken to such Precepts as come to be invented and pressed by private men contrary to the sense of Gods publike Minister and without express revelation therein from God which he is evidently to prove is as done against Gods command to obey man rather then God also And this not onely whether the doers be private persons or else subordinate Magistrates For all power being in the King and they deriving theirs as sent of him as they cannot claim obedience from others but by Authority from him so they must as private persons in respect of him give obedience to him by whose power under God they had this their jurisdiction CHAP. XII Of the Right of Dominion HAving hitherto spoken of the duty of subjection and particularly to Kings it will farther be necessary to say something in designation of the persons that so the stubborn may be without excuse and the Consciencious have direction and satisfaction as far as may be what to follow We must now again therefore consider that as mans obligation of Praise
disturbance of one another where a supreme definitive sentence is not kept up And as we usually thus search into his Councels for the Reason of his Laws so set we up models of equity of our own for measuring his Justice Insomuch as upon every extraordinary and remarkable event how peremptory are we to assign this or this for a cause each one judging his own apprehensions of right and wrong as the onely necessary patterns for Gods proceedings and intentions herein Which whilest they shall differ so much one from another and can be but one true if any be must they not charge God foolishly For example amongst us that have now felt in so high measure his deserved hand those that are of the Romish opinion say This late revolt is in Justice for our Kings deserting his Obedience to that See and our particular Schisms the punishment of our grand Schism from them and the more particular pressure thereof lighting on the Nobility and Gentry are the punishments of their ingrossing the Churches Patrimony which like the coal from the Altar hath almost consumed their nests These looking upon this kingdom as the head and pillar of Protestantism say That as Reformation of Religion was first set up by our Princes out of State designs of alteration of Government and of being independent on the power of Rome so are they now but justly punished with the same pretensions by their own Subjects who in their risings they presume have as great Authority to interpret Scripture against their Civil Governors now as formerly against their spiritual head And they farther say That as to gain strength and general assistance from the Laity was the onely reason we first made the Scriptures vulgar and common that under the obliegingness of so high a favor whereby their abilities seemed to be flattered to an equal pitch with the Clergy they might be gained to that side that therefore our present requital from popular wresting these Scriptures again to publik disturbance amongst our selves is but just also Others that are from them in opinion most contrary so are their reasons also They tell you that Popery and Superstion were here too much and too long countenanced and abetted they tell you that the Clergy were yet too high and powerful and their maintenance too great and unbecoming that things have thus happened because the true sense of Scriptures and thorough Reformation from Rome were too little regarded Others that it may be regard neither of those extreams but look on things as polititians will tell you That the assistance of the Scots formerly against their Queen the assistance of the Dutch and Rocheller against their Kings were the just causes of insurrection now and they will tell you also that the beheading of the Queen of Scots was ominous to the like fatal blow Believing it a Vice against common prudence for Princes out of consideration of any mischief to one another to do that which should be destructive to all as well as it is a sin against Religion neglecting the rule of Do as thou wouldst be done unto By all which and many more instances which might be given of like nature being first bewitched with our Understandings and then idolizing our own justice to be the same with Gods we do cause Rebellion to creep on us as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness as Idolatry That is we will then onely begin to serve God and obey his Laws when we have first interpreted them to serve our own turns which is in effect never to obey them more Whereas that more remarkable token of Obedience that was to Abraham imputed for righteousness was in fact seeming as contradictory to justice and goodness so far as humane ability could reach as it was to the stream of his own particular affection For my own part I am not more in love with those four letters that spell King then with the rest of the Alphabet And could I see probable hope how that thirst of governing might be satisfied to general liking and agreement by that soveraignty which each subject should by this means have over the common vassal the King I should have rest contented with my share therein and have rather given encouragement to this so common a benefit where first all of us should have had our contents by being real governor of this one and then that one contented again with the titles formalities and shews of his Government also then have made my self subject to so much labour and censure But as in all works that are to be done there must be the worker the work and the instruments whereby he brings it to pass the which in order to the work must be at the workmans appointment and choice so in this work of Polity and Government the commanding are workers the commanded the work and the Law Magistracy Councellors c. are the instruments for effecting it Whether Prince or people shall be workmen I will not here say onely thus much is evident that Laws Magistrates c. must be at the choice and dispose of such as rule and also above the ruled as holding necessarily a middle term to unite and agree them in the work it self If as considering how things are now practised and the many opinions to the contrary I shall be by any hastily condemned of ungrounded novelty for that not contenting my self in the modest and equal way of commending Monarchy above other Governments I have quite cast Aristocraty and Democraty out of the right number and reckoned of them but as Anarchies I shall entreat them to consider that I onely undertake to look into Government and its forms as they stand authorized in Scripture or Reason and not as they stood in humane device or practise and therefore I hold my self no further blamable then failing hereof For unto my strictest enquiry there could not be found one Text amongst those we call Canonical countenancing and mentioning any other form not so much as one word of the power of People or Nobility Parliaments Senate c. which the restless wits of men have since devised as in derogation to the other Nay when God means to express himself by titles of power common to men it is either of King or Father which as the greater and lesser Monarchs have alone divine Authority to command over mens persons And I believe all knowing men will confess that as onely God expresly appointed this form so nature also at least at first in her golden age and whilst she was at the best insomuch as for some thousands of yeers it is by all concluded there was no one sort of people otherwise governed then by Kings And therefore by that same rule of strangeness and wonder where with others may behold my Positions in condemning I may behold theirs in approving them even that a sort of men there should be that pretending their utmost and onely subjection to Gods word should yet contemn the power of Kings
under Monarchy Some have thought that a family could not be rightly called so under such a number of persons that is five at least and that in it there must he all relations that is of wife children and servants They might also have aswel put down servants of all sorts that is slaves too because most families in other Countries have them but I considering a family as to preservation of mankind by government and not as to the encrease of it barely say that the sole power of each family as a family belongs to the head thereof and that in the relation of Master too And I do farther conceive that as wife and children are commanded as members of the family where they are so if they dye or depart the family the Master doth still remaine the head of the family although he be now neither husband nor father and that although it be but over two servants aswel as before For although his power be not so extensive over few yet it is as absolute And the same is to be judged againe though he have none but children or none but wives for though these may alter his relation to those under him yet having sole power he continues in the full right of government as Master of the family for considering them in their general relation of governors and governed though the Master from their differing relations that are under him may differ in notion or title yet the power is of God and not from their relations as inferiours If the wife before marriage and being yet free make paction for part of his power yet she is so far from constituting the power belonging to his office that he when he shall judge it necessary may reassume this for ought she as of proper power can hinder The like may be said of children and servants unto whom by promise or without he may suspend or remit the execution of his power as he shall judge fit and yet cannot he be said to have derived power from them Let us now proceed to resemble their orders and relations and then speak of the Anarchy or overthrow of a Family The Master himself we have compared to the King and now his Wife we will compare to the Order of Priesthood in the Kingdom which is to be ruled more by love then fear and yet is to be subject to the same head The Children we may compare to the Nobility and Magistrates who standing in degree between Monarch and people or Master and Servants serve as the Ministers and conveyers of Justice and protection downwards and by their sole dependance of the good of the Monarch or Master serve as Bulwarks against any forcible attempt The servants in the Family do resemble the other subjects in a Kingdom Now this Government in a Family is changed through remisness or weakness in the Master as is the Kingdom through the like in the King for if he act onely by others the acknowledgement will follow the power and themselves through contempt lose or hazard their Soveraignty As if the Master be uxorious then as the undertaking Clergy can make Religious Cognizance stretch as far as they please so the Wife as incident to Women being grown proud of Government will as it were now her own right take all upon her to general discontent But if he be indulgent and trust his power to Children then they neglecting all above them that is power Civil and Ecclesiastical fall a trampling on all the Servants