Egypt and in the New Testament the celebrating of the Lords Supper by which we are put in mind of our deliverance from the bondage of sin by our Blessed Saviours death upon the crosse The Sacraments of Admission are but once to be used because there needs but one Admission but because we have need of being often put in mind of our deliverance and of our Alleagance the Sacraments of Commemoration have need to be reiterated And these are the principall Sacraments and as it were the solemne oathes we make of our Alleageance There be also other Consecrations that may be called Sacraments as the word implyeth onely Consecration to Gods service but as it implies an oath or promise of Alleageance to God there were no other in the Old Testament but Circumcision and the Passeover nor are there any other in the New Testament but Baptisme and the Lords Supper CHAP. XXXVI Of the WORD OF GOD and of PROPHETS WHen there is mention of the VVord of God or of Man it doth not signifie a part of Speech such as Grammarians call a Nown or a Verb or any simple voice without a contexture with other words to make it significative but a perfect Speech or Discourse whereby the speaker affirmeth denieth commandeth promiseth threatneth wisheth or interrogateth In which sense it is not Vocabulum that signifies a Word but Sermo in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is some Speech Discourse or Saying Again if we say the Word of God or of Man it may bee understood sometimes of the Speaker as the words that God hath spoken or that a Man hath spoken In which sense when we say the Gospel of St. Matthew we understand St. Matthew to be the Writer of it and sometimes of the Subject In which sense when we read in the Bible The words of the days of the Kings of Israel or Iudah 't is meant that the acts that were done in those days were the Subject of those Words And in the Greek which in the Scripture retaineth many Hebraismes by the Word of God is oftentimes meant not that which is spoken by God but concerning God and his government that is to say the Doctrine of Religion Insomuch as it is all one to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Theologia which is that Doctrine which wee usually call Divinity as is manifest by the places following Acts 13. 46. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold and said It was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken to you but seeing you put it from you and judge your selves unworthy of everiasting life loe we turn to the Gentiles That which is here called the Word of God was the Doctrine of Christian Religion as it appears evidently by that which goes before And Acts 5. 20. where it is said to the Apostles by an Angel Go stand and speak in the Temple all the VVords of this life by the Words of this life is meant the Doctrine of the Gospel as is evident by what they did in the Temple and is expressed in the last verse of the same Chap. Daily in the Temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach Christ Iesus In which place it is manifest that Jesus Christ was the subject of this Word of life or which is all one the subject of the VVords of this life eternall that our Saviour offered them So Acts 15. 7. the Word of God is called the Word of the Gospel because it containeth the Doctrine of the Kingdome of Christ and the same Word Rom. 10. 8 9. is called the Word of Faith that is as is there expressed the Doctrine of Christ come and raised from the dead Also Mat. 13. 19. VVhen any one heareth the VVord of the Kingdome that is the Doctrine of the Kingdome taught by Christ. Again the same Word is said Acts 12. 24. to grow and to be multiplyed which to understand of the Evangelicall Doctrine is easie but of the Voice or Speech of God hard and strange In the same sense the Doctrine of Devils signifieth not the Words of any Devill but the Doctrine of Heathen men concerning Daemons and those Phantasms which they worshipped as Gods Considering these two significations of the WORD OF GOD as it is taken in Scripture it is manifest in this later sense where it is taken for the Doctrine of Christian Religion that the whole Scripture is the Word of God but in the former sense not so For example though these words I am the Lord thy God c. to the end of the Ten Commandements were spoken by God to Moses yet the Preface God spake these words and said is to be understood for the Words of him that wrote the holy History The Word of God as it is taken for that which he hath spoken is understood sometimes Properly sometimes Metaphorically Properly as the words he hath spoken to his Prophets Metaphorically for his Wisdome Power and eternall Decree in making the world in which sense those Fiats Let their be light Let there be a firmament Let us make man c. Gen. 1. are the Word of God And in the same sense it is said Iohn 1. 3. All things were made by it and without it was nothing made that was made And Heb. 1. 3. He upholdeth all things by the VVord of his Power that is by the Power of his Word that is by his Power and Heb. 11. 3. The worlds were framed by the VVord of God and many other places to the same sense As also amongst the Latines the name of Fate which signifieth properly The word spoken is taken in the same sense Secondly for the effect of his Word that is to say for the thing it self which by his Word is Affirmed Commanded Threatned or Promised as Psalm 105. 19. where Joseph is said to have been kept in prison till his VVord was come that is till that was come to passe which he had Gen. 40. 13. foretold to Pharaohs Butler concerning his being restored to his office for there by his word was come is meant the thing it self was come to passe So also 1 King 18. 36. Elijah saith to God I have done all these thy VVords in stead of I have done all these things at thy Word or commandement and Ier. 17. 15. VVhere is the VVord of the Lord is put for VVhere is the Evill he threatned And Ezek. 12. 28. There shall none of my VVords be prolonged any more by words are understood those things which God promised to his people And in the New Testament Mat. 24. 35. heaven and earth shal pass away but my VVords shal not pass away that is there is nothing that I have promised or foretold that shall not come to passe And in this sâ—…nse it is that St. John the Evangelist and I think St. John onely calleth our Saviour himself as in the flesh the VVord of God as Ioh. 1. 14. the Word was made Flesh that is to
Non est postestas Super terram quae Comparetur ei Iob. 41.24 LEVIATHAN Or THE MATTER FORME and POWER of a COMMON-WEALTH ECCLESIASTICALL and CIVIL By THOMAS HOBBES of MALMESBURY London Printed for Andrew Crooke 1651 LEVIATHAN OR The Matter Forme Power OF A COMMON-WEALTH ECCLESIASTICALL AND CIVILL By THOMAS HOBBES of Malmesbury LONDON Printed for ANDREW CROOKE at the Green Dragon in St. Pauls Church-yard 1651. FIDE ✚ ET ✚ FORTITUDINE The Right Hon. ble Algernon Capell Earl of Essex Viscount Maldon and Baron Capell of Hadham 1701. TO MY MOST HONOR'D FRIEND Mr FRANCIS GODOLPHIN of Godolphin Honor'd Sir YOur most worthy Brother Mr Sidney Godolphin when he lived was pleas'd to think my studies something and otherwise to oblige me as you know with reall testimonies of his good opinion great in themselves and the greater for the worthinesse of his person For there is not any vertue that disposeth a man either to the service of God or to the service of his Country to Civill Society or private Friendship that did not manifestly appear in his conversation not as acquired by necessity or affected upon occasion but inhaerent and shining in a generous constitution of his nature Therefore in honour and gratitude to him and with devotion to your selfe I humbly Dedicate unto you this my discourse of Common-wealth I know not how the world will receive it nor how it may reflect on those that shall seem to favour it For in a way beset with those that contend on one side for too great Liberty and on the other side for too much Authority 't is hard to passe between the points of both unwounded But yet me thinks the endeavour to advance the Civill Power should not be by the Civill Power condemned nor private men by reprehending it declare they think that Power too great Besides I speak not of the men but in the Abstract of the Seat of Power like to those simple and unpartiall creatures in the Roman Capitol that with their noyse defended those within it not because they were they but there offending none I think but those without or such within if there be any such as favour them That which perhaps may most offend are certain Texts of Holy Scripture alledged by me to other purpose than ordinarily they use to be by others But I have done it with due submission and also in order to my Subject necessarily for they are the Outworks of the Enemy from whence they impugne the Civill Power If notwithstanding this you find my labour generally decryed you may be pleased to excuse your selfe and say I am a man that love my own opinions and think all true I say that I honoured your Brother and honour you and have presum'd on that to assume the Title without your knowledge of being as I am SIR Your most humble and most obedient servant THO. HOBBES Paris Aprill 15 25. 1651. The Contents of the Chapters The first part Of MAN Chap. Introduction Page 1 Chap. 1. Of Sense Page 3 Chap. 2. Of Imagination Page 4 Chap. 3. Of the Consequence or Train of Imaginations Page 8 Chap. 4. Of Speech Page 12 Chap. 5. Of Reason and Science Page 18 Chap. 6. Of the interiour Beginnings of Voluntary Motions commonly called the Passions And the Speeches by which they are expressed Page 23 Chap. 7. Of the Ends or Resolutions of Discourse Page 30 Chap. 8. Of the Vertues commonly called Intellectuall and their contrary Defects Page 32 Chap. 9. Of the severall Subjects of Knowledge Page 40 Chap. 10. Of Power Worth Dignity Honour and Worthinesse Page 41 Chap. 11. Of the Difference of Manners Page 47 Chap. 12. Of Religion Page 52 Chap. 13. Of the Naturall Condition of Mankind as concerning their Felicity and Misery Page 60 Chap. 14. Of the first and second Naturall Lawes and of Contract Page 64 Chap. 15. Of other Lawes of Nature Page 71 Chap. 16. Of Persons Authors and things Personated Page 80 The second Part Of COMMON-WEALTH Chap. 17. Of the Causes Generation and Definition of a Common-wealth Page 85 Chap. 18. Of the Rights of Soveraignes by Institution Page 88 Chap. 19. Of severall Kinds of Common-wealth by Institution and of Succession to the Soveraign Power Page 94 Chap. 20. Of Dominion Paternall and Despoticall Page 101 Chap. 21. Of the Liberty of Subjects Page 107 Chap. 22. Of Systemes Subject Politicall and Private Page 115 Chap. 23. Of the Publique Ministers of Soveraign Power Page 123 Chap. 24. Of the Nutrition and Procreation of a Common-wealth Page 127 Chap. 25. Of Counsell Page 131 Chap. 