PART III.
OF A
CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH.
CHAPTER XXXII.
OF THE PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN POLITICS.
I have derived the rights of sovereign power, and the duty of subjects, hitherto from the principles of nature only; such as experience has found true, or consent concerning the use of words has made so; that is to say, from the nature of men, known to us by experience, and from definitions of such words as are essential to all political reasoning, universally agreed on. But in that I am next to handle, which is the nature and rights of a Christian Commonwealth, whereof there dependeth much upon supernatural revelations of the will of God; the ground of my discourse must be, not only the natural word of God, but also the prophetical.
Nevertheless, we are not to renounce our senses, and experience; nor, that which is the undoubted word of God, our natural reason. For they are the talents which he hath put into our hands to negotiate, till the coming again of our blessed Saviour; and therefore not to be folded up in the napkin of an implicit faith, but employed in the purchase of justice, peace, and true religion. For though there be many things in God’s word above reason; that it is to say, which cannot by natural reason be either demonstrated, or confuted; yet there is nothing contrary to it; but when it seemeth so, the fault is either in our unskilful interpretation, or erroneous ratiocination.
Therefore, when anything therein written is too hard for our examination, we are bidden to captivate our understanding to the words; and not to labour in sifting out a philosophical truth by logic, of such mysteries as are not comprehensible, nor fall under any rule of natural science. For it is with the mysteries of our religion, as with wholesome pills for the sick; which swallowed whole, have the virtue to cure; but chewed, are for the most part cast up again without effect.
But by the captivity of our understanding, is not meant a submission of the intellectual faculty to the opinion of any other man; but of the will to obedience, where obedience is due. For sense, memory, understanding, reason, and opinion are not in our power to change; but always, 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 lawful 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 believe it. It is true, that if he be my sovereign, he may oblige me to obedience, so, as not by act or word to declare I believe him not; but not to think any otherwise than my reason persuades me. But if one that hath not such authority over me, should pretend the same, there is nothing that exacteth either belief, 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 than to say he dreamed that God spake to him; which is not of force to win belief from any man, that knows dreams are for the most part natural, and may proceed from former thoughts; and such dreams as that, from self-conceit, and foolish arrogance, and false opinion of a man’s own godliness, or other virtue, 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 supernatural inspiration, is to say he finds an ardent desire to speak, or some strong opinion of himself, for which he can allege no natural 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 believe he hath so done to him that pretends it; who, being a man, may err, and, which is more, may lie.
How then can he, to whom God hath never revealed his will immediately, saving by the way of natural reason, know when he is to obey, or not to obey his word, delivered by him that says he is a prophet? Of four hundred prophets, of whom the king of Israel asked counsel, concerning the war he made against Ramoth Gilead, (1 Kings, xxii.) only Micaiah was a true one. The prophet that was sent to prophecy against the altar set up by Jeroboam, (1 Kings, xiii.) 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 persuaded 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 a miracle and the miracle come to pass; 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 he hath spoken to you to revolt from the Lord your God. (Deut. xiii. 1-5.) In which words two things are to be observed; first, that God will not have miracles alone serve for arguments, to approve the prophet’s 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 king’s authority, he that doth such miracle, is not to be considered otherwise than as sent to make trial of their allegiance. For these words, revolt 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 God’s commandments to the people. In like manner, after our Saviour Christ had made his disciples acknowledge him for the Messiah, (that is to say, for God’s anointed, whom the nation of the Jews 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 do great wonders and miracles, even to the seducing, if it were possible, of the very elect. (Matt. xxiv. 24.) By which it appears, that false prophets may have the power of miracles; yet are we not to take their doctrine for God’s word. St. Paul says farther to the Galatians, (Gal. i. 8.) that if himself, or an angel 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 Jesus for the Christ, that is to say, for King of the Jews.
And as miracles, without preaching that doctrine which God hath established; so preaching the true doctrine, without the doing of miracles, is an insufficient argument of immediate revelation. For if a man that teacheth not false doctrine, should pretend to be a prophet without showing any miracle, he is never the more to be regarded for his pretence, as is evident by Deut. xviii. 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 pass, that is 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 shall we know whether it will come to pass or not? For he may foretell it as a thing to arrive after a certain long time, longer than the time of man’s life; or indefinitely, that it will come to pass one time or other: in which case this mark of a prophet is unuseful; and therefore the miracles that oblige us to believe a prophet, ought to be confirmed by an immediate, or a not long deferred event. So that it is manifest, that the teaching of the religion which God hath established, and the showing of a present 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 careful ratiocination, all rules and precepts necessary to the knowledge of our duty both to God and man, without enthusiasm or supernatural 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 supreme governors on earth of Christian commonwealths; and of the duty of Christian subjects towards their sovereigns. And to that end, I shall speak in the next chapter, of the books, writers, scope and authority of the Bible.
