Now for the part which is allegorical, as _that the fire shall try every

man’s work_, and that _they shall be saved, but so as by fire_, or

_through fire_, (for the original is διὰ πυρὸς,) it maketh nothing

against this conclusion which I have drawn from the other words, that

are plain. Nevertheless, because upon this place there hath been an

argument taken, to prove the fire of purgatory, I will also here offer

you my conjecture concerning the meaning of this trial of doctrines, and

saving of men as by fire. The apostle here seemeth to allude to the

words of the prophet _Zechariah_, (xiii. 8, 9), who speaking of the

restoration of the kingdom of God, saith thus; _Two parts therein shall

be cut off, and die, but the third shall be left therein; and I will

bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is

refined, and will try them as gold is tried; they shall call on the name

of the Lord, and I will hear them_. The day of judgment is the day of

the restoration of the kingdom of God; and at that day it is, that St.

Peter tells us (_2 Pet._ iii. 7, 10, 12) shall be the conflagration of

the world, wherein the wicked shall perish; but the remnant which God

will save, shall pass through that fire unhurt, and be therein, (as

silver and gold are refined by the fire from their dross,) tried, and

refined from their idolatry, and be made to call upon the name of the

true God. Alluding whereto, St. Paul here saith, that _the day_, that

is, the day of judgment, the great day of our Saviour’s coming to

restore the kingdom of God in Israel, shall try every man’s doctrine, by

judging which are gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; and

then they that have built false consequences on the true foundation,

shall see their doctrines condemned; nevertheless they themselves shall

be saved, and pass unhurt through this universal fire, and live

eternally, to call upon the name of the true and only God. In which

sense there is nothing that accordeth not with the rest of Holy

Scripture, or any glimpse of the fire of purgatory.

[Sidenote: In what sense other articles may be called necessary.]

But a man may here ask, whether it be not as necessary to salvation, to

believe, that God is omnipotent; Creator of the world; that Jesus Christ

is risen; and that all men else shall rise again from the dead at the

last day; as to believe that _Jesus is the Christ_. To which I answer,

they are; and so are many more articles: but they are such, as are

contained in this one, and may be deduced from it, with more or less

difficulty. For who is there that does not see, that they who believe

Jesus to be the Son of the God of Israel, and that the Israelites had

for God the Omnipotent Creator of all things, do therein also believe,

that God is the Omnipotent Creator of all things? Or how can a man

believe, that Jesus is the king that shall reign eternally, unless he

believe him also risen again from the dead? For a dead man cannot

exercise the office of a king. In sum, he that holdeth this foundation,

_Jesus is the Christ_, holdeth expressly all that he seeth rightly

deduced from it, and implicitly all that is consequent thereunto, though

he have not skill enough to discern the consequence. And therefore it

holdeth still good, that the belief of this one article is sufficient

faith to obtain remission of sins to the _penitent_, and consequently to

bring them into the kingdom of heaven.

[Sidenote: That faith and obedience are both of them necessary to

salvation.]

Now that I have shown, that all the obedience required to salvation,

consisteth in the will to obey the law of God, that is to say, in

repentance; and all the faith required to the same, is comprehended in

the belief of this article, _Jesus is the Christ_; I will further allege

those places of the Gospel, that prove, that all that is necessary to

salvation is contained in both these joined together. The men to whom

St. Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, next after the ascension of

our Saviour, asked him, and the rest of the apostles, saying, (_Acts_

ii. 37), _Men and brethren, what shall we do?_ To whom St. Peter

answered (in the next verse) _Repent, and be baptized every one of you,

for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy

Ghost_. Therefore repentance, and baptism, that is, believing that

_Jesus is the Christ_, is all that is necessary to salvation. Again, our

Saviour being asked by a certain ruler (_Luke_ xviii. 18), _What shall I

do to inherit eternal life?_ answered, (verse 20) _Thou knowest the

commandments, do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not

bear false witness, honour thy father and thy mother_. Which when he

said he had observed, our Saviour added, (verse 22) _Sell all thou hast,

give it to the poor, and come and follow me_: which was as much as to

say, rely on me that am the king. Therefore to fulfil the law, and to

believe that Jesus is the king, is all that is required to bring a man

to eternal life. Thirdly, St. Paul saith (_Rom._ i. 17), _The just shall

live by faith_; not every one, but the _just_; therefore _faith_ and

_justice_ (that is, the _will to be just_, or _repentance_) are all that

is necessary to life eternal. And (_Mark_ i. 15) our Saviour preached,

saying, _The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand,

repent and believe the evangile_, that is, the good news that the Christ

was come. Therefore, to repent, and to believe that Jesus is the Christ,

is all that is required to salvation.

[Sidenote: What each of them contributes thereunto]

Seeing then it is necessary that faith and obedience, implied in the

word repentance, do both concur to our salvation; the question by which

of the two we are justified, is impertinently disputed. Nevertheless, it

will not be impertinent, to make manifest in what manner each of them

contributes thereunto; and in what sense it is said, that we are to be

justified by the one, and by the other. And first, if by righteousness

be understood the justice of the works themselves, there is no man that

can be saved; for there is none that hath not transgressed the law of

God. And therefore when we are said to be justified by works, it is to

be understood of the will, which God doth always accept for the work

itself, as well in good, as in evil men. And in this sense only it is,

that a man is called _just_, or _unjust_; and that his justice justifies

him, that is, gives him the title, in God’s acceptation, of _just_; and

renders him capable of _living by his faith_, which before he was not.

So that justice justifies in that sense, in which to _justify_, is the

same as that to _denominate a man just_; and not in the signification of

discharging the law; whereby the punishment of his sins should be

unjust.

But a man is then also said to be justified, when his plea, though in

itself insufficient, is accepted; as when we plead our will, our

endeavour to fulfil the law, and repent us of our failings, and God

accepteth it for the performance itself. And because God accepteth not

the will for the deed, but only in the faithful; it is therefore faith

that makes good our plea; and in this sense it is, that faith only

justifies. So that _faith_ and _obedience_ are both necessary to

salvation; yet in several senses each of them is said to justify.

[Sidenote: Obedience to God and to the civil sovereign not inconsistent,

whether Christian, or infidel.]

Having thus shown what is necessary to salvation; it is not hard to

reconcile our obedience to God, with our obedience to the civil

sovereign; who is either Christian, or infidel. If he be a Christian, he

alloweth the belief of this article, that _Jesus is the Christ_; and of

all the articles that are contained in, or are by evident consequence

deduced from it: which is all the faith necessary to salvation. And

because he is a sovereign, he requireth obedience to all his own, that

is, to all the civil laws; in which also are contained all the laws of

nature, that is all the laws of God: for besides the laws of nature, and

the laws of the Church, which are part of the civil law, (for the Church

that can make laws is the commonwealth), there be no other laws divine.

Whosoever therefore obeyeth his Christian sovereign, is not thereby

hindered, neither from believing, nor from obeying God. But suppose that

a Christian king should from this foundation _Jesus is the Christ_, draw

some false consequences, that is to say, make some superstructions of

hay or stubble, and command the teaching of the same; yet seeing St.

Paul says he shall be saved; much more shall he be saved, that teacheth

them by his command; and much more yet, he that teaches not, but only

believes his lawful teacher. And in case a subject be forbidden by the

civil sovereign to profess some of those his opinions, upon what just

ground can he disobey? Christian kings may err in deducing a

consequence, but who shall judge? Shall a private man judge, when the

question is of his own obedience? Or shall any man judge but he that is

appointed thereto by the Church, that is, by the civil sovereign that

representeth it? Or if the pope, or an apostle judge, may he not err in

deducing of a consequence? Did not one of the two, St. Peter or St.

Paul, err in a superstructure, when St. Paul withstood St. Peter to his

face? There can therefore be no contradiction between the laws of God,

and the laws of a Christian commonwealth.

[Sidenote: Or infidel.]

And when the civil sovereign is an infidel, every one of his own

subjects that resisteth him, sinneth against the laws of God, (for such

are the laws of nature), and rejecteth the counsel of the apostles, that

admonisheth all Christians to obey their princes, and all children and

servants to obey their parents and masters in all things. And for their

_faith_, it is internal, and invisible; they have the license that

Naaman had, and need not put themselves into danger for it. But if they

do, they ought to expect their reward in heaven, and not complain of

their lawful sovereign; much less make war upon him. For he that is not

glad of any just occasion of martyrdom, has not the faith he professeth,

but pretends it only, to set some colour upon his own contumacy. But

what infidel king is so unreasonable, as knowing he has a subject, that

waiteth for the second coming of Christ, after the present world shall

be burnt, and intendeth then to obey him, (which is the intent of

believing that Jesus is the Christ,) and in the mean time thinketh

himself bound to obey the laws of that infidel king, (which all

Christians are obliged in conscience to do), to put to death or to

persecute such a subject?

[Sidenote: Conclusion.]

And thus much shall suffice, concerning the kingdom of God, and policy

ecclesiastical. Wherein I pretend not to advance any position of my own,

but only to show what are the consequences that seem to me deducible

from the principles of Christian politics, (which are the holy

Scriptures,) in confirmation of the power of civil sovereigns, and the

duty of their subjects. And in the allegation of Scripture, I have

endeavoured to avoid such texts as are of obscure or controverted

interpretation; and to allege none, but in such sense as is most plain,

and agreeable to the harmony and scope of the whole Bible; which was

written for the re-establishment of the kingdom of God in Christ. For it

is not the bare words, but the scope of the writer, that giveth the true

light, by which any writing is to be interpreted; and they that insist

upon single texts, without considering the main design, can derive

nothing from them clearly; but rather by casting atoms of Scripture, as

dust before men’s eyes, make every thing more obscure than it is; an

ordinary artifice of those that seek not the truth, but their own

advantage.

PART IV.

OF

THE KINGDOM OF DARKNESS.

-------

CHAPTER XLIV.

OF SPIRITUAL DARKNESS, FROM MISINTERPRETATION

OF SCRIPTURE.

[Sidenote: The kingdom of Darkness, what.]

Besides these sovereign powers, _divine_, and _human_, of which I have

hitherto discoursed, there is mention in Scripture of another power,

namely, (_Eph._ vi. 12) that of _the rulers of the darkness of this

world_; (_Matth._ xii. 26) _the kingdom of Satan_; and (_Matth._ ix. 34)

_the principality of Beelzebub over demons_, that is to say, over

phantasms that appear in the air: for which cause Satan is also called,

(_Eph._ ii. 2) _the prince of the power of the air_; and, because he

ruleth in the darkness of this world, (_John_ xvi. 11) _the prince of

this world_: and in consequence hereunto, they who are under his

dominion, in opposition to the faithful, (who are the _children of the

light_,) are called the _children of darkness_. For seeing Beelzebub is

prince of phantasms, inhabitants of his dominion of air and darkness,

the children of darkness, and these demons, phantasms, or spirits of

illusion, signify allegorically the same thing. This considered, the

kingdom of darkness, as it is set forth in these and other places of the

Scripture, is nothing else but a _confederacy of deceivers, that to

obtain dominion over men in this present world, endeavour by dark and

erroneous doctrines, to extinguish in them the light, both of nature,

and of the gospel; and so to disprepare them for the kingdom of God to

come_.