26. Of Civill Lawes Page 136 Chap. 27. Of Crimes Excuses and Extenuations Page 151 Chap. 28. Of Punishments and Rewards Page 161 Chap. 29. Of those things that Weaken or tend to the Dissolution of a Common-wealth Page 167 Chap. 30. Of the Office of the Soveraign Representative Page 175 Chap. 31. Of the Kingdome of God by Nature Page 186 The third Part. Of A CHRISTIAN COMMON-WEALTH Chap. 32. Of the Principles of Christian Politiques Page 195 Chap. 33. Of the Number Antiquity Scope Authority and Interpreters of the Books of Holy Scripture Page 199 Chap. 34. Of the signification of Spirit Angell and Inspiration in the Books of Holy Scripture Page 207 Chap. 35. Of the signification in Scripture of the Kingdome of God of Holy Sacred and Sacrament Page 216 Chap. 36. Of the Word of God and of Prophets Page 222 Chap. 37. Of Miracles and their use Page 233 Chap. 38. Of the signification in Scripture of Eternall life Hel Salvation the World to come and Redemption Page 238 Chap. 39. Of the Signification in Scripture of the word Church Page 247 Chap. 40. Of the Rights of the Kingdome of God in Abraham Moses the High Priests and the Kings of Judah Page 249 Chap. 41. Of the Office of our Blessed Saviour Page 261 Chap. 42. Of Power Ecclesiasticall Page 267 Chap. 43. Of what is Necessary for a mans Reception into the Kingdome of Heaven Page 321 The fourth Part. Of THE KINGDOME OF DARKNESSE Chap. 44. Of Spirituall Darknesse from Misinterpretation of Scripture Page 333 Chap. 45. Of Daemonology and other Reliques of the Religion of the Gentiles Page 352 Chap. 46. Of Darknesse from Vain Philosophy and Fabulous Traditions Page 367 Chap. 47. Of the Benefit proceeding from such Darknesse and to whom it accreweth Page 381 A Review and Conclusion Page 389 Errata PAge 48. In the Margin for love Praise râ—…d love of Praise p. 75. l. 5. for signied r. signified p. 88. l. 1. for performe r. forme l. 35. for Soveraign r. the Soveraign p. 94. l. 14. for lands r. hands p. 100. l. 28. for in r. in his p. 102. l. 46. for in r. is p. 105. in the margin for ver 10. r. ver 19. c. p. 116. l. 46. for are involved r. are not involved p. 120. l. 42. for Those Bodies r. These Bodies p. 137. â—… a. for in generall r. in generall p. 139.
Man is distinguished not onely by his Reason but also by this singular Passion from other Animals in whom the appetite of food and other pleasures of Sense by praedominance take away the care of knowing causes which is a Lust of the mind that by a perseverance of delight in the continuall and indefatigable generation of Knowledge exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnall Pleasure Feare of power invisible feigned by the mind or imagined from tales publiquely allowed RELIGION not allowed SUPERSTITION And when the power imagined is truly such as we imagine TRUE RELIGION Feare without the apprehension of why or what PANIQUE TERROR called so from the Fables that make Pan the author of them whereas in truth there is alwayes in him that so feareth first some apprehension of the cause though the rest run away by Example every one supposing his fellow to know why And therefore this Passion happens to none but in a throng or multitude of people Joy from apprehension of novelty ADMIRATION proper to Man because it excites the appetite of knowing the cause Joy arising from imagination of a mans own power and ability is that exultation of the mind which is called 〈◊〉 which if grounded upon the experience of his own former actions is the same with Confidence but if grounded on the flattery of others or onely supposed by himself for delight in the consequences of it is called VAINE-GLORY which name is properly given because a well grounded Confidence begetteth Attempt whereas the supposing of power does not and is therefore rightly called Vaâ—…ne Griefe from opinion of want of power is called DEIECTION of mind The vain-glory which consisteth in the feigning or supposing of abilities in our selves which we know are not is most incident to young men and nourished by the Histories or Fictions of Gallant Persons and is corrected oftentimes by Age and Employment Sudden Glory is the passion which maketh those Grâ—…aces called LAUGHTER and is caused either by some sudden act of their own that pleaseth them or by the apprehension of some dâ—…ed thing in another by comparison whereof they suddenly applaud themselves And it is incident most to them that are conscious of the fewest abilities in themselves who are forced to keep themselves in their own favour by observing the imperfections of other men And therefore much Laughter at the defects of others is a signe of Pusillanimity For of great minds one of the proper workes 〈◊〉 to help and free others from scorn and compare themselves onely with the most able On the contrary Sudden Deâ—…ction is the passion that causeth Wâ—…PING and is caused by such accidents as suâ—…ly â—…ake away some vehement hope or some prop of their poweâ—… And they are most subject to it that rely principally on helps externall such as are Women and Children Therefore some Weep for the losse of Friends Others for their unkindnesse others for the sudden stoâ—… made to their thoughts of revenge by Reconciliation But in all cases both Laughter and Weeping are sudden motions Custome taking them both away For no man Laughs at old 〈◊〉 or Weeps for an old calamity Griefe for the discovery of some defect of ability is SHAME or the passion that discovereth it selfe in BLUSHING and consisteth in the apprehension of some thing dishonourable and in young men is a signe of the love of good reputation and commendable In old men it is a signe of the same but because it comes too lâ—…e not commendable The Contempt of good Reputation is called IMPUDENCE Griefe for the Calamity of another is PITTY and ariseth from the imagination that the like calamity may befall himselfe and therefore is called also COMPASSION and in the phrase of this present time a FELLOW-â—…ING And therefore for Caâ—…y â—…ving from great wickedness the best men have the least Pitty â—…nd for the same Calamity those have least Pitty that think themselves least obnoxious to the same Contempt or little sense of the calamity of others is that which men call CRUELTY proceeding from Security of their own fortune For that any man should take pleasure in other mens great harmes without other end of his own I do not conceive it possible Griefe for the successe of a Competitor in wealth honour or other good if it be joyned with Endeavour to enforce our own abilities to equall or exceed him is called EMULATION But joyned with Endeavour to supplant or hinder a Competitor ENVIE When in the mind of man Appetites and Aversions Hopes and Feares concerning one and the same thing arise alternately and divers good and evill consequences of the doing or omitting the thing propounded come successively into our thoughts so that sometimes we have an Appetite to it sometimes an Aversion from it sometimes Hope to be able to do it sometimes Despaire or Feare to attempt it the whole summe of Desires Aversions Hopes and Fears continued till the thing be either done or thought impossible is that we call DELIBERATION Therefore of things past there is no Deliberation because manifestly impossible to be changed nor of things known to be impossible or thought so because men know or think such Deliberation vain But of things impossible which we think possible we may Deliberate not knowing it is in vain And it is called Deliberation because it is a putting an end to the Liberty we had of doing or omitting according to our own Appetite or Aversion This alternate Succession of Appetites Aversions Hopes and Fears is no lesse in other living Creatures then in Man and therefore Beasts also Deliberate Every Deliberation is then sayd to End when that whereof they Deliberate is either done or thought impossible because till then wee retain the liberty of doing or omitting according to our Appetite or Aversion In Deliberation the last Appetite or Aversion immediately adhaering to the action or to the omission thereof is that wee call the WILL the Act not the faculty of Willing And Beasts that have Deliberation must necessarily also have Will. The Definition of the Will given commonly by the Schooles that it is a Rationall Appetite is not good For if it were then could there be no Voluntary Act against Reason For a Voluntary Act is that which proceedeth from the Will and no other But if in stead of a Rationall Appetite we shall say an Appetite resulting from a precedent Deliberation then the Definition is the same that I have given here Will therefore is the last Appetite in Deliberating And though we say in common Discourse a man had a Will once to do a thing that neverthelesse he forbore to do yet that is properly but an Inclination which makes no Action Voluntary because the action depends not of it but of the last Inclination or Appetite For if the intervenient Appetites make any action Voluntary then by the same Reason all
with lands and houses and officers and revenues set apart from all other humane uses that is consecrated and made holy to those their Idols as Caverns Groves Woods Mountains and whole Ilands and have attributed to them not onely the shapes some of Men some of Beasts some of Monsters but also the Faculties and Passions of men and beasts as Sense Speech Sex Lust Generation and this not onely by mixing one with another to propagate the kind of Gods but also by mixing with men and women to beget mongrill Gods and but inmates of Heaven as Bacchus Hercules and others besides Anger Revenge and other passions of living creatures and the actions proceeding from them as Fraud Theft Adultery Sodomie and any vice that may be taken for an effect of Power or a cause of Pleasure and all such Vices as amongst men are taken to be against Law rather than against Honour Lastly to the Prognostiques of time to come which are naturally but Conjectures upon the Experience of time past and supernaturally divine Revelation the same authors of the Religion of the Gentiles partly upon pretended Experience partly upon pretended Revelation have added innumerable other superstitious wayes of Divination and made men believe they should find their fortunes sometimes in the ambiguous or senslesse answers of the Priests at Delphi Delos Ammon and other famous Oracles which answers were made ambiguous by designe to own the event both wayes or absurd by the intoxicating vapour of the place which is very frequent in sulphurous Cavernes Sometimes in the leaves of the Sibills of whose Prophecyes like those perhaps of Nostradamus for the fragments now extant seem to be the invention of later times there were some books in reputation in the time of the Roman Republiques Sometimes in the insignificant Speeches of Mad-men supposed to be possessed with a divine Spirit which