that this kind of Absurdity may rightly be numbred amongst the many sorts of Madnesse and all the time that guided by clear Thoughts of their worldly lust they forbear disputing or writing thus but Lucide Intervals And thus much of the Vertues and Defects Intellectuall CHAP. IX Of the Severall SUBIECTS of KNOWLEDGE THere are of KNOWLEDGE two kinds whereof one is Knowledge of Fact the other Knowledge of the Consequence of one Affirmation to another The former is nothing else but Sense and Memory and is Absolute Knowledge as when we see a Fact doing or remember it done And this is the Knowledge required in a Witnesse The later is called Science and is Conditionall as when we know that If the figure showne be a Circle then any straight line through the Center shall divide it into two equall parts And this is the Knowledge required in a Philosopher that is to say of him that pretends to Reasoning The Register of Knowledge of Fact is called History Whereof there be two sorts one called Naturall History which is the History of such Facts or Effects of Nature as have no Dependance on Mans Will Such as are the Histories of Metalls Plants Animals Regions and the like The other is Civill History which is the History of the Voluntary Actions of men in Common-wealths The Registers of Science are such Books as contain the Demonstrations of Consequences of one Affirmation to another and are commonly called Books of Philosophy whereof the sorts are many according to the diversity of the Matter And may be divided in such manner as I have divided them in the following Table SCIENCE that is Knowledge of Consequences which is called also PHILOSOPHY Consequences from the Accidents of Bodies Naturall which is called NATURALL PHILOSOPHY Consequences from the Accidents common to all Bodies Naturall which are Quantity and Motion Consequences from Quantity and Motion indeterminate which being the Principles or first foundation of Philosophy is called Philosophia Prima PHILOSOPH PRIMA Consequences from Motion and Quantity determined Consequences from Quantity and Motion determined By Figure ..... Mathematiques GEOMETRY ARITHMETI QU By Number .... Mathematiques GEOMETRY ARITHMETI QU Consequences from the Motion and Quantity of Bodies in speciall Consequences from the Motion and Quantity of the great parts of the World as the Earth and Starres Cosmography ASTRONOMY GEOGRAPHY Consequences from the Motion of Speciall kinds and Figures of Body Mechaniques Science of EN NEERS ARCHITECTUR NAVIGATION Doctrine of Weight PHYSIQUES or Consequences froÌ„ Qualities Consequences from the Qualities of Bodyes Transient such as sometimes appear sometimes vanish ............ METEOROLOG Consequences from the Qualities of Bodies Permanent Consequences from the Qualities of the Starres Consequences from the Light of the Starres Out of this and the Motion of the Sunne is made the Science of ...................... SCIOGRAPHY Consequences from the Influence of the Starres ............... ASTROLOGY Consequences of the Qualities from Liquid Bodies that fill the space between the Starres such as are the Ayre or substance aetheriall Consequences from the Qualities of Bodies Terrestriall Consequences from the parts of the Earth that are without Sense Consequences from the Qualities of Minerals as Stones Metalls c. Consequences from the Qualities of Vegetables Consequences from the Qualitiâ—…s of Animals Consequences from the Qualities of Animals in generall Consequences from Vision .... OPTIQUES Consequences from Sounds .... MUSIQUE Consequences from the rest of the Senses Consequences from the Qualities of Men in speciall Consequences from the Passions of Men ............ ETHIQUES Consequences from Speech In Magnifying Vilifying c. POETRY In Perswadiâ—…g RHETHORI QU In Reasoning ... LOGIQUE In Contracting The Science of 〈◊〉 and UNIUST Consequences from the Accidents of Politique Bodies which is called POLITIQUES and CIVILL PHILOSOPHY 1. Of Consequences from the Institution of COMMON-WEALTHS to the Rights and Duties of the Body Politique or Soveraigâ—… 2. Of Consequences from the same to the Duty and Right of the Subjects Place this Table between folio 40. and 41. CHAP. X. Of POWER WORTH DIGNITY HONOUR and WORTHINESSE THe POWER of a Man to take it Universally is his present means to obtain some future apparent Good And is either Originall or Instrumentall Naturall Power is the eminence of the Faculties of Body or Mind as extraordinary Strength Forme Prudence Arts Eloquence Liberality Nobility Instrumentall are those Powers which acquired by these or by fortune are means and Instruments to acquire more as Riches Reputation Friends and the secret working of God which men call Good Luck For the nature of Power is in this point like to Fame increasing as it proceeds or like the motion of heavy bodies which the further they go make still the more hast The Greatest of humane Powers is that which is compounded of the Powers of most men united by consent in one person Naturall or Civill that has the use of all their Powers depending on his will such as is the Power of a Common-wealth Or depending on the wills of each particular such as is the Power of a Faction or of divers factions leagued Therefore to have servants is Power To have friends is Power for they are strengths united Also Riches joyned with liberality is Power because it procureth friends and servants Without liberality not so because in this case they defend not but expose men to Envy as a Prey Reputation of power is Power because it draweth with it the adhaerence of those that need protection So â—…s Reputation of love of a mans Country called Popularity for the same Reason Also what quality soever maketh a man beloved or feared of many or the reputation of such quality is Power because it is a means to have the assistance and service of many