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THE

WHOLE WORKS

OF THE

RIGHT REV. JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D.,

LORD BISHOP OP DOWN, CONNOR, AND DROMORE :

WITH A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,

AND A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF HIS WRITINGS

BY THE

RIGHT REV. REGINALD HEBER, D.D.,

LATE LORD BISHOP OF CALCUTTA.

REVISED AND CORRECTED

BY THE REV. CHARLES PAGE EDEN, M.A.,

FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD.

IN TEN VOLUMES.

VOL. IX.

EDITED

BY THE REV. ALEXANDER TAYLOR, M.A.,

MICHEL FELLOW OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD.

DUCTOR DUBITANTIUM— PART I.— CONTAINING
BOOKS I. AND II.

LONDON :

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS; F. AND J. RIVINGTON ; HATCHARD
AND SON; HAMILTON AND CO.; SIMPKIN AND CO. ; CAPES AND SON:
J. BAIN ; E. HODGSON ; H. WASHBOURNE ; H. G. BOHN ; BICKERS AND BUSH ;
J. VAN VOOBST ; C. DOLMAN. OXFORD: I. H. PARKER. CAMBRIDGE:
J. AND J. J. DEIGHTON ; MACM1LLAN AND CO. LIVERPOOL: G. AND J. ROBINSON.
BIRMINGHAM : H C. LANGBRIDGE.

MDGCCLI.

OXFORD :
1' HINTED BY I. SHRTMPTON.

1) UCTOR 1) UBITANTIU. )/,

Oil,

THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE

IN ALL HER GENERAL MEASURES;

SERVING AS A GKKAT INSTRUMENT FOR THE DETERMINATION OF

CASES OP CONSCIENCE.

IN FOUR BOOKS.

I!Y THE

RIGHT REV. JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D.,.

LORD BISHOP OF DOWN, CONNOR, AND DROMORE.

2o^)i'a iravovpyow iiriyvwcrerai ras udovs avruw avoid Se d(pp6i,ct>v ci> ir\di>r). —

Prov. :dv. 8.

EDITED

BY THE REV. ALEXANDER TAYLOR, M.A.,

MICHEL FELLOW OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD.

PART I.

CONTAINING BOOKS I. AND II.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS; F. AND J. RIVINGTON ; HATCHAKD
AND SON; HAMILTON AND CO.; SIMPKIN AND CO.; CAPES AND SON
J. BAIN; E. HODGSON; H. WASHBOURNE ; H. G. BOHN; BICKERS AND BUSH j
J. VAN VOORST; C. DOLMAN. OXFORD: I. H. PARKER. CAMBRIDGE:
J. DEIGHTON; MACMILLAN AND CO. LIVERPOOL: G. AND J.ROBINSON. BIR-
MINGHAM : H. C. LANGBRIDGE.

MDCCCLI.

The editor of the preceding volumes of Jeremy Taylor's works
having ceased to reside in Oxford, the care of preparing for the
press the Ductor Dubitantium has devolved, at his suggestion, upon
the Rev. Alexander Taylor, m.a., Michel Fellow of Queen's college,
who had already assisted largely in verifying the author's references.
Mr. Eden hopes to be able to edit the last volume (vol. i. of the
series) containing the Life, Indexes, and some minor works. His
name is retained uniformly on the general title-page of all the
volumes, though his share in the present work in particular has
been limited to once reading over the sheets in their passage
through the press.

The several editions of the Ducior Duhitantium collated for the
present publication, are, with the letters used to designate them in
the notes, as follows :

i. fol. Lond. 16G0, A.
ii. fol. Lond. 1671, B.
iii. fol. Lond. 1676, C.
iv. fol. Lond. 1696, D.

A TABLE

OF THE TITLES OF THE CHAPTERS AND THE RULES
OF THE FIRST BOOK.

OF CONSCIENCE, THE KINDS OE IT, AND THE GENERAL RULES
OF CONDUCTING THEM.

CHAPTER I.