Possession they called Enthusiasme and these kinds of foretelling events were accounted Theomancy or Prophecy Sometimes in the aspect of the Starres at their Nativity which was called Horoscopy and esteemed a part of judiciary Astrology Sometimes in their own hopes and feares called Thumomancy or Presage Sometimes in the Prediction of Witches that pretended conference with the dead which is called Necromancy Conjuring and Witchcraft and is but juggling and confederate knavery Sometimes in the Casuall flight or feeding of birds called Augury Sometimes in the Entrayles of a sacrificed beast which was Aruspicina Sometimes in Dreams Sometimes in Croaking of Ravens or chattering of Birds Sometimes in the Lineaments of the face which was called Metoposcopy or by Palmistry in the lines of the hand in casuall words called Omina Sometimes in Monsters or unusuall accidents as Ecclipses Comets rare Meteors Earthquakes Inundations uncouth Births and the like which they called Portenta and Ostenta because they thought them to portend or foreshew some great Calamity to come Somtimes in meer Lottery as Crosse and Pile counting holes in a sive dipping of Verses in Homer and Virgil and innumerable other such vaine conceipts So easie are men to be drawn to believe any thing from such men as have gotten credit with them and can with gentlenesse and dexterity take hold of their fear and ignorance And therefore the first Founders and Legislators of Common-wealths amongst the Gentiles whose ends were only to keep the people in obedience and peace have in all places taken care First to imprint in their minds a beliefe that those precepts which they gave concerning Religion might not be thought to proceed from their own device but from the dictates of some God or other Spirit or else that they themselves were of a higher nature than mere mortalls that their Lawes might the more easily be received So Numa Pompilius pretended to receive the Ceremonies he instituted amongst the Romans from the Nymph Egeria and the first King and founder of the Kingdome of Peru pretended himselfe and his wife to be the children of the Sunne and Mahomet to set up his new Religion pretended to have conferences with the Holy Ghost in forme of a Dove Secondly they have had a care to make it believed that the same things were displeasing to the Gods which were forbidden by the Lawes Thirdly to prescribe Ceremonies Supplications Sacrifices and Festivalls by which they were to believe the anger of the Gods might be appeased and that ill success in War great contagions of Sicknesse Earthquakes and each mans private Misery came from the Anger of the Gods and their Anger from the Neglect of their Worship or the forgetting or mistaking some point of the Ceremonies required And though amongst the antient Romans men were not forbidden to deny that which in the Poets is written of the paines and pleasures after this life which divers of great authority and gravity in that state have in their Harangues openly derided yet that beliefe was alwaies more cherished than the contrary And by these and such other Institutions they obtayned in order to their end which was the peace of the Commonwealth that the common people in their misfortunes laying the fault on neglect or errour in their Ceremonies or on their own disobedience to the lawes were the lesse apt to mutâ—…ny against their Governors And being entertained with the pomp and pastime of Festivalls and publike Games made in honour of the Gods needed nothing else but bread to keep them from discontent murmuring and commotion against the State And therefore the Romans that had conquered the greatest part of the then known World made no scruple of tollerating any Religion whatsoeuer in the City of Rome it selfe unlesse it had somthing in it that could not consist with their Civill Government nor do we read that any Religion was there forbidden but that of the Jewes who being the peculiar Kingdome of God thought it unlawfull to acknowledge subjection to any mortall King or State whatsoever And thus you see how the Religion of the Gentiles was a part of their Policy But where God himselfe by supernaturall Revelation planted Religion there he also made to himselfe a peculiar Kingdome and gave Lawes not only of behaviour towards himselfe but also towards one another and thereby in the Kingdome of God the Policy and lawes Civill are a part of Religion and therefore the distinction of Temporall and Spirituall Domination hath there no place It is true that God is King of all the Earth Yet may he be King of a peculiar and chosen Nation For there is no more incongruity therein than that he that hath the generall command of the whole Army should have withall a peculiar Regiment or Company of his own God is King of all the Earth by his Power but of his chosen people he is King by Covenant But to speake more largly of the Kingdome of God both by Nature and Covenant I have in the following discourse assigned an other place From the propagation of Religion it is not hard to understand the causes
of the resolution of the same into its first seeds or principles which are only an opinion of a Deity and Powers invisible and supernaturall that can never be so abolished out of humane nature but that new Religions may againe be made to spring out of them by the culture of such men as for such purpose are in reputation For seeing all formed Religion is founded at first upon the faith which a multitude hath in some one person whom they believe not only to be a wise man and to labouâ—… to procure their happiness but also to be a holy man to whom God himselfe vouchsafeth to declare his will supernaturally It followeth necessarily when they that have the Government of Religion shall come to have either the wisedome of those men their sincerity or their love suspected or that they shall be unable to shew any probable token of Divine Revelation that the Religion which they desire to uphold must be suspected likewise and without the feare of the Civill Sword contradicted and rejected That which taketh away the reputation of Wisedome in him that formeth a Religion or addeth to it when it is allready formed is the enjoyning of a beliefe of contradictories For both parts of a contradiction cannot possibly be true and therefore to enjoyne the beleife of them is an argument of ignorance which detects the Author in that and discredits him in all things else he shall propound as from revelation supernaturall which revelation a man may indeed have of many things above but of nothing against naturall reason That which taketh away the reputation of Sincerity is the doing or saying of such things as appeare to be signes that what they require other men to believe is not believed by themselves all which doings or sayings are therefore called Scandalous because they be stumbling blocks that make men to fall in the way of Religion as Injustice Cruelty Prophanesse Avarice and Luxury For who can believe that he that doth ordinarily such actions as proceed from any of these rootes believeth there is any such Invisible Power to be feared as he affrighteth other men withall for lesser faults That which taketh away the reputation of Love is the being detected of private ends as when the beliefe they require of others conduceth or seemeth to conduce to the acquiring of Dominion Riches Dignity or secure Pleasure to themselves onely or specially For that which men reap benefit by to themselves they are thought to do for their own sakes and not for love of others Lastly the testimony that men can render of divine Calling can be no other than the operation of Miracles or true Prophecy which also is a Miracle or extraordinary Felicity And therefore to those points of Religion which have been received from them that did such Miracles those that are added by such as approve not their Calling by some Miracle obtain no greater beliefe than what the Custome and Lawes of the places in which they be educated have wrought into them For as in naturall things men of judgement require naturall signes and arguments so in supernaturall things they require signes supernaturall which are Miracles before they consent inwardly and from their hearts All which causes of the weakening of mens faith do manifestly appear in the Examples following First we have the Example of the children of Israel who when Moses that had approved his Calling to them by Miracles and by the happy conduct of them out of Egypt was absent but 40. dayes revolted from the worship of the true God recommended to them by him and setting up a Golden Calfe for their God relapsed into the Idolatry of the Egyptians from whom they had been so lately delivered And again after Moses Aaron Joshua and that generation which had seen the great works of God in Israel were dead another generation arose and served Baal So that Miracles fayling Faith also failed Again when the sons of Samuel being constituted by their father Judges in Bersabee received bribes and judged unjustly the people of Israel refused any more to have God to be their King in other manner than he was King of other people and therefore cryed out to Samuel to choose them a King after the manner of the Nations So that Justice fayling Faith also fayled Insomuch as they deposed their God from reigning over them And whereas in the planting of Christian Religion the Oracles ceased in all parts of the Roman Empire and the number of Christians encreased wonderfully every day and in every place by the preaching of the Apostles and Evangelists a great part of that successe may reasonably be attributed to the contempt into which the Priests of the Gentiles of that time had brought themselves by their uncleannesse avarice and jugling between Princes Also the Religion of the Church of Rome was partly for the same cause abolished in England and many other parts of Christendome insomuch as the fayling of Vertue in the Pastors maketh Faith faile in the People and partly from bringing of the Philosophy and doctrine of Aristotle into Religion by the Schoole-men from whence there arose so many contradictions and absurdities as brought the Clergy into a reputation both of Ignorance and of Fraudulent intention and enclined people to revolt from them either against the will of their own Princes as in France and Holland or with their will as in England Lastly amongst the points by the Church of Rome declared necessary for Salvation there be so many manifestly to the advantage of the Pope and of his spirituall subjects residing in the territories of other Christian Princes that were it not for the mutuall emulation of those Princes they might without warre or trouble exclude all forraign Authority as easily as it has been excluded in England For who is there that does not see to whose benefit it conduceth to have it believed that a King hath not his Authority from Christ unlesse a Bishop crown him That a King if he be a Priest cannot Marry That whether a Prince be born in lawfull Marriage or not must be judged by Authority from Rome That Subjects may be freed from their Alleageance if by the Court of Rome the King be judged an Heretique That a King as Chilperique of France may be deposed by a Pope as Pope Zachary for no cause and his Kingdome given to one of his Subjects That the Clergy and Regulars in what Country soever shall be exempt from the Jurisdiction of their King in cases criminall Or who does not see to whose profit redound the Fees of private Masses and Vales of Purgatory with other signes of private interest enough to mortifie the most lively Faith if as I sayd the civill Magistrate and Custome did not more sustain it than any opinion they have of the Sanctity Wisdome or Probity of their Teachers So that I may attribute all the changes of Religion in the world to one and the same cause and