as ambitious Nobles in a Kingdom till the Subjects be Rebels or Slaves And lastly if as making himself equal with his servants he affect popularity too much he thereby loseth his bulwarks of Nobility and Religion things of no esteem with them and lies as a deserved prey to his servants and subjects next violent attempt Let us now see their likeness in their Anarchies If in the weakness or absence of the Master or infancie of the heir the power be exercised partly by the Wife followed with one part of the servants and by the Children followed with others of the Servants so that there is division by factions Anarchy is begun If the Wife prevail as in title to her Husband or as Protector to her son and heir Monarchy is not in much danger because she and the Clergy have great interest in the Crown But if Master and heir dye in the contest and the Children prevail and Govern joyntly then it is one sort of setled Anarchy which is Aristocracy If the servants that took the part with the Masters Title prevail against the Children or the Childrens insolence shall make the servants that followed them desert and joyn with others against them so as to overcome them and rule themselves then it is the other sort of Anarchy namely Democracy both which are upon the same reason as opposite to Government in a Family as in a Kingdom But now although there be more mutterings and repinings in each Family that is against the exercise of the Government of the present Master thereof then is in a Monarchy having consideration to their proportionable numbers yet to set up such standing Factions or to prosecute them so far as to overthrow the form of Government thereof cannot be in like manner subject to the Family as Kingdom and this because the Master or his heirs interest is by Superiors Laws still upheld and then the Masters of all other Families having concern in the example do so order things that the Faction of one Family can never have force enough to prevail by president against so many Whereas in the Monarchy discontented parties having made a Faction so great as to overpower the appointed head therein there is not another present superior fear to keep them from destructive proceedings for other Monarchs will rather help it for gain to themselves and other heads of Families will forward it out of consideration of their share in Government when this one is taken away And none can doubt but that Children and Servants are throughout as desirous and covetous of the Fathers and Masters power and riches as the factious Subjects are of these of a King and would as assuredly make their associations to deprive him thereof and also joyn in confederacy to enjoy them amongst themselves as the other do if they had but equal hopes of prevailing and of being unopposed And could these of a Family secure themselves in their narrow bounds against the Prince and his Laws and the disturbance and intermedling of the Masters of other Families as well as Republikes can fortifie against other Monarchs we should soon finde more Anarchical Families then Kingdoms I mean number for number For since we all know that the Fathers estate is more often and with more covetousness sought then the Kings if Fathers had nothing but their sons Consciences for their defence as Kings have they would often fall into worse fortune But Monarchs wanting first present undertakers of their common
protection when their Offices are invaded as the Prince is to the Fathers and Monarchs again being not unanimous and active in upholding each others rights as Fathers are it is no wonder if we finde here and there an Anarchical Kingdom even daring to profess themselves so which Families do not But would Monarchs take the common interest to heart as Fathers do and be as vigilant to preserve their neighbors power as others are to overthrow them they would finde that it would be the steadiest course to maintain their own power at home and that when other Kingdoms could never have been known successful in enterprising their Kings subversion their subjects would never undertake it no more then the Children or Servants of a Family dare for the like cause attempt the like against their Father and Master The main reason that Subjects usually have to desire such Change being the example of such or such a neighboring people as have thriven therein and so making fortune and success the onely judge of right and wrong they do proceed accordingly all stories telling us that until Anarchies came into the world such a thing as limited Monarchy was not in being Let us now again see their likeness in Rebellions and its pretences The Wife if she be of greater spirit then to be confined in her proper employment takes occasion from her Husbands remisness or too great trust in her to enlarge her power in the Family and to encroach on her Husbands also With these she lays Obligations and raises dependances as to her self and having now as she believes gotten strength to stand alone or above her Husband she becomes more insolent and open Which if it shall awake him to curb by his just power then comes she to spread through the Family the charge and power she hath She saith That the power of the head of the Family grew from the Family for as the Family was in greatness or power so was the head thereof also and therefore that they as the fountains of power might use the same to their just vindication from oppression She saith that as all kindes of good is increased by communication so the good of the whole Family is to be preferred in reason to the single good of any one especially since as the case now stands that one seeks but his own hurt also led and blinded with evil Counsel In which case necessity of self-preservation will not onely justifie but duty to their Master requires the other members to joyn in a course to force these from him and take the charge of his person and Government themselves She tells them that a Family as a Family hath foundation on the Wife and that as without Religion well instructed there could be no firm obligation for subjects obedience so without a Wife no Children no Family and so no Master thereof Besides though truly she is loth to say so much her self yet her Husbands late disrespect and forwardness to cross her makes her fear as men are now easily enclined to heresie so he hath turned his affection to some other women and therefore she would divorce her self from him that so he might be as excommunicate in his Family For although it is true that obedience is to be given to him by the Law of God yet again it is as true that he is to keep Gods Laws as well as we if not we must obey God rather then men Nay when he hath neglected his duty to his Family in not providing for them as this man hath done Saint Paul expressly saith He is worse then an infidel Now whether it be not fit that one that hath denied the Faith an Infidel nay worse then an Infidel should not onely be excommunicated but put from Government she thinks none can doubt But above all through her Husbands often absence about other imployments and remitting the directive part of Government to her in many particulars she lays the greatest claim to make herself as it were Governor in chief leaving to her Husband as pertinent to him that hath none but the coercive part the honor and authority only of a subservient officer that is to execute punish according to her determination and censure No otherwise then as the popish and Presbyterian Clergy upon advantage of their sole exercise in the Office of publike instruction do come to believe at last they are supreme and uncontrolable herein and do thence infer that as the body is to be subservient to the mind so the Prince or Civil Magistrate as they call him ought with his coercive part of Government to be reckoned but as subordinate and Ministerial to what they in their spiritual capacities shall enjoyn Not remembring that all that external jurisdiction and power she exerciseth in tâ—e Family is subordinate and to be acknowledged as derived from his supreme headship even as done by her as his Wife in his family by vertue of that choice and designation he then made at the time he personally ordained her to be his Wife and so consequently took her into this consortship and share of power For although the positive power and honor belonging to her as a mother and Mistris of a family be to be derived from God onely even from the sacramental efficacy of marriage and Ordination it self yet since it cannot be imagined that the constitution of a less and subordinate power was intended to be the overthrow of a greater therefore should she have considered that she is negatively in all things by him restrainable in the execution thereof Nay more in those things which she acts as Mistress of the Family over any but her own Children she is to hold her self as well impowered as restrainable by him although in respect of that obedience or honor rather which her own children give her she be not to acknowledge any humane derivation therein but is impowered as mother both by the Laws of God and Nature and that in chief where no other head or Monarch is With these and such like insinuations she may be supposed to win Children and others of the Family into a faction and association with her by whose help she may be able to work her ends For although women be rather more desirous of Government then men yet they wanting bodily strength are forced to draw in others to their assistance by setting up of their interests also Thus Children shall be won in by hope of some parity of power with the Father as well as Peerage among themselves for by the Text of Fathers provoke noâ— your children to wrath they would both have the duty of Fathers implyed of not commanding more to their Children then what they are willing to act for fear of angring them and also that being provoked by their Father it was just and reasonable for them to prosecute this wrath of theirs unto the abating his power for the future Then the Children when they meet with an easie and
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