CHAPTER 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 Christendom, both natural and civil. 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 sovereigns in their own dominions are the sole legislators; those books only are canonical, that is, law, in every nation, which are established for such by the sovereign authority. It is true, that God is the sovereign of all sovereigns; 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 supernatural revelation, cannot be known, but by that natural reason, which guideth them, for the obtaining of peace and justice, to obey the authority of their several commonwealths, that is to say, of their lawful sovereigns. 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. Jerome, who holdeth the rest, namely, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Judith, 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 canonical, Josephus, a learned Jew, that wrote in the time of the emperor Domitian, reckoneth twenty-two, making the number agree with the Hebrew alphabet. St. Jerome does the same, though they reckon them in different manner. For Josephus 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 we shall see hereafter,) and four of hymns and moral precepts. But St. Jerome reckons five books of Moses, eight of Prophets, and nine of other Holy Writ, which he calls of ἁγιόγραφα. The Septuagint, who were seventy learned men of the Jews, sent for by Ptolemy, king of Egypt, to translate the Jewish 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 canonical.
Who were the original writers of the several 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 natural 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 books themselves: and this light, though it show us not the writer of every book, yet it is not unuseful 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 Joshua, the Book of Judges, the Book of Ruth, and the Books of the Kings, are arguments sufficient to prove, that they were written by Joshua, by the Judges, 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 Scanderberg, is denominated from the subject. We read in the last chapter of Deuteronomy, verse 6th, concerning the sepulchre of Moses, that no man knoweth of his sepulchre to this day, that is, to to the day wherein those words were written. It is therefore manifest, that those words were written after his interment. For it were a strange interpretation, to say Moses spake of his own sepulchre, though by prophecy, that it was not found to that day, wherein he was yet living. But it may perhaps be alleged, that the last chapter only, not the whole Pentateuch, was written by some other man, but the rest not. Let us therefore consider that which we find in the book of Genesis, (xii. 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 be the words of one that wrote when the Canaanite was not in the land; and consequently, not of Moses, who died before he came into it. Likewise Numbers, xxi. 14, the writer citeth another more ancient book, entitled, The Book of the Wars of the Lord, wherein were registered the acts of Moses, at the Red Sea, and at the brook of Arnon. It is therefore sufficiently evident, that the five Books of Moses were written after his time, though how long after it be not so manifest.
But though Moses did not compile those books entirely, and in the form we have them; yet he wrote all that which he is there said to have written: as for example, the Volume of the Law, which is contained, as it seemeth, in the xith. of Deuteronomy, and the following chapters to the xxviith. which was also commanded to be written on stones, in their entry into the land of Canaan. And this also did Moses himself write, (Deut. xxxi. 9, 10) and delivered to the priests and elders of Israel, to be read every seventh year to all Israel, at their assembling in the Feast of Tabernacles. And this is that law which God commanded, that their kings, when they should have established that form of government, should take a copy of from the priests and Levites: and which Moses commanded the priests and Levites to lay in the side of the ark, (Deut. xxxi. 26); and the same which having been lost, was long time after found again by Hilkiah, and sent to king Josias (2 Kings xxii. 8) who causing it to be read to the people, (2 Kings xxiii. 1, 2, 3) renewed the covenant between God and them.
That the book of Joshua was also written long after the time of Joshua, may be gathered out of many places of the book itself. Joshua had set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, for a monument of their passage; of which the writer saith thus, They are there unto this day (Josh. iv. 9); for unto this day, is a phrase that signifieth a time past, beyond the memory of man. In like manner, upon the saying of the Lord, that he had rolled off from the people the reproach of Egypt, the writer saith, The place is called Gilgal unto this day (Josh. v. 9); which to have said in the time of Joshua had been improper. So also the name of the valley of Achor, from the trouble that Achan raised in the camp, the writer saith, remaineth unto this day (Josh. vii. 26); which must needs be therefore long after the time of Joshua. Arguments of this kind there be many other; as Josh. viii. 29, xiii. 13, xiv. 14, xv. 63.
The same is manifest by like arguments of the book of Judges, chap. i. 21, 26, vi. 24, x. 4, xv. 19, xvii. 6, and Ruth i. 1; but especially Judg. xviii. 30, where it is said, that Jonathan and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan, until the day of the captivity of the land.