and necessarily such as the things we see hear and consider suggest unto us and therefore are not effects of our Will but our Will of them We then Captivate our Understanding and Reason when we forbear contradiction when we so speak as by lawfull Authority we are commanded and when we live accordingly which in sum is Trust and Faith reposed in him that speaketh though the mind be incapable of any Notion at all from the words spoken When God speaketh to man it must be either immediately or by mediation of another man to whom he had formerly spoken by himself immediately How God speaketh to a man immediately may be understood by those well enough to whom he hath so spoken but how the same should be understood by another is hard if not impossible to know For if a man pretend to me that God hath spoken to him supernaturally and immediately and I make doubt of it I cannot easily perceive what argument he can produce to oblige me to beleeve it It is true that if he be my Soveraign he may oblige me to obedience so as not by act or word to declare I beleeve him not but not to think any otherwise then my reason perswades me But if one that hath not such authority over me shall pretend the same there is nothing that exacteth either beleefe or obedience For to say that God hath spoken to him in the Holy Scripture is not to say God hath spoken to him immediately but by mediation of the Prophets or of the Apostles or of the Church in such manner as he speaks to all other Christian men To say he hath spoken to him in a Dream is no more then to say he dreamed that God spake to him which is not of force to win beleef from any man that knows dreams are for the most part naturall and may proceed from former thoughts and such dreams as that from selfe conceit and foolish arrogance and false opinion of a mans own godlinesse or other vertue by which he thinks he hath merited the favour of extraordinary Revelation To say he hath seen a Vision or heard a Voice is to say that he hath dreamed between sleeping and waking for in such manner a man doth many times naturally take his dream for a vision as not having well observed his own slumbering To say he speaks by supernaturall Inspiration is to say he finds an ardent desire to speak or some strong opinion of himself for which hee can alledge no naturall and sufficient reason So that though God Almighty can speak to a man by Dreams Visions Voice and Inspiration yet he obliges no man to beleeve he hath so done to him that pretends it who being a man may erre and which is more may lie How then can he to whom God hath never revealed his Wil immediately saving by the way of natural reason know when he is to obey or not to obey his Word delivered by him that sayes he is a Prophet Of 400 Prophets of whom the K. of Israel asked counsel concerning the warre he made against Ramoth Gilead only Micaiah was a true one The Prophet that was sent to prophecy against the Altar set up by Ieroboam though a true Prophet and that by two miracles done in his presence appears to be a Prophet sent from God was yet deceived by another old Prophet that perswaded him as from the mouth of God to eat and drink with him If one Prophet deceive another what certainty is there of knowing the will of God by other way than that of Reason To which I answer out of the Holy Scripture that there be two marks by which together not asunder a true Prophet is to be known One is the doing of miracles the other is the not teaching any other Religion than that which is already established Asunder I say neither of these is sufficient If a Prophet rise amongst you or a Dreamer of dreams and shall pretend the doing of amiracle and the miracle come to passe if he say Let us follow strange Gods which thou hast not known thou shalt not hearken to him c. But that Prophet and Dreamer of dreams shall be put to death because be hath spoken to you to Revolt from the Lord your God In which words two things are to be observed First that God wil not have miracles alone serve for arguments to approve the Prophets calling but as it is in the third verse for an experiment of the constancy of our adherence to himself For the works of the Egyptian Sorcerers though not so great as those of Moses yet were great miracles Secondly that how great soever the miracle be yet if it tend to stir up revolt against the King or him that governeth by the Kings authority he that doth such miracle is not to be considered otherwise than as sent to make triall of their allegiance For these words revâ—…lt from the Lord your God are in this place equivalent to revolt from your King For they had made God their King by pact at the foot of Mount Sinai who ruled them by Moses only for he only spake with God and from time to time declared Gods Commandements to the people In like manner after our Saviour Christ had made his Disciples acknowledge him for the Messiah that is to say for Gods anointed whom the nation of the Iews daily expected for their King but refused when he came he omitted not to advertise them of the danger of miracles There shall arise saith he false Christs and false Prophets and shall doe great wonders and miracles even to the seducing if it were possible of the very Elect. By which it appears that false Prophets may have the power of miracles yet are wee not to take their doctrin for Gods Word St. Paul says further to the Galatians that if himself or an Angell from heaven preach another Gospel to them than he had preached let him be accursed That Gospel was that Christ was King so that all preaching against the power of the King received in consequence to these words is by St. Paul accursed For his speech is addressed to those who by his preaching had already received Iesus for the Christ that is to say for King of the Iews And as Miracles without preaching that Doctrine which God hath established so preaching the true Doctrine without the doing of miracles is an unsufficient argument of immediate Revelation For if a man that teacheth not false Doctrine should pretend to bee a Prophet without shewing any Miracle he is never the more to bee regarded for his pretence as is evident by Deut. 18. v. 21 22. If thou say in thy heart How shall we know that the Word of the Prophet is not that which the Lord hath spoken When the Prophet shall have spoken in the name of the Lord that which shall not come to passe that 's the word which the Lord hath not spoken but the
Prophet has spoken it out of the pride of his own heart fear him not But a man may here again ask When the Prophet hath foretold a thing how shal we know whether it will come to passe or not For he may foretel it as a thing to arrive after a certain long time longer then the time of mans life or indefinitely that it will come to passe one time or other in which case this mark of a Prophet is unusefull and therefore the miracles that oblige us to beleeve a Prophet ought to be confirmed by an immediate or a not long deferr'd event So that it is manifest that the teaching of the Religion which God hath established and the shewing of a pâ—…esent Miracle joined together were the only marks whereby the Scripture would have a true Prophet that is to say immediate Revelation to be acknowledged neither of them being singly sufficient to oblige any other man to regard what he saith Seeing therefore Miracles now cease we have no sign left whereby to acknowledge the pretended Revelations or Inspirations of any private man nor obligation to give ear to any Doctrine farther than it is conformable to the Holy Scriptures which since the time of our Saviour supply the place and sufficiently recompense the want of all other Prophecy and from which by wise and learned interpretation and carefull ratiocination all rules and precepts necessary to the knowledge of our duty both to God and man without Enthusiasme or supernaturall Inspiration may easily be deduced And this Scripture is it out of which I am to take the Principles of my Discourse concerning the Rights of those that are the Supream Governors on earth of Christian Common-wealths and of the duty of Christian Subjects towards their Soveraigns And to that end I shall speak in the next Chapter of the Books Writers Scope and Authority of the Bible CHAP. XXXIII Of the Number Antiquity Scope Authority and Interpreters of the Books of Holy SCRIPTURE BY the Books of Holy SCRIPTURE are understood those which ought to be the Canon that is to say the Rules of Christian life And because all Rules of life which men are in conscience bound to observe are Laws the question of the Scripture is the question of what is Law throughout all Christendome both Naturall and Civill For though it be not determined in Scripture what Laws every Christian King shall constitute in his own Dominions yet it is determined what laws he shall not constitute Seeing therefore I have already proved that Soveraigns in their own Dominions are the sole Legislators those Books only are Canonicall that is Law in every nation which are established for such by the Soveraign Authority It is true that God is the Soveraign of all Soveraigns and therefore when he speaks to any Subject he ought to be obeyed whatsoever any earthly Potentate command to the contrary But the question is not of obedience to God but of when and what God hath said which to Subjects that have no supernaturall revelation cannot be known but by that naturall reason which guided them for the obtaining of Peace and Justice to obey the authority of their severall Common-wealths that is to say of their lawfull Soveraigns According to this obligation I can acknowledge no other Books of the Old Testament to be Holy Scripture but those which have been commanded to be acknowledged for such by the Authority of the Church of England What Books these are is sufficiently known without a Catalogue of them here and they are the same that are acknowledged