how can any be supposed to be so equally and universally interessed as the Prince How will they have this liberty stinted both for persons and causes And who shall be superiour to see it on all hands performed Will they allow subjects indefinitely to have power herein as they themselves shall see cause they then invert and overthrow government If these prudent considerations cannot prevaile with rational men to stop the current of rebelion yet methinks the conscientious ties of Religion and the due observation of those Gospel duties of patience humility obedience long-suffering c. might Christian Subjects should consider how Princes are of Gods setting up and not theirs so that when he that hath their hearts in his hand shall send them such an one as they deserve and in a fatherly way shall make them his rods to punish their faults they are not to attempt the throwing these rods into the fire themselves but to kiss them in acknowledgement of submission and unless they will undertake to measure their own sins they must leave it to the same hand to withdraw that did impose And to this purpose let them well consider that place of Job Is it fit to say to a King thou art wicked or to Princes ye are ungodly if not to say so much less to strike Princes for equity Nay although they be such as appear to us to hate right yet being our King and Gods Minister over whom we can have no lawful jurisdiction we cannot condemn them more then he that is most just For so he must be esteemed of us and left to God for punishment Who shall in his own way and time break in pieces mighty men without number and set others in their stead CHAP. IV. Of Liberty AS we have heretofore shewed the glory of God to be the end of creation and that this glory was encreased from the variety of creatures inasmuch as from their augmentation of benefit one above another the encrease of his praise must proportionably arise As we have also declared mankinde amongst other creatures greatest receivers and most capable of return so now as to the same end we are to consider men amongst themselves as they stand in degrees of honour and power one above another For as we shall finde them generally much elevated above other creatures so also much differenced by their own degrees of perfection Insomuch as whilst the meanest rank of men have great degrees of Divine resemblance above other creatures below them so have also men of higher stations as coming hereby to be called Gods by God himself both an advantage and obligation above those of ordinary condition to the end that as their power and eminence did encrease above others below so their gratitude upwards should encrease also For as every workman is himself expressed in his work and hath his goodness power and skil made apparent by the general perfection of all he doth so is he yet more eminently herein represented when of the same lumpe or kind again he shall cause vessels of different honor and perfection to arise In order to this as we finde that those large abilities which men in general have above other creatures do chalenge and establish their right of dominion over them so since one man hath as great almost above another it is supposeable thereby to chalenge also proportionable superiority amongst themselves Nor fares it so with man alone but it is generally observable that as the Species of creatures have more of perfection one then another so have they also more variety of degrees in the individuals thereof one above another In inanimates that have not wil their different vertues are without claim or use in the exercise of power and dominion yet comparatively we may see one Loadstone of greater efficacy then another so as to draw from him upon even tearms the same mass of Iron Look amongst plants their different perfections in the same kinds are to all apparant and how also one tree or fruit that is perfectest in the same kind or plant over powereth that which is less In such sort as when we are to set forth Gods power and bounty in the vertues and endowments of stones or plants of any kind it is our custome and duety to instance it in such as are the most rare and perfect particulars of the same kind which may by their worth eminently include the whole Beasts have their degrees of prudence and courage whereby they come to resemble men and be differenced above others of the same kind recompensed with the dominion over one another also Look above our selves and although our happiness cannot yet extend to know any thing of the true nature of Angels yet supposing them in that one known relation of ministring spirits their different degrees and orders in this office of ministration must assure to us their different gifts and abilities in performance thereof And here again we are more particularly to consider what was before spoken namely that as creatures are in their kinds more perfect so are the degrees in the same kind more various that from eminence herein eminence in power might proportionably arise For as to have made any one Species imperfect in it self could not be imagined from the power of such an Author so also not to have made some individuals thereof more perfect then others whereby as it were to confess that the Authors power by this certain stint was come to its highest pitch could not be expected from omnipotency either no more then it could from his justice or goodness not to Communicate more of his power and particular presence in things thus made perfect Not that any the lowest thing hath hereupon cause or reason to complain because each one having a stock of blessing suitable to its capacity and the smaller and greater vessel being both alike full they must in that respect be alike pleased Nor could God but hereby be much advantaged in general acknowledgement whilst in their grateful sense of enjoyment all things rest contented with the measure of their receits Thus while each superiour order of Angels in that celestial Hierarchy looks upon those successively below they must acknowledge their encreased obligations of praise whilst the lowest of all standing yet satisfied with continual benefit and also beholding it self so far enabled above other creatures all that it can do will be thought too little to requite so large a gratuity If men take also the same course how shall those of higher power have reason to acknowledge higher praise and the meanest Subject even for his being man and for that proportion of Religion Liberty Protection c. which he enjoyes above other creatures have cause also to bless that inexhaustible fountain of goodness Whereas if men and other creatures had been made for vertue or power equal in the individuals of the same kind then for want of eminent obligation and examples of vertue and power
not arbitrarily dispose of it according to the occasion and proportions of that food apparel c. which should generally and to each one be necessary and which cannot to any one at any time be wanting Whereas Honor Command Power c. being necessary but to few doth both afford him ability personally to act and time to consult in each particular So then wealth riches c. are from their general use and possession to be guided by common rule or law but honors are still manageable by particular rule or prerogative law And indeed as this necessary and general use of food c. makes that kind or possession that is more immediate in acquiring it to be called and take on it the general name of Propriety so is it in a maner the whole subject of law it self And therefore we may say the Prince hath no more right to disimpropriate any one contrary to law then any man hath to take back from another any thing that by his general appointment was given to him which is unjust without other circumstances to authorize it And therefore it will be considerable whether this gift were absolute and without all kind of reservation or no or whether the Prince proceed herein according to interest and increase of his particular propriety or no For if private propriety have encroached on that which should have remained as yet publike and common and that without leave or if there be any conditionate reservation of rent taxes or of repossession at a certain time or upon such or such default or the like by the same general law and rule set down the Prince may with better right by his Magistrates recover his own then his subjects could dispossess him And as thus to himself and his own use so although no reservation be expressed but where the proprieties seem most high and absolute the Prince as aforesaid may for the publike occasion make a publike leavy as he shall think good For since all private proprieties will in themselves increase and be more as that publike whereof their parts is more and doth increase and so on the contrary it will follow as a thing of great equity that private proprietors should contribute to this purpose and that according to such degree of exigence as he that is publike proprietor shall finde fitting that is for the ways for increasing it by invention of Arts of all sorts by foraign invasion with Armies Navies c. or by maintenance of it by Religion publike persons buildings works foraign traffick agriculture or such like c. To keep it from decay by the same or like means For the necessity of having these things to each subject in particular making it necessary that there should be one to judge and take care thereof in general must also imply a necessity in the means that is publike maintenance aswel as of the end which is publike good But now although few doubt that either there should be care or allowance for publike advantage or to resist publike detriment there are many do yet actually and by consequent interrupt and deny it by putting such exceptions and restraints on Princes herein as whilst they would disable him from taking more then is fit they disable him from taking what truely is so thereby also from doing that good which they ought as experience too often shew us How Princes should guide themselvs in their own particular revenues and collection and managery of publike charges is a proper discourse for hereafter In the mean time I shall answer in general that since all these kinds of trusts as also all others that are in mens managery will be subject to abuse therefore if it should happen that the Prince should in these things exceed publike regard the damage and dishonor is not so great to the people to be by him over-reached as by others of less note and concern in the publike For he as the publike Minister ought to be by them maintained and the more his honor the more theirs but to be cozened by their fellows and to have them thereby made rich above them which in all Republikes must come to pass will neither gain them thanks nor credit And again the more the Prince shall gain by frugallity in the managery of those publike imployments and trusts so much less need have they to add to his maintenance and Royal support Which as it is their duty to do as subjects so though the same should be done in a manner more plentifully then ordinarily yet could not the whole kingdom be therein a loser seeing it is spent upon its members and within the bounds thereof For the Prince himself can eat or wear but the share of another man and what would have been eaten by others if he had not been and having nothing of the rest but the beholding it with his eyes it is eaten and enjoyed by their fellow subjects for such even those are that are more particularly waiting on him and called his servants All which well considered together with what was formerly spoken of the reason and beginning of property namely common improvement by private managery as it will on the one hand shew it to be the duty of Kings that none of those talents should be hid by them or lye idle in their own use without necessity whereby publike benefit might be hindred so on the other hand how heavy will it make the offence of Subjects that instead of Tenants shall make themselves such absolute and unconditionate proprietors as to withstand or deny publike occasions For if they after the manner of the husbandmen in the Gospel should seek to make the inheritance their own and by way of association and Covenant amongst themselves seek to kill or dispossess the true heir what think we shall the great Lord at his coming say to such husbandmen Therefore as private mens judgements must submit to publike sentence so their property to publike use and as all mens proprieties are settled by Law so upon occasion of preservation of that Law they may be disposed of that according to the judgement of the King the Maker Keeper and Interpreter of these Laws For the Soveraigns office being to protect his subjects liberties properties against all others he cannot do it against himself no more then he can binde his own hands It cannot be done by another because on earth he hath none equal or Superior in his own Dominions And if it could be Government would not be because our persons and estates are the onely objects of Government And the same rule is in a Family that is independent for in both all is to be supposed at the proper disposal of the Prince and Master And upon the same ground that the sojourner in the Family and Ambassador or stranger in the Commonwealth have their freedom in persons or estates that is because unsubjected those that are subjected may be justly made lyable And as these Reasons