The rule of conscience in general,
rule page

1. Conscience is the mind of a man, governed by a rule, and measured by

the proportions of good and evil in order to practice . 3

2. The duty and offices of conscience are to dictate, and to testify or bear wit-

ness, to accuse or excuse, to loose or bind . . . .16

3. Be careful that prejudice or passion, fancy and affection, error or illusion,

be not mistaken for conscience . . . . . .36

I. The conscience of a vicious man is an evil judge, and an imperfect rule . 41

5. All consciences are to walk by the same rule, and that which is just to

one is so to all in the like circumstances . . . .43

6. In conscience that which is first is truest, easiest, and most useful . 45

7. Conscience by its several habitudes and relations, or tendencies toward

its proper object is divided into several kinds . . . .46

CHAPTER II.
Of the right or sure conscience.

1. A right conscience is that which guides our actions by right and propor-

tioned means to a right end ... . . . .50

2. In a right conscience the practical judgment, that is, the last determination

to an action, ought to be sure and evident .... ib.

3. The practical judgment of a right conscience is always agreeable to the

speculative determination of the understanding. . . .52

4. A judgment of nature or inclination is not sufficient to make a sure con-

science . -<>

• • • • • • • • I «/

CONTENTS.
RULE ''AGE

5. When two motives concur to the determination of an action, whereof one

is virtuous and the other secular, a right conscience is not prejudiced hy

that mixture ........ 82

6. An argument not sufficient nor competent, though it do persuade us to a

tiling in itself good, is not the ground of a right, nor a sufficient warrant

for a sure conscience . . • • . • .92

7. A conscience determined by the counsel of wise men, even against its own

inclinations, may be sure and right . . . . .102

8. He that sins against a right and a sure conscience, whatever the instance

be, commits a great sin, but not a double one . . . . ib.

9. The goodness of an object is not made by conscience, but is accepted, de-

clared, and published by it, and made personally obligatory . . 1 20

CHAPTER III.

Of the confident or erroneous conscience.

1. An erroneous conscience commands us to do what we ought to omit, or to

omit what we ought to do, or to do it otherwise than we should . 126

2. An erroneous conscience binds us to obedience, but not so as a right con-

science does . . . . . . . .129

3. A conscience erring vincibly or culpably, is an unavoidable cause of sin,

whether it be resisted or complied with . . . . .137

1. It is a greater sin to do a good action against our conscience, than to do

an evil action in obedience to it . . . . .139

5. It is not lawful to delight in an evil action (after the discovery of our

error) which we did innocently in an erroneous conscience . . 141

G. An innocent or invincibly erring conscience is to be obeyed even against

the known commandment of our superiors .... 143

7. The error of an abused conscience ought to be reformed, sometimes by the

command of the will, but ordinarily by a contrary reason . . 146

8. The error of a conscience is not always to be opened to the erring person

by the guides of souls, or any other charitable adviser . . . 148

CHAPTER IV.

Of the probable or thinking conscience.

1. A probable conscience is an imperfect assent to an uncertain proposition,

in which one part is indeed clearly and fully chosen, but with an ex-
plicit or implicit notice that the contrary is also fairly eligible . .150

2. A conscience that is at first and in its own nature probable, may be made

certain by accumulation of many probabilities operating the same per-
suasion ......... 152

3. Of two opinions equally probable upon the account of their proper reasons,

one may be safer than another . . . . .181

4. An opinion that is speculatively probable is not always practically the same 182

CONTENTS.

RULE PAGE

5. The greater probability destroys the less . . . 18f

6". When two opinions seem equally probable, the last determination is to be

made by accidents, circumstances, and collateral inducements . 189

7. It is not lawful to change our practical sentence about the same object,

while the same probability remains . . . . .192

8. An opinion relying upon very slender probability is not to be followed, ex-

cept in the cases of great necessity or great charity . . . 191

i). Multitude of authors is not ever the most probable inducement, nor doth

it in all cases make a safe and probable conscience . . .197

10. In following the authority of men, no rule can be antecedently given for

the choice of the persons, but the choice is wholly to be conducted by
prudence, and according to the subject matter .... 205

1 1. He that hath given assent to one part of a probable opinion, may lawfully

depose that conscience and that opinion upon confidence of the sentence

of another ........ 212

12. He that enquires of several doctors, until he rind one answering according

to his mind, cannot by that enquiry make his conscience safe ; but ac-
cording to the subject matter and other circumstances he may . . 210'

13. He that is asked concerning a case that is on either side probable, may

answer against his own opinion, if the contrary be probable, or more
safe, or more expedient and favourable .... 217

11. When the guide of souls is of a different opinion from his charge or penitent,
heisnotbound to exact conformity to his own opinion that is but probable,
but may proceed according to the conscience of the penitent . .218

15. The sentence and arbitrement of a prudent and good man, though it be of
itself but probable, yet is more than a probable warranty to actions
otherwise undeterminable . . . . . .219

CHAPTER V.