by St. Ierome who holdeth the rest namely the Wisdome of Solomon Ecclesiasticus Iudith Tobias the first and the second of Maccabees though he had seen the first in Hebrew and the third and fourth of Esdras for Apocrypha Of the Canonicall Iosephus a learned Iew that wrote in the time of the Emperour Domitian reckoneth twenty two making the number agree with the Hebrew Alphabet St. Ierome does the same though they reckon them in different manner For Iosephus numbers five Books of Moses thirteen of Prophets that writ the History of their own times which how it agrees with the Prophets writings contained in the Bible wee shall see hereafter and four of Hymnes and Morall Precepts But St. Ierome reckons five Books of Moses eight of Prophets and nine of other Holy writ which he calls of Hagiographa The Septuagint who were 70. learned men of the Iews sent for by Ptoiemy King of Egypt to translate the Iewish law out of the Hebrew into the Greek have left us no other for holy Scripture in the Greek tongue but the same that are received in the Church of England As for the Books of the New Testament they are equally acknowledged for Canon by all Christian Churches and by all Sects of Christians that admit any Books at all for Canonicall Who were the originall writers of the severall Books of Holy Scripture has not been made evident by any sufficient testimony of other History which is the only proof of matter of fact nor can be by any arguments of naturall Reason for Reason serves only to convince the truth not of fact but of consequence The light therefore that must guide us in this question must be that which is held out unto us from the Bookes themselves And this light though it shew us not the writer of every book yet it is not unusefull to give us knowledge of the time wherein they were written And first for the Pentateuch it is not argument enough that they were written by Moses because they are called the five Books of Moses no more than these titles The Book of Ioshua the Book of Iudges the Book of Ruth and the Books of the Kings are arguments sufficient to prove that they were written by Ioshua by the Iudges by Ruth and by the Kings For in titles of Books the subject is marked as often as the writer The History of Livy denotes the Writer but the History of Scanderbeg is denominated from the subject We read in the last Chapter of Deuteronomie ver 6. concerning the sepulcher of Moses that no man knoweth of his sepulcher â—…o this day that is to the day wherein those words were written It is therefore manifest that those words were written after his interrement For it were a strange interpretation to say Moses spake of his own sepulcher though by Prophesie that it was not found to that day wherein he was yet living But it may perhaps be alledged that the last Chapter only not the whole Penâ—… was written by some other man but the rest not Let us therefore consider that which we find in the Book of Genesis chap. 12. ver 6. And Abraham passed through the land to the place of Sichem unto the plain of Moreh and the Canaanite was then in the land which must needs bee the words of one that wrote when the Canaanite was not in the land and consequently not of
if it be cast down Though the root thereof wax old and the stock thereof die in the ground yet when it senteth the water it will bud and bring forth boughes like a Plant. But man dyeth and wasteth away yea man giveth up the Ghost and where is he and verse 12. man lyeth down and riseth not till the heavens be no more But when is it that the heavens shall be no more St. Peter tells us that it is at the generall Resurrection For in his 2. Epistle 3. Chapter and 7 verse he saith that the Heavens and the Earth that are now are reserved unto fire against the day of Iudgment and perdition of ungodly men and verse 12. looking for and hasting to the comming of God wherein the Heavens shall be on fire and shall be dissolved and the Elements shall melt with fervent heat Neverthelesse we according to the promise look for new Heavens and a new Earth wherein dwelleth righteousnesse Therefore where Job saith man riseth not till the Heavens be no more it is all one as if he had said the Immortall Life and Soule and Life in the Scripture do usually signifie the same thing beginneth not in man till the Resurrection and day of Judgement and hath for cause not his specificall nature and generation but the Promise For St. Peter saies not Wee look for new heavens and a new earth from Nature but from Promise Lastly seeing it hath been already proved out of divers evident places of Scripture in the 35. chapter of this book that the Kingdom of God is a Civil Common-wealth where God himself is Soveraign by vertue first of the Old and since of the New Covenant wherein he reigneth by his Vicar or Lieutenant the same places do therefore also prove that after the comming again of our Saviour in his Majesty and glory to reign actually and Eternally the Kingdom of God is to be on Earth But because this doctrine though proved out of places of Scripture not few nor obscure will appear to most men a novelty I doe but propound it maintaining nothing in this or any other paradox of Religion but attending the end of that dispute of the sword concerning the Authority not yet amongst my Countrey-men decided by which all sorts of doctrine are to bee approved or rejected and whose commands both in speech and writing whatsoever be the opinions of private men must by all men that mean to be protected by their Laws be obeyed For the points of doctrine concerning the Kingdome God have so great influence on the Kingdome of Man as not to be determined but by them that under God have the Soveraign Power As the Kingdome of God and Eternall Life so also Gods Enemies and their Torments after Judgment appear by the Scripture to have their place on Earth The name of the place where all men remain till the Resurrection that were either buryed or swallowed up of the Earth is usually called in Scripture by words that signifie under ground which the Latines read generally Infernus and Inferi and the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say a place where men cannot see and containeth as well the Grave as any other deeper place But for the place of the damned after the Resurrection it is not determined neither in the Old nor New Testament by any note of situation but onely by the company as that it shall bee where such wicked men were as God in former times in extraordinary and miraculous manner had destroyed from off the face of the Earth As for example that they are in Inferno in Tartarus or in the bottomelesse pit because Corah Dathan and Abirom were swallowed up alive into the earth Not that the Writers of the Scripture would have us beleeve there could be in the globe of the Earth which is not only finite but also compared to the height of the Stars of no considerable magnitude a pit without a bottome that is a hole of infinite depth such as the Greeks in their Daemonologie that is to say in their doctrine concerning Daemons and after them the Romans called Tartarus of which Virgill sayes Bis patet in praeceps tantum tenditque sub umbras Quantus ad â—…thereum coeli suspectus Olympum for that is a thing the proportion of Earth to Heaven cannot bear but that wee should beleeve them there indefinitely where those men are on whom God inflicted that Exemplary punnishment Again hecause those mighty men of the Earth that lived in the time of Noah before the floud which the Greeks called Heroes and the Scripture Giants and both say were begotten by copulation of the children of God with the children of men were for their wicked life destroyed by the generall deluge the place of the Damned is therefore also sometimes marked out by the company of those deceased Giants as Proverbs 21. 16. The man that wandreth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the Giants and Job 26. 5. Behold the Giants groan under water and they that dwell with them Here the place of the Damned is under the water And Isaiah 14. 9. Hell is troubled how to meet thee that is the King of Babylon and will displace the Giants for thee and here again the place of the Damned if the sense be literall is to be under water Thirdly because the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by the extraordinary wrath of God were consumed for their wickednesse with Fire and Brimstone and together with them the countrey about made a stinking bituminous Lake the place of the Damned is sometimes expressed by Fire and a Fiery Lake as in the Apocalypse ch 21. 8. But the timorous incredulous and abominable and Murderers and Whoremongers and Sorcerers and Idolaters and all Lyars shall have their part in the Lake that burnetb with Fire and Brimstone which is the second Death So that it is manifest that Hell Fire which is here expressed by Metaphor from the reall Fire of Sodome signifieth not any certain kind or place of Torment but is to be taken indefinitely for Destruction as it is in the 20. Chapter at the 14. verse where it is said that Death and Hell were cast into the Lake of Fire that is to say were abolished and destroyed as if after the day of Judgment there shall be no more Dying nor no more going into Hell that is no more going to Hades from which word perhaps our word Hell is derived which is the same with no more Dying Fourthly from the Plague of Darknesse inflicted on the Egyptians of which it is written Exod. 10. 23. They saw not one another neither rose any man from his place for three days but all the Children of Israel had light in their dwellings the place of the wicked after Judgment is called Vtter Darknesse or as it is in the originall Darknesse without And so it is expressed Mat. 22. 13. where the King commandeth his
