A Christian pret Scriptures by clergymen. CHAP.XVII. use and consent of the subjects a promise or covenant; which if they be so called, then it is true city must inter- that a contract is made; if not, then it is false: that truth therefore depends on the compacts and consents of men. In like manner, when it is demanded in philosophy, whether the same thing may entirely be in divers places at once; the determination of the question depends on the knowledge of the common consent of men, about the signification of the word entire. For if men, when they say a thing is entirely somewhere, do signify by common consent that they understand nothing of the same to be elsewhere; it is false that the same thing is in divers places at once. That truth therefore depends on the consents of men, and by the same reason, in all other questions concerning right and philosophy. And they who do judge that anything can be determined, contrary to this common consent of men concerning the appellations of things, out of obscure places of Scripture; do also judge that the use of speech, and at once all human society, is to be taken away. For he who hath sold a whole field, will say he meant one whole ridge; and will retain the rest as unsold. Nay, they take away reason itself; which is nothing else but a searching out of the truth made by such consent. This kind of questions, therefore, need not be determined by the city by way of interpretation of Scriptures; for they belong not to God's Word, in that sense wherein the Word of God is taken for the Word concerning God; that is to say, for the doctrine of the gospel. Neither is he who hath the sovereign power in the Church, obliged A Christian pret Scriptures to employ any ecclesiastical doctors for the judg- CHAP.XVII. ing of any such kind of matters as these. But for the deciding of questions of faith, that is to say, city must interconcerning God, which transcend human capacity, by clergymen. we stand in need of a divine blessing, (that we may not be deceived at least in necessary points), to be derived from Christ himself by the imposition of hands. For, seeing to the end we may attain to eternal salvation we are obliged to a supernatural doctrine, and which therefore it is impossible for us to understand; to be left so destitute as that we can be deceived in necessary points, is repugnant to equity. This infallibility our Saviour Christ promised (in those things which are necessary to salvation) to his apostles until the day of judgment; that is to say, to the apostles, and pastors succeeding the apostles, who were to be consecrated by the imposition of hands. He therefore, who hath the sovereign power in the city, is obliged as a Christian, where there is any question concerning the mysteries of faith, to interpret the Holy Scriptures by clergymen lawfully ordained. And thus in Christian cities, the judgment both of spiritual and temporal matters belongs unto the civil authority. And that man or council who hath the supreme power, is head both of the city and of the Church; for a Church and a Christian city is but one thing. The difficulty propounded concerning the repugnance of obeying God and men, is to be removed by the distinction between the CHAPTER XVIII. CONCERNING THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE NECESSARY FOR 1. The difficulty propounded concerning the repugnancy of CHAP.XVIII 1. It was ever granted, that all authority in secular matters derived from him who had the sovereign power, whether he were one man or an assembly of men. That the same in spiritual matters depended on the authority of the Church, is manifest by the lastly foregoing proofs; and besides by this, that all Christian cities are Churches and not neces' endued with this kind of authority. From whence a man, though but dull of apprehension, may collect, that in a Christian city, that is to say, in a city whose sovereignty belongs to a Christian prince or council, all power, as well spiritual as secular, is united under Christ, and therefore it is to be obeyed in all things. But on the other side, points necessary, sary to salvation. because we must rather obey God than men, there CHAP.XVIII The difficulty concerning the obeying God, is a difficulty risen, how obedience may safely be yielded to them, if at any time somewhat propounded should be commanded by them to be done which repugnance of Christ hath prohibited. The reason of this diffi- and men, &c. culty is, that seeing God no longer speaks to us by Christ and his prophets in open voice, but by the holy Scriptures, which by divers men are diversely understood; they know indeed what princes and a congregated Church do command; but whether that which they do command, be contrary to the word of God or not, this they know not; but with a wavering obedience between the punishments. of temporal and spiritual death, as it were sailing between Scylla and Charybdis, they often run themselves upon both. But they who rightly distinguish between the things necessary to salvation, and those which are not necessary, can have none of this kind of doubt. For if the command of the prince or city be such, that he can obey it without hazard of his eternal salvation, it is unjust not to obey them; and the apostle's precepts take place (Col. iii. 20-22): Children obey your parents in all things: servants in all things obey your masters according to the flesh. And the command of Christ (Matth. xxiii. 2-3): The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' chair; all things therefore whatsoever they command you, that observe and do. On the contrary, if they command us to do those things which are punished with eternal death, it were madness not rather to choose to die a natural death, than by obeying to die eternally and then comes in that which Christ says (Matth. x. 28) : Fear not them who kill the body, but cannot kill CHAP.XVIII the soul. We must see, therefore, what all those things are, which are necessary to salvation. All things necessary to sal 2. Now all things necessary to salvation are comprehended in two virtues, faith and obedience. tained in faith The latter of these, if it could be perfect, would vation, are con and obedience. What kind of obedience alone suffice to preserve us from damnation; but because we have all of us been long since guilty of disobedience against God in Adam, and besides we ourselves have since actually sinned, obedience is not sufficient without remission of sins. But this, together with our entrance into the kingdom of heaven, is the reward of faith; nothing else is requisite to salvation. For the kingdom of heaven is shut to none but sinners, that is to say, those who have not performed due obedience to the laws; and not to those neither, if they believe the necessary articles of the Christian faith. Now, if we shall know in what points obedience doth consist, and which are the necessary articles of the Christian faith; it will at once be manifest what we must do, and what abstain from, at the command of cities and of princes. 3. But by obedience in this place is signified not the fact, but the will and desire wherewith we is required of us, purpose, and endeavour as much as we can, to that is, which obey for the future. In which sense the word obedience is equivalent to repentance; for the virtue of repentance consists not in the sorrow which accompanies the remembrance of sin; but in our conversion into the way, and full purpose to sin no more; without which that sorrow is said to be the sorrow not of a penitent, but a desperate person. But because they who love God cannot but desire to obey the divine law, and they who love |