Of a doubtful conscience.

1. A doubtful conscience assents to neither side of the question, and brings

no direct obligation ....... 220

2. A negative doubt neither binds to action, nor enquiry, nor repentance, but

it binds only to caution and observance . . . . .221

3. A privative doubt cannot of itself hinder a man from acting what he is

moved to by an extrinsic argument or inducement that is in itself pru-
dent or innocent ....... 221

1. In doubts of right or law we are always bound to enquire, but in doubts

of fact not always •••.... 225

5. In doubts the safer part is to be chosen ..... 227

G. It is lawful for the conscience to proceed to action against a doubt that is

merely speculative ....... 232

7. Every dictate and judgment of the conscience, though it be little and less
material, is sufficient, and may be made use of for the deposition of a
doubt ......... 236

CONTENTS.

rule PAGE

8. When two precepts contrary to each other meet together about the same

question, that is to be preferred which binds most . . . 237

CHAPTER VI.
Of the scrupulous conscience.

1. A scruple is a great trouble of mind proceeding from a little motive and a

great indisposition, by which the conscience, though sufficiently deter-
mined by proper arguments, dares not proceed to action, or if it do it
cannot rest ...... . . 262

2. A conscience sufficiently instructed by its proper arguments of persuasion

may without sin proceed to action, against the scruple and its weaker
arguments or stronger tremblings ..... 2C6

3. He that is troubled with scruples ought to rely upon the judgment of a

prudent guide ........ 2C8

4. When a doubt is resolved in the entrance of an action, we must judge of

our action afterwards by the same measures as before; for he that
changes his measures, turns his doubt into a scruple . . . 269

5. A scrupulous conscience is to be cured by remedies proper to the disease

and to the man ........ 270

SECOND BOOK.

CHAPTER I.

Of the law of nature in general.

1. The law of nature is the universal law of the world, or the Jaw of mankind,

concerning common necessities, to which we are inclined by nature, in-
vited by consent, prompted by reason ; but is bound upon us only by the
commands of God ....... 279

2. The law of nature is the foundation of all laws, and the measure of their

obligation . . . . . . . .307

3. The first or greatest band of the law of nature is fear of punishment . 309
I. The second band of virtue is love, and its proper and consequent de-

liciousness . . . . . . . .314

5. The imperfection of some provisions in civil laws are supplied by the

natural obligation remaining upon persons civilly incapable . .318

C. Sins against the law of nature are greater or less, not by that proportion,
but by the greatness of the matter, and the evil consequent, or the malice
of the sinner ........ 32(5

CONTENTS.

RULE PAGE

7. Actions which are forbidden by the law of nature, cither for defect of

power, or for the incapacity of the matter, are not only unlawful but
also void ........ 329

8. When an act is forbidden by the law of nature for the turpitude and un-

decency that it hath in the matter of the action, the act is also void
when the turpitude remains or hath a perpetual cause . . . 332

9. The law of nature can be dispensed with by the divine power . . 333

10. The law of nature cannot be dispensed with by any human power . 310

11. That the obligation to a natural law does cease in any particular, is not to

be presumed by every one, but is to be declared by the public voice . 346

12. The exactness of natural laws is capable of interpretation, and may be

allayed by equity, and piety, and necessity .... 347

CHAPTER II.
Of the law of nature as it is drawn up in the christian law.

1. When the law of Jesus Christ was established, the Old testament or the

law of Moses did no longer oblige the conscience . . . 350

2. The ceremonial law of Moses is wholly void .... 355

3. The judicial law of Moses is annulled or abrogated, and retains no oblig-

ing power either in whole or in part over any christian prince, common-
wealth, or person ....... 362

4. The ten commandments of Moses, commonly called the moral law, is not

a perfect digest of the law of nature ..... 404

5. All the explications of the moral law which are found in the prophets and

other holy writers of the Old testament are to be accounted as parts

of the moral law, and equally obliging the conscience . 410

6. Every thing in the decalogue is not obligatory to Christians, is not a por-

tion of the moral or natural law ... . 412

The measures of difference to discern between moral precepts and precepts
not moral in all the laws of God ..... 468

7. There is no state of men or things but is to be guided by the proportion

of some rule or precept in the christian law .... 474

CHAPTER III.