That the books of Samuel were also written after his own time, there are the like arguments, 1 Sam. v. 5, vii. 13, 15; xxvii, 6, and xxx. 25, where, after David had adjudged equal part of the spoils, to them that guarded the ammunition, with them that fought, the writer saith, He made it a statute and an ordinance to Israel to this day. Again, when David, displeased, that the Lord had slain Uzzah, for putting out his hand to sustain the ark, called the place Perez-Uzzah, the writer saith, (2 Sam. vi. 8) it is called so to this day: the time therefore of the writing of that book, must be long after the time of the fact; that is, long after the time of David.
As for the two books of the Kings, and the two books of the Chronicles, besides the places which mention such monuments, as the writer saith, remained till his own days; such as are 1 Kings ix. 13, ix. 21, x. 12, xii. 19. 2 Kings ii. 22, viii. 22, x. 27, xiv. 7, xvi. 6, xvii. 23, xvii. 34, xvii. 41, and 1 Chron. iv. 41, v. 26: it is argument sufficient they were written after the captivity in Babylon, that the history of them is continued till that time. For the facts registered are always more ancient than the register; and much more ancient than such books as make mention of, and quote the register; as these books do in divers places, referring the reader to the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, to the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel, to the Books of the prophet Samuel, of the prophet Nathan, of the prophet Ahijah; to the Vision of Jehdo, to the books of the prophet Serveiah, and of the prophet Addo.
The books of Ezra and Nehemiah were written certainly after their return from captivity; because their return, the re-edification of the walls and houses of Jerusalem, the renovation of the covenant, and ordination of their policy, are therein contained.
The history of Queen Esther is of the time of the captivity; and therefore the writer must have been of the same time, or after it.
The book of Job hath no mark in it of the time wherein it was written; and though it appear sufficiently (Ezekiel xiv. 14, and James v. 11) that he was no feigned person; yet the book itself seemeth not to be a history, but a treatise concerning a question in ancient time much disputed, why wicked men have often prospered in this world, and good men have been afflicted; and this is the more probable, because from the beginning, to the third verse of the third chapter, where the complaint of Job beginneth, the Hebrew is, as St. Jerome testifies, in prose; and from thence to the sixth verse of the last chapter, in hexameter verses; and the rest of that chapter again in prose. So that the dispute is all in verse; and the prose is added, but as a preface in the beginning, and an epilogue in the end. But verse is no usual style of such, as either are themselves in great pain, as Job; or of such as come to comfort them, as his friends; but in philosophy, especially moral philosophy, in ancient time frequent.
The Psalms were written the most part by David, for the use of the quire. To these are added some songs of Moses, and other holy men; and some of them after the return from the captivity, as the 137th and the 126th, whereby it is manifest that the Psalter was compiled, and put into the form it now hath, after the return of the Jews from Babylon.
The Proverbs, being a collection of wise and godly sayings, partly of Solomon, partly of Agur, the son of Jakeh, and partly of the mother of king Lemuel, cannot probably be thought to have been collected by Solomon, rather than by Agur, or the mother of Lemuel; and that, though the sentences be theirs, yet the collection or compiling them into this one book, was the work of some other godly man, that lived after them all.
The books of Ecclesiastes and the Canticles have nothing that was not Solomon’s, except it be the titles, or inscriptions. For The Words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem; and, The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s, seem to have been made for distinction’s sake, then, when the Books of Scripture were gathered into one body of the law; to the end, that not the doctrine only, but the authors also might be extant.
Of the prophets, the most ancient, are Zephaniah, Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Michah, who lived in the time of Amaziah and Azariah, otherwise Ozias, kings of Judah. But the book of Jonah is not properly a register of his prophecy; for that is contained in these few words, Forty days and Niniveh shall be destroyed; but a history or narration of his frowardness and disputing God’s commandments; so that there is small probability he should be the author, seeing he is the subject of it. But the book of Amos is his prophecy.
Jeremiah, Obadiah, Nahum, and Habakkuk prophecied in the time of Josiah.
Ezekiel, Daniel, Haggai, and Zechariah, in the captivity.