[Sidenote: The Church not yet fully freed of darkness.]

As men that are utterly deprived from their nativity, of the light of

the bodily eye, have no idea at all of any such light; and no man

conceives in his imagination any greater light, than he hath at some

time or other perceived by his outward senses: so also is it of the

light of the gospel, and of the light of the understanding, that no man

can conceive there is any greater degree of it, than that which he hath

already attained unto. And from hence it comes to pass, that men have no

other means to acknowledge their own darkness, but only by reasoning

from the unforeseen mischances, that befall them in their ways. The

darkest part of the kingdom of Satan, is that which is without the

Church of God; that is to say, amongst them that believe not in Jesus

Christ. But we cannot say, that therefore the Church enjoyeth, as the

land of Goshen, all the light, which to the performance of the work

enjoined us by God, is necessary. Whence comes it, that in Christendom

there has been, almost from the time of the Apostles, such justling of

one another out of their places, both by foreign and civil war; such

stumbling at every little asperity of their own fortune, and every

little eminence of that of other men; and such diversity of ways in

running to the same mark, _felicity_, if it be not night amongst us, or

at least a mist? We are therefore yet in the dark.

[Sidenote: Four causes of spiritual darkness.]

The enemy has been here in the night of our natural ignorance, and sown

the tares of spiritual errors; and that, first, by abusing, and putting

out the light of the Scriptures: for we err, not knowing the Scriptures.

Secondly, by introducing the demonology of the heathen poets, that is to

say, their fabulous doctrine concerning demons, which are but idols, or

phantasms of the brain, without any real nature of their own, distinct

from human fancy; such as are dead men’s ghosts, and fairies, and other

matter of old wives’ tales. Thirdly, by mixing with the Scripture divers

relics of the religion, and much of the vain and erroneous philosophy,

of the Greeks, especially of Aristotle. Fourthly, by mingling with both

these, false, or uncertain traditions, and feigned, or uncertain

history. And so we come to err, _by giving heed to seducing spirits_,

and the demonology of such _as speak lies in hypocrisy_; or as it is in

the original, (_1 Tim._ iv. 1, 2) _of those that play the part of liars,

with a seared conscience_, that is, contrary to their own knowledge.

Concerning the first of these, which is the seducing of men by abuse of

Scripture, I intend to speak briefly in this chapter.

[Sidenote: Errors from misinterpreting the Scriptures, concerning the

kingdom of God:]

The greatest and main abuse of Scripture, and to which almost all the

rest are either consequent or subservient, is the wresting of it, to

prove that the kingdom of God, mentioned so often in the Scripture, is

the present Church, or multitude of Christian men now living, or that

being dead, are to rise again at the last day: whereas the kingdom of

God was first instituted by the ministry of Moses, over the Jews only;

who were therefore called his peculiar people; and ceased afterward, in

the election of Saul, when they refused to be governed by God any more,

and demanded a king after the manner of the nations; which God himself

consented unto, as I have more at large proved before in chapter XXXV.

After that time, there was no other kingdom of God in the world, by any

pact, or otherwise, than he ever was, is, and shall be king of all men,

and of all creatures, as governing according to his will, by his

infinite power. Nevertheless, he promised by his prophets to restore

this his government to them again, when the time he hath in his secret

counsel appointed for it shall be fully come, and when they shall turn

unto him by repentance and amendment of life. And not only so, but he

invited the Gentiles to come in, and enjoy the happiness of his reign,

on the same conditions of conversion and repentance; and he promised

also to send his Son into the world, to expiate the sins of them all by

his death, and to prepare them by his doctrine, to receive him at his

second coming. Which second coming not yet being, the kingdom of God is

not yet come, and we are not now under any other kings by pact, but our

civil sovereigns; saving only, that Christian men are already in the

kingdom of grace, in as much as they have already the promise of being

received at his coming again.

[Sidenote: As that the kingdom of God is the present Church]

Consequent to this error, that the present Church is Christ’s kingdom,

there ought to be some one man, or assembly, by whose mouth our Saviour,

now in heaven, speaketh, giveth law, and which representeth his person

to all Christians; or divers men, or divers assemblies that do the same

to divers parts of Christendom. This power regal under Christ, being

challenged, universally by the Pope, and in particular commonwealths by

assemblies of the pastors of the place, (when the Scripture gives it to

none but to civil sovereigns,) comes to be so passionately disputed,

that it putteth out the light of nature, and causeth so great a darkness

in men’s understanding, that they see not who it is to whom they have

engaged their obedience.

[Sidenote: And that the Pope is his vicar general:]

Consequent to this claim of the Pope to be vicar-general of Christ in

the present Church, (supposed to be that kingdom of his to which we are

addressed in the gospel,) is the doctrine, that it is necessary for a

Christian king to receive his crown by a bishop; as if it were from that

ceremony, that he derives the clause of _Dei gratia_ in his title; and

that then only he is made king by the favour of God, when he is crowned

by the authority of God’s universal vicegerent on earth; and that every

bishop, whosoever be his sovereign, taketh at his consecration an oath

of absolute obedience to the Pope. Consequent to the same, is the

doctrine of the fourth Council of Lateran, held under Pope Innocent the

Third, (chap. III. _De Hereticis_), _that if a king at the Pope’s

admonition, do not purge his kingdom of heresies, and being

excommunicate for the same, do not give satisfaction within a year, his

subjects are absolved of the bond of their obedience_. Where, by

heresies are understood all opinions which the Church of Rome hath

forbidden to be maintained. And by this means, as often as there is any

repugnancy between the political designs of the Pope, and other

Christian princes, as there is very often, there ariseth such a mist

amongst their subjects, that they know not a stranger that thrusteth

himself into the throne of their lawful prince, from him whom they had

themselves placed there; and in this darkness of mind, are made to fight

one against another, without discerning their enemies from their

friends, under the conduct of another man’s ambition.

[Sidenote: And that the pastors are the clergy.]

From the same opinion, that the present Church is the kingdom of God, it

proceeds that pastors, deacons, and all other ministers of the Church,

take the name to themselves of the _clergy_; giving to other Christians

the name of _laity_, that is, simply _people_. For clergy signifies

those, whose maintenance is that revenue, which God having reserved to

himself during his reign over the Israelites, assigned to the tribe of

Levi, (who were to be his public ministers, and had no portion of land

set them out to live on, as their brethren,) to be their inheritance.

The Pope therefore, pretending the present Church to be, as the realm of

Israel, the kingdom of God, challenging to himself and his subordinate

ministers, the like revenue, as the inheritance of God, the name of

clergy was suitable to that claim. And thence it is, that tithes, and

other tributes paid to the Levites, as God’s right, amongst the

Israelites, have a long time been demanded, and taken of Christians, by

ecclesiastics, _jure divino_, that is, in God’s right. By which means,

the people every where were obliged to a double tribute; one to the

state, another to the clergy; whereof, that to the clergy, being the

tenth of their revenue, is double to that which a king of Athens, and

esteemed a tyrant, exacted of his subjects for the defraying of all

public charges: for he demanded no more but the twentieth part, and yet

abundantly maintained therewith the commonwealth. And in the kingdom of

the Jews, during the sacerdotal reign of God, the tithes and offerings

were the whole public revenue.

[Sidenote: And that the pastors are the clergy.]

From the same mistaking of the present Church for the kingdom of God,

came in the distinction between the _civil_ and the _canon_ laws: the

civil law being the acts of _sovereigns_ in their own dominions, and the

canon law being the acts of the _Pope_ in the same dominion. Which

canons, though they were but canons, that is, _rules propounded_, and

but voluntarily received by Christian princes, till the translation of

the empire to Charlemagne; yet afterwards, as the power of the Pope

increased, became _rules commanded_, and the emperors themselves, to

avoid greater mischiefs, which the people blinded might be led into,

were forced to let them pass for laws.

From hence it is, that in all dominions where the Pope’s ecclesiastical

power is entirely received, Jews, Turks, and Gentiles, are in the Roman

Church tolerated in their religion, as far forth, as in the exercise and

profession thereof they offend not against the civil power: whereas in a

Christian, though a stranger, not to be of the Roman religion, is

capital; because the Pope pretendeth, that all Christians, are his

subjects. For otherwise it were as much against the law of nations, to

persecute a Christian stranger, for professing the religion of his own

country, as an infidel; or rather more, in as much as they that are not

against Christ, are with him.

From the same it is, that in every Christian state there are certain

men, that are exempt, by ecclesiastical liberty, from the tributes, and

from the tribunals of the civil state; for so are the secular clergy,

besides monks and friars, which in many places bear so great a

proportion to the common people, as if need were, there might be raised

out of them alone, an army, sufficient for any war the Church militant

should employ them in, against their own, or other princes.

[Sidenote: Error from mistaking consecration for conjuration.]

A second general abuse of Scripture, is the turning of consecration into

conjuration, or enchantment. To _consecrate_, is, in Scripture, to

offer, give, or dedicate, in pious and decent language and gesture, a

man, or any other thing to God, by separating of it from common use;

that is to say, to sanctify, or make it God’s, and to be used only by

those, whom God hath appointed to be his public ministers, (as I have

already proved at large in the XXXVth chapter,) and thereby to change,

not the thing consecrated, but only the use of it, from being profane

and common, to be holy, and peculiar to God’s service. But when by such

words, the nature or quality of the thing itself, is pretended to be

changed, it is not consecration, but either an extraordinary work of

God, or a vain and impious conjuration. But seeing, for the frequency of

pretending the change of nature in their consecrations, it cannot be

esteemed a work extraordinary, it is no other than a _conjuration_ or

_incantation_, whereby they would have men to believe an alteration of

nature that is not, contrary to the testimony of man’s sight, and of all

the rest of his senses. As for example, when the priest, instead of

consecrating bread and wine to God’s peculiar service in the sacrament

of the Lord’s Supper, (which is but a separation of it from the common

use, to signify, that is, to put men in mind of their redemption, by the

passion of Christ, whose body was broken, and blood shed upon the cross

for our transgressions,) pretends, that by saying of the words of our

Saviour, _This is my body_, and _this is my blood_, the nature of bread

is no more there, but his very body; notwithstanding there appeareth not

to the sight, or other sense of the receiver, any thing that appeared

not before the consecration. The Egyptian conjurers, that are said to

have turned their rods to serpents, and the water into blood, are

thought but to have deluded the senses of the spectators, by a false

show of things, yet are esteemed enchanters. But what should we have

thought of them, if there had appeared in their rods nothing like a

serpent, and in the water enchanted, nothing like blood, nor like any

thing else but water, but that they had faced down the king, that they

were serpents that looked like rods, and that it was blood that seemed

water? That had been both enchantment, and lying. And yet in this daily

act of the priest, they do the very same, by turning the holy words into

the manner of a charm, which produceth nothing new to the sense; but

they face us down, that it hath turned the bread into a man; nay more,

into a God; and require men to worship it, as if it were our Saviour

himself present God and man, and thereby to commit most gross idolatry.