Of the interpretation and obligation of the laws OF JK.SUS CHRIST.

1. In negative precepts the affirmatives are commanded, and in the affirma-

tive commandments the negatives are included . . . 49(i

2. When a negative and an affirmative seem opposite in any sense, the

affirmative is to be expounded by the negative, not the negative by the
affirmative ........ 503

3. In the affirmative and negative precepts of Christ, not only what is in the

words of the commandment, but whatsoever is symbolical or alike, is
equally forbidden or commanded ..... 505

CONTENTS.

PAGE

4. When any thing is forbidden by the laws of Jesus Christ, all those things

are forbidden also which follow from that forbidden action, and for whose
sake it was forbidden . . • • • • .511

5. The laws of Jesus Christ are the measures of the Spirit, and are always

to be extended to a spiritual signification . . . .515

Whatsoever is an elicit or imperate act of virtue, whether it be acted by
the soul or by the body, is an act of spiritual religion . . . £20

6. The imperate acts or outward expressions of one commandment must not

contradict the elicit acts of another ..... 522

7. When any thing is forbidden by the laws of Christ, all those things also

by which we come to that sin are understood to be by the same law
forbidden ........ 526

8. The suppositive propositions with the supervening advices of our blessed

Saviour are always equivalent to matter of duty, and are by interpreta-
tion a commandment ..... . . 529

9. The institution of a rite or sacrament by our blessed Saviour is a direct

law, and passes a proper obligation in its whole integrity . . 533

10. If the sense of a law be dubious, we are sometimes to expound it by

liberty, sometimes by restraint ..... 548

11. The positive laws of Jesus Christ cannot be dispensed with by any human

power ......... 558

12. Not every thing that is in the sermons and doctrine of Jesus Christ was

intended to bind as a law and commandment .... 568

13. Some things may be used in the service of God which are not commanded

in any law, nor explicitly commended in any doctrine of Jesus Christ. 575

14. The christian law both of faith and maimers is fully contained in the holy

scriptures, and from thence only can the conscience have divine war-
rant and authority ....... 598

15. In the law of Christ there is no precept that wholly ministers to the law

of Moses, but for a time only and less principally . . . 656

16. The laws of Jesus Christ are to be interpreted to the sense of a present

obedience according to their subject matter .... 658

17. Because the laws of Jesus Christ were delivered in sermons to a single

person or a definite number of hearers, we are curiously to enquire and
wisely to understand when those persons were only personally con-
cerned, and when they were representatives of the whole church . 681

18. Evangelical laws given to one concerning the duty of another do in that

very relation concern them both, but in differing degrees . . 689

19. Custom is no sufficient interpreter of the laws of Jesus Christ . . 692

20. The measure of perfection and obedience expected of Christians is greater

than that of the Jews, even in moral duties common to them and us . 699

CONTIONTS.

A TABLE

OF QUESTIONS SOLEMNLY HANDLED AND UNDER DISTINCT TITLES.

BOOK I.

PAGE

1. Whether it be in any case, or in what case it is lawful to choose the con-

clusion before the premises . . . . . .37

2. Whether one may believe a proposition which he cannot prove . . ib.

3. AVhether the avvTr\\>t\<ris may be corrupted . . . .41

4. How far the conscience may be corrupted . . . 42 —

5. Of what use right reason ought to be in religion . . . .55

6. Whether they that enter into holy orders are bound principally to design

the glory of God . . . . . . .83

7. Whether it be lawful to persuade a man to believe a truth by arguments

which himself judges insufficient . . . . .93

8. Whether it be lawful for a good end for preachers to affright men with

panic terrors, and to create fears that have no ground ; as to tell them,

if they be liars their faces will be deformed . . . .99

9. Whether a judge must give sentence according to the evidence of those

witnesses whom he knows false, or according to his conscience, though
contrary to a legal process . . . . . 103 -