Good successe is Power because it maketh reputation of Wisdome or good fortune which makes men either feare him or rely on him Affability of men already in power is encrease of Power because it gaineth love Reputation of Prudence in the conduct of Peace or War is Power because to prudent men we commit the government of our selves more willingly than to others Nobility is Power not in all places but onely in those Common-wealths where it has Priviledges for in such priviledges consisteth their Power Eloquence is power because it is seeming Prudence Forme is Power because being a promise of Good it recommendeth men to the favour of women and strangers The Sciences are small Power because not eminent and therefore not acknowledged in any man nor are at all but in a few and in them but of a few things For Science is of that nature as none can understand it to be but such as in a good measure have attayned it Arts of publique use as Fortification making of Engines and other Instruments of War because they conferre to Defence and Victory are Power And though the true Mother of them be Science namely the Mathematiques yet because they are brought into the Light by
bee Lawes and publike Officers armed to revenge all injuries shall bee done him what opinion he has of his fellow subjects when he rides armed of his fellow Citizens when he locks his dores and of his children and servants when he locks his chests Does he not there as much accuse mankind by his actions as I do by my words But neither of us accuse mans nature in it The Desires and other Passions of man are in themselves no Sin No more are the Actions that proceed from those Passions till they know a Law that forbids them which till Lawes be made they cannot know nor can any Law be made till they have agreed upon the Person that shall make it It may peradventure be thought there was never such a time nor condition of warre as this and I believe it was never generally so over all the world but there are many places where they live so now For the savage people in many places of America except the government of small Families the concord whereof dependeth on naturall lust have no government at all and live at this day in that brutish manner as I said before Howsoever it may be perceived what manner of life there would be where there were no common Power to feare by the manner of life which men that have formerly lived under a peacefull government use to degenerate into in a civill Warre But though there had never been any time wherein particular men were in a condition of warre one against another yet in all times Kings and Persons of Soveraigne authority because of their Independency are in continuall jealousies and in the state and posture of Gladiators having their weapons pointing and their eyes fixed on one another that is their Forts Garrisons and Guns upon the Frontiers of their Kingdomes and continuall Spyes upon their neighbours which is a posture of War But because they uphold thereby the Industry of their Subjects there does not follow from it that misery which accompanies the Liberty of particular men To this warre of every man against every man this also is consequent that nothing can be Unjust The notions of Right and Wrong Justice and Injustice have there no place Where there is no common Power there is no Law where no Law no Injustice Force and Fraud are in warre the two Cardinall vertues Justice and Injustice are none of the Faculties neither of the Body nor Mind If they were they might be in a man that were alone in the world as well as his Senses and Passions They are Qualities that relate to men in Society not in Solitude It is consequent also to the same condition that there be no Propriety no Dominion no Mine and Thine distinct but onely that to be every mans that he can get and for so long as he can keep it And thus much for the ill condition which man by meer Nature is actually placed in though with a possibility to come out of it consisting partly in the Passions partly in his Reason The Passions that encline men to Peace are Feare of Death Desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living and a Hope by their Industry to obtain them And Reason suggesteth convenient Articles of Peace upon which men may be drawn to agreement These Articles are they which otherwise are called the Lawes of Nature whereof I shall speak more particularly in the two following Chapters CHAP. XIV Of the first and sâ—…cond NATURALL LAWES and of CONTRACTS THe RIGHT OF NATURE which Writers commonly call Jus Naturale is the Liberty each man hath to use his own power as he will himselfe for the preservation of his own Nature that is to say of his own Life and consequently of doing any thing which in his own Judgement and Reason hee shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto By LIBERTY is understood according to the proper signification of the word the absence of externall Impediments which Impediments may oft take away part of a mans power to do what hee would but cannot hinder him from using the power left him according as his judgement and reason shall dictate to him A LAW OF NATURE Lex Naturalis is a Precept or generall Rule found out by Reason by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life or taketh away the means of preserving the same and to omit that by which he thinketh it may be best preserved For though they that speak of this subject use to confound Jus and Lex Right and Law yet they ought to be distinguished because RIGHT consisteth in liberty to do or to forbeare Whereas LAW determineth and bindeth to one of them so that Law and Right differ as much as Obligation and Liberty which in one and the same matter are inconsistent And because the condition of Man as hath been declared in the precedent Chapter is a condition of Warre of every one against every