When Joel and Malachi prophecied, is not evident by their writings. But considering the inscriptions, or titles of their books, it is manifest enough, that the whole Scripture of the Old Testament, was set forth in the form we have it, after the return of the Jews from their captivity in Babylon, and before the time of Ptolomæus Philadelphus, that caused it to be translated into Greek by seventy men, which were sent him out of Judea for that purpose. And if the books of Apocrypha, which are recommended to us by the church, though not for canonical, yet for profitable books for our instruction, may in this point be credited, the Scripture was set forth in the form we have it in, by Esdras: as may appear by that which he himself saith, in the second book, (chapter xiv. verse 21, 22, &c.) where speaking to God, he saith thus, Thy law is burnt; therefore no man knoweth the things which thou hast done, or the works that are to begin. But if I have found grace before thee, send down the holy spirit into me, and I shall write all that hath been done in the world, since the beginning, which were written in thy law, that men may find thy path, and that they which will live in the latter day, may live. And verse 45: And it came to pass when the forty days were fulfilled, that the highest spake, saying, The first that thou hast written, publish openly, that the worthy and unworthy may read it; but keep the seventy last, that thou mayest deliver them only to such as be wise among the people. And thus much concerning the time of the writing of the books of the Old Testament.
The writers of the New Testament lived all in less than an age after Christ’s ascension, and had all of them seen our Saviour, or been his disciples, except St. Paul, and St. Luke; and consequently whatsoever was written by them, is as ancient as the time of the apostles. But the time wherein the books of the New Testament were received, and acknowledged by the church to be of their writing, is not altogether so ancient. For, as the books of the Old Testament are derived to us, from no other time than that of Esdras, who by the direction of God’s spirit retrieved them, when they were lost: those of the New Testament, of which the copies were not many, nor could easily be all in any one private man’s hand, cannot be derived from a higher time, than that wherein the governors of the church collected, approved, and recommended them to us, as the writings of those apostles and disciples, under whose names they go. The first enumeration of all the books, both of the Old and New Testament, is in the canons of the apostles, supposed to be collected by Clement, the first (after St. Peter) bishop of Rome. But because that is but supposed, and by many questioned, the Council of Laodicea is the first we know, that recommended the Bible to the then Christian churches, for the writings of the prophets and apostles: and this Council was held in the 364th year after Christ. At which time, though ambition had so far prevailed on the great doctors of the church, as no more to esteem emperors, though Christian, for the shepherds of the people, but for sheep; and emperors not Christian, for wolves; and endeavoured to pass their doctrine, not for counsel and information, as preachers; but for laws, as absolute governors; and thought such frauds as tended to make the people the more obedient to Christian doctrine, to be pious; yet I am persuaded they did not therefore falsify the Scriptures, though the copies of the books of the New Testament, were in the hands only of the ecclesiastics; because if they had had an intention so to do, they would surely have made them more favourable to their power over Christian princes, and civil sovereignty, than they are. I see not therefore any reason to doubt but that the Old and New Testament, as we have them now, are the true registers of those things, which were done and said by the prophets and apostles. And so perhaps are some of those books which are called apocrypha, and left out of the canon, not for inconformity of doctrine with the rest, but only because they are not found in the Hebrew. For after the conquest of Asia by Alexander the Great, there were few learned Jews, that were not perfect in the Greek tongue. For the seventy interpreters that converted the Bible into Greek, were all of them Hebrews; and we have extant the works of Philo and Josephus, both Jews, written by them eloquently in Greek. |Their scope.| But it is not the writer, but the authority of the church, that maketh the book canonical. And although these books were written by divers men, yet it is manifest the writers were all indued with one and the same spirit, in that they conspire to one and the same end, which is setting forth of the rights of the kingdom of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. For the book of Genesis, deriveth the genealogy of God’s people, from the creation of the world, to the going into Egypt: the other four books of Moses contain the election of God for their king, and the laws which he prescribed for their government: the books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and Samuel, to the time of Saul, describe the acts of God’s people, till the time they cast off God’s yoke, and called for a king, after the manner of their neighbour nations. The rest of the history of the Old Testament derives the succession of the line of David, to the captivity, out of which line was to spring the restorer of the kingdom of God, even our blessed Saviour God the Son, whose coming was foretold in the books of the prophets, after whom the Evangelists write his life, and actions, and his claim to the kingdom, whilst he lived on earth: and lastly, the Acts, and Epistles of the Apostles, declare the coming of God the Holy Ghost, and the authority he left with them and their successors, for the direction of the Jews, and for the invitation of the Gentiles. In sum, the histories and the prophecies of the Old Testament, and the gospels and epistles of the New Testament, have had one and the same scope, to convert men to the obedience of God; I., in Moses, and the Priests; II., in the man Christ; and III., in the Apostles and the successors to apostolical power. For these three at several times did represent the person of God: Moses, and his successors the High Priests, and Kings of Judah, in the Old Testament: Christ himself, in the time he lived on earth: and the Apostles, and their successors, from the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost descended on them, to this day.