For if it be enough to excuse it of idolatry, to say it is no more

bread, but God; why should not the same excuse serve the Egyptians, in

case they had the faces to say, the leeks and onions they worshipped,

were not very leeks and onions, but a divinity under their _species_, or

likeness. The words, _This is my body_, are equivalent to these, _this

signifies_, or _represents my body_; and it is an ordinary figure of

speech: but to take it literally, is an abuse; nor though so taken, can

it extend any further, than to the bread which Christ himself with his

own hands consecrated. For he never said, that of what bread soever, any

priest whatsoever, should say, _This is my body_, or, _this is Christ’s

body_, the same should presently be transubstantiated. Nor did the

Church of Rome ever establish this transubstantiation, till the time of

Innocent the Third; which was not above 500 years ago, when the power of

popes was at the highest, and the darkness of the time grown so great,

as men discerned not the bread that was given them to eat, especially

when it was stamped with the figure of Christ upon the cross, as if they

would have men believe it were transubstantiated, not only into the body

of Christ, but also into the wood of his cross, and that they did eat

both together in the sacrament.

[Sidenote: Incantation in the ceremonies of baptism:]

The like incantation, instead of consecration, is used also in the

sacrament of baptism: where the abuse of God’s name in each several

person, and in the whole Trinity, with the sign of the cross at each

name, maketh up the charm. As first, when they make the holy water, the

priest saith, _I conjure thee, thou creature of water, in the name of

God the Father Almighty, and in the name of Jesus Christ his only Son

our Lord, and in virtue of the Holy Ghost, that thou become conjured

water, to drive away all the powers of the enemy, and to eradicate, and

supplant the enemy, &c._ And the same in the benediction of the salt to

be mingled with it: _That thou become conjured salt, that all phantasms,

and knavery of the devil’s fraud may fly and depart from the place

wherein thou art sprinkled; and every unclean spirit be conjured by Him

that shall come to judge the quick and the dead_. The same in the

benediction of the oil; _That all the power of the enemy, all the host

of the devil, all assaults and phantasms of Satan, may be driven away by

this creature of oil_. And for the infant that is to be baptized, he is

subject to many charms: first, at the church door the priest blows

thrice in the child’s face, and says: _Go out of him unclean spirit, and

give place to the Holy Ghost the comforter_. As if all children, till

blown on by the priest, were demoniacs. Again, before his entrance into

the church, he saith as before, _I conjure thee, &c. to go out, and

depart from this servant of God_. And again the same exorcism is

repeated once more before he be baptized. These, and some other

incantations, are those that are used instead of benedictions, and

consecrations, in administration of the sacraments of baptism, and the

Lord’s supper; wherein every thing that serveth to those holy uses,

except the unhallowed spittle of the priest, hath some set form of

exorcism.

[Sidenote: And in marriage, in visitation of the sick, and in

consecration of places.]

Nor are the other rites, as of marriage, of extreme unction, of

visitation of the sick, of consecrating churches and churchyards, and

the like, exempt from charms; inasmuch as there is in them the use of

enchanted oil and water, with the abuse of the cross, and of the holy

word of David, _asperges me Domine hyssopo_, as things of efficacy to

drive away phantasms, and imaginary spirits.

[Sidenote: Errors from mistaking eternal life, and everlasting death:]

Another general error, is from the misinterpretation of the words

_eternal life_, _everlasting death_, and the _second death_. For though

we read plainly in Holy Scripture, that God created Adam in an estate of

living for ever, which was conditional, that is to say, if he disobeyed

not his commandment; which was not essential to human nature, but

consequent to the virtue of the tree of life; whereof he had liberty to

eat, as long as he had not sinned; and that he was thrust out of

Paradise after he had sinned, lest he should eat thereof, and live for

ever; and that Christ’s Passion is a discharge of sin to all that

believe on him; and by consequence, a restitution of eternal life to all

the faithful, and to them only: yet the doctrine is now, and hath been a

long time far otherwise; namely, that every man hath eternity of life by

nature, inasmuch as his soul is immortal. So that the flaming sword at

the entrance of Paradise, though it hinder a man from coming to the tree

of life, hinders him not from the immortality which God took from him

for his sin; nor makes him to need the sacrificing of Christ, for the

recovering of the same; and consequently, not only the faithful and

righteous, but also the wicked and the heathen, shall enjoy eternal

life, without any death at all; much less a second, and everlasting

death. To salve this, it is said, that by second, and everlasting death,

is meant a second, and everlasting life, but in torments; a figure never

used but in this very case.

All which doctrine is founded only on some of the obscurer places of the

New Testament; which nevertheless, the whole scope of the Scripture

considered, are clear enough in a different sense, and unnecessary to

the Christian faith. For supposing that when a man dies, there remaineth

nothing of him but his carcass; cannot God, that raised inanimated dust

and clay into a living creature by his word, as easily raise a dead

carcass to life again, and continue him alive for ever, or make him die

again, by another word? The _soul_ in Scripture, signifieth always,

either the life, or the living creature; and the body and soul jointly,

the _body alive_. In the fifth day of the creation, God said: Let the

waters produce _reptile animæ viventis_, the creeping thing that hath in

it a living soul; the English translate it, _that hath life_. And again,

God created whales, _et omnem animam viventem_; which in the English is,

_every living creature_. And likewise of man, God made him of the dust

of the earth, and breathed in his face the breath of life, _et factus

est homo in animam viventem_, that is, _and man was made a living

creature_. And after Noah came out of the ark, God saith, he will no

more smite _omnem animam viventem_, that is, _every living creature_.

And (_Deut._ xii. 23), _Eat not the blood, for the blood is the soul_;

that is, _the life_. From which places, if by _soul_ were meant a

_substance incorporeal_, with an existence separated from the body, it

might as well be inferred of any other living creature as of man. But

that the souls of the faithful, are not of their own nature, but by

God’s special grace, to remain in their bodies, from the resurrection to

all eternity, I have already, I think, sufficiently proved out of the

Scriptures, in chapter XXXVIII. And for the places of the New Testament,

where it is said that any man shall be cast body and soul into hell

fire, it is no more than body and life; that is to say, they shall be

cast alive into the perpetual fire of Gehenna.

[Sidenote: As the doctrine of purgatory, and exorcisms, and invocation

of saints.]

This window it is, that gives entrance to the dark doctrine, first, of

eternal torments; and afterwards of purgatory, and consequently of the

walking abroad, especially in places consecrated, solitary, or dark, of

the ghosts of men deceased; and thereby to the pretences of exorcism and

conjuration of phantasms; as also of invocation of men dead; and to the

doctrine of indulgences, that is to say, of exemption for a time, or for

ever, from the fire of purgatory, wherein these incorporeal substances

are pretended by burning to be cleansed, and made fit for heaven. For

men being generally possessed before the time of our Saviour, by

contagion of the demonology of the Greeks, of an opinion, that the souls

of men were substances distinct from their bodies, and therefore that

when the body was dead, the soul of every man, whether godly or wicked,

must subsist somewhere by virtue of its own nature, without

acknowledging therein any supernatural gift of God; the doctors of the

Church doubted a long time, what was the place, which they were to abide

in, till they should be reunited to their bodies in the resurrection;

supposing for a while, they lay under the altars; but afterward the

Church of Rome found it more profitable to build for them this place of

purgatory; which by some other Churches in this latter age has been

demolished.

[Sidenote: The texts alleged for the doctrines aforementioned have been

answered before.]

Let us now consider what texts of Scripture seem most to confirm these

three general errors, I have here touched. As for those which Cardinal

Bellarmine hath alleged, for the present kingdom of God administered by

the Pope, than which there are none that make a better show of proof; I

have already answered them; and made it evident, that the kingdom of

God, instituted by Moses, ended in the election of Saul; after which

time the priest of his own authority never deposed any king. That which

the high-priest did to Athaliah, was not done in his own right, but in

the right of the young king Joash her son: but Solomon in his own right

deposed the high-priest Abiathar, and set up another in his place. The

most difficult place to answer, of all those that can be brought to

prove the kingdom of God by Christ is already in this world, is alleged,

not by Bellarmine, nor any other of the Church of Rome; but by Beza,

that will have it to begin from the resurrection of Christ. But whether

he intend thereby, to entitle the Presbytery to the supreme power

ecclesiastical in the commonwealth of Geneva, and consequently to every

presbytery in every other commonwealth, or to princes, and other civil

sovereigns, I do not know. For the presbytery hath challenged the power

to excommunicate their own kings, and to be the supreme moderators in

religion, in the places where they have that form of Church-government,

no less than the Pope challengeth it universally.

[Sidenote: Answer to the text on which Beza inferreth that the kingdom

of Christ began at the resurrection.]

The words are (_Mark_ ix. 1), _Verily I say unto you, that there be some

of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have

seen the kingdom of God come with power_. Which words if taken

grammatically, make it certain, that either some of those men that stood

by Christ at that time, are yet alive; or else, that the kingdom of God

must be now in this present world. And then there is another place more

difficult. For when the apostles, after our Saviour’s resurrection, and

immediately before his ascension, asked our Saviour, saying, (_Acts_ i.

6), _Wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?_ he

answered them, _It is not for you to know the times and the seasons,

which the Father hath put in his own power; but ye shall receive power

by the coming of the Holy Ghost upon you, and ye shall be my (martyrs)

witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto

the uttermost part of the earth_. Which is as much as to say, My kingdom

is not yet come, nor shall you foreknow when it shall come; for it shall

come as a thief in the night; but I will send you the Holy Ghost, and by

him you shall have power to bear witness to all the world, by your

preaching, of my resurrection, and the works I have done, and the

doctrine I have taught, that they may believe in me, and expect eternal

life, at my coming again. How does this agree with the coming of

Christ’s kingdom at the resurrection? And that which St. Paul says (_1

Thess._ i. 9, 10), _That they turned from idols, to serve the living and

true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven_; where to wait for his

Son from heaven, is to wait for his coming to be king in power; which

were not necessary, if his kingdom had been then present. Again, if the

kingdom of God began, as Beza on that place (_Mark_ ix. 1) would have

it, at the resurrection; what reason is there for Christians ever since

the resurrection to say in their prayers, _Let thy kingdom come_? It is

therefore manifest, that the words of St. Mark are not so to be

interpreted. There be some of them that stand here, saith our Saviour,

that shall not taste of death till they have seen the kingdom of God

come in power. If then this kingdom were to come at the resurrection of

Christ, why is it said, _some of them_, rather than _all_? For they all

lived till after Christ was risen.

[Sidenote: Explication of the place in Mark ix. 1.]