one in which case every one is governed by his own Reason and there is nothing he can make use of that may not be a help unto him in preserving his life against his enemyes It followeth that in such a condition every man has a Right to every thing even to one anothers body And therefore as long as this naturall Right of every man to every thing endureth there can be no security to any man how strong or wise soever he be of living out the time which Nature ordinarily alloweth men to live And consequently it is a precept or generall rule of Reason That every man ought to endeavour Peace as farre as he has hope of obtaining it and when he cannot obtain it that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of Warre The first branch of which Rule containeth the first and Fundamentall Law of Nature which is to seek Peace and follow it The Second the summe of the Right of Nature which is By all means we can to defend our selves From this Fundamentall Law of Nature by which men are commanded to endeavour Peace is derived this second Law That a man be willing when others are so too as farre-forth as for Peace and defence of himselfe he shall think it necessary to lay down this right to all things and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himselfe For as long as every man holdeth this Right of doing any thing he liketh so long are all men in the condition of Warre But if other men will not lay down their Right as well as he then there is no Reason for any one to devest himselfe of his For that were to expose himselfe to Prey which no man is bound to rather than to dispose himselfe to Peace This is that Law of the Gospell Whatsoever you require that others should do to you that do ye to them And that Law of all men Quod tibi fieri non vis
Endor who is said to have had a familiar spirit and thereby to have raised a Phantasme of Samuel and foretold Saul his death was not therefore a Prophetesse for neither had she any science whereby she could raise such a Phantasme nor does it appear that God commanded the raising of it but onely guided that Imposture to be a means of Sauls terror and discouragement and by consequent of the discomfiture by which he fell And for Incoherent Speech it was amongst the Gentiles taken for one sort of Prophecy because the Prophets of their Oracles intoxicated with a spirit or vapor from the cave of the Pythian Oracle at Delphi were for the time really mad and spake like mad-men of whose loose words a sense might be made to fit any event in such sort as all bodies are said to be made of Materia prima In the Scripture I find it also so taken 1 Sam. 18. 10. in these words And the Evill spirit came upon Saul and he Prophecyed in the midst of the house And although there be so many significations in Scripture of the word Prophet yet is that the most frequent in which it is taken for him to whom God speaketh immediately that which the Prophet is to say from him to some other man or to the people And hereupon a question may be asked in what manner God speaketh to such a Prophet Can it may some say be properly said that God hath voice and language when it cannot be properly said he hath a tongue or other organs as a man The Prophet David argueth thus Shall he that made the eye not see or he that made the ear not hear But this may be spoken not as usually to signifie Gods nature but to signifie our intention to honor him For to see and hear are Honorable Attributes and may be given to God to declare as far as our capacity can conceive his Almighty power But if it were to be taken in the strict and proper sense one might argue from his making of all other parts of mans body that he had also the same use of them which we have which would be many of them so uncomely as it would be the greatest contumely in the world to ascribe them to him Therefore we are to interpret Gods speaking to men immediately for that way whatsoever it be by which God makes them understand his will And the wayes whereby he doth this are many and to be sought onely in the Holy Scripture where though many times it be said that God spake to this and that person without declaring in what manner yet there be again many places that deliver also the signes by which they were to acknowledge his presence and commandement and by these may be understood how he spake to many of the rest In what manner God spake to Adam and Eve and Cain and Noah is not expressed nor how he spake to Abraham till such time as he came out of his own countrey to Sichem in the land of Canaan and then Gen. 12. 7. God is said to have appeared to him So there is one way whereby God made his presence manifest that is by an Apparition or Vision And again Gen. 15. 1. The Word of the Lord came to Abraham in a Vision that is to say somewhat as a sign of Gods presence appeared as Gods Messenger to speak to him Again the Lord appeared to Abraham Gen. 18. 1. by an apparition of three Angels and to Abimelech Gen. 20. 3. in a dream To Lot Gen. 19. 1. by an apparition of two Angels And to Hagar Gen. 21. 17. by the apparition of one Angel And to Abraham again Gen. 22. 11. by the apparition of a voice from heaven And Gen. 26. 24. to Isaac in the night that is in his sleep or by dream And to Jacob Gen. 18. 12. in a dream that is to say as are the words of the text Iacob dreamed that he saw a ladder c. And Gen. 32. 1. in a Vision of Angels And to Moses Exod. 3. 