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
declamations are from them to be expected for taking away the right by Conquest and for branding and enfeebling it with the odious terms of Tyranny and Usurpation whilst others although not so personally interessed yet being discontented with that share of riches or preferment which the present settlement hath allotted them are willing to call out for the peoples right to choose and to joyn with and accompany them in any thing of change and alteration in the Government in hope that from that new shuffling of fortunes and interest which must hence arise they shall have a better game dealt them then before not at all regarding that general mischief and confusion which must follow hereupon For will they say that it is fit this power should follow publike and free election then to bring any Prince this way into power without danger of Civil war they must first imagine that that whole Nation out of which he is to be chosen hath but one person fit for this employment and also that that person hath so publikely and equally demeaned himself in his merits and favors that they should be always so equally known and equally beneficial as to engage each one in an unanimous consent and agreement in his election Will they for peace-sake put it to the Major Vote how shall it be known except voices and consent be taken viritim And how shall it be done but under government where some must be imagined with general Authority to give direction herein In which case how shall those in present power be thought willing to submit to the suffrages of such as have none whether they shall continue in it or no or have their enemies it may be chosen in their rooms If the major or stronger party do elect and by force or fear of it prevail against the other then what differs this from the course before spoken of where the conquering Faction sets up its own chief in supreme power Will they say that since Princes are to be chosen more for eminence in wisdom then in valor and prowess that therefore his election for fitness is to be tryed out by force of Argument and not by force of hands then what hopes in this case to have an end of the controversie since the minor party will no more conceive it self justly overcome this way then the other For when do we see any person yeild to another in any Argument that is to be tryed out by discourse Whereas victory will presently decide the contest of two Combatants Besides what greater assurance and demonstration of wisdom then those effects thereof whereby this greatness was acquired Unless they would have it judged by talk onely and not by action For mine own part I do not believe there hath been any more studious then my self to finde out a way how Subjects might free themselves from these kinde of inconveniences as of Tyranny Usurpation c. and yet all that while maintain publike peace but when I had throughly considered all those ways of redress that in this case I could think upon and compared their probable benefit with those more certain consequents of Civil war which would attend them I was at last forced to reckon these chances amongst those irremediable miseries which humane condition stood subject unto and which God as in his more secret Justice had to himself reserved for punishment of our sins even in this very case making us sensible of that our original pride and insubjection to him which had now brought us from his more immediate care and rule over us to be thus made subject to the oppression of such as are in Nature our equals and thereupon to resolve that no way could so assuredly prevent those torrents of Civil war which upon these pretences would be continually let in then by making a stop at that first gap made for entrance For experience doth tell us that under pretence of the unlawfulness of the first seisure by Conquest and Usurpation Princes of a long continued race have been opposed and by Civil War dispossessed as Usurpers thereby plainly shewing that no Government or Governor can be in security or publike peace kept up if a discontented party may be still hearkened unto For if we admit Usurpation a just excuse for disobedience to a present Prince and any party or order of the Subjects to be judge thereof there will never want a party who will make all Conquest to be the same inasmuch as none can usurp Regal Authority to the dispossession of another who were not by Conquest holpen in And if it were unlawful for the first to command and govern by that claim then is it so to all that succeed to govern as upon his right I considered that Usurpation and Tyranny were usually the expressions of Passion and Interest many times laid without desert and that by the fewer in number also for had not the greatest part thought them otherwise they could never have got in And hence it grew that the old Prince was over called Tyrant and the new one Usurper by those parties that were their enemies And whilst some out of their interests against Monarchy would reject all Government as denying either the ways of Conquest or Usurpation to have Lawfulness of title there are others again that are ready to yield to the right of Conquest made by a forraign Prince but strongly urge against Usurpation of a Subject Whilst those on the side of the Usurper say That all Conquest is not onely Usurpation but with this aggravation that thereby a forraigner makes entrance and rules in despight of a whole Nation Whereas the other cannot come in without the assistance and consent of the major part and being a native is not so like to alter their Laws and Religion as the other and they are ready to give instances for it amongst the Jews When I foresaw that when all was done Subjects were upon their removal still to run the same hazard from the next Possessor when I foresaw that there was no other remedy against Usurpation and Tyranny then what was certainly accompanyed with a greater evil then the disease it self and yet all that while no certainty of cure I then concluded that I could not go lower then I have done in asserting submission to the present Prince in possession unless I should have been false to my main design of publike peace and good Nay truely I looked upon loyalty and subjection as the onely sure remedy to defend people against usurpation Inasmuch as none being able to dispossess another already in power but by the help of his own subjects disloyalty must precede and be a cause of Usurpation And therefore if nothing but Civil war will remedy it better to be loyal then by it cure one Usurpation by another And I shall ingenuously say that could any yet inform me how it may be done I shall more heartily recant and withdraw my former Tenents then I did propose them looking upon
observe this Monarchical administration so much owned by God as to declare the absence thereof as the fittest and surest token of his dereliction and punishment of a people that had been first false to himself and were now repudiated by him as may appear in that other Prophesie For the Children of Israel shall abide many dayes without a King and without a Prince without a Sacrifice and without an Image and without an Ephod and without Teraphim And by the last words we may observe by the way not onely a depravation in religion and Church order to follow this no King in Israel by making use of Teraphim in the Ephod instead of Urim as the man Michah did but this disorder should increase till that remaining Priesthood who by their consistorial parity were as the Teraphims in this Ephod should be taken away also For this use of Teraphim amongst Israelites was to bee looked upon but as a shift in Jeroboam who wanting that order of Aaron and his Sons made use of the meanest of the people but in the Christian Church and when Christ typified in David shall be their King then also shall those several Kings under him maintain and settle order amongst the Priesthood and in religion it self as David also did Now concerning that separate jurisdiction which some Church-men would claim under colour of dividing our duties into religious and civil it cannot I conceive but plainly appear that notwithstanding sacred pretence this division is but of humane invention being not to be found in the Scripture and as it is for the most part made of no other use but to make division and discord by abating our obedience to the Magistrate under colour of giving it to God so are men not at agreement in stating thereof For while some think that whatever the Magistrate commands it but of civil obedience and so lyable to temporal reward and punishment onely and again what is of Gods command that is expresly set down in Scripture is to be only obeyed out of conscience of divine authority and then leaving men to private judgement what precepts are thence deduceable or when the Magistrates commands be such they must consequently leave them no certain rule whereby either to preserve duty or unity As also those other sort do who distinguishing men in their several relations by them phancied say that in whatever we do as subjects and men linked in Society the same is of civil cognizance and duty but in whatever we act as Christians we are to be guided by precept from God alone In which doing also being neither able to bring from Scripture all things that concern Gods outward worship and finding many precepts of Ethical Political and Oeconomical nature and which do concern our duty and good even as men although we had not been Christians they must needs fall themselves and drive others by these doubtfull precepts from giving any right obedience at all instead of directing them