10. Whether a false and abused conscience can oblige us to pursue the error. 129

11. Whether obedience to a conscience erring vincibly or culpably be a double

sin in the action and the principle . . . . .137

12. A discourse to prove that the religion of Jesus Christ is from God . 156

13. Whether it be lawful to several persons to use probable arguments con-

tradictory to one another for ends in themselves lawful . .194

14. How the ignorant and vulgar people shall proceed, when the teachers are

divided in opinion . . . . . . .201

15. When the authority of divines is to be followed, when that of lawyers . 209

16. Whether it be lawful to advise, determine or petition another to a lesser

sin, that thereby he may avoid a greater .... 2->8

17. Whether it be lawful for a wife, that she may live with some degree of

comfort, to connive at her husband's stolen pleasures, and what is the
woman's duty and most prudent course in this case . . . 240

c 2

356

363

382
392
420

CONTENTS.
BOOK II.

PAGE

18. Whether a will not sufficiently ratified according to the civil law be valid

to the injury of any of the legatees ..... 322

19. Whether we under the gospel are still bound to abstain from blood and

things strangled .....

20. Whether the judicial law of mutual abstinence in the days of women's

separation obliges Christians ....

21. Whether cousin-germans may marry one another

22. Whether it be against the law of nations to do so

23. Whether it be lawful to make a picture or image of God .

24. Whether it be lawful for Christians to worship God by an image . 429

25. How we are to celebrate the Lord's day . . . . .463

26. Whether it is lawful for a prince to permit any thing for the public neces-

sities of the people, which is forbidden by the laws of Jesus Christ . 476

27. Of the measures of war by Christ's law ..... 480

28. Whether the precedents of the Old testament are a law to them that go to

war ■ . . . . . . • • • 484

29. Of the negative measures of examples in the Old testament . . ib.

30. Of the example of Christ ....... 488

31. Of the use of examples in the Old and New testament . . . 491

32. Of the positive measures of examples, and which may be safely followed 493

33. Why the law of Moses consisted of negatives all but one . . . ib.

34. In what cases the stricter sense of the laws of Christ is to be followed . 548

35. When the laws of Christ are to be expounded to a sense of ease and liberty 550

36. Who are truly and innocently weak and to be complied with . . 554

37. What are the notes of difference between counsels and commands evan-

gelical ......... 572

38. Whether we are to require from scripture a warrant for every action we do

in common life ........ 575

39. Whether in matters of religion we may use any thing for which we have

no express word in scripture . . . . . . ib.

40. Of will- worship ........ 579

41. What voluntary or uncommanded actions are lawful or commendable . 581

42. Whether there be any, or what are those rules by which we may discern

tradition ....... .625

43. Whether or no and how far a negative argument from scripture is to pre-

vail ......... 634

44. Whether there may be any new articles of faith, or that the creed of the

church may so increase that what was sufficient to salvation in one age
cannot serve in another . . .... 643

CONTENTS.

TAGF,

45. At what time precisely is every sinner bound to repent of bis sins, so that

if be does not repent at that time, lie commits a new sin . . 662

46. Whether a man is bound to repent not only the first time, but every time

he thinks of his sin .... ... C7S

47. Whether the customs of Jews or gentiles, or indifferently of many nations,

be a just presumption, that the thing so practised is agreeable to the
law of nature, or is any ways to be supposed to be consonant to the will
of God .........

QUESTIONS MORE BRIEFLY HANDLED.

BOOK I.

1. Whether a man can be wholly without conscience . cap. i. rule i. § 5. p. 5

2. From whence conscience hath the power to torment a man c. i. r. ii. § 18. p. '28

3. Why is the conscience more afraid in some sins than others

c. i. r. ii. § 21. p. 29

4. Whether ecclesiastics ever ought to leave one church for another .

c. ii. r. v. § 23. p. 87

5. Whether it be lawful to use argumenta ad hominem . c. n. r. vi. § 10. p. 95

6. Whether a conscience invincibly erring is to be obeyed against the known

commands of our superiors . . . . c. in. r. vi. p. 11-3

7. Whether the error of a conscience may be laid down upon an argument

less probable than that which first produced the error c. m. r. vii. § 2. p. 146

8. Whether a moral demonstration be a sufficient ground of certainty in duties

c. iv. r. ii. § 2. p. 152

9. Whether when two probable opinions are practically compared, it is lawful

to reject that which is more probable . . c. iv. r. v. § 3. p. 185

10. Whether when two opinions seem equally probable, the understanding

ought to choose neither . . . . c. iv. r. vi. § 1. p. 1S9

11. Whether the lesser evil in respect of the greater hath the nature of good,

and whether it may be lawfully chosen, if necessity force to choose one .

c. v. r. viii. § 25. p. 251

BOOK II.