2. in the apparition of a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush And after the time of Moses where the manner how God spake immediately to man in the Old Testament is expressed hee spake alwaies by a Vision or by a Dream as to Gideon Samuel Eliah Elisha Isaiah Ezekiel and the rest of the Prophets and often in the New Testament as to Ioseph to St. Peter to St. Paul and to St. Iohn the Evangelist in the Apocalypse Onely to Moses hee spake in a more extraordinary manner in Mount Sinai and in the Tabernaele and to the High Priest in the Tabernacle and in the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Temple But Moses and after him the High Priests were Prophets of a more eminent place and degree in Gods favour And God himself in express words declareth that to other Prophets hee spake in Dreams and Visions but to his servant Moses in such manner as a man speaketh to his friend The words are these Numb 12. 6 7 8. If there be a Prophet among you I the Lord will make my self known to him in a Vision and will speak unto him in a Dream My servant Moses is not so who is faithfull in all my house with him I will speak mouth to mouth even apparently not in dark speeches and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold And Exod. 33. 11. The Lord spake to Moses face to face as a man speaketh to his friend And yet this speaking of God to Moses was by mediation of an Angel or Angels as appears expressely Acts 7. ver 35. and 53. and Gal. 3. 19. and was therefore a Vision though a more cleer Vision than was given to other Prophets And conformable hereunto where God saith Deut. 13. 1. If there arise amongst you a Prophet or Dreamer of Dreams the later word is but the interpretation of the former And Ioel 2. 28. Your sons and your daughters shall Prophecy your old men shall dream Dreams and your young men shall see Visions where again the word Prophecy is expounded by Dream and Vision And in the same manner it was that God spake to Solomon promising him Wisdome Riches and Honor for the text saith 1 Kings 3. 15. And Solomon awoak and behold it was a Dream So that generally the Prophets extraordinary in the Old Testament took notice of the Word of God no otherwise than from their Dreams or Visions that is to say from the imaginations which they had in their sleep or in an Extasie which imaginations in every true Prophet were supernaturall but in false Prophets were either naturall or feigned The same Prophets were neverthelesse said to speak by the Spirit as Zach. 7. 12. where the Prophet speaking of the Jewes saith They made their hearts hard as Adamant lest they should hear the law and the words which the Lord of Hosts hath sent in his Spirit by the former Prophets By which it is manifest that
dangerously to all purposes by sharing with another Indirect Power as with a Direct one But to come now to his Arguments The first is this The Civill Power is subject to the Spirituall Therefore he that hath the Supreme Power Spirituall hath right to command Temporall Princes and dispose of their Temporalls in order to the Spirituall As for the dictinction of Temporall and Spirituall let us consider in what sense it may be said intelligibly that the Temporall or Civill Power is subject to the Spirituall There be but two ways that those words can be made sense For when wee say one Power is subject to another Power the meaning either is that he which hath the one is subject to him that hath the other or that the one Power is to the other as the means to the end â—…r wee cannot understand that one Power hath Power over another Power or that one Power can have Right or Command over another For Subjection Command Right and Power are accidents not of Powers but of Persons One Power may be subordinate to another as the art of a Sadler to the art of a Rider If then it bee granted that the Civill Government be ordained as a means to bring us to a Spirituall felicity yet it does not follow that if a King have the Civill Power and the Pope the Spirituall that therefore the King is bound to obey the Pope more then every Sadler is bound to obey every Rider Therefore as from Subordination of an Art cannot be inferred the Subjection of the Professor so from the Subordination of a Government cannot be inferred the Subjection of the Governor When therefore he saith the Civill Power is Subject to the Spirituall his meaning is that the Civill Soveraign is Subject to the Spirituall Soveraign And the Argument stands thus The Civil Soveraign is subject to the Spirituall Therefore the Spirituall Prince may command Temporall Princes Where the Conclusion is the same with the Antecedent he should have proved But to prove it he alledgeth first this reason Kings and Popes Clergy and Laity make but one Common-wealth that is to say but one Church And in all Bodies the Members depend one upon another But things Spirituall depend not of things Temporall Therefore Temporall depend on Spirituall And therefore are Subject to them In which Argumentation there be two grosse errours one is that all Christian Kings Popes Clergy and all other Christian men make but one Common-wealth For it is evident that France is one Common-wealth Spain another and Venice a third c. And these consist of Christians and therefore also are severall Bodies of Christians that is to say severall Churches And their severall Soveraigns Represent them whereby they are capable of commanding and obeying of doing and suffering as a naturall man which no Generall or Universall Church is till it have a Representant which it hath not on Earth for if it had there is no doubt but that all Christendome were one Common-wealth whose Soveraign were that Representant both in things Spirituall and Temporall And the Pope to make himself this Representant wanteth three things that our Saviour hath not given him to Command and to Iudge and to Punish otherwise than by Excommunication to run from those that will not Learn of him For though the Pope were Christs onely Vicar yet he cannot exercise his government till our Saviours second coming And then also it is not the Pope but St. Peter himselfe with the other Apostles that are to be Judges of the world The other errour in this his first Argument is that he sayes the Members of every Common-wealth as of a