the◅efore manifest that Christ hath not left to his Ministers in this world unlesse they be also endued with Civill Authority any authority to Command other men But what may some object if a King or a Senate or other Soveraign Person forbid us to beleeve in Christ To this I answer that such forbidding is of no effect because Beleef and Unbeleef never follow mens Commands Faith is a gift of God which Man can neither give nor take away by promise of rewards or menaces of torture And if it be further asked What if wee bee commanded by our lawfull Prince to say with our tongue wee beleeve not must we obey such command Profession with the tongue is but an externall thing and no more then any other gesture whereby we signifie our obedience and wherein a Christian holding firmely in his heart the Faith of Christ hath the same liberty which the Prophet Elisha allowed to Naaman the Syrian Naaman was converted in his heart to the God of Israel For hee saith 2 Kings 5. 17. Thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice unto other Gods but unto the Lord. In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant that when my Master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there and he leaneth on my hand and I bow my selfe in the house of Rimmon when I bow my selfe in the house of Rimmon the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing This the Prophet approved and bid him Goe in peace Here Naaman beleeved in his heart but by bowing before the Idol Rimmon he denyed the true God in effect as much as if he had done it with his lips But then what shall we answer to our Saviours saying Whosoever denyeth me before men I will deny him before my Father which is in Heaven This we may say that whatsoever a Subject as Naaman was is compelled to in obedience to his Soveraign and doth it not in order to his own mind but in order to the laws of his country that action is not his but his Soveraigns nor is it he that in this case denyeth Christ before men but his Governour and the law of his countrey If any man shall accuse this doctrine as repugnant to true and unfegined Christianity I ask him in case there should be a subject in any Christian Common-wealth that should be inwardly in his heart of the Mahometan Religion whether if his Soveraign command him to bee present at the divine service of the Christian Church and that on pain of death he think that Mahometan obliged in conscience to suffer death for that cause rather than to obey that command of his lawfull Prince If he say he ought rather to suffer death then he authorizeth all private men to disobey their Princes in maintenance of their Religion true or false if he say he ought to bee obedient then he alloweth to himself that which hee denyeth to another contrary to the words of our Saviour Whatsoever you would that men should doe unto you that doe yee unto them and contrary to the Law of Nature which is the indubitable everlasting Law of God Do not to another that which thou wouldest not he should doe unto thee But what then shall we say of all those Martyrs we read of in the History of the Church that they have needlessely cast away their lives For answer hereunto we are to distinguish the persons that have been for that cause put to death whereof some have received a Calling to preach and professe the Kingdome of Christ openly others have had no such Calling nor more has been required of them than their owne faith The former sort if they have been put to death for bearing witnesse to this point that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead were true Martyrs For a Martyr is to give the true definition of the word a Witnesse of the Resurrection of Jesus the Messiah which none can be but those that conversed with him on earth and saw him after he was risen For a Witnesse must have seen what he testifieth or else his testimony is not good And that none but such can properly be called Martyrs of Christ is manifest out of the words of St. Peter Act. 1. 21 22. VVherefore of these men which have companyed with us all the time that the Lord Iesus went in and out amongst us beginning from the Baptisme of Iohn unto that same day hee was taken up from us must one one be ordained to be a Martyr that is a Witnesse with us of his Resurrection Where we may observe that he which is to bee a Witnesse of the truth of the Resurrection of Christ that is to say of the truth of this fundamentall article of Christian Religion that Jesus was the Christ must be some Disciple that conversed with him and saw him before and after his Resurrection and consequently must be one of his originall Disciples whereas they which were not so can Witnesse no more but that their antecessors said it and are therefore but Witnesses of other mens testimony and are but second Martyrs or Martyrs of Christs Witnesses He that to maintain every doctrine which he himself draweth out of the History our Saviours of life and of the Acts or Epistles of the Apostles or which he beleeveth upō the authority of a private man wil oppose the Laws and Authority of the Civill State is very far from being a Martyr of Christ or a Martyr of his Martyrs 'T is one Article onely which to die for meriteth so honorable a name and that Article is this that Iesus is the Christ that is to say He that hath redeemed us aud shall come again to give us salvation and eternall life in his glorious Kingdome To die for every tenet that serveth the ambition or profit of the Clergy is not required nor is it the Death of the Witnesse but the Testimony it self that makes the Martyr for the word signifieth nothing else but the man that beareth Witnesse whether he be put to death for his testimony or not Also he that is not sent to preach this fundamentall article but taketh it upon him of his private authority though he be a Witnesse and consequently a Martyr either primary of Christ or secundary of his Apostles Disciples or their Successors yet is he not obliged to suffer death for that cause because being not called thereto t is not required at his hands nor ought hee to complain if he loseth the reward he expecteth from those that never set him on work None therefore can be a Martyr neither of the first nor second degree that have not a warrant to preach Christ come in the flesh that is to say none but such as are sent to the conversion of Infidels For no man is a Witnesse to him that already beleeveth and therefore needs no Witnesse but to them that deny or doubt or have not heard it Christ sent his Apostles and his Seventy Disciples with
forward they were accounted the Law of the Jews and for such translated into Greek by Seventy Elders of Judaea and put into the Library of Ptolemy at Alexandria and approved for the Word of God Now seeing Esdras was the High Priest and the High Priest was their Civill Soveraigne it is manifest that the Scriptures were never made Laws but by the Soveraign Civill Power By the Writings of the Fathers that lived in the time before that Christian Religion was received and authorised by Constantine the Emperour we may find that the Books wee now have of the New Testament were held by the Christians of that time except a few in respect of whose paucity the rest were called the Catholique Church and others Haeretiques for the dictates of the Holy Ghost and consequently for the Canon or Rule of Faith such was the reverence and opinion they had of their Teachers as generally the reverence that the Disciples bear to their first Masters in all manner of doctrine they receive from them is not small Therefore there is no doubt but when S. Paul wrote to the Churches he had converted or any other Apostle or Disciple of Christ to those which had then embraced Christ they received those their Writings for the true Christian Doctrine But in that time when not the Power and Authority of the Teacher but the Faith of the Hearer caused them to receive it it was not the Apostles that made their own Writings Canonicall but every Convert made them so to himself But the question here is not what any Christian made a Law or Canon to himself which he might again reject by the same right he received it but what was so made a Canon to them as without injustice they could not doe any thing contrary thereunto That the New Testament should in this sense be Canonicall that is to say a Law in any place where the Law of the Common-wealth had not made it so is contrary to the nature of a Law For a Law as hath been already shewn is the Commandement of that Man or Assembly to whom we have given Soveraign Authority to make such Rules for the direction of our actions as hee shall think fit and to punish us when we doe any thing contrary to the same When therefore any other man shall offer unto us any other Rules which the Soveraign Ruler hath not prescribed they are but Counsell and Advice which whether good or bad hee that is counselled may without injustice refuse to observe and when contrary to the Laws already established without injustice cannot observe how good soever he conceiveth it to be I say he cannot in this case observe the same in his actions nor in his dicourse with other men though he may without blame beleeve his private Teachers and wish he had the liberty to practise their advice and that it were publiquely received for Law For internall Faith is in its own nature invisible and consequently exempted from all humane jurisdiction whereas the words and actions that proceeed from it as breaches of our Civill obedience are injustice both before God and Man Seeing then our Saviour hath denyed his Kingdome to be in this world seeing he had said he came not to judge but to save the world he hath not subjected us to other Laws than those of the Common-wealth that is the Jews to the Law of Moses which he saith Mat. 5. he came not to destroy but to fulfill and other Nations to the Laws of their severall Soveraigns and all men to the Laws of Nature the observing whereof both he himselfe and his Apostles have in their teaching recommended to us as a necessary condition of being admitted by him in the last day into his eternall Kingdome wherein shall be Protection and Life everlasting Seeing then our Saviour and his Apostles left not new Laws to oblige us in this world but new Doctrine to prepare us for the next the Books of the New Testament which containe that Doctrine untill obedience to them was commanded by them that God had given power to on earth to be Legislators were not obligatory Canons that is Laws but onely good and safe advice for the direction of sinners in the way to salvation which every man might take and refuse at his owne perill without injustice Again our Saviour Christs Commission to his Apostles and Disciples was to Proclaim his Kingdome not present but to come and to Teach all Nations and to Baptize them that should beleeve and to enter into the houses of them that should receive them and where they were not received to shake off the dust of their feet against them but not to call for fire from heaven to destroy them nor to compell them to obedience by the Sword In all which there is nothing of Power but of Perswasion He sent them out as Sheep unto Wolves not as Kings to their Subjects They had not in Commission to make Laws but to obey and teach obedience to Laws made and consequently they could not make their Writings obligatory Canons without the help of the Soveraign Civill Power And therefore the Scripture of the New Testament is there only Law where the lawfull Civill Power hath made it so And there also the King or Soveraign maketh it a Law to himself by which he subjecteth himselfe not to the Doctor or Apostle that converted him but to God himself and his Son Jesus Christ as immediately as did the Apostles themselves That which may seem to give the New Testament in respect of those that have embraced Christian Doctrine the force of Laws in the times and places of persecution is the decrees they made amongst themselves in their Synods For we read Acts 15. 28. the stile of the Councell of the Apostles the Elders and the whole Church in this manner It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no greater burthen than these necessary things c. which is a stile that signifieth a Power to lay a burthen on them that had received their Doctrine Now to lay a burden on another seemeth the same that to oblige and therefore the Acts of that Councell were Laws to the then Christians Neverthelesse they were no more Laws than are these other Precepts Repent Be Baptized Keep the Commandements Beleeve the Gospel Come unto me Sell all that thou hast Give it to the poor and Follow me which are not Commands but Invitations and Callings of men to Christianity like that of Esay 55. 1. Ho every man that thirâ—…teth come yee to the waters come and buy wine and milke without money For first the Apostles power was no other than that of our Saviour to invite men to embrace the Kingdome of God which they themselves acknowledged for a Kingdome not present but to come and they that have no Kingdome can make no Laws And secondly if their Acts of Councell were Laws they could not without sin be disobeyed But we read