12. Whether the christian law be a collected body of the laws of nature

c. i. r. i. § 40. p. 298

13. Whether it be lawful to serve God with intuition of reward

c. i. r. iv. § 9. p. .'!17

14. Whether the divine power can dispense with the law of nature c. i. r. ix. p. 333

15. How God dispenseth with His laws . . c. i. r. ix. § 3. p. 334

16. What laws of nature can be dispensed with . c. i. r. ix. § 10. p. 33S

CONTENTS.

17. Whether it he rightly said, per jus gentium et civile all quid detrahitur de

jure naturali C. i. r. x. § 2. p. 341

18. Whether the pope can dispense with the law of nature c. i. r. x. § 9. p. 343

19. Whether Abraham were brother to Sarah . . c II. r. iii. § 32. p. 381

20. What is meant Levit. xviii. 6, by 'none of you ;' and 'near of kin to you'

. c. ii. r. iii. § 36, 39. p. 383

21. Whether Christ gave any new precepts which were not in the mosaical

digest . . . • • • c. ii. r. iv. § 2. p. 405

22. Whether that which we call the second commandment be a distinct com-

mandment, or an explication only of the first . c. n. r. vi. § 1. p. 412

23. Whether it is well to divide the tenth commandment into two

c. ii. r. vi. § 5. p. 415

24. Whether it be lawful to make an image . . c. n. r. vi. § 12. p. 420

25. Whether spiritual persons should be exempt from secular jurisdiction

c. ii. r. vi. § 67. p. 470

26. Whether an example out of the Old testament be sufficient warrant for us

c. ii. r. vii. § 26. p. 484

27. Whether in the law of Moses the affirmative laws are included in the

negative ...... c. m. r. i. § 7. p. 498

28. Whether the arguments of an old heretic new made use of still increase the

account of the first sin . . . c ill. r. iv. § 6. p. 514

29. Whether marriage be an universal commandment . c. in. r. ix. § 2. p. 533

30. Whether the Lord's supper be to be administered to all in both kinds

c. in. r. ix. § 5. p. 535

31. Whether in the holy eucharist whole Christ be received under each kind .

c. in. r. ix. § 26. p. 544

32. Whether the blood is received in the bread by concomitance

c. in. r. ix. § 26. lb.

33. Whether a power of dispensing with the positive laws of Christ be entrust-

ed with any man or society of men, to the pope or any other

c. in. r. xi. § 6. p. 560

34. Whether it be lawful to break the vow and bonds of marriage to enter into

a religious house ..... c. in. r. xi. § 9. p. 561

35. Whether a supply of duty is to be made in any case, or whether it be not

better in some cases to do something of the duty than nothing, when we
cannot do all . . . . . c. in. r. xi. § 17. p. 566

36. Whether it be as great a sin to teach for necessary doctrines the prohibitions

of men as the injunctions . . . c. in. r. xiii. § 20. p. 587

37. What superstition is . . . .cm. r. xiii. § 26. p. 590

38. Whether the sacrifice of Abel was will-worship . c. in. r. xiii. § 27. p. 591

39. Whether whatsoever is taught us by natural reason is bound upon us by a

natural law . c. in. r. xiii. § 28. p. 592 ; and c. i. r. i. § 30. p. 293

40. Whether the holy scriptures contain the whole will of God

c. in. r. xiv. § 2. p. 598

CONTENTS.