naturall Body depend one of another It is true they cohaere together but they depend onely on the Soveraign which is the Soul of the Common-wealth which failing the Common-wealth is dissolved into a Civill war no one man so much as cohaering to another for want of a common Dependance on a known Soveraign Just as the Members of the naturall Body dissolve into Earth for want of a Soul to hold them together Therefore there is nothing in this similitude from whence to inferre a dependance of the Laity on the Clergy or of the Temporall Officers on the Spirituall but of both on the Civill Soveraign which ought indeed to direct his Civill commands to the Salvation of Souls but is not therefore subject to any but God himselfe And thus you see the laboured fallacy of the first Argument to deceive such men as distinguish not between the Subordination of Actions in the way to the End and the Subjection of Persons one to another in the administration of the Means For to every End the Means are determined by Nature or by God himselfe supernaturally but the Power to make men use the Means is in every nation resigned by the Law of Nature which forbiddeth men to violate their Faith given to the Civill Soveraign His second Argument is this Every Common-wealth because it is supposed to â—…e perfect and sufficient in it self may command any other Common-wealth not subject to it and force it to change the administration of the Government nay depose the Prince and set another in his room if it cannot otherwise defend it selfe against the injuries he goes about to doe them much more may a Spirituâ—…ll Common-wealth command a Temporall one to change the administration of their Government and may depose Princes and institute others when they cannot otherwise defend the Spirituall Good That a Common-wealth to defend it selfe against injuries may lawfully doe all that he hath here said is very true and hath already in that which hath gone before been sufficiently demonstrated And if it were also true that there is now in this world a Spirituall Common-wealth distinct from a Civill Common-wealth then might the Prince thereof upon injury done him or upon want of caution that injury be not done him in time to come repaire and secure himself by Warre which is in summe deposing killing or subduing or doing any act of Hostility But by the same reason it would be no lesse lawfull for a Civill Soveraign upon the like injuries done or feared to make warre upon the Spirituall Soveraign which I beleeve is more than Cardinall Bellarmine would have inferred from his own proposition But Spirituall Common-wealth there is none in this world for it is the same thing with the Kingdome of Christ which he himselfe saith is not of this world but shall be in the next world at the Resurrection when they that have lived justly and beleeved that he was the Christ shall though they died Naturall bodies rise Spirituall bodies and then it is that our Saviour shall judge the world and conquer his Adversaries and make a Spirituall Common-wealth In the mean time seeing there are no men on earth whose bodies are Spirituall there can be no Spirituall Common-wealth amongst men that are yet in the flesh unlesse wee call Preachers that have Commission to Teach and
other Pastors are bidden to esteem those Christians that disobey the Church that is that disobey the Christian Soveraigne as Heathen men and as Publicans Seeing then men challenge to the Pope no authority over Heathen Princes they ought to challenge none over those that are to bee esteemed as Heathen But from the Power to Teach onely hee inferreth also a Coercive Power in the Pope over Kings The Pastor saith he must give his flock convenient food Therefore the Pope may and ought to compell Kings to doe their duty Out of which it followeth that the Pope as Pastor of Christian men is King of Kings which all Christian Kings ought indeed either to Confesse or else they ought to take upon themselves the Supreme Pastorall Charge every one in his own Dominion His sixth and last Argument is from Examples To which I answer first that Examples prove nothing Secondly that the Examples he alledgeth make not so much as a probability of Right The fact of Jehoiada in Killing Athaliah 2 Kings 11. was either by the Authority of King Joash or it was a horrible Crime in the High Priest which ever after the election of King Saul was a mere Subject The fact of St. Ambrose in Excommunicating Theodosius the Emperour if it were true hee did so was a Capitall Crime And for the Popes Gregory 1. Greg. 2. Zachary and Leo 3. their Judgments are void as given in their own Cause and the Acts done by them conformably to this Doctrine are the greatest Crimes especially that of Zachary that are incident to Humane Nature And thus much of Power Ecclesiasticall wherein I had been more briefe forbearing to examine these Arguments of Bellarmine if they had been his as a Private man and not as the Champion of the Papacy against all other Christian Princes and States CHAP. XLIII Of what is NECESSARY for a Mans Reception into the Kingdome of Heaven THe most frequent praetext of Sedition and Civill Warre in Christian Common-wealths hath a long time proceeded from a difficulty not yet sufficiently resolved of obeying at once both God and Man then when their Commandements are one contrary to the other It is manifest enough that when a man receiveth two contrary Commands and knows that one of them is Gods he ought to obey that and not the other though it be the command even of his lawfull Soveraign whether a Monarch or or a soveraign Assembly or the command of his Father The difficulty therefore consisteth in this that men when they are commanded in the name of God know not in divers Cases whether the command be from God or whether he that commandeth doe but abuse Gods name for some private