therein For although as to some intents men may be usefully considered in these different relations yet when the same person is now both a man and a Christian such distinctions as should â—imply a possibility of personal devision again so as for the same Christian to act as a man in any thing without being a Christian must besides absurdity bring upon us the many inconveniences of rebellion and civil war And therefore although in our being Christian we lose not the reality of manhood more then in being rational creatures or men we lose the properties of sensitive Creatures yet inasmuch as being rational Creatures and so having a greater and surer light to direct our actions all that we do answerable to other meer sensitives is therefore now to be attributed to us in the capacity of men as of the nobler and higher relation Even so also it fareth with us after and while we are Christians namely that all those actions in which in execution and direction I mean so far as is humane we resemble other meer natural men onely yet these things being by us now acted under the inseparable relation of Christians are although not of express litteral divine precept yet if done in obedience to lawful authority a Christian duty or if acted against it a Christian fault And it will follow that what was in us as men before but moral vertue or vice is now righteousness or sin even to the degree of an idle word And so again considering us as subjects those things that are onely by the light of nature investigable as civil duties when they come to be enforced by a Superiour having his power and office from God have the obligations of religious actions as being part of our obedience to that God who said them to be in that respect Gods also and children of the most high Therefore when God sometimes commands what would concern us and be our benefit as men although we had not been Christians as indeed if we had reason enough all precepts for outward direction would appear such or when again many things appertaining to our religion it self and our outward worship therein are by the Churches authority enjoyned whether the same be found in Scripture or no they are both of them to be held as religious dutyes to us and we being not able while we are Christians to act in any other personal capacity must be obedient and subject as in and to the Lord that is till something be enjoyned to overthorw Christianity we as Christians must obey in all things and it is as sinful to disobey Supream authority in the payment of taxes as in the observation of the Sabboth For God not now giving particular precepts as unto the Iewes but leaving us herein to the direction of the higher power ordained for that purpose of him we are to be obedient to our Masters in the flesh as unto Christ and willingly to do them service as unto the Lord and not as men That is we are now always to obey him as Christs Minister and head of our particular Church and not left at liberty to obey as in a religious tye no farther then we please For the actions and precepts of each State Kingdom are upon their conversion to Christianity to be called and reputed the actings of such or such a Church and not of such or such a State the name and notion of Church including that of State even as in the particular members whereof it is compounded the notion of man is involved in that of Christian. So that now as the entire trust power of Vniversal headship of the Catholike Church is unto Christ resigned and he thereupon to be obeyed as under a religious tye in all causes whatsoever by all such as acknowledge themselves Christians although they seem of never so civil a nature even so his supream deputy in each Christian Church or Kingdome being entirely entrusted like him from whom his power is derived is
under the tye of religion also to be entirely obeyed by all that acknowledg his Christian jurisdiction we being no more duely able to divide the supremacy of the one then of the other And therfore the mistake and inconvenience of their opinion will plainly appear that would from a short and groundless distinction of the several objects and ends of our obedience deduce a several and distinct tye whereby the same person in the performance of this duty to lawful authority should stand diversly obliged As if because the good of men and humane Society were the next ayme of my forbearance to defraud or oppress c. it were therefore the last end and not rather Gods glory as heretofore shewed Whereupon since I as a Christian had light sufficient given me to discover how God is herein served by this my advancement of the good of my brother cannot thereupon but account my self as well serving God When I do any thing as a subject to the Prince out of general tye of conscience to Gods precept that commandeth obedience to the higher powers then it is or should have been if I had done it in obedience to the perticular precepts of thou shalt not steal or thou shalt not covet And had Cato or Scipio had the like advantage of instruction with us so as to have seen through to Gods glory and their owne salvation as the great and last end and reward of all our actions as they had been obliged in conscience so they would no doubt out of respect and love to God and their owne future good have performed all those Heroick acts which for want thereof could not have in them higher consideration then temporary benefits of themselves or country and so come to be imputed unto them as bare moral vertues and duties having in their conceipts neither direction nor intention higher But for farther clearing the understanding of these things we will instance in a particular most common amongst us namely our food What the vegetative appetite as necessary to growth and nourishment doth herein covet the same being in sensitive Creatures controlled and judged by their pallats and tasts is ascribed as an action done by such or such a sensitive And in the same food again the pallat being for choice and quantity as all other senses controlable by reason for what we do therein we are accountable as men onely and not as beasts And so lastly when in this particular of food a higher authority then our owne doth command we must be then reckoned in all we do therein but as in relation and subordinate to that last and highest authority For as Christ is above them all so is our relation as Christiaâ—s to include and involve that of men or subjects So that if I now follow too much my vegetative appetite or sensative taste and also transgress reason so as to be drunken and glutonise this being done by me that am a Christian is a sin endangering punishment hereafter and not singly a moral or civil vice as transgressing onely in regard to my health or the rule of society And so farther againe when abstinence from any or all sort of food is by lawful authority enjoyned whereby the use of what was indifferent to us in respect of any direct former Christian precept comes to be streigthened we are then tyed in conscience to the obedience thereof and that not onely when a Lent or Fast day shall be enjoyned for an explicite religious end but also when abstinence shall be publickly commanded without such end expressed at all or although the preservation of Cattel or the like be the known end thereof And this because the person commanding being the same and alwayes Gods Minister where our ability of performance is equall our sin of disobedience must be equal also and that without thought of dividing his jurisdiction and authority and so disobeying the Prince as as oft as we please by taking on us as Priests in a separat jurisdiction the sole interpretation of Gods law Whereupon as every Master of a family is Priest also so far as concerns his jurisdiction so the appellations of Princes and Priests are in many places of Scripture used as equipollent But as the King in regard of the multitude under him is to use Magistrates to help him in civil administrations so Priests also in matters of the Church and religion How far this their power is to extend and how and by what order of them to be managed will be a proper discourse when the Kings part in government and peace shall be treated of Therefore now to return by the name of Church we are not to conceive there can be any congregation of Christian subjects by order so distnct from others as to have immediat power from God over the fortunes or persons of their fellows without or against the Soveraigns leave For since the time manner place and other things essential to the constituting the meeting it self must as heretofore noted depend on the leave and direction of the governour in chief and their authority as an assembly can be but subordinate to that from whence they derived it it cannot in no wise be collected that their power should be independent They of the Romish Clergy that would clayme a divine right to succeed the Apostles in the exercise of external jurisdiction and power by vertue of an uninterrupted ordination from them at first derived after the same manner as those ancient Romans were superstitious to place the vestal virgins for keeping in of their holy fire in their temple and would have the Office and power of high Priest or Bishop in the Catholike or each particular Church depend on like uninterrupted succession to his predecessor under the Gospel no otherwise then the high Priestship did descend amongst the Jewes had no doubt an ayme by this peculiar way of puting one another into authority not only to set up themselves in Apostolical power but to exclude Kings or Masters of families from having any divine right at all since no such uninterrupted derivation of succession can be on their side brought But as they cannot find any text to warrant any claim hereby so they are to consider that as to the Iewes their particular Church was the same with the Catholike so in order to Gods care for direction and government of that particular onely Church he did appoint as well a distinct family and linage for their Kingship as he did for their Priesthood it being as unlawful to alter the line of David as that of Aaron But under the Gospel where like appointment was not made nor outward prosperity was not promised as to the Jewes it will be very severe to censure any particular Church as untrue and her Pastors unlawful upon the hazard of having some interruption in succession or for want of intention or the like whereby having had some ineffectual ordination administred all ordinations succeeding and jurisdiction grounded thereupon should come