But they that require an exact interpretation of this text, let them

interpret first the like words of our Saviour to St. Peter, concerning

St. John, (chap. xxi. 22), _If I will that he tarry till I come, what is

that to thee?_ upon which was grounded a report that he should not die.

Nevertheless the truth of that report was neither confirmed, as well

grounded; nor refuted, as ill grounded on those words; but left as a

saying not understood. The same difficulty is also in the place of _St.

Mark_. And if it be lawful to conjecture at their meaning, by that which

immediately follows, both here, and in _St. Luke_, where the same is

again repeated, it is not improbable, to say they have relation to the

Transfiguration, which is described in the verses immediately following:

where it is said, that _after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and

James, and John_ (not all, but some of his disciples), _and leadeth them

up into a high mountain apart by themselves, and was transfigured before

them: and his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no

fuller on earth can white them: and there appeared unto them, Elias with

Moses, and they were talking with Jesus, &c._ So that they saw Christ in

glory and majesty, as he is to come; insomuch as _they were sore

afraid_. And thus the promise of our Saviour was accomplished by way of

_vision_. For it was a vision, as may probably be inferred out of _St.

Luke_, that reciteth the same story (chap. ix. 28, &c.), and saith, that

Peter and they that were with him, were heavy with sleep: but most

certainly out of _Matth._ xvii. 9, where the same is again related; for

our Saviour charged them, saying, _Tell no man the vision until the Son

of Man be risen from the dead_. Howsoever it be, yet there can from

thence be taken no argument, to prove that the kingdom of God taketh

beginning till the day of judgment.

[Sidenote: Abuse of some other texts in defence of the power of the

Pope.]

As for some other texts, to prove the Pope’s power over civil

sovereigns, (besides those of Bellarmine,) as that the two swords that

Christ and his apostles had amongst them, were the spiritual and the

temporal sword, which they say St. Peter had given him by Christ: and,

that of the two luminaries, the greater signifies the Pope, and the

lesser the King; one might as well infer out of the first verse of the

Bible, that by heaven is meant the Pope, and by earth the King. Which is

not arguing from Scripture, but a wanton insulting over princes, that

came in fashion after the time the Popes were grown so secure of their

greatness, as to contemn all Christian kings; and treading on the necks

of emperors, to mock both them and the Scripture, in the words of Psalm

XCI. 13, _Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder; the young lion

and the dragon thou shalt trample under thy feet_.

[Sidenote: The manner of consecrations in the Scripture, was without

exorcisms.]

As for the rights of consecration, though they depend for the most part

upon the discretion and judgment of the governors of the Church, and not

upon the Scriptures; yet those governors are obliged to such direction,

as the nature of the action itself requireth; as that the ceremonies,

words, and gestures, be both decent and significant, or at least

conformable to the action. When Moses consecrated the tabernacle, the

altar, and the vessels belonging to them, (_Exod._ xl. 9), he anointed

them with the oil which God had commanded to be made for that purpose:

and they were holy: there was nothing exorcised, to drive away

phantasms. The same Moses, the civil sovereign of Israel, when he

consecrated Aaron, the high-priest, and his sons, did wash them with

water, not exorcised water, put their garments upon them, and anointed

them with oil; and they were sanctified, to minister unto the Lord in

the priest’s office; which was a simple and decent cleansing, and

adorning them, before he presented them to God, to be his servants. When

king Solomon, the civil sovereign of Israel, consecrated the temple he

had built, (_1 Kings_ viii.), he stood before all the congregation of

Israel; and having blessed them, he gave thanks to God, for putting into

the heart of his father to build it; and for giving to himself the grace

to accomplish the same; and then prayed unto him, first, to accept that

house, though it were not suitable to his infinite greatness; and to

hear the prayers of his servants that should pray therein, or, if they

were absent, towards it; and lastly, he offered a sacrifice of

peace-offering, and the house was dedicated. Here was no procession; the

king stood still in his first place; no exorcised water; no _Asperges

me_, nor other impertinent application of words spoken upon another

occasion; but a decent and rational speech, and such as in making to God

a present of his new-built house, was most conformable to the occasion.

We read not that St. John did exorcise the water of Jordan; nor Philip

the water of the river wherein he baptized the Eunuch; nor that any

pastor in the time of the apostles, did take his spittle, and put it to

the nose of the person to be baptized, and say, _in odorem suavitatis_,

that is, _for a sweet savour unto the Lord_; wherein neither the

ceremony of spittle, for the uncleanness; nor the application of that

Scripture for the levity, can by any authority of man be justified.

[Sidenote: The immortality of man’s soul, not proved by Scripture to be

of nature, but of grace.]

To prove that the soul separated from the body, liveth eternally, not

only the souls of the elect, by especial grace, and restoration of the

eternal life which Adam lost by sin, and our Saviour restored by the

sacrifice of himself, to the faithful; but also the souls of reprobates,

as a property naturally consequent to the essence of mankind, without

other grace of God, but that which is universally given to all mankind;

there are divers places, which at the first sight seem sufficiently to

serve the turn: but such, as when I compare them with that which I have

before (chapter XXXVIII.) alleged out of the 14th of _Job_, seem to me

much more subject to a diverse interpretation, than the words of Job.

And first there are the words of Solomon (_Eccles._ xii. 7), _Then shall

the dust return to dust, as it was, and the spirit shall return to God

that gave it_. Which may bear well enough, if there be no other text

directly against it, this interpretation, that God only knows, but man

not, what becomes of a man’s spirit, when he expireth; and the same

Solomon, in the same book, (chapter iii. 20, 21) delivereth the same

sentence in the same sense I have given it. His words are: _All go_,

(man and beast), _to the same place; all are of the dust, and all turn

to dust again; who knoweth that the spirit of man goeth upward, and that

the spirit of the beast goeth downward to the earth?_ That is, none

knows but God; nor is it an unusual phrase to say of things we

understand not, _God knows what_, and, _God knows where_. That of

(_Gen._ v. 24) _Enoch walked with God, and he was not; for God took

him_; which is expounded, (_Heb._ xi. 5), _He was translated, that he

should not die; and was not found, because God had translated him. For

before his translation, he had this testimony, that he pleased God_;

making as much for the immortality of the body, as of the soul, proveth,

that this his translation was peculiar to them that please God; not

common to them with the wicked, and depending on grace, not on nature.

But on the contrary, what interpretation shall we give besides the

literal sense, of the words of Solomon (_Eccles._ iii. 19), _That which

befalleth the sons of men, befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth

them; as the one dieth, so doth the other; yea, they have all one

breath_, (one spirit); _so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a

beast, for all is vanity_. By the literal sense, here is no natural

immortality of the soul; nor yet any repugnancy with the life eternal,

which the elect shall enjoy by grace. And (_Eccles._ chap. iv. 3)

_Better is he that hath not yet been, than both they_; that is, than

they that live, or have lived; which, if the soul of all them that have

lived, were immortal, were a hard saying; for then to have an immortal

soul, were worse than to have no soul at all. And again, (chapter ix.

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 natural immortality of the soul,

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 actual; and in the same sense that God

said to Adam, that on the day he should eat 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, makes nothing against this, if we 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 judgment. And it is said besides in many places,

that they shall go into _everlasting fire, everlasting torments,

everlasting punishments; and that the worm of conscience never dieth_;

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 he will; that hath the hearts of all

men in his disposing; that worketh in men both to do, and to will; and

without whose free gift a man hath neither inclination to good, nor

repentance of evil, should punish men’s 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 showed already, that the kingdom of God by Christ beginneth at

the day of judgment: that in that day the faithful shall rise again,

with glorious and spiritual bodies, and be his subjects in that his

kingdom, which shall be eternal: that they shall neither marry nor be

given in marriage, nor eat and drink, as they did in their natural

bodies; but live for ever in their individual persons, without the

specifical 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 spiritual and

immortal. But that the bodies of the reprobate, who make the kingdom of

Satan, shall also be glorious, or spiritual bodies, or that they shall

be as the angels of God, neither eating, nor drinking, nor engendering;

or that their life shall be eternal in their individual persons, as the

life of every faithful man is, or as the life of Adam had been if he had

not sinned, there is no place of Scripture to prove it; save only these

places concerning eternal 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.

[Sidenote: Eternal torments, what.]

These things considered, the texts that mention _eternal fire, eternal

torments, or the worm that never dieth_, contradict not the doctrine of

a second, and everlasting death, in the proper and natural 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 Adam’s sin, may at the resurrection live as they did, marry, and

give in marriage, and have gross 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 in Scripture to

the contrary. For St. Paul, speaking of the resurrection (_1 Cor._ xv.)

understandeth it only of the resurrection to life eternal; 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 weakness, raised in power; sown a natural body,

raised a spiritual body_. There is no such thing can be said of the

bodies of them that rise to punishment. So also our Saviour, when he

speaketh of the nature of man after the resurrection, meaneth the

resurrection to life eternal, not to punishment. The text is, _Luke_ xx.

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

obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry,

nor are given in marriage: neither can they die any more; for they are

equal to the angels, 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 only a short time, as inmates of that world; and to the

end only to receive condign punishment for their contumacy. The elect

are the only children of the resurrection; that is to say, the sole

heirs of eternal life: they only can die no more, it is they that are

equal to the angels, and that are the children of God; and not the

reprobate. To the reprobate there remaineth after the resurrection, a

_second_ and _eternal_ death: between which resurrection, and their

second and eternal death, is but a time of punishment and torment; and

to last by succession of sinners thereunto, as long as the kind of man

by propagation shall endure; which is eternally.

[Sidenote: Answer of the texts alleged for purgatory.]

Upon this doctrine of the natural eternity of separated souls, is

founded, as I said, the doctrine of purgatory. For supposing eternal

life by grace only, there is no life but the life of the body; and no

immortality till the resurrection. The texts for purgatory alleged by

Bellarmine out of the canonical Scripture of the Old Testament, are,

first, the fasting of David for Saul and Jonathan, mentioned _2 Sam._ i.

12, and again, _2 Sam._ iii. 35, for the death of Abner. This fasting of

David, he saith, was for the obtaining of something for them at God’s

hands, after their death: because after he had fasted to procure the

recovery of his own child, as soon as he knew it was dead, he called for

meat. Seeing then the soul hath an existence separate from the body, and

nothing can be obtained by men’s fasting for the souls that are already

either in heaven, or hell, it followeth that there be some souls of dead

men, that are neither in heaven, nor in hell; and therefore they must be

in some third place, which must be purgatory. And thus with hard

straining, he has wrested those places to the proof of a purgatory:

whereas it is manifest, that the ceremonies of mourning, and fasting,

when they are used for the death of men, whose life was not profitable

to the mourners, they are used for honour’s sake to their persons; and

when it is done for the death of them by whose life the mourners had

benefit, it proceeds from their particular damage. And so David honoured

Saul and Abner, with his fasting; and in the death of his own child,

recomforted himself, by receiving his ordinary food.