ends of his own For as there were in the Church of the Jews many false Prophets that sought reputation with the people by feigned Dreams and Visions so there have been in all times in the Church of Christ false Teachers that seek reputation with the people by phantasticall and false Doctrines and by such reputation as is the nature of Ambition to govern them for their private benefit But this difficulty of obeying both God and the Civill Soveraign on earth to those that can distinguish between what is Necessary and what is not Necessary for their Reception into the Kingdome of God is of no moment For if the command of the Civill Soveraign bee such as that it may be obeyed without the forfeiture of life Eternall not to obey it is unjust and the precept of the Apostle takes place Servants obey your Masters in all things and Children obey your Parents in all things and the precept of our Saviour The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses Chaire All therefore they shall say that observe and doe But if the command be such as cannot be obeyed without being damned to Eternall Death then it were madnesse to obey it and the Counsell of our Saviour takes place Mat. 10. 28. Fear not those that kill the body but cannot kill the soule All men therefore that would avoid both the punishments that are to be in this world inflicted for disobedience to their earthly Soveraign and those that shall be inflicted in the world to come for disobedience to God have need be taught to distinguish well between what is and what is not Necessary to Eternall Salvation All that is NECESSARY to Salvatian is contained in two Vertues Faith in Christ and Obedience to Laws The latter of these if it were perfect were enough to us But because wee are all guilty of disobedience to Gods Law not onely originally in Adam but also actually by our own transgressions there is required at our hands now not onely Obedience for the rest of our time but also a Remission of sins for the time past which Remission is the reward of our Faith in Christ. That nothing else is Necessarily required to Salvation is manifest from this that the Kingdome of Heaven is shut to none but to Sinners that is to say to the disobedient or transgressors of the Law nor to them in case they Repent and Beleeve all the Articles of Christian Faith Necessary to Salvation The Obedience required at our hands by God that accepteth in all our actions the Will for the Deed is a serious Endeavour to Obey him and is called also by all such names as signifie that Endeavour And therefore Obedience is sometimes called by the names of Charity and Love because they imply a Will to Obey and our Saviour himself maketh our Love to God and to one another a Fulfilling of the whole Law and sometimes by the name of Righteousnesse for Righteousnesse is but the will to give to every one his owne that is to say the will to obey the Laws and sometimes by the name of Repentance because to Repent implyeth a turning away from finne which is the same with the return of the will to Obedience Whosoever therefore unfeignedly desireth to fulfill the Commandements of God or repenteth him truely of his transgressions or that loveth God with all his heart and his neighbor as himself hath all the Obedience Necessary to his Reception into the Kingdom of God For if God should require perfect Innocence there could no flesh be saved But what Commandements are those that God hath given us Are all those Laws which were given to the Jews by the hand of Moses the Commandements of God If they bee why are not Christians taught to Obey them If they be not what others are so besides the Law of Nature For our Saviour Christ hath not given us new Laws but Counsell to observe those wee are subject to that is to say the Laws of Nature and the Laws of our severall Soveraigns Nor did he make any new Law to the Jews in his Sermon on the Mouut but onely expounded the Laws of Moses to which they were subject before The Laws of God therefore are none but the Laws of Nature whereof the principall is that we
on the contrary what interpretation shall we give besides the literall sense of the words of Solomon Eccles. 3. 19. That which befalleth the Sons of Men befalleth Beasts even one thing befalleth them as the one dyeth so doth the other yea they have all one breath one spirit so that a Man hath no praeeminence above a Beast for all is vanity By the literall sense here is no Naturall Immortality of the Soule nor yet any repugnancy with the Life Eternall which the Elect shall enjoy by Grace And chap. 4. ver 3. Better is he that hath not yet been than both they that is than they that live or have lived which if the Soule of all them that have lived were Immortall were a hard saying for then to have an Immortall Soule were worse than to have no Soule at all And againe Chapt. 9. 5. The living know they shall die but the dead know not any thing that is Naturally and before the resurrection of the body Another place which seems to make for a Naturall Immortality of the Soule is that where our Saviour saith that Abraham Isaac and Jacob are living but this is spoken of the promise of God and of their certitude to rise again not of a Life then actuall and in the same sense that God said to Adam that on the day hee should eate of the forbidden fruit he should certainly die from that time forward he was a dead man by sentence but not by execution till almost a thousand years after So Abraham Isaac and Jacob were alive by promise then when Christ spake but are not actually till the Resurrection And the History of Dives and Lazarus make nothing against this if wee take it as it is for a Parable But there be other places of the New Testament where an Immortality seemeth to be directly attributed to the wicked For it is evident that they shall all rise to Judgement And it is said