single Texts without considering the main Designe can derive no thing from them cleerly but rather by casting atomes of Scripture as dust before mens eyes make every thing more obscure than it is an ordinary artifice of those that seek not the truth but their own advantage OF THE KINGDOME OF DARKNESSE CHAP. XLIV Of Spirituall Darknesse from MISINTERPRETATION of Scripture BEsides these Soveraign Powers Divine and Humane of which I have hitherto discoursed there is mention in Scripture of another Power namely that of the Rulers of the Darknesse of this world the Kingdome of Sâ—…tan and the Princpality of 〈◊〉 over Daemons that is to say over Phantasmes that appear in the Air For which cause Satan is also called the Prince of the Power of the Air and because he ruleth in the darknesse of this world The Prince of this world And in consequence hereunto they who are under his Dominion in opposition to the faithfull who are the Children of the Light are called the Children of Darknesse For seeing Beelzebub is Prince of Phantasmes Inhabitants of his Dominion of Air and Darknesse the Children of Darknesse and these Daemons Phantasmes or Spirits of Illusion signifie allegorically the same thing This considered the Kingdome of Darknesse as it is set forth in these and other places of the Scripture is nothing else but a Confederacy of Deceâ—…vers that to obtain doâ—… over men in this present world endeavour by dark and erroneons Doctrines to extinguish in them the Light both of Nature and of the Gospell and so to dis-prepare them for the Kingdome of God to coâ—… As men that are utterly deprived from their Nativity of the light of the bodily Eye have no Idea at all of any such light and no man conceives in his imagination any greater light than he hath at some time or other perceived by his outward Senses so also is it of the light of the Gospel and of the light of the Understanding that no man can conceive there is any greater degree of it than that which he hath already attained unto And from hence it comes to passe that men have no other means to acknowledge their owne Darknesse but onely by reasoning from the un-foreseen mischances that befall them in their ways The Darkest part of the Kingdom of Satan is that which is without the Church of God that is to say amongst them that beleeve not in Jesus Christ. But we cannot say that therefore the Church enjoyeth as the land of Goshen all the light which to the performance of the work enjoined us by God is necessary Whence comes it that in Christendome there has been almost from the time of the Apostles such justling of one another out of their places both by forraign and Civill war such stumbling at every little asperity of their own fortune and every little eminence of that of other men and such diversity of ways in running to the same mark Felicity if it be not Night amongst us or at least a Mist wee are therefore yet in the Dark The Enemy has been here in the Night of our naturall Ignorance and sown the tares of Spirituall Errors and that First by abusing and putting out the light of the Scriptures For we erre not knowing the Scriptures Secondly by introducing the Daemonology of the Heathen Poets that is to say their fabulous Doctrine concerning Daemons which are but Idols or Phantasms of the braine without any reall nature of their own distinct from humane fancy such as are dead mens Ghosts and Fairies and other matter of old Wives tales Thirdly by mixing with the Scripture divers reliques of the Religion and much of the vain and erroneous Philosophy of the Greeks especially of Aristotle Fourthly by mingling with both these false or uncertain Traditions and fained or uncertain History And so we come to erre by giving heed to seducing Spirits and the Daemonology of such as speak lies in Hypocrisie or as it is in the Originall 1 Tim. 4. 1 2. of those that play the part of lyars with a seared conscience that is contrary to their own knowledge Concerning the first of these which is the Seducing of men by abuse of Scripture I intend to speak briefly in this Chapter The greatest and main abuse of Scripture and to which almost all the rest are either consequent or subservient is the wresting of it to prove that the Kingdome of God mentioned so often in the Scripture is the present Church or multitude of Christian men now living or that being dead are to rise again at the last day whereas the Kingdome of God was first instituted by the Ministery of Moses over the Jews onely who were therefore called his Peculiar People and ceased afterward in the election of Saul when they refused to be governed by God any more and demanded a King after the manner of the nations which God himself consented unto as I have more at large proved before in the 35. Chapter After that time there was no other Kingdome of God in the world by any Pact or otherwise than he ever was is and shall be King of all men and of all creatures as governing according to his Will by his infinite Power Neverthelesse he promised by his Prophets to restore this his Government to them again when the time he hath in his secret counsell appointed for it shall bee fully come and when they shall turn unto him by repentance and amendment of life and not onely so but he invited also the Gentiles to come in and enjoy the happinesse of his Reign on the same conditions of conversion and repentance and hee promised also to send his Son into the world to expiate the sins of them all by his death and to prepare them by his Doctrine to receive him at his second coming Which second coming not yet being the Kingdome of God is not yet come and wee are not now under any other Kings by Pact but our Civill Soveraigns saving onely that Christian men are already in the Kingdome of Grace in as much as they have already the Promise of being received at his comming againe Consequent to this Errour that the present Church is Christs Kingdome there ought to be some one Man or Assembly by whose mouth our Saviour now in heaven speaketh giveth law and which representeth his Person to all Christians or divers Men or divers Assemblies that doe the same to divers parts of Christendome This power Regal under Christ being challenged universally by the Pope and in particular Common-wealths by Assemblies of the Pastors of the place when the Scripture gives it to none but to Civill Soveraigns comes to be so passionately disputed that it putteth out the Light of Nature and causeth so great a Darknesse in mens understanding that they see not who it is to whom they have engaged their obedience Consequent to this claim of the Pope to Vicar Generall of Christ in the present
also the Power of Explaining them when there is need And are not the Scriptures in all places where they are Law made Law by the Authority of the Common-wealth and consequently a part of the Civill Law Of the same kind it is also when any but the Soveraign restraineth in any man that power which the Common-wealth hath not restrained as they do that impropriate the Preaching of the Gospell to one certain Order of men where the Laws have left it free If the State give me leave to preach or teach that is if it forbid me not no man can forbid me If I find my selfe amongst the Idolaters of America shall I that am a Christian though not in Orders think it a sin to preach Jesus Christ till I have received Orders from Rome or when I have preached shall not I answer their doubts and expound the Scriptures to them that is shall I not Teach But for this may some say as also for administring to them the Sacraments the necessity shall be esteemed for a sufficient Mission which is true But this is true also that for whatsoever a dispensation is due for the necessity for the same there needs no dispensation when there is no Law that forbids it Therefore to deny these Functions to those to whom the Civill Soveraigne hath not denyed them is a taking away of a lawfull Liberty which is contrary to the Doctrine of Civill Government More examples of Vain Philosophy brought into Religion by the Doctors of Schoole-Divinity might be produced but other men may if they please observe them of themselves I shall onely adde this that the Writings of Schoole-Divines are nothing else for the most part but insignificant Traines of strange and barbarous words or words otherwise used then in the common use of the Latine tongue such as would pose Cicero and Varro and all the Grammarians of ancient Rome Which if any man would see proved let him as I have said once before see whether he can translate any Schoole-Divine into any of the Modern tongues as French English or any other copious language for that which cannot in most of these be made Intelligible is not Intelligible in the Latine Which Insignificancy of language though I cannot note it for false Philosophy yet it hath a quality not onely to hide the Truth but also to make men think they have it and desist from further search Lastly for the Errors brought in from false or uncertain History what is all the Legend of fictitious Miracles in the lives of the Saints and all the Histories of Apparitions and Ghosts alledged by the Doctors of the Romane Church to make good their Doctrines of Hell and Purgatory the power of Exorcisme and other Doctrines which have no warrant neither in Reason nor Scripture as also all those Traditions which they call the unwritten Word of God but old Wives Fables Whereof though they find dispersed somewhat in the Writings of the ancient Fathers yet those Fathers were men that might too easily beleeve false reports and the producing of their opinions for testimony of the truth of what they beleeved hath no other