In the other places, which he allegeth out of the Old Testament, there

is not so much as any show, or colour of proof. He brings in every text

wherein there is the word _anger_, or _fire_, or _burning_, or

_purging_, or _cleansing_, in case any of the fathers have but in a

sermon rhetorically applied it to the doctrine of purgatory, already

believed. The first verse of _Psalm_ xxxvii; _O Lord, rebuke me not in

thy wrath, nor chasten me in thy hot displeasure_: what were this to

purgatory, if Augustine had not applied the _wrath_ to the fire of hell,

and the _displeasure_ to that of purgatory? And what is it to purgatory,

that of _Psalm_ lxvi. 12, _We went through fire and water, and thou

broughtest us to a moist place_; and other the like texts, with which

the doctors of those times intended to adorn, or extend their sermons,

or commentaries, haled to their purposes by force of wit?

[Sidenote: Places of the New Testament for purgatory answered.]

But he allegeth other places of the New Testament, that are not so easy

to be answered. And first that of _Matth._ xii. 32: _Whosoever speaketh

a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever

speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him neither in

this world, nor in the world to come_: where he will have purgatory to

be the world to come, wherein some sins may be forgiven, which in this

world were not forgiven: notwithstanding that it is manifest, there are

but three worlds; one from the creation to the flood, which was

destroyed by water, and is called in Scripture _the old world_; another

from the flood, to the day of judgment, which is _the present world_,

and shall be destroyed by fire; and the third, which shall be from the

day of judgment forward, everlasting, which is called _the world to

come_; and in which it is agreed by all, there shall be no purgatory:

and therefore the world to come, and purgatory, are inconsistent. But

what then can be the meaning of those our Saviour’s words? I confess

they are very hardly to be reconciled with all the doctrines now

unanimously received: nor is it any shame, to confess the profoundness

of the Scripture to be too great to be sounded by the shortness of human

understanding. Nevertheless, I may propound such things to the

consideration of more learned divines, as the text itself suggesteth.

And first, seeing to speak against the Holy Ghost, as being the third

person of the Trinity, is to speak against the Church, in which the Holy

Ghost resideth; it seemeth the comparison is made, between the easiness

of our Saviour, in bearing with offences done to him while he himself

taught the world, that is, when he was on earth, and the severity of the

pastors after him, against those which should deny their authority,

which was from the Holy Ghost. As if he should say, you that deny my

power; nay you that shall crucify me, shall be pardoned by me, as often

as you turn unto me by repentance: but if you deny the power of them

that teach you hereafter, by virtue of the Holy Ghost, they shall be

inexorable, and shall not forgive you, but persecute you in this world,

and leave you without absolution, (though you turn to me, unless you

turn also to them), to the punishments, as much as lies in them, of the

world to come. And so the words may be taken as a prophecy, or

prediction concerning the times, as they have along been in the

Christian Church. Or if this be not the meaning, (for I am not

peremptory in such difficult places), perhaps there may be places left

after the resurrection, for the repentance of some sinners. And there is

also another place, that seemeth to agree therewith. For considering the

words of St. Paul (_1 Cor._ xv. 29), _What shall they do which are

baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all?_ why also are they

baptized for the dead? a man may probably infer, as some have done, that

in St. Paul’s time, there was a custom, by receiving baptism for the

dead, (as men that now believe, are sureties and undertakers for the

faith of infants, that are not capable of believing), to undertake for

the persons of their deceased friends, that they should be ready to

obey, and receive our Saviour for their king, at his coming again; and

then the forgiveness of sins in the world to come, has no need of a

purgatory. But in both these interpretations, there is so much of

paradox, that I trust not to them; but propound them to those that are

thoroughly versed in the Scripture, to inquire if there be no clearer

place that contradicts them. Only of thus much, I see evident Scripture,

to persuade me, that there is neither the word, nor the thing of

purgatory, neither in this, nor any other text; nor any thing that can

prove a necessity of a place for the soul without the body; neither for

the soul of Lazarus during the four days he was dead; nor for the souls

of them which the Roman Church pretend to be tormented now in purgatory.

For God, that could give a life to a piece of clay, hath the same power

to give life again to a dead man, and renew his inanimate, and rotten

carcase, into a glorious, spiritual, and immortal body.

Another place is that of _1 Cor._ iii., where it is said, that they

which build stubble, hay, &c. on the true foundation, their work shall

perish; but _they themselves shall be saved, but as through fire_: this

fire, he will have to be the fire of purgatory. The words, as I have

said before, are an allusion to those of _Zech._ xiii. 9, where he

saith, _I will bring the third part through the fire, and refine them as

silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried_: which is spoken

of the coming of the Messiah in power and glory; that is, at the day of

judgment, and conflagration of the present world; wherein the elect

shall not be consumed, but be refined; that is, depose their erroneous

doctrines and traditions, and have them as it were singed off; and shall

afterwards call upon the name of the true God. In like manner, the

apostle saith of them, that holding this foundation, _Jesus is the

Christ_, shall build thereon some other doctrines that be erroneous,

that they shall not be consumed in that fire which reneweth the world,

but shall pass through it to salvation; but so as to see, and relinquish

their former errors. The builders, are the _pastors_; the foundation,

that _Jesus is the Christ_; the stubble and hay, _false consequences

drawn from it through ignorance, or frailty_; the gold, silver, and

precious stones, are their _true doctrines_; and their refining or

purging, the _relinquishing of their errors_. In all which there is no

colour at all for the burning of incorporeal, that is to say, impatible

souls.

[Sidenote: Baptism for the dead, how understood.]

A third place is that of _1 Cor._ xv. 29, before mentioned, concerning

baptism for the dead: out of which he concludeth, first, that prayers

for the dead are not unprofitable; and out of that, that there is a fire

of purgatory: but neither of them rightly. For of many interpretations

of the word baptism, he approveth this in the first place, that by

baptism is meant, metaphorically, a baptism of penance; and that men are

in this sense baptized, when they fast, and pray, and give alms: and so,

baptism for the dead, and prayer for the dead, is the same thing. But

this is a metaphor, of which there is no example, neither in the

Scripture, nor in any other use of language; and which is also

discordant to the harmony, and scope of the Scripture. The word baptism

is used (_Mark_ x. 38, and _Luke_ xii. 50), for being dipped in one’s

own blood, as Christ was upon the cross, and as most of the apostles

were, for giving testimony of him. But it is hard to say, that prayer,

fasting, and alms, have any similitude with dipping. The same is used

also _Matth._ iii. 11 (which seemeth to make somewhat for purgatory) for

a purging with fire. But it is evident the fire and purging here

mentioned, is the same whereof the prophet Zechariah speaketh (chapter

xiii. 9) _I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine

them, &c._ And St. Peter after him (1 Epistle i. 7), _That the trial of

your faith, which is much more precious than of gold that perisheth,

though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise, and honour,

and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ_; and St. Paul (_1 Cor._ iii.

13), _The fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is_. But St.

Peter and St. Paul speak of the fire that shall be at the second

appearing of Christ; and the prophet Zechariah of the day of judgment.

And therefore this place of St. Matthew may be interpreted of the same;

and then there will be no necessity of the fire of purgatory.

Another interpretation of baptism for the dead, is that which I have

before mentioned, which he preferreth to the second place of

probability: and thence also he inferreth the utility of prayer for the

dead. For if after the resurrection, such as have not heard of Christ,

or not believed in him, may be received into Christ’s kingdom; it is not

in vain, after their death, that their friends should pray for them,

till they should be risen. But granting that God, at the prayers of the

faithful, may convert unto him some of those that have not heard Christ

preached, and consequently cannot have rejected Christ, and that the

charity of men in that point cannot be blamed; yet this concludeth

nothing for purgatory; because to rise from death to life, is one thing;

to rise from purgatory to life is another; as being a rising from life

to life, from a life in torments to a life in joy.

A fourth place is that of _Matth._ v. 25, 26: _Agree with thine

adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him, lest at any time

the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to

the officer, and thou be cast into prison: verily I say unto thee, thou

shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost

farthing_. In which allegory, the offender is the _sinner_; both the

adversary and the judge is _God_; the way is this _life_; the prison is

the _grave_; the officer, _death_; from which, the sinner shall not rise

again to life eternal, but to a second death, till he have paid the

utmost farthing, or Christ pay it for him by his passion, which is a

full ransom for all manner of sins, as well lesser sins, as greater

crimes; both being made by the passion of Christ equally venial.

The fifth place, is that of _Matth._ v. 22: _Whosoever is angry with his

brother without a cause, shall be guilty in judgment: and whosoever

shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be guilty in the council: but

whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be guilty to hell fire_. From

which words he inferreth three sorts of sins, and three sorts of

punishments; and that none of those sins, but the last, shall be

punished with hell fire; and consequently, that after this life, there

is punishment of lesser sins in purgatory. Of which inference, there is

no colour in any interpretation that hath yet been given of them. Shall

there be a distinction after this life of courts of justice, as there

was amongst the Jews in our Saviour’s time, to hear, and determine

divers sorts of crimes, as the judges, and the council? Shall not all

judicature appertain to Christ and his apostles? To understand therefore

this text, we are not to consider it solitarily, but jointly with the

words precedent, and subsequent. Our Saviour in this chapter

interpreteth the law of Moses; which the Jews thought was then

fulfilled, when they had not transgressed the grammatical sense thereof,

howsoever they had transgressed against the sentence, or meaning of the

legislator. Therefore whereas they thought the sixth commandment was not

broken, but by killing a man: nor the seventh, but when a man lay with a

woman, not his wife; our Saviour tells them the inward anger of a man

against his brother, if it be without just cause, is homicide. You have

heard, saith he, the Law of Moses, _Thou shalt not kill_, and that

_Whosoever shall kill, shall be condemned before the judges_, or before

the session of the Seventy: but I say unto you, to be angry with one’s

brother without cause, or to say unto him _Raca_, or _Fool_, is

homicide, and shall be punished at the day of judgment, and session of

Christ, and his apostles, with hell fire. So that those words were not

used to distinguish between divers crimes, and divers courts of justice,

and divers punishments; but to tax the distinction between sin and sin,

which the Jews drew not from the difference of the will in obeying God,

but from the difference of their temporal courts of justice; and to show

them that he that had the will to hurt his brother, though the effect

appear but in reviling, or not at all, shall be cast into hell fire, by

the judges, and by the session, which shall be the same, not different,

courts at the day of judgment. This considered, what can be drawn from

this text, to maintain purgatory, I cannot imagine.

The sixth place is _Luke_ xvi. 9: _Make ye friends of the unrighteous

Mammon; that when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting

tabernacles_. This he alleges to prove invocation of saints departed.

But the sense is plain, that we should make friends with our riches, of

the poor; and thereby obtain their prayers whilst they live. _He that

giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord._

The seventh is _Luke_ xxiii. 42: _Lord, remember me, when thou comest

into thy kingdom_. Therefore, saith he, there is remission of sins after

this life. But the consequence is not good. Our Saviour then forgave

him; and at his coming again in glory, will remember to raise him again

to life eternal.