words as himself findes most warrantable and behoofeful yet must it be acknowledged reasonable that all those publike forms of Worship and Praise whose practise is necessary for constituting each place an unite and distinct Christian Church or Assembly should be at the dispose and appointment of that publike person onely who under Christ is the supreme and entire head and Representativâ— thereof Even out of necessary consideration of keeping up conformity therein and by that means keeping Gods publike Worship in existence which else by mens differing practises in opposition to one another would come to be defeated and lost no otherwise then would our practises in the Precepts of Charity if not by uniform obedience directed For these things have a natural and necessary coherence the Unity of the end requires Coition and Unity in the means and that again requires uniformity in the directions themselves as well as Unity in the person directing all of them to be made useful by the Grace of Obedience before noted But because much dissention hath hitherto arisen about that Officer or person we are to give the obedience unto in regard of the different names of power in Scripture used We will speak something farther here of that Coition or succession of this supreme Officer now under the Gospel This we shall finde briefly done by Christ himself when he is impowring these several little ones Where he begins with those that should first represent him namely such as should presently succeed as his own Desciples and followers he that receiveth you receiveth me c. Under which no doubt the first Apostles were to be comprized who in regard of their mean worldly condition might sometimes be objects of Charity also even to the receiving a cup of cold water The next object of our obedience is set down under the notion of Prophet he that receiveth a Prophet in the name of a Prophet shall receive a Prophets reward Under this notion we may comprehend Episcopal or Patriarchical power succeeding which had power of instruction but little of jurisdiction the which was reserved for the last more glorious Officer the just man or righteous man And he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous mans reward That is shall be made capable of justice or justification by means of his obedience to this chief representer of Christs Authority who is thereupon called a just or righteous man this appellation of righteous man being equivalent with that of Ruler in chief as divers places of the Old-Testament do also Warrant In which the attribute could not be formally due to him whose words were perverted by gifts Whenas by reason of the place they execute they ought always to be respected as righteous by those under them And therefore unto him as the person of jurisdiction and power shall those other Offices of Prophesie or Instruction be annexed and made subserviâ—nt no otherwise then in the Jewish Church it at first was unto Moses their first King For so we shall finde it plainly delivered concerning Aaron and him Thou shalt speak unto him meaning Moses to Aaron and put words in his mouth and I will be with thy mouth and with his mouth and will teach you what ye shall do Which is the same with being a spirit of judgement or Mishpat and of being in the mouth of their seed and seeds seed for ever before spoken of And then follows the subordination of the Prophets and he shall be thy spokesman or Angel unto the people and he shall be even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth and thou shalt be to him as a God And in the first verse of the seventh Chapter he is expresly called Moses Prophet Aaron thy brother shall be thy Prophet or Angel The which doth plainly foreshew the Coincidence of Christian Authority under each Christian King and Monarch to make useful the coition of the means before spoken of For he as the last most glorious deputed Minister to Christ amongst us is to claim our obedience in his name in all things done towards the stating of Charity and as Steward in the mysteries of God is to be obeyed in all our outward religious deportments Nay that very Argument of mysteriousness and profoundness in matters of divine truth and worship which some would urge in bar to the Kings intermedling in causes of Religion as the true Steward of the mysteries of God is by the wisest King and Preacher made to be the proper glory and part of his Office saying It is the glory of God to conceal a thing but the honor of Kings is to search out a matter In which words Kings being set in the plural number makes it appear that this of liberty searching into the mysteries of God was not reserved to Solomon onely but was belonging to each King as Gods Vicegerent on earth Nor was it so set down as to denote that every individual King could personally attain to such ability but to shew that each King being Gods chief Steward that therefore those things which by means of his Seers and Prophets under him were performed should be accompted to the honor of the King as being done by him because of their subordination to his supreme Authority therein And those persons that are most subject to inveigh against publike forms as Will-worship Superstition and Scandal are themselves the onely men that are truly guilty of Will-worship and Scandal by relying on their own private Wills and Judgements and preferring their own devises and forms to the practises of all others whereby to introduce general offence and scandal And so again when they refuse to joyn with others in their publike services out of the fear of superstition in giving too much and do choose to proceed in contrary or negative performances this as being induced and carryed on by superstitious and ungrounded fear to displease offends in the worse extream and turns to be true Superstition indeed And I verily believe that men are generally more superstitious in avoidance of Ceremonies then they are in observing them for this is Superstition upon Superstition For the truth is if publike reason and appointment be excluded in appointing forms of Gods Service and Worship then since himself hath appointed no form to us Christians as such he can now have no right external Worship given to him at all which doubtless for honor sake is eternally due to him as God and by way of gratitude to be returned from us But although he knew it to be a thing necessary to be done yet knowing also that we now have Moses and the Prophets as useful presidents for general directions in what we are to do that is since we have all that light which was formerly given to any people if these and those many general Precepts since given cannot be sufficient together without great helps of natural learning and reason
is to be laid aside as we do in any case aim at the honor and glory of God whereas if they had but ability or Patience enough to consider it they might finde how both of them do still meet in that very point of humane content and preservation as heretofore declared And so again such as have reflected upon the many self-respects and designes by some Princes practised after they attained unto their great pitch of power and that without due regard to Gods glory whose servants they are or to the good or welfare of their subjects one main end of their greatness they think that they have then arrived at no small height or reputation when they have so far abased that worth and respect which is due to him in comparison of what it due to God of men shall in a manner be brought to judge them as enemies and contrary to one another and to conceive there is no duty or respect due to them at all Not duly weighing how these things do-again meet and conspire in the same end and how it is not the honor or good of Princes personally and separately considered of men which is hereby aimed at But that it is to be given him in reference to that representation of power he hath from God himself and in respect of that preservation and good of man-kinde by this means brought to pass which is Gods end as well as ours And having so far proceeded in giving proofs and reasons to confirm those Propositions we have delivered our next work shall be to shew those grounds whereby many shall come to receive prejudice against them and think them otherwise which we shall do in that which follows THE FOURTH BOOK OF GOVERNMENT and OBEDIENCE AS They stand grounded on and relating to each ones natural inclination and affection The Introduction AS that general good to arise by publike Peace and Agreement was the end of this whole undertaking so were those many and sad examples of Civil disturbance every day set on foot upon the score of Religion the cause also why in the passed Book I made such particular discourses on that subject that upon a short view of Religion as in it self and a more strict enquiry into such Texts as did look most directly that way it might be found whether these Wars and Fightings could be rightly attributed to that faith which we profess or were not rather to be imputed to our lusts which war in our members By the which suffering our selves to be too impetuously swayed it doth thereupon come to pass that when Authority doth oppose us in any thing of our desired enjoyments we do presently cast about how our cause may be made Gods that so under colour of more near relation and subjection unto him we may shake off all that our bounden duty which by the Laws we owe to our Prince his Vice-gerent That Pride and Interest and not desire of any Self-Reformation is the usual cause of mens extraordinary search of the Scriptures may appear from the manner of choice therein made even for that no places are so much quoted and insisted upon as those that are Prophetique and most Mysterious such as are those texts of the Revelation a Book the most controverted of any other as being the greatest stranger to the Apostles times which some would seem wholly to relic upon and having in it least instructions of any how to steer our selves in the course of our lives But because the understanding hereof is generally acknowledged most difficult and because again by reason of this mysteriousness no good agreement can be yet found where justly and precisely to fix those descriptions of the Beast The Whore of Babylon Antichrist and the like therefore as well for renown and glory sake in the discovery as for anger and revenge against those they most hate shall we find some so resolute and peremptory in their expositions as if they would have us believe that these Prophesies were but respective to their interests not only to bring them honor by interpretation but thereby prove themsâ—lves the Saints and People of God there spoken of In these following Discourses I shall therefore let men see how our natural and proper constitutions educations customs c. nay our own interests also do inter-weave themselves in all we do and that as wâ—ll our Opinions and Tenets in Religion as those in Polity and Government do take tincture from these So that as in my second Book I took that Political body again into pieces which I had reared up in the first to handle and examine its grounds according to such notions and parcels of policy as were vulgarly entertained and insisted upon so now in further proof of this third Book I shall take man himself into pieces and search him in his very first principles and the natural rise and cause of both his appetites and affections and of his dislike aversions to the end that each one discerning how these things come to be framed in us and how all along they receive such influence