It is a question much disputed between the divers sects of Christian religion, from whence the Scriptures derive their authority; which question is also propounded sometimes in other terms, as, how we know them to be the word of God, or, why we believe them to be so: and the difficulty of resolving it, ariseth chiefly from the improperness of the words wherein the question itself is couched. For it is believed on all hands, that the first and original author of them is God; and consequently the question disputed, is not that. Again, it is manifest, that none can know they are God’s word, (though all true Christians believe it,) but those to whom God himself hath revealed it supernaturally; and therefore the question is not rightly moved, of our knowledge of it. Lastly, when the question is propounded of our belief; because some are moved to believe for one, and others for other reasons; there can be rendered no one general answer for them all. The question truly stated is, by what authority they are made law.
As far as they differ not from the laws of nature, there is no doubt, but they are the law of God, and carry their authority with them, legible to all men that have the use of natural reason: but this is no other authority, than that of all other moral doctrine consonant to reason; the dictates whereof are laws, not made, but eternal.
If they be made law by God himself, they are of the nature of written law, which are laws to them only to whom God hath so sufficiently published them, as no man can excuse himself, by saying, he knew not they were his.
He therefore to whom God hath not supernaturally revealed that they are his, nor that those that published them, were sent by him, is not obliged to obey them, by any authority, but his, whose commands have already the force of laws; that is to say, by any other authority, than that of the commonwealth, residing in the sovereign, who only has the legislative power. Again, if it be not the legislative authority of the commonwealth, that giveth them the force of laws, it must be some other authority derived from God, either private, or public: if private, it obliges only him, to whom in particular God hath been pleased to reveal it. For if every man should be obliged, to take for God’s law, what particular men, on pretence of private inspiration, or revelation, should obtrude upon him, in such a number of men, that out of pride and ignorance, take their own dreams, and extravagant fancies, and madness, for testimonies of God’s spirit; or out of ambition, pretend to such divine testimonies, falsely, and contrary to their own consciences, it were impossible that any divine law should be acknowledged. If public, it is the authority of the commonwealth, or of the church. But the church, if it be one person, is the same thing with a commonwealth of Christians; called a commonwealth, because it consisteth of men united in one person, their sovereign; and a church, because it consisteth in Christian men, united in one Christian sovereign. But if the church be not one person, then it hath no authority at all: it can neither command, nor do any action at all; nor is capable of having any power, or right to anything: nor has any will, reason nor voice; for all these qualities are personal. Now if the whole number of Christians be not contained in one commonwealth, they are not one person; nor is there an universal church that hath any authority over them; and therefore the Scriptures are not made laws, by the universal church: or if it be one commonwealth, then all Christian monarchs and states are private persons, and subject to be judged, deposed, and punished by an universal sovereign of all Christendom. So that the question of the authority of the Scriptures, is reduced to this, whether Christian kings, and the sovereign assemblies in Christian commonwealths, be absolute in their own territories, immediately under God; or subject to one vicar of Christ, constituted of the universal church; to be judged, condemned, deposed, and put to death, as he shall think expedient, or necessary for the common good.
Which question cannot be resolved, without a more particular consideration of the Kingdom of God; from whence also, we are to judge of the authority of interpreting the Scripture. For, whosoever hath a lawful power over any writing, to make it law, hath the power also to approve, or disapprove the interpretation of the same.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
OF THE SIGNIFICATION OF SPIRIT, ANGEL,
AND INSPIRATION IN THE BOOKS OF
HOLY SCRIPTURE.
Seeing the foundation of all true ratiocination, is the constant signification of words; which in the doctrine following, dependeth not, as in natural science, on the will of the writer, nor, as in common conversation, on vulgar use, but on the sense they carry in the Scripture; it is necessary, before I proceed any further, to determine, out of the Bible, the meaning of such words, as by their ambiguity, may render what I am to infer upon them, obscure, or disputable. I will begin with the words BODY and SPIRIT, which in the language of the Schools are termed, substances, corporeal, and incorporeal.