The eighth is _Acts_ ii. 24, where St. Peter saith of Christ, _that God

had raised him up, and loosed the pains of death, because it was not

possible he should be holden of it_: which he interprets to be a descent

of Christ into purgatory, to loose some souls there from their torments:

whereas it is manifest, that it was Christ that was loosed; it was he

that could not be holden of death, or the grave; and not the souls in

purgatory. But if that which Beza says, in his notes on this place, be

well observed, there is none that will not see, that instead of _pains_,

it should be _bands_; and then there is no further cause to seek for

purgatory in this text.

-------

CHAPTER XLV.

OF DEMONOLOGY, AND OTHER RELICS OF THE

RELIGION OF THE GENTILES.

[Sidenote: The original of demonology.]

The impression made on the organs of sight by lucid bodies, either in

one direct line, or in many lines, reflected from opaque, or refracted

in the passage through diaphanous bodies, produceth in living creatures,

in whom God hath placed such organs, an imagination of the object, from

whence the impression proceedeth; which imagination is called _sight_;

and seemeth not to be a mere imagination, but the body itself without

us; in the same manner, as when a man violently presseth his eye, there

appears to him a light without, and before him, which no man perceiveth

but himself; because there is indeed no such thing without him, but only

a motion in the interior organs, pressing by resistance outward, that

makes him think so. And the motion made by this pressure, continuing

after the object which caused it is removed, is that we call

_imagination_ and _memory_; and, in sleep, and sometimes in great

distemper of the organs by sickness or violence, a _dream_; of which

things I have already spoken briefly, in the second and third chapters.

This nature of sight having never been discovered by the ancient

pretenders to natural knowledge; much less by those that consider not

things so remote, as that knowledge is, from their present use; it was

hard for men to conceive of those images in the fancy and in the sense,

otherwise, than of things really without us: which some, because they

vanish away, they know not whither nor how, will have to be absolutely

incorporeal, that is to say immaterial, or forms without matter; colour

and figure, without any coloured or figured body; and that they can put

on airy bodies, as a garment, to make them visible when they will to our

bodily eyes; and others say, are bodies and living creatures, but made

of air, or other more subtle and ethereal matter, which is, then, when

they will be seen, condensed. But both of them agree on one general

appellation of them, DEMONS. As if the dead of whom they dreamed, were

not inhabitants of their own brain, but of the air, or of heaven, or

hell; not phantasms, but ghosts; with just as much reason as if one

should say, he saw his own ghost in a looking-glass, or the ghosts of

the stars in a river; or call the ordinary apparition of the sun, of the

quantity of about a foot, the _demon_, or ghost of that great sun that

enlighteneth the whole visible world: and by that means have feared

them, as things of an unknown, that is, of an unlimited power to do them

good or harm; and consequently, given occasion to the governors of the

heathen commonwealths to regulate this their fear, by establishing that

DEMONOLOGY, (in which the poets, as principal priests of the heathen

religion, were specially employed or reverenced,) to the public peace,

and to the obedience of subjects necessary thereunto; and to make some

of them good _demons_, and others evil; the one as a spur to the

observance, the other as reins to withhold them from violation of the

laws.

[Sidenote: What were the demons of the ancients.]

What kind of things they were, to whom they attributed the name of

_demons_, appeareth partly in the genealogy of their gods, written by

Hesiod, one of the most ancient poets of the Grecians; and partly in

other histories; of which I have observed some few before, in the

twelfth chapter of this discourse.

[Sidenote: How that doctrine was spread.]

The Grecians, by their colonies and conquests, communicated their

language and writings into Asia, Egypt, and Italy; and therein, by

necessary consequence their _demonology_, or, as St. Paul calls it, (_1

Tim._ iv. 1) _their doctrines of devils_. And by that means the

contagion was derived also to the Jews, both of Judea and Alexandria,

and other parts, whereinto they were dispersed. But the name of _demon_

they did not, as the Grecians, attribute to spirits both good and evil;

but to the evil only: and to the good _demons_ they gave the name of the

spirit of God; and esteemed those into whose bodies they entered to be

prophets. [Sidenote: How far received by the Jews.] In sum, all

singularity, if good, they attributed to the spirit of God; and if evil,

to some _demon_, but a κακοδάιμων, an evil _demon_, that is a _devil_.

And therefore, they called _demoniacs_, that is _possessed by the

devil_, such as we call madmen or lunatics; or such as had the falling

sickness, or that spoke any thing which they, for want of understanding,

thought absurd. As also of an unclean person in a notorious degree, they

used to say he had an unclean spirit; of a dumb man, that he had a dumb

devil; and of John the Baptist (_Matt._ xi. 18), for the singularity of

his fasting, that he had a devil; and of our Saviour, because he said,

he that keepeth his sayings should not see death _in æternum_, (_John_

viii. 52), _Now we know thou hast a devil; Abraham is dead, and the

prophets are dead_: and again, because he said (_John_ vii. 20), _They

went about to kill him_, the people answered, _Thou hast a devil; who

goeth about to kill thee?_ Whereby it is manifest, that the Jews had the

same opinions concerning phantasms, namely, that they were not

phantasms, that is, idols of the brain, but things real, and independant

on the fancy.

[Sidenote: Why our Saviour controlled it not.]

Which doctrine, if it be not true, why, may some say, did not our

Saviour contradict it, and teach the contrary? Nay, why does he use on

divers occasions such forms of speech as seem to confirm it? To this I

answer, that first, where Christ saith, (_Luke_ xxiv. 39) _A spirit hath

not flesh and bone_, though he show that there be spirits, yet he denies

not that they are bodies. And where St. Paul says, (_1 Cor._ xv. 44) _we

shall rise spiritual bodies_, he acknowledgeth the nature of spirits,

but that they are bodily spirits; which is not difficult to understand.

For air and many other things are bodies, though not flesh and bone, or

any other gross body to be discerned by the eye. But when our Saviour

speaketh to the devil, and commandeth him to go out of a man, if by the

devil, he meant a disease, as phrensy, or lunacy, or a corporeal spirit,

is not the speech improper? Can diseases hear? Or can there be a

corporeal spirit in a body of flesh and bone, full already of vital and

animal spirits? Are there not, therefore spirits, that neither have

bodies, nor are mere imaginations? To the first I answer, that the

addressing of our Saviour’s command to the madness, or lunacy he cureth,

is no more improper than was his rebuking of the fever, or of the wind

and sea; for neither do these hear; or than was the command of God, to

the light, to the firmament, to the sun, and stars, when he commanded

them to be; for they could not hear before they had a being. But those

speeches are not improper, because they signify the power of God’s word;

no more therefore is it improper, to command madness, or lunacy, under

the appellation of devils by which they were then commonly understood,

to depart out of a man’s body. To the second, concerning their being

incorporeal, I have not yet observed any place of Scripture, from whence

it can be gathered, that any man was ever possessed with any other

corporeal spirit, but that of his own, by which his body is naturally

moved.

[Sidenote: The Scriptures do not teach that spirits are incorporeal.]

Our Saviour, immediately after the Holy Ghost descended upon him in the

form of a dove, is said by St. Matthew (chapter iv. 1), to have been

_led up by the Spirit into the wilderness_; and the same is recited

(_Luke_ iv. 1) in these words, _Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost, was

led in the Spirit into the wilderness_; whereby it is evident that by

_spirit_ there, is meant the Holy Ghost. This cannot be interpreted for

a possession; for Christ, and the Holy Ghost, are but one and the same

substance; which is no possession of one substance, or body, by another.

And whereas in the verses following he is said _to have been taken up by

the devil into the holy city, and set upon a pinnacle of the temple_,

shall we conclude thence that he was possessed of the devil, or carried

thither by violence? And again, _carried thence by the devil into an

exceeding high mountain, who showed him thence all the kingdoms of the

world_: wherein we are not to believe he was either possessed, or forced

by the devil; nor that any mountain is high enough, according to the

literal sense, to show him one whole hemisphere. What then can be the

meaning of this place, other than that he went of himself into the

wilderness; and that this carrying of him up and down from the

wilderness to the city, and from thence into a mountain, was a vision?

Conformable whereunto, is also the phrase of St. Luke, that he was led

into the wilderness, not _by_, but _in_, the Spirit; whereas, concerning

his being taken up into the mountain, and unto the pinnacle of the

temple, he speaketh as St. Matthew doth: which suiteth with the nature

of a vision.

Again, where St. Luke (chap. xxii. 3, 4) says of Judas Iscariot, that

_Satan entered into him, and thereupon that he went and communed with

the chief priests, and captains, how he might betray Christ unto them_;

it may be answered, that by the entering of Satan, that is the _enemy_,

into him, is meant, the hostile and traitorous intention of selling his

Lord and Master. For as by the Holy Ghost, is frequently in Scripture

understood, the graces and good inclinations given by the Holy Ghost; so

by the entering of Satan may be understood the wicked cogitations, and

designs of the adversaries of Christ, and his disciples. For as it is

hard to say, that the devil was entered into Judas, before he had any

such hostile design; so it is impertinent to say, he was first Christ’s

enemy in his heart, and that the devil entered into him afterwards.

Therefore the entering of Satan, and his wicked purpose, was one and the

same thing.

[Sidenote: The Scriptures do not teach that spirits are incorporeal.]

But if there be no immaterial spirit, or any possession of men’s bodies

by any spirit corporeal, it may again be asked, why our Saviour and his

apostles did not teach the people so; and in such clear words, as they

might no more doubt thereof. But such questions as these, are more

curious, than necessary for a Christian man’s salvation. Men may as well

ask why Christ, that could have given to all men faith, piety, and all

manner of moral virtues, gave it to some only, and not to all: and why

he left the search of natural causes, and sciences, to the natural

reason and industry of men, and did not reveal it to all, or any man

supernaturally; and many other such questions. Of which nevertheless

there may be alleged probable and pious reasons. For as God, when he

brought the Israelites into the land of Promise, did not secure them

therein, by subduing all the nations round about them; but left many of

them, as thorns in their sides, to awaken from time to time their piety

and industry: so our Saviour, in conducting us toward his heavenly

kingdom, did not destroy all the difficulties of natural questions; but

left them to exercise our industry, and reason; the scope of his

preaching, being only to show us this plain and direct way to salvation,

namely, the belief of this article, _that he was the Christ, the Son of

the living God, sent into the world to sacrifice himself for our sins,

and at his coming again, gloriously to reign over his elect, and to save

them from their enemies eternally_. To which, the opinion of possession

by spirits, or phantasms, is no impediment in the way; though it be to

some an occasion of going out of the way, and to follow their own

inventions. If we require of the Scripture an account of all questions,

which may be raised to trouble us in the performance of God’s commands,

we may as well complain of Moses for not having set down the time of the

creation of such spirits, as well as of the creation of the earth and

sea, and of men and beasts. To conclude; I find in Scripture that there

be angels, and spirits, good and evil; but not that they are

incorporeal, as are the apparitions men see in the dark, or in a dream,

or vision; which the Latins call _spectra_, and took for _demons_. And I

find that there are spirits corporeal, though subtle and invisible; but

not that any man’s body was possessed or inhabited by them; and that the

bodies of the saints shall be such, namely, spiritual bodies, as St.