from our breeding and manner of life aâ— easily to pre-occupate and mislead us he may be the sooner induced to an ingenuous review of his own opinions and before he grow too magistral in any thing be careful he is not overtaken by any of these prejudices But then as in this Tract I bring in these more Philosophical Speculations but by way of illustration and farther proof of what was formerly handled in the dâ—scourses of Religion and Polity so is it not to be expected that I should here deliver any thing of this kind as in an entire Treatise or make any such long stay as generally to accommodate them with a proper method or demonstration or with definition of terms since they are now only to be Probationers and Remonstrants themselves and in that kinde to be attendant on that which all this while hath been our main Argument BOOK IV. Of the Causes of LIKE and DISLIKE OF CONTENT DISCONTENT AND Whether it be possible to frame a Government in it self pleasing and durable without Force and Constraint IN many of the Discourses hitherto Government hath been treated of as having its rise and also its efficacy and support from constraint and force that is from the exercise of the power of the Governor upon the Governed which being the occasion of that continual reluctance and resistance in the Subjects and consequently the author of all Civil broils it will not be amiss to enquire what remedy may be herein found or whether any may be found or no It may therefore be doubted since as before shewed the love of our selves was only purely natural how those forraign affections come to havâ— their rise and being Whereupon we must again consider that as Gods praise and glory was the end of all things and accordingly as heretofore shewed the reason why things naturally done should be pleasurable also to wit that the Creature thereby
womb do when we would make shew of letting them fall put their bodies and parts into posture of resistance and aversion not against falling it self as knowing the danger or damage to follow thereupon but because they find their present posture strange and uneasie And therefore for want of the like sustentation to be left under them they are teady to catch at new hold and support For to a childe new born that hath not apprehended the difference of sights the fright of falling from a precipice will be but equal to that of falling out of its Nourses lap And children receive displeasure at first from lying on any thing that makes them not sensible of a like general and equal sopport they had in the womb And therefore we find them laid on beds and laps made even and yet hardly enduring the unequal application of arms or legs under them until they are so swadled up that these partial supports seem thereby to be equal and even For the motion of gravity or propriety of place being a necessary property of all bodies and their parts it will follow to be soonest and so consequently most universally known Therefore this strugling of children is caused through sense of feeling to avoid a present injury it now feels through uneasiness and not out of innate conception of danger as some do think For if such instincts and knowledge were then would children be afraid of drowning or burning or the like This instance hath been prosecuted to give occasion to discover how we may come to be habituated and affected to certain postures in the exercise and enjoyment of our minde and will as well as of our bodies and how that thereupon those restraints which Government imposeth upon our liberties in the one most cause reluctance and desire of release as well as in the other and that sense and experience of alteration and discomposure is the cause of dislike in our wills aswel as our bodies When therefore these things are ascribed to nature it must be understood of secondary or acquired nature For children or creatures new born for want of experience and observation stand affected from no sense but that of feeling Nor do the objects of other senses please or displease at first unless they imprint and move so violently as to induce feeling by affecting the heart and other parts and habits of the body by means of those inward pares of nerves Whereupon the humors and parts within do heighten as it were by their proper experience the relish of that figure or object in the brain to like or dislike after the rate they stood themselves formerly made sensible thereof from it And therefore time and experience being required to make fear or other passions strong we find that mandkind till they come to ripeness and tryal stand not apprehensive or averse to Government After which sense and knowledge of its use and benefit and also of his own suffering thereunder makes him proportionably contented or reluctant Proportionably I say for that as Reason and Religion do out of sense of duty more or less bear sway over the more natural and bodily sense of suffering and restraint of will so will Government be to each one more or less offensive there being but these two great motives for children and subjects obedience sense of benefit and interest and sense of conscience and duty For want of true experience and knowledge whereof the family as well as the Kingdom comes to be troubled with mutinies and insurrections even for that ignorance and incogitancy of the benefit or harm to arise to themselves by obedience or the contrary leaves them to be lead by the present sense of trouble in being guided by the direction of another which must thereupon come to be by them that are not able to apprehend their own advantages by peace and submission nor that their benefits are reciprocal interpreted as done out of private interest and design of their Prince and father only Nor need we wonder that in the course of our lives Custom should bear such sway since life it self is but custom that is a Methodical and Customary motion of an active spirit which by means of his circular and regular course is diverted from eager pursuit of penitration and ascension For the heat of the Sun or parental body by degrees turning into spirit or ayr such portion of seed or first matter as is apt to sublime this spirit according to its lighter nature grows presently motive and restless as seeking a more high and open habitation but partly out of similitude of the matter whereof it was bred and the similitude and constancy of the same degree of heat it now hath to that which begot it and partly through the present succession of skinny enclosure arising from the slymy nature of the matter it self and partly through those other inclosures of skins and shels in Wombs Eggs c. it is invited and contented at length to satisfie its proneness to direct upward motion with this circular passage as being from habit cozened to take and choose this easier way rather then to press earnestly any more to that direct course in which it had been so often diverted by such high difficulties And as this Spirit is by reason of its tenuity made motive and naturally desirous of enlargement and aire so again by reason of its smaller and more indifferent degree of sublimation as being generated by that moderate heat of the body of a substance which is neither suffered to addle through cold nor harden through heat it is therefore kept so well allayed as to be retarded both in ability and desire of penetration Which is also holpen on by the closeness of those vessels and cells where it is contained and by the likeness and proximity of that matter whereof it is generated and wherewith it is accompanied which is not only the same with that whereof it was begotten but also is but one degree beneath it in thinness For it is to be supposed that the Chylus being turned into blood as it doth attain some degree towards sublimation it self So also that most attenuated and concocted spirit which is in the cells of the brain doth likewise still retain a good degree towards condensation even so as according to course and vicissitude to be again apt to be turned back into sâ—eam and so into blood Like as also the blood on the contrary stands ready and affected to turn into steam and so into spirit in their circulation and passage up and down the body In which course of Version and Transmutation they are holpen by the mediation of the humour remaining in the arteries being as it were a mixture of spirit and blood caused through the refinement of the blood in its passage through the heart Whereupon we find that nature hath provided a thicker coat for them then for that thicker blood which is contained in the veins even as the finer animal spirit
must take end and fall into confusion Even so in a stare we may easily conceive how soon the constitution and welfare thereof would perish by disorder if the Statute and determinate rule of the Soveraign were not inviolably observed for subjects would forget to do as they would be done unto in regard of those liberties they would leave to posterity and their fellows as men in nature are usually inconsiderate that since their Fathers and Progenitors death made way for them so ought they to do the like for their children In which case of restraining the general actions of men to be guided by the same uniform Rules and politick Laws as natural Agents are in their courses although the number of those that would be thereby offended would exceed any number of men offended by particular crosses arising from prosecutions of their own devisings because a far greater number were this way ruled then the other yet let the discontented parties of the whole Kingdom governed by no other restraint then what they occasionally make one upon another be compared to those in any Kingdom of the same number where an uniform constraint is imposed and the persons in the first sort restrained will be more and also because of unexpectedness and want of order their restraints will be more unpleasant in the kinde then the other which hath now through custom of induration lost the sense thereof even as Millers and Jaylors of those noises and sents they are used unto For as we finde by experience that the onely reason of the discontent of the subjects of one Kingdom above those of another is for that there is difference in their Governments and Customs it must be much more likely to happen between Subjects and the same Kingdom where the different usages and customs must be in the continual notice of one another And thus it fareth not onely in case of licentiousness or where no Government is but upon the like reason when Authority doth make restraint in any thing it will follow that as this restraint is more or less that is as the subjected parties have more or less possibility of breaking it so will the continuance of obedience be more or less also For although appetite affect pleasure and custom of each sort yet when such high difficulty or inconveniency shall appear the reasonable will doth soon decline it and being thereupon turned to the choice of an object or action for the present less affected in it self doth through custom therein bring it as