force with them that according to the Counsell of St. Iohn 1 Epist. chap. 4. verse 1. examine Spirits than in all things that concern the power of the Romane Church the abuse whereof either they suspected not or had benefit by it to discredit their testimony in respect of too rash beleef of reports which the most sincere men without great knowledge of naturall causes such as the Fathers were are commonly the most subject to For naturally the best men are the least suspicious of fraudulent purposes Gregory the Pope and S. Bernard have somewhat of Apparitions of Ghosts that said they were in Purgatory and so has our Beda but no where I beleeve but by report from others But if they or any other relate any such stories of their own knowledge they shall not thereby confirm the more such vain reports but discover their own Infirmity or Fraud With the Introduction of False we may joyn also the suppression of True Philosophy by such men as neither by lawfull authority nor sufficient study are competent Judges of the truth Our own Navigations make manifest and all men learned in humane Sciences now acknowledge there are Antipodes And every day it appeareth more and more that Years and Dayes are determined by Motions of the Earth Neverthelesse men that have in their Writings but supposed such Doctrine as an occasion to lay open the reasons for and against it have been punished for it by Authority Ecclesiasticall But what reason is there for it Is it becaâ—…se such opinions are contrary to true Religion that cannot be if they be true Let therefore the truth be first examined by competent Judges or confuted by them that pretend to know the contrary Is it because they be contrary to the Religion established Let them be silenced by the Laws of those to whom the Teachers of them are subject that is by the Laws Civill For disobedience may lawfully be punished in them that against the Laws teach even true Philosophy Is it because they tend to disorder in Government as countenancing Rebellion or Sedition then let them be silenced and the Teachers punished by vertue of his Power to whom the care of the Publique quiet is committed which is the Authority Civill For whatsoever Power Ecclesiastiques take upon themselves in any place where they are subject to the State in their own Right though they call it Gods Right is but Usurpation CHAP. XLVII Of the BENEFIT that proceedeth from such Darknesse and to whom it accreweth CIcero maketh honorable mention of one of the Cassâ—… a severe Judge amongst the Romans for a custome he had in Criminall causes when the testimony of the witnesses was not sufficient to ask the Accusers Cuibono that is to say what Profit Honor or other Contentment the accused obtained or expected by the Fact For amongst Praesumptions there is none that so evidently declareth the Author as doth the BENEFIT of the Action By the same rule I intend in this place to examine who they may be that have possessed the People so long in this part of Christendome with these Doctrines contrary to the Peaceable Societies of Mankind And first to this Error that the present Church now Militant on Earth is the Kingdome of God that is the Kingdome of Glory or the Land of Promise not the Kingdome of Grace which is but a Promise of the Land are annexed these worldly Benefits First that the Pastors and Teachers of the Church are entitled thereby as Gods Publique Ministers to a Right of Governing the Church and consequently because the Church and Common-wealth are the same Persons to be Rectors and Governours of the Common-wealth By this title it is that the Pope prevailed with the subjects of all Christian Princes to beleeve that to disobey him was to disobey Christ himselfe
Thirst. Aversion Love Hate Contempt Good Evill Pulchrum Turpe Delightfull Profitable 〈◊〉 Unprofitable Delight Displeasure Pleasure Offence Pleasures of sense Pleasures of the Mind Joy Paine Griefe Hope Despaire Feare Courage Anger Confidence Diffidâ—…nce Indignation Benevolence Good Nature Covetousnesse Ambition Pusillanimity Magnanimity Valour Liberality Miserablenesse Kindnesse Naturall Lust. Luxury The passion of Love Jealousie Revengefulnesse Curiosity Religion Superstition True Religion Panique Terrour Admiration Glory Vain-glory. Dejection Sudden Glory Laughter Sudden Dejection Weeping Shame Blushing Impudence Pitty Cruelty Emulation Envy Deliberation The Will Formes of Speech in Passion Good and Evill apparent Felicity Praise Magnification 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Judgement or Sentence â—…inal Doubt Science Opinioâ—… Consciâ—…ce Beliefe Faith Intellectuall Vertue defined Wit Naturall or Acquired Naturall Wit Good Wit or Fancy Good Judgement Discretion Prudence Craft Acquired Wit Giddinesse Madnesse Rage Melancholy Insignificant Speech Power Worth Dignity To Honour and Dishonour Honourable Dishonourable Coats of Armes Titles of Honour Worthinesse Fitnesse What is here meant by Manners A restlesse desire of Power in all men Love of Contention from Competition Civil obedience from love of Ease From feare of Death or Wounds And from love of Arts. Love of Vertue from love Praise Hate from difficulty of Requiting great Benefits And from Conscience of deserving to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Promptnesse to hurt from Fear And from distrufl of their own wit Vain undertaking from Vain-glory. Ambition from opinion of sufficiency Irresolution from too great valuing of small matters Conâ—…idence in others â—…rom Ignorance of the marks of Wisdome and Kindnesse And from Ignorance of naturall causes And from want of Understanding Adhaerence to Custome from Ignorance of the nature of Right and Wrong Adhaerence to private men From ignorance of the Causes of Peace Credulity from Ignorance of nature Curiosity to know from Care of future time Naturall Re ligion from the same Religion in Man onely First from his desire of knowing Causes From the consideration of the Begining of thingâ—… From his observation of the Sequell of things The naturall Cause of Religion the Anxiety of the time to come Which makes them fear the Power of Inuisible things And suppose them Incorporeall But know not the way how they effect any thing But honour them as they honour mâ—…n And attribute to them all extraordinary events Foure things Naturall seeds of Religion Mide different by Culture The absurd opinion of Gentilisme The designes of the Authors of the Religion of the Heathen The true Religion and the lawes of Gods kingdome the same Chap. 35. The causes of Change in Religion Injoyning beleefe of Impossibilities Doing contrary to the Religion they establish Want of the testimony of Miracles * Exod. 32. 1 2. * Judges 2. 11. * 1 Sam. 8. 3. Men by nature Equall From Equâ—…lity proceâ—…ds Diâ—…idence From Diffidence Warre Out of Civil States there is alwayes Warre of every one against every one The Incommodities of such a War In such a Warre nothing is Unjust The Passions that incline men to Peace Right of Nature what Liberty what A Law of Nature what Difference of Right and Law Naturally every man has Right to everything The Fundamentall Law of Nature The seoond Law of Nature What it is to lay down a Right Renouncing a Right what it is Transferring Right what Obligation Duty Injustice Not all Rights are alienable Contract what Covenant what Free-gift Signes of Contract Expresse Signes of Contract by Inference Free gift passeth by words of the Present or Past. Signes of Contract are words both of the Past Present and Future Merit what Covenants of Mutuall trust when Invalid Right to the End Containeth Right to the Means No Covenant with Beasts Nor with God witâ—…out speciall Revelation No Covenant but of Possible and Future Covenants how made voyd Covenants extorted by feare are valide The former Covenant to one makes voyd the later to another A mans Covenant not to defend himselfe is voyd No man obliged to accuse himself The End of an Oath The forme of an Oath No Oath but by God An Oath addes nothing to the Obligation The third Law of Nature Justice Justice and Jnjustice what Justice and Propriety begin with the Constitution of Common-wealth Justice not Contrary to Reason Covenants not discharged by the Vice of the Person to whom they are made Justice of Men Iustice of Actions what Iustice of Manners and Iustice of Actions Nothing done to a man by his own consent can be Injury Justice Commutative and Distributive The fourth Law of Nature Gratitude The fifth Mutuall accommodetion or Compleasance The sixth Facility to Pardon The seventh that in Revenges men respect onely the future good The eighth against Contumely The ninth against 〈◊〉 The tenth against Arrogance The elevâ—…nth Equity The twelfth Equall use of things Common The thirteenth of Lot The fourteenth of Primogeniture and First seising The â—…fteenth of Mediators The sixteenth of Submission to Arbitrement The seventeenth No man is his own Judge The eighteenth no man to be Judge that has in him a natural cause of Partiality The nineteenth of Witnesses A Rule by which the Laws of Nâ—…ture may eâ—…sily be examined The Lawes of Nature oblige inConscience alwayes but in Effect then onely when there is Security The Laws of Nature are Eternal And yet Easie The Science of these Lawes is the true Morall Philosophy A Person what Person Naturall and Artificiall The word Person whence Actor Author Authority Covenants by Authority bind the Author But not the Actor The Authority is to be shewne Things personated Inanimate Irrational False Gods The true God A Multitude of men how one Person Every one is Author An Actor may be Many men made One by Plurâ—…lity of Voyâ—… Representatives when the number is even unprofitable Negativâ—… voyce The End of Commonweâ—…th particular Security Chap. 13. Which is not to be had from the Law of Nature Nor from the conjunction of a few men or familyes Nor from a great Multitude unlesse directed by one judgement And that continually Why certain creatures without reason or speech do neverthelesse live in Society without any câ—…rcive Power The Generation of a Common-wealth The Definition of a Common-wealth Soveraigne and Subjeâ—…t what The act of Instituting a Common-wealth what The Consequences to such Institution are 1. The Subjects cannot change the forme of government 2. Soveraigne Power cannot be forfeited 3 No man can without injustice protest against the Institution of the Soveraigne declared by the major part 4 The Soveraigns Actions cannot be justly accused by the Subject 5. What soever the Soveraigne doth is unpunishable by the Subject 6. The Soveraigne is judge of what is necessary for the Peace and Defence of his Subjects And Iudge of what Doctrines are fit to be taught them 7 The Right of making Rules whereby the Subjects may every man know what is so his owne as no other Subject can without injustice take it from him 8 To