Paul calls them.

[Sidenote: The power of casting out devils, not the same it was in the

primitive church.]

Nevertheless, the contrary doctrine, namely, that there be incorporeal

spirits, hath hitherto so prevailed in the Church, that the use of

exorcism, that is to say, of ejection of devils by conjuration, is

thereupon built; and, though rarely and faintly practised, is not yet

totally given over. That there were many demoniacs in the primitive

Church, and few madmen, and other such singular diseases; whereas in

these times we hear of, and see many madmen, and few demoniacs, proceeds

not from the change of nature, but of names. But how it comes to pass

that whereas heretofore the apostles, and after them for a time, the

pastors of the Church, did cure those singular diseases, which now they

are not seen to do; as likewise, why it is not in the power of every

true believer now, to do all that the faithful did then, that is to say,

as we read (_Mark_ xvi. 17, 18), _in Christ’s name to cast out devils,

to speak with new tongues, to take up serpents, to drink deadly poison

without harm-taking, and to cure the sick by the laying on of their

hands_, and all this without other words, but _in the name of Jesus_, is

another question. And it is probable that those extraordinary gifts were

given to the Church, for no longer a time, than men trusted wholly to

Christ, and looked for their felicity only in his kingdom to come; and

consequently, that when they sought authority, and riches, and trusted

to their own subtlety for a kingdom of this world, these supernatural

gifts of God were again taken from them.

[Sidenote: Another relic of Gentilism, worshipping of images, left in

the Church, not brought into it.]

Another relic of Gentilism is, the _worship of images_, neither

instituted by Moses in the Old, nor by Christ in the New Testament; nor

yet brought in from the Gentiles; but left amongst them after they had

given their names to Christ. Before our Saviour preached, it was the

general religion of the Gentiles to worship for gods those apparences

that remain in the brain from the impression of external bodies upon the

organs of their senses, which are commonly called _ideas_, _idols_,

_phantasms_, _conceits_, as being representations of those external

bodies which cause them, and have nothing in them of reality, no more

than there is in the things that seem to stand before us in a dream. And

this is the reason why St. Paul says, (1 Cor. viii. 4) _we know that an

idol is nothing_; not that he thought that an image of metal, stone, or

wood, was nothing; but that the thing which they honoured, or feared in

the image, and held for a god, was a mere figment, without place,

habitation, motion, or existence, but in the motions of the brain. And

the worship of these with divine honour, is that which is in the

Scripture called idolatry, and rebellion against God. For God being King

of the Jews, and his lieutenant being first Moses, and afterward the

high-priest; if the people had been permitted to worship, and pray to

images, which are representations of their own fancies, they had had no

further dependance on the true God, of whom there can be no similitude;

nor on his prime-ministers, Moses and the high-priests; but every man

had governed himself according to his own appetite, to the utter

eversion of the commonwealth, and their own destruction for want of

union. And therefore the first law of God was, _they should not take for

gods_, ALIENOS DEOS, that is, _the gods of other nations, but that only

true God, who vouchsafed to commune with Moses, and by him to give them

laws and directions, for their peace, and for their salvation from their

enemies_. And the second was, that _they should not make to themselves

any image to worship, of their own invention_. For it is the same

deposing of a king, to submit to another king, whether he be set up by a

neighbour nation, or by ourselves.

[Sidenote: Answer to certain seeming texts for images.]

The places of Scripture pretended to countenance the setting up of

images, to worship them; or to set them up at all in the places where

God is worshipped, are first, two examples; one of the cherubims over

the ark of God; the other of the brazen serpent. Secondly, some texts

whereby we are commanded to worship certain creatures for their relation

to God; as to worship his footstool. And lastly, some other texts, by

which is authorized a religious honouring of holy things. But before I

examine the force of those places, to prove that which is pretended, I

must first explain what is to be understood by _worshipping_, and what

by _images_ and _idols_.

[Sidenote: What is worship.]

I have already shown in the XXTH chapter of this discourse, that to

honour, is to value highly the power of any person: and that such value

is measured, by our comparing him with others. But because there is

nothing to be compared with God in power; we honour him not, but

dishonour him by any value less than infinite. And thus honour is

properly of its own nature, secret, and internal in the heart. But the

inward thoughts of men, which appear outwardly in their words and

actions, are the signs of our honouring, and these go by the name of

_worship_; in Latin, _cultus_. Therefore, to pray to, to swear by, to

obey, to be diligent and officious in serving: in sum, all words and

actions that betoken fear to offend, or desire to please, is _worship_,

whether those words and actions be sincere, or feigned: and because they

appear as signs of honouring, are ordinarily also called _honour_.

[Sidenote: Distinction between divine and civil worship.]

The worship we exhibit to those we esteem to be but men, as to kings,

and men in authority, is _civil worship_: but the worship we exhibit to

that which we think to be God, whatsoever the words, ceremonies,

gestures or other actions be, is _divine worship_. To fall prostrate

before a king, in him that thinks him but a man, is but civil worship:

and he that putteth off his hat in the church, for this cause, that he

thinketh it the house of God, worshippeth with divine worship. They that

seek the distinction of divine and civil worship, not in the intention

of the worshipper, but in the words δουλεία and λατρεία, deceive

themselves. For whereas there be two sorts of servants: that sort, which

is of those that are absolutely in the power of their masters, as slaves

taken in war, and their issue, whose bodies are not in their own power,

(their lives depending on the will of their masters, in such manner as

to forfeit them upon the least disobedience), and that are bought and

sold as beasts, were called δουλοι, that is, properly slaves, and their

service δουλεία: the other, which is of those that serve (for hire, or

in hope of benefit from their masters) voluntarily, are called θῆτες;

that is, domestic servants, to whose service the masters have no further

right, than is contained in the covenants made betwixt them. These two

kinds of servants have thus much common to them both, that their labour

is appointed them by another: and the word λάτρις, is the general name

of both, signifying him that worketh for another, whether as a slave, or

a voluntary servant. So that λατρεία signifieth generally all service;

but δουλεία the service of bondmen only, and the condition of slavery:

and both are used in Scripture, (to signify our service of God)

promiscuously; δουλεία, because we are God’s slaves; λατρεία, because we

serve him. And in all kinds of service is contained, not only obedience,

but also worship; that is, such actions, gestures, and words, as signify

_honour_.

[Sidenote: An image, what.]

An _image_, in the most strict signification of the word, is the

resemblance of something visible: [Sidenote: Phantasms.] in which sense

the phantastical forms, apparitions, or seemings of visible bodies to

the sight, are only _images_; such as are the show of a man, or other

thing in the water, by reflection, or refraction; or of the sun, or

stars by direct vision in the air; which are nothing real in the things

seen, nor in the place where they seem to be; nor are their magnitudes

and figures the same with that of the object; but changeable, by the

variation of the organs of sight, or by glasses, and are present

oftentimes in our imagination, and in our dreams, when the object is

absent; or changed into other colours and shapes, as things that depend

only upon the fancy. And these are the _images_, which are originally

and most properly called _ideas_, and _idols_, and derived from the

language of the _Grecians_, with whom the word εἴδω signifieth _to see_.

They also are called _phantasms_, which is in the same language,

_apparitions_. And from these images it is, that one of the faculties of

man’s nature, is called the _imagination_. And from hence it is

manifest, that there neither is, nor can be, any image made of a thing

invisible.

It is also evident, that there can be, no image of a thing infinite: for

all the images, and phantasms that are made by the impression of things

visible, are figured; but figure is a quantity every way determined. And

therefore there can be no image of God; nor of the soul of man; nor of

spirits; but only of bodies visible; that is, bodies that have light in

themselves, or are by such enlightened.

[Sidenote: Fictions.]

And whereas a man can fancy shapes he never saw; making up a figure out

of the parts of divers creatures; as the poets make their centaurs,

chimeras, and other monsters never seen: so can he also give matter to

those shapes, and make them in wood, clay, or metal. [Sidenote: Material

images.] And these are also called images, not for the resemblance of

any corporeal thing, but for the resemblance of some phantastical

inhabitants of the brain of the maker. But in these idols, as they are

originally in the brain, and as they are painted, carved, moulded, or

moulten in matter, there is a similitude of the one to the other, for

which the material body made by art, may be said to be the image of the

fantastical idol made by nature.

But in a larger use of the word image, is contained also, any

representation of one thing by another. So an earthly sovereign may be

called the image of God: and an inferior magistrate, the image of an

earthly sovereign. And many times in the idolatry of the Gentiles there

was little regard to the similitude of their material idol to the idol

in their fancy, and yet it was called the image of it. For a stone

unhewn has been set up for Neptune, and divers other shapes far

different from the shapes they conceived of their gods. And at this day

we see many images of the Virgin Mary, and other saints, unlike one

another, and without correspondence to any one man’s fancy; and yet

serve well enough for the purpose they were erected for; which was no

more but by the names only, to represent the persons mentioned in the

history; to which every man applieth a mental image of his own making,

or none at all. And thus an image in the largest sense, is either the

resemblance, or the representation of some thing visible; or both

together, as it happeneth for the most part.

But the name of idol is extended yet further in Scripture, to signify

also the sun, or a star, or any other creature, visible or invisible,

when they are worshipped for gods.

[Sidenote: Idolatry, what.]

Having shown what is _worship_, and what an _image_; I will now put them

together, and examine what that IDOLATRY is, which is forbidden in the

second commandment, and other places of the Scripture.

To worship an image, is voluntarily to do those external acts, which are

signs of honouring either the matter of the image, which is wood, stone,

metal, or some other visible creature; or the phantasm of the brain, for

the resemblance, or representation whereof, the matter was formed and

figured; or both together, as one animate body, composed of the matter

and the phantasm, as of a body and soul.

To be uncovered, before a man of power and authority, or before the

throne of a prince, or in such other places as he ordaineth to that

purpose in his absence, is to worship that man, or prince with civil

worship; as being a sign, not of honouring the stool or place, but the

person; and is not idolatry. But if he that doth it, should suppose the

soul of the prince to be in the stool, or should present a petition to

the stool, it were divine worship, and idolatry.

To pray to a king for such things, as he is able to do for us, though we

prostrate ourselves before him, is but civil worship; because we

acknowledge no other power in him, but human: but voluntarily to pray

unto him for fair weather, or for any thing which God only can do for

us, is divine worship, and idolatry. On the other side, if a king compel

a man to it by the terror of death, or other great corporal punishment,

it is not idolatry: for the worship which the sovereign commandeth to be

done unto himself by the terror of his laws, is not a sign that he that

obeyeth him, does inwardly honour him as a God, but that he is desirous

to save himself from death, or from a miserable life; and that which is

not a sign of internal honour, is no worship; and therefore no idolatry.