besides in many places that they shall goe into Everlasting fire Everlasting torments Everlasting punishments and that the worm of conscience never dyeth and all this is comprehended in the word Everlasting Death which is ordinarily interpreted Everlasting Life in torments And yet I can find no where that any man shall live in torments Everlastingly Also it seemeth hard to say that God who is the Father of Mercies that doth in Heaven and Earth all that hee will that hath the hearts of all men in his disposing that worketh in men both to doe and to will and without whose free gift a man hath neither inclination to good nor repentance of evill should punish mens transgressions without any end of time and with all the extremity of torture that men can imagine and more We are therefore to consider what the meaning is of Everlasting Fire and other the like phrases of Scripture I have shewed already that the Kingdome of God by Christ beginneth at the day of Judgment That in that day the Faithfull shall rise again with glorious and spirituall Bodies and bee his Subjects in that his Kingdome which shall be Eternall That they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage nor eate and drink as they did in their naturall bodies but live for ever in their individuall persons without the specificall eternity of generation And that the Reprobates also shall rise again to receive punishments for their sins As also that those of the Elect which shall be alive in their earthly bodies at that day shall have their bodies suddenly changed and made spirituall and Immortall But that the bodies of the Reprobate who make the Kingdome of Satan shall also be glorious or spirituall bodies or that they shall bee as the Angels of God neither eating nor drinking nor engendring or that their life shall be Eternall in their individuall persons as the life of every faithfull man is or as the life of Adam had been if hee had not sinned there is no place of Scripture to prove it save onely these places concerning Eternall Torments which may otherwise be interpreted From whence may be inferred that as the Elect after the Resurrection shall be restored to the estate wherein Adam was before he had sinned so the Reprobate shall be in the estate that Adam and his posterity were in after the sin committed saving that God promised a Redeemer to Adam and such of his seed as should trust in him and repent but not to them that should die in their sins as do the Reprobate These things considered the texts that mention Eternall Fire Eternall Torments or the Worm that never dieth contradict not the Doctrine of a Second and Everlasting Death in the proper and naturall sense of the word Death The Fire or Torments prepared for the wicked in Gehenna Tophet or in what place soever may continue for ever and there may never want wicked men to be tormented in them though not every nor any one Eternally For the wicked being left in the estate they were in after Adams sin may at the Resurrection live as they did marry and give in marriage and have grosse and corruptible bodies as all mankind now have and consequently may engender perpetually after the Resurrection as they did before For there is no place of Scripture to the contrary For St. Paul speaking of the Resurrection 1 Cor. 15. understandeth it onely of the Resurrection to Life Eternall and not the Resurrection to Punishment And of the first he saith that the Body is Sown in Corruption raised in Incorruption sown in Dishonour raised in Honour sown in Weaknesse raised in Power sown a Naturall body raised a Spirituall body There is no such thing can be said of the bodies of them that rise to Punishment So also our Saviour when hee speaketh of the Nature of Man after the Resurrection meaneth the Resurrection to Life Eternall not to Punishment The text is Luke 20. verses 34. 35 36. a fertile text The Children of this world marry and are given in marriage but they that shall be counted worthy to obtaine that world and the Resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage Neither can they die any more for they are equall to the Angells and are the Children of God being the Children of the Resurrection The Children of this world that are in the estate which Adam left them in shall marry and be given in marriage that is corrupt and generate successively which is an Immortality of the Kind but not of the Persons of men They are not worthy to be counted amongst them that shall obtain the next world and an absolute Resurrection from the dead but onely a short time as inmates of that world and to the end onely to receive condign punishment for their contumacy The Elect are the onely children of the Resurrection that is to say the sole heirs of Eternall Life they only can die no more it is they that are equall to the Angels and that are the children of God
it to the Schools Plato that was the best Philosopher of the Greeks forbad entrance into his Schoole to all that were not already in some measure Geometricians There were many that studied that Science to the great advantage of mankind but there is no mention of their Schools nor was there any Sect of Geometricians nor did they then passe under the name of Philosophers The naturall Philosophy of those Schools was rather a Dream than Science and set forth in senselesse and insignificant Language which cannot be avoided by those that will teach Philosophy without having first attained great knowledge in Geometry For Nature worketh by Motion the Wayes and Degrees whereof cannot be known without the knowledge of the Proportions and Properties of Lines and Figures Their Morall Philosophy is but a description of their own Passions For the rule of Manners without Civill Government is the Law of Nature and in it the Law Civill that determineth what is Honest and Dishonest what is Iust and Vnjust