41. What is the use of traditions . . c. in. r. xiv. § 13. p. 612

42. Whether tradition after the consignation of the canon of scriptures be of

any use in questions of faitli or manners . . c. hi. r. xiv. § 23. p. 617

43. Whether traditions can be proved out of scripture c. III. r. xiv. § 38. p. 625

44. Whether the belief of the catholic church is a sufficient argument to prove

a tradition to be apostolical . . . c. in. r. xiv. § 39. p. 627

45. Whether a council or the doctors of the church can give sufficient authority

to tradition . . . • . c. in. r. xiv. § 42. p. 632

46. What authority an uninterrupted succession from apostolical men can give

to a tradition . . . . . c. in. r. xiv. § 43. p. 633

47. Whether it be lawful to defer baptism till near death

c. in. r. xvi. § 1. p. 659

48. Whether a man be bound to weep as often as he thinks of his sin .

c. m. r. xvi. § 36. p. 680

49. Whether the bishop that ordains, or he that is ordained, or they that

choose do sin, if the bishop be unfit . . c. in. r. xviii. § 1. p. 689.

THE MOST SACRED MAJESTY OF

CHARLES II.,

KING OF GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, AND IRELAND,
DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, &c.

Great Sir,
The circles of the divine providence turn themselves upon the
affairs of the world so that every spondel of the wheels may mark
out those virtues which we are then to exercise ; and every new
event in the economy of God is God's finger to point out to us by
what instances He will be served. We have been sorely smitten and
for a long time ; for (that I may use the words of the prophet3)
" Alas, for that day was great, so that none was like it, it was even
the time of Jacob's trouble ;" and then faith and patience, and all
the passive graces of religion were in their own season. But since
God hath left off to smite us with an iron rod, and hath once more
said unto these nations, " They shall serve the Lord their God, and
David their king whom I have raised up unto them'1;" now our
duty stands on the sunny side ; it is our work to rejoice in God and
in God's anointed, and to be glad, and worthily to accept of our
prosperity is all our business : for so good a God we serve that He
hath made it our duty to be happy, and we cannot please Him unless
we be infinitely pleased ourselves. It was impossible to live without
our king, but as slaves live, that is, such who are civilly dead, and
persons condemned to metals ; we lived to the lusts and insolency
of others, but not at all to ourselves, to our own civil or religious
comforts. But now our joys are mere and unmixed ; for that we may
do our duty and have our reward at once, God hath sent your majesty
amongst us, that we may feel the pleasures of obedience, and reap
the fruits of that government which God loves and uses, which He
hath constituted and adorned, which He hath restored to us by a
a [Jer. xxx. 7.] " [vers. 9.]

n" THE EPISTLE DEDICATOKY.

conjugation of miracles, by the work of His hand and the light of
His countenance, by changing the hearts of men, and scattering the
people that delight in war, by infatuating their counsels and break-
ing their cords asunder; that is, which He himself hath wrought
amongst us by Himself alone, and therefore will bless and will never
interrupt : only we must be careful never to provoke Him any more
by our un thankfulness and infidel apostasy.

But now, great sir, be pleased to give me leave in the throngs of
those that rejoice to see the goodness of God to His servant Job, in
imitation of them who presented him with every man an ear-ring of
gold, and a piece of silver, or a lambc, to bring also my offering, the
signification of my joy. For thougli it be but two books, which like
the widow's two mites make up but a contemptible sum ; yet because
it is all I have, your majesty may be pleased to accept : and so much
the rather, because it is also an expression of that part of the duty
of my calling which hath fallen to my share. Tor your majesty, like
the king in the gospel, hath been in a far country, and some of your
citizens sent after you, and said, Nolumus fame regnareA; but God
hath caused you to return and reign : and if your majesty should by
that example call us to render an account of our talents, I can only
say, that amongst those many excellent persons who have greatly
improved theirs, I was willing to negotiate and to labour. What
fruit will from hence accrue to souls is wholly in the hands of God,
but this semination and culture was much wanting in the reformed
churches : for though in all things else the goodness of God hath
made us to abound, and our cup to run over ; yet our labours have
been hitherto unemployed in the description of the rules of conscience,
and casuistical theology. In which because I have now made some
attempt, if the production be not unworthy, I am sure it is not im-
proper to lay it at the feet of your majesty. For your majesty being
by God appointed custos utriusque tabula, since like Moses you are
from God descended to us with the two tables of the law in your
hand, and that you will best govern by the arguments and compul-
sory of conscience, and this alone is the greatest firmament of obedi-
ence; whatsoever can be the measure of conscience est resjisci*, is
part of your own propriety, and enters into your exchequer.