Neither can it be said, that he that does it, scandalizeth, or layeth

any stumbling block before his brother; because how wise, or learned

soever he be that worshippeth in that manner, another man cannot from

thence argue, that he approveth it; but that he doth it for fear; and

that it is not his act, but the act of his sovereign.

To worship God, in some peculiar place, or turning a man’s face towards

an image, or determinate place, is not to worship, or honour the place,

or image; but to acknowledge it holy, that is to say, to acknowledge the

image, or the place to be set apart from common use. For that is the

meaning of the word _holy_; which implies no new quality in the place or

image, but only a new relation by appropriation to God; and therefore is

not idolatry; no more than it was idolatry to worship God before the

brazen serpent; or for the Jews, when they were out of their own

country, to turn their faces, when they prayed, towards the temple of

Jerusalem; or for Moses to put off his shoes when he was before the

flaming bush, the ground appertaining to Mount Sinai, which place God

had chosen to appear in, and to give his laws to the people of Israel,

and was therefore holy ground, not by inherent sanctity, but by

separation to God’s use; or for Christians to worship in the churches,

which are once solemnly dedicated to God for that purpose, by the

authority of the king, or other true representant of the Church. But to

worship God, as inanimating, or inhabiting such image, or place; that is

to say, in infinite substance in a finite place, is idolatry: for such

finite gods, are but idols of the brain, nothing real; and are commonly

called in the Scripture by the names of _vanity_, and _lies_, and

_nothing_. Also to worship God, not as inanimating, or present in the

place, or image; but to the end to be put in mind of him, or of some

works of his, in case the place, or image be dedicated, or set up by

private authority, and not by the authority of them that are our

sovereign pastors, is idolatry. For the commandment is, _thou shalt not

make to thyself any graven image_. God commanded Moses to set up the

brazen serpent; he did not make it to himself; it was not therefore

against the commandment. But the making of the golden calf by Aaron, and

the people, as being done without authority from God, was idolatry; not

only because they held it for God, but also because they made it for a

religious use, without warrant either from God their sovereign, or from

Moses, that was his lieutenant.

The Gentiles worshipped for gods, Jupiter and others; that living, were

men perhaps that had done great and glorious acts: and for the children

of God, divers men and women, supposing them gotten between an immortal

deity, and a mortal man. This was idolatry, because they made them so to

themselves, having no authority from God, neither in his eternal law of

reason, nor in his positive and revealed will. But though our Saviour

was a man, whom we also believe to be God immortal, and the Son of God,

yet this is no idolatry; because we build not that belief upon our own

fancy, or judgment, but upon the Word of God revealed in the Scriptures.

And for the adoration of the Eucharist, if the words of Christ, _this is

my body_, signify, _that he himself, and the seeming bread in his hand,

and not only so, but that all the seeming morsels of bread that have

ever since been, and any time hereafter shall be consecrated by priests,

be so many Christ’s bodies, and yet all of them but one body_; then is

that no idolatry, because it is authorized by our Saviour: but if that

text do not signify that, (for there is no other that can be alleged for

it) then, because it is a worship of human institution, it is idolatry.

For it is not enough to say, God can transubstantiate the bread into

Christ’s body: for the Gentiles also held God to be omnipotent, and

might upon that ground no less excuse their idolatry, by pretending, as

well as others, a transubstantiation of their wood, and stone into God

Almighty.

Whereas there be, that pretend divine inspiration to be the supernatural

entering of the Holy Ghost into a man, and not an acquisition of God’s

graces, by doctrine, and study; I think they are in a very dangerous

dilemma. For if they worship not the man whom they believe to be so

inspired, they fall into impiety; as not adoring God’s supernatural

presence. And again, if they worship him, they commit idolatry; for the

apostles would never permit themselves to be so worshipped. Therefore

the safest way is to believe, that by the descending of the dove upon

the apostles; and by Christ’s breathing on them, when he gave them the

Holy Ghost; and by the giving of it by imposition of hands, are

understood the signs which God has been pleased to use, or ordain to be

used, of his promise to assist those persons in their study to preach

his kingdom, and in their conversation, that it might not be scandalous,

but edifying to others.

[Sidenote: Scandalous worship of images.]

Besides the idolatrous worship of images, there is also a scandalous

worship of them; which is also a sin, but not idolatry. For _idolatry_

is to worship by signs of an internal, and real honour: but _scandalous

worship_, is but seeming worship, and may sometimes be joined with an

inward, and hearty detestation, both of the image, and of the

phantastical _demon_, or idol, to which it is dedicated; and proceed

only from the fear of death, or other grievous punishment; and is

nevertheless a sin in them that so worship, in case they be men whose

actions are looked at by others, as lights to guide them by; because

following their ways, they cannot but stumble, and fall in the way of

religion: whereas the example of those we regard not, works not on us at

all, but leaves us to our own diligence and caution; and consequently

are no causes of our falling.

If therefore a pastor lawfully called to teach and direct others, or any

other, of whose knowledge there is a great opinion, do external honour

to an idol for fear; unless he make his fear and unwillingness to it, as

evident as the worship; he scandalizeth his brother, by seeming to

approve idolatry. For his brother arguing from the action of his

teacher, or of him whose knowledge he esteemeth great, concludes it to

be lawful in itself. And this scandal is sin, and a _scandal given_. But

if one being no pastor, nor of eminent reputation for knowledge in

Christian doctrine, do the same, and another follow him; this is no

scandal given; for he had no cause to follow such example: but is a

pretence of scandal, which he taketh of himself for an excuse before

men. For an unlearned man, that is in the power of an idolatrous king,

or state, if commanded on pain of death to worship before an idol, he

detesteth the idol in his heart, he doth well; though if he had the

fortitude to suffer death, rather than worship it, he should do better.

But if a pastor, who as Christ’s messenger, has undertaken to teach

Christ’s doctrine to all nations, should do the same, it were not only a

sinful scandal, in respect of other Christian men’s consciences, but a

perfidious forsaking of his charge.

The sum of that which I have said hitherto, concerning the worship of

images, is this, that he that worshippeth in an image, or any creature,

either the matter thereof, or any fancy of his own, which he thinketh to

dwell in it; or both together; or believeth that such things hear his

prayers, or see his devotions, without ears or eyes, committeth

idolatry: and he that counterfeiteth such worship for fear of

punishment, if he be a man whose example hath power amongst his

brethren, committeth a sin. But he that worshippeth the Creator of the

world before such an image, or in such a place as he hath not made, or

chosen of himself, but taken from the commandment of God’s word, as the

Jews did in worshipping God before the cherubims, and before the brazen

serpent for a time, and in, or towards the Temple of Jerusalem, which

was also but for a time, committeth not idolatry.

Now for the worship of saints, and images, and relics, and other things

at this day practised in the Church of Rome, I say they are not allowed

by the Word of God, nor brought into the Church of Rome, from the

doctrine there taught; but partly left in it at the first conversion of

the Gentiles; and afterwards countenanced, and confirmed, and augmented

by the bishops of Rome.

[Sidenote: Answer to the argument from the cherubims, and brazen

serpent.]

As for the proofs alleged out of Scripture, namely, those examples of

images appointed by God to be set up; they were not set up for the

people, or any man to worship, but that they should worship God himself

before them; as before the cherubims over the ark, and the brazen

serpent. For we read not, that the priest, or any other did worship the

cherubims; but contrarily we read (_2 Kings_ xviii. 4) that Hezekiah

brake in pieces the brazen serpent which Moses had set up, because the

people burnt incense to it. Besides, those examples are not put for our

imitation, that we also should set up images, under pretence of

worshipping God before them; because the words of the second

commandment, _thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, &c._

distinguish between the images that God commanded to be set up, and

those which we set up to ourselves. And therefore from the cherubims or

brazen serpent, to the images of man’s devising; and from the worship

commanded by God, to the will-worship of men, the argument is not good.

This also is to be considered, that as Hezekiah brake in pieces the

brazen serpent, because the Jews did worship it, to the end they should

do so no more; so also Christian sovereigns ought to break down the

images which their subjects have been accustomed to worship, that there

be no more occasion of such idolatry. For at this day, the ignorant

people, where images are worshipped, do really believe there is a divine

power in the images; and are told by their pastors, that some of them

have spoken; and have bled; and that miracles have been done by them;

which they apprehend as done by the saint, which they think either is

the image itself, or in it. The Israelites, when they worshipped the

calf, did think they worshipped the God that brought them out of Egypt;

and yet it was idolatry, because they thought the calf either was that

God, or had him in his belly. And though some man may think it

impossible for people to be so stupid, as to think the image to be God,

or a saint; or to worship it in that notion; yet it is manifest in

Scripture to the contrary; where when the golden calf was made, the

people said, (_Exod._ xxxii. 4) _These are thy gods, O Israel_; and

where the images of Laban (_Gen._ xxxi. 30) are called his gods. And we

see daily by experience in all sorts of people, that such men as study

nothing but their food and ease, are content to believe any absurdity,

rather than to trouble themselves to examine it; holding their faith as

it were by entail unalienable, except by an express and new law.

[Sidenote: Painting of fancies no idolatry; but abusing them to

religious worship is.]

But they infer from some other places, that it is lawful to paint

angels, and also God himself: as from God’s walking in the garden; from

Jacob’s seeing God at the top of the ladder; and from other visions, and

dreams. But visions, and dreams, whether natural, or supernatural, are

but phantasms: and he that painteth an image of any of them, maketh not

an image of God, but of his own phantasm, which is making of an idol. I

say not, that to draw a picture after a fancy, is a sin; but when it is

drawn, to hold it for a representation of God, is against the second

commandment; and can be of no use, but to worship. And the same may be

said of the images of angels, and of men dead; unless as monuments of

friends, or of men worthy remembrance. For such use of an image, is not

worship of the image; but a civil honouring of the person, not that is,

but that was. But when it is done to the image which we make of a saint,

for no other reason, but that we think he heareth our prayers, and is

pleased with the honour we do him, when dead, and without sense, we

attribute to him more than human power; and therefore it is idolatry.

Seeing therefore there is no authority, neither in the law of Moses, nor

in the Gospel, for the religious worship of images, or other

representations of God, which men set up to themselves; or for the

worship of the image of any creature in heaven or earth, or under the

earth: and whereas Christian kings, who are living representants of God,

are not to be worshipped by their subjects, by any act that signifieth a

greater esteem of his power, than the nature of mortal man is capable

of; it cannot be imagined, that the religious worship now in use, was

brought into the Church by misunderstanding of the Scripture. It resteth

therefore, that it was left in it, by not destroying the images

themselves, in the conversion of the Gentiles that worshipped them.

[Sidenote: How idolatry was left in the Church.]