and generally what is Good and Evill whereas they make the Rules of Good and Bad by their own Liking and Disliking By which means in so great diversity of taste there is nothing generally agreed on but every one doth as far as he dares whatsoever seemeth good in his owne eyes to the subversion of Common-wealth Their Loigque which should bee the Method of Reasoning is nothing else but Captions of Words and Inventions how to puzzle such as should goe about to pose them To conclude there is nothing so absurd that the old Philosophers as Cicero saith who was one of them have not some of them maintained And I beleeve that scarce any thing can be more absurdly said in naturall Philosophy than that which now is called Aristotles Metaphysiques nor more repugnant to Government than much of that hee hath said in his Politiques nor more ignorantly than a great part of his Ethiques The Schoole of the Jews was originally a Schoole of the Law of Moses who commanded Deut. 31. 10. that at the end of every seventh year at the Feast of the Tabernacles it should be read to all the people that they might hear and learn it Therefore the reading of the Law which was in use after the Captivity every Sabbath day ought to have had no other end but the acquainting of the people with the Commandements which they were to obey and to expound unto them the writings of the Prophets But it is manifest by the many reprehensions of them by our Saviour that they corrupted the Text of the Law with their false Commentaries and vain Traditions and so little understood the Prophets that they did neither acknowledge Christ nor the works he did of which the Prophets prophecyed So that by their Lectures and Disputations in their Synagogues they turned the Doctrine of their Law into a Phantasticall kind of Philosophy concerning the incomprehensible nature of God and of Spirits which they compounded of the Vain Philosophy and Theology of the Graecians mingled with their own fancies drawn from the obscurer places of the Scripture and which might most easily bee wrested to their purpose and from the Fabulous Traditions of their Ancestors That which is now called an Vniversity is a Joyning together and an Incorporation under one Government of many Publique Schools in one and the same Town or City In which the principall Schools were ordained for the three Professions that is to say of the Romane Religion of the Romane Law and of the Art of Medicine And for the study of Philosophy it hath no otherwise place then as a handmaid to the Romane Religion And since the Authority of Aristotle is onely current there that study is not properly Philosophy the nature whereof dependeth not on Authors but Aristotelity And for Geometry till of very late times it had no place at all as being subservient to nothing but rigide Truth And if any man by the ingenuity of his owne nature had attained to any degree of perfection therein hee was commonly thought a Magician and his Art Diabolicall Now to descend to the particular Tenets of Vain Philosophy derived to the Universities and thence into the Church partly from Aristotle partly from Blindnesse of understanding I shall first consider their Principles There is a certain Philosophia prima on which all other Philosophy ought to depend and consisteth principally in right limiting of the significations of such Appellations or Names as are of all others the most Universall Which Limitations serve to avoid ambiguity and aequivocation in Reasoning and are commonly called Definitions such as are the Definitions of Body Time Place Matter Forme Essence Subject Substance Accident Power Act Finite Infinite Quantity Quality Motion Action Passion and divers others necessary to the explaining of a mans Conceptions concerning the Nature and Generation of Bodies The Explication that is the setling of the meaning of which and the like Terms is commonly in the Schools called Metaphysiques as being a part of the Philosophy of Aristotle which hath that for title but it is in another sense for there it signifieth as much as Books written or placed after his naturall Philosophy But the Schools take them for Books of supernaturall Philosophy for the word Metaphysiques will bear both these senses And indeed that which is there written is for the most part so far from the possibility of being understood and so repugnant to naturall Reason that whosoever thinketh there is any thing to bee understood by it must needs think it supernaturall From these Metaphysiques which are mingled with the Scripture to make Schoole Divinity wee are told there be in the world certaine Essences separated from Bodies which they call Abstract Essences and Substantiall Formes For the Interpreting of which Iargon there is need of somewhat more than ordinary attention in this place Also I ask pardon of those that are not used to this kind of Discourse for applying my selfe to those that are The World I mean not the Earth onely that denominates the Lovers of it Worldly men but the Vniverse that is the whole masse of all things that are is Corporeall that is to say Body and hath the dimensions of Magnitude namely Length Bredth and Depth also every part of Body is likewise Body and hath the like dimeâ—…ions and consequently every part of the Universe is Body and that which is not Body is no part of the Universe And because the Universe is All that which is no part of it is Nothing and consequently no where Nor does it follow from hence that Spirits are nothing for they have dimensions and are therefore really Bodies though that name in common Speech be given to such Bodies onely as are visible or palpable that is that have some degree of Opacity But for Spirits they call them Incorporeall which is a name of more honour and may therefore with more piety bee attributed to God himselfe in whom wee consider not what