aforesaid into pleasure and make our Obedience prove our Liberty And the very reason why men living under one Government are many times affected with another is not from unpleasantness of that uniformity they are under but on the contrary supposing a greater uniformity of actions set by Law in that Government they commend then indeed there is For in this case usually considering their own contrivances onely which must be regular and that without just estimation how the contrivances of others might or do cross them they mistake pleasure by plotting an uniformity in the fancy which can never be in act and so come to pursue pain and trouble instead thereof For it is not variety as variety that affects but it is custom varied which will imply custom and not variety because to affect variety of customs is to affect Custom And therefore when men through the often contemplation and contrivance of an Idea or platform of Government in their fancy come thereby to attain an affection and Will thereunto this comes no otherwise to pass then if a remarkable object should through often presentation in the fancy come to pass in the extream of love or hatred according to that relish it was at first entertained with and thereupon be called sympathy or antipathy even so also this apprehension takes sometimes with men as if by sensible practice and induction their likings had been won and they may thereupon be as well said to be guided by custom to like and approve that unexperienced form as that they live under and it may be more as having oftener and more attentively considered it and its benefits when on the contrary the inconveniences and the pressures of the Government under which he lives work so strongly towards the abatement of his affections through the allay of fear that he becomes not so intent in his relishes that way and peradventure out of that general love every man carries to his own contrivance the inconveniences of the Government he now fancies are as far removed from his conceit as sense And it fares in this case with Government upon tryal as with any other beloved and much desired object namely that they never answer in possession that measure of delight they were coveted with because the Idea in our fancy was the thing which we were in love with which as it was oftener seen in our fancy then the original in our sense so was it pleasanter and it was perfecter also as being contemplated without those inconveniences which are now found in the others enjoyment And besides this our senses themselves are cozened with the inconveniences of things for as each person in their natural affectation of glory and reputation is willing to appear publikely without faults even so each Government and the people therein do their utmost to set forth their power riches freedom peace honor c. but their sufferings they so strive to conceal that we may be and are as often deceived in judging a good Government or a happy and peaceabele State or Kingdom as of a vertuous rich or honest person or in discovering the many discords any marryed couple may have by those outward kinde appearances that may pass betwixt them The like reason leads for regulating and stinting men in the exercise of Religion which as it is taken of much more concern must be made equally acceptable and pleasing to all by set and positive rules or else through necessary exasperation which difference wil beget amongst subjects their discontents will be higher then in other things encreasing as it were by a continual Antiperistasis until it break forth into the thunder and lightning of civil war and commotion For to be divided in sect and opinion must by degrees turn into a division in Love and Charity even because as there is a coincidence between Faith and Charity so is it as well the beginner of quarrels as the highest proof of uncharitableness upon unauthorized grounds and suspitions to censure or condemn any one in respect of his judgement or belief and if done by any towards that Church whereof they are members it is undutiful also And this discord we shall finde arising even from natural and necessary grounds also For since the Will must follow the light of the Understanding how shall any be thought willing to associate and accompany those that do amiss And since the reason why those of any Church do order their discipline and practise different
if any such thing could have averted their punishment but rather aggravated their offences by adding this rebellion against their Prince to their former against God and so breaking more of his Laws For suppose the people never so innocent as in some of the alledged cases may appear or suppose as all of us are ready to flatter our own hypocrisies that neither we nor our Fathers have sinned as to those punishments but that the Will of God might be made manifest Oh let us not resist that Will who owns all the evils that befalls each City that is to say publike evils lest while we will not be punished as he appoints by a King in his anger he by suffering him to be taken away should by Anarchy plague us in his wrath In tender sense of publick Peace and Charity and the blessed condition of the Peace makers themselves and those that are promoters and assistants in it I shall now appeal to the Consciences and Judgements of all such as are wont to gild over their own Covetousness and Ambition with the shews of Justice and Religion and are so forward to kill all that will not submit and joyn in opinion with them you that will undertake to controle Heaven in its dispensations and under colour of Tyranny or Usurpation of wrong rule or wrong entry will at your pleasure be withdrawing your own and others obedience from your present Prince give me leave to summon your thoughts to a serious consideration of all those sad consequents that must attend it that by calling your self to an accompt before the time of that general accomptcom you may be both eased in your own reckoning then and have your Conscience here eased of those sins and miseries which your stubbornness must produce Suppose then that you with all those fair declamations of Law and Justice or of Religion and Zeal which you in your popular Oratory are so copious and ready in shall be able to seduce and draw to your party such a considerable number of your fellow Subjects as to form the same into a Civil war wherein thousands must lose their lives as well on one side as the other suppose I say these several parties through thy perswasion slain by each other in the height of uncharitableness should now present themselves before thee with their wounded and macerated bodies and all besmeared with gore and blood and with grim and ghastly visages stare thee in the face as the horrid spectacles of thy confusion and amazement But this is not all seest thou that throng of desolate Widdows and Orphans and of disconsolate Parents who as in sacrifice of thy ambition or avarice are by the death of each other bereft of comforts and left to a necessity of dying while they live and so the never dying monuments of thy cruelty and Rebellion Let the shrikes and yellings of defloured and ravished Virging and Matrons the groans the tears the sighs of such as are in every corner after the manner of civil war murthered plundered imprisoned or otherwise dispoyled of life or livelihood let all those arise to thy remose If not nor the thought of that Forrest-face which thy native country must now put on in respect of that destruction which must be introduced on its goodly Edifices Corn and Cattel can move thee as in Honor or Charity yet let Piety Piety I say if thou hast any the sense of the Honor of that God thou seemest to worship let this move thee to think how in these Civil wars those publike Oratories and publike places of worship dedicated to his name must be alway in danger of ruine and sacriledge also and how then canst thou persist in a course that must at once destroy all bonds of Love Loyalty and Religion that must at once and that with so high hand offer such violence the utmost violencence in thy power to thy neighbour to thy Prince to thy God Doth not thy heart yet feel remorse Heark the Trumpet calls thee to the Judgement-seat of that great God himself whose Honor and Authority on earth thou hast so often slighted and offended Now for a Mountain now for a Rock to cover thee from the face of the all-incenced Deity Dost thou not now finde that the common Cause of condemnation against Christians is made for living and dying in hatred and malice and how many are there now eying thee as the Author of and ring-leader in those Civil disturbances where Christian against Christian have by thousands killed each other in the height and heat of uncharitableness And seest thou not again how the sentence of blessed runs to the meek to the patient to the peace-makers while thou art setting forward thy trembling limbs and stepping in with an Apology for thy Rebellion how hath new confusion seized thee at the sight of that King and Prophet who did so often flye from his persecuting Prince and had his heart smiting him but for cutting off but the hemn of his Garment what seest thou now where are thy Texts of Scripture thy Pretexts of Law See if thou canst make thy warrant and call unto publike Authority and Command in any degree apparent and equal to his or canst make thy sufferings equal to all that other therefore glorified company of Martyrs and Confâ—ssors who amids all those dismal persecutions even for the most righteous cause of all and plainly so durst not lift up against him that was but a heathenish Prince but chose to follow both the Precept and Example of him who is now in the highest Throne of Honor as a reward of his Patience Oh horror of horrors what is thy Judge become a party too a Mountain a Mountain a Mountain No sooner hath thy all-dispairing soul caused thine all confounded eys to sink and settle on objects below but oh torment of torments Who is this that is now to be thy Prince and under whose Dominion thou must now for ever live Thou shalt not need here to study pretensions of Tyranny and Oppression against thy Prince nor invectives and standers against his Officers and Ministers What is it which thou truly feelest now Oh If this be the expectation as without Repentance it can be none other of all that are promoters of civil disturbance how necessary then is it that we should timously thinking of bridling our covetous and unruly appetites and learn patiently to submit unto that Regiment and condition of life wherein Providence hath places us When discontent of any sort assaults us to impatience think we then this is not our rest No happiness to be here expected all things in this life comes to us mingled as well to manifest and draw down our acknowledgement of Deity and Providence for the receipt of what is good as to wean and withdraw our affections from this world to a better in such sort that those very things wherein our greatest temporal preservation and good doth consist are attended and accompanied with such as are