The word body, in the most general acceptation, signifieth that which filleth, or occupieth some certain room, or imagined place; and dependeth not on the imagination, but is a real part of that we call the universe. For the universe, being the aggregate of all bodies, there is no real part thereof that is not also body; nor any thing properly a body, that is not also part of that aggregate of all bodies, the universe. The same also, because bodies are subject to change, that is to say, to variety of apparence to the sense of living creatures, is called substance, that is to say, subject to various accidents: as sometimes to be moved; sometimes to stand still; and to seem to our senses sometimes hot, sometimes cold, sometimes of one colour, smell, taste, or sound, sometimes of another. And this diversity of seeming, produced by the diversity of the operation of bodies on the organs of our sense, we attribute to alterations of the bodies that operate, and call them accidents of those bodies. And according to this acceptation of the word, substance and body signify the same thing; and therefore substance incorporeal are words, which when they are joined together, destroy one another, as if a man should say, an incorporeal body.
But in the sense of common people, not all the universe is called body, but only such parts thereof as they can discern by the sense of feeling, to resist their force, or by the sense of their eyes, to hinder them from a farther prospect. Therefore in the common language of men, air, and aerial substances, use not to be taken for bodies, but (as often as men are sensible of their effects) are called wind, or breath, or (because the same are called in the Latin spiritus) spirits; as when they call that aerial substance, which in the body of any living creature gives it life and motion, vital and animal spirits. But for those idols of the brain, which represent bodies to us, where they are not, as in a looking-glass, in a dream, or to a distempered brain waking, they are, as the apostle saith generally of all idols, nothing; nothing at all, I say, there where they seem to be; and in the brain itself, nothing but tumult, proceeding either from the action of the objects, or from the disorderly agitation of the organs of our sense. And men, that are otherwise employed, than to search into their causes, know not of themselves, what to call them; and may therefore easily be persuaded, by those whose knowledge they much reverence, some to call them bodies, and think them made of air compacted by a power supernatural, because the sight judges them corporeal; and some to call them spirits, because the sense of touch discerneth nothing in the place where they appear, to resist their fingers: so that the proper signification of spirit in common speech, is either a subtle, fluid, and invisible body, or a ghost, or other idol or phantasm of the imagination. But for metaphorical significations, there be many: for sometimes it is taken for disposition or inclination of the mind; as when for the disposition to controul the sayings of other men, we say, a spirit of contradiction; for a disposition to uncleanness, an unclean spirit; for perverseness, a froward spirit; for sullenness, a dumb spirit; and for inclination to godliness and God’s service, the Spirit of God: sometimes for any eminent ability or extraordinary passion, or disease of the mind, as when great wisdom is called the spirit of wisdom; and madmen are said to be possessed with a spirit.
Other signification of spirit I find nowhere any; and where none of these can satisfy the sense of that word in Scripture, the place falleth not under human understanding; and our faith therein consisteth not in our opinion, but in our submission; as in all places where God is said to be a Spirit; or where by the Spirit of God, is meant God himself. For the nature of God is incomprehensible; that is to say, we understand nothing of what he is, but only that he is; and therefore the attributes we give him, are not to tell one another, what he is, nor to signify our opinion of his nature, but our desire to honour him with such names as we conceive most honourable amongst ourselves.
Gen. i. 2. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Here if by the Spirit of God be meant God himself, then is motion attributed to God, and consequently place, which are intelligible only of bodies, and not of substances incorporeal; and so the place is above our understanding, that can conceive nothing moved that changes not place, or that has not dimension; and whatsoever has dimension, is body. But the meaning of those words is best understood by the like place, (Gen. viii. 1.) where when the earth was covered with waters, as in the beginning, God intending to abate them, and again to discover the dry land, useth the like words, I will bring my Spirit upon the earth, and the waters shall be diminished: in which place, by Spirit is understood a wind, that is an air or spirit moved, which might be called, as in the former place, the Spirit of God, because it was God’s work.
Gen. xli. 38, Pharoah calleth the Wisdom of Joseph, the Spirit of God. For Joseph having advised him to look out a wise and discreet man, and to set him over the land of Egypt, he saith thus, Can we find such a man as this is, in whom is the Spirit of God? And Exod. xxviii. 3, Thou shalt speak, saith God, to all the wise hearted, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, to make Aaron garments, to consecrate him: where extraordinary understanding, though but in making garments, as being the gift of God, is called the Spirit of God. The same is found again, Exod. xxxi. 3, 4, 5, 6, and xxxv. 31. And Isaiah xi. 2, 3, where the prophet speaking of the Messiah, saith, the Spirit of the Lord shall abide upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, and the spirit of the fear of the Lord. Where manifestly is meant, not so many ghosts, but so many eminent graces that God would give him.