Be pleased therefore, gracious sir, to accept this instance of my
duty to God, to your majesty, and to your great charge, the church
of England. There are in it many things intended for the service,
but nothing to disserve any of these great interests. Those cases
that concern the power and offices of ecclesiastical superiors and
supreme, were (though in another manner) long since done by the
incomparable Mr. Hookerf, and the learned archbishop of Spalato- :

c nb^f? [Job. xlii. 11.— See Gese- f Lib. vii. viii. of ecclesiastical polity,

nius ad voc.l s [Marcus Antonius de Dominis, ar-

d [Luke xix. 14.1 cliiepiscopus Spalatensis] Lib. viii. de

c [Vid. Juv. sat. iv. 55.] reP- cccles-

THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY, lil

but their labours were unhappily lost, and never saw the light h. And
though I cannot attain to the strength of these champions of David
and guardians of the temple, yet since their portion of work is fallen
into my hand, I have heartily endeavoured to supply that loss; though
with no other event, but as charitable passengers by their little but
well-meaning alms repair the breaches of his fortune who was greatly
undone by war or fire. But therefore I humbly beg your majesty's
pardon in all things where my weaknesses make me to despair of
your more gracious acceptance : and here I am therefore to be confi-
dent, because your mercy is, as your majesty, this day in her exalta-
tion, and is felt by all your subjects; and therefore humbly to be
hoped for by

Great sir,

Your majesty's most dutiful and most obedient subject,

JEEEMY TAYLOR.

h [The seventh book of Hooker's work was first published in 1662: see Mr.
Keble's preface to his edition.]

the

PREFACE.

The reformation of religion in the western churches hath been so
violently, so laboriously, so universally opposed by evil spirits and
evil men, by wilfulness and ignorance, by prejudice and interest, by
error and partiality ; and itself also hath been clone so imperfectly in
some places, and so unskilfully in some others, because the thick and
long incumbent darkness had made it impossible to behold the whole
light in all its splendour ; that it was found to be work enough for the
ministers of religion to convince the gaiusayers, to oppose their witty
arts by the advantageous representment of wise truths, so to keep the
people from their temptations. But since there were found not many
able to do this but such which had other cures to attend, the conduct
of souls in their public and private charges, and the consequent neces-
sity of preaching and catechising, visiting the sick, and their public
daily offices; it was the less wonder that in the reformed churches
there hath been so great a scarcity of books of cases of conscience :
though it is not to be denied but the careless and needless neglect
of receiving private confessions hath been too great a cause of our not
providing materials apt for so pious and useful a ministration. But
besides this, it is certain that there was a necessity of labouring to
other purposes than formerly : and this necessity was present and
urgent, and the hearts and heads of men ran to quench that fire, and
left the government of the house more loosely, till they could discern
whether the house would be burnt or no by the flames of contention
which then brake out : only this duty was supplied by excellent
preachings, by private conferences, by admonitions and answers given
when some more pious and religious persons came to confessions, and
as they were upon particular occasions required and invited. But for
any public provisions of books of casuistical theology, we were almost
wholly unprovided, and like the children of Israel in the days of Saul
and Jonathan, we were forced to go down to the forges of the Philis-
tines to sharpen every man his share and his coulter, his axe and his
mattock. We had swords and spears of our own, enough for defence,
and more than enough for disputation : but in this more necessary
part of the conduct of consciences we did receive our answers from
abroad, till we found that our old needs were sometimes very ill sup-
plied, and new necessities did every day arise.

vi THE PREFACE.

Some of the Lutherans have indeed done something in this kind
which is well; Balduinusa, Bidenbachiusb, Declekanusc, Konigd, and
the abbreviator of Gerard. Some essays also have been made by
others, Alstediuse, Amesiusf, Perkins8, and the late eloquent and
reverend bishop of Norwich11. But yet our needs remain, and we
cannot be well supplied out of the Roman store-houses ; for though
there the staple is, and very many excellent things exposed to view ;
yet we have found the merchants to be deceivers, and the wares too
often falsified. Eor

1) If we consider what heaps of prodigious propositions and rules
of conscience their doctors have given us, we shall soon perceive that
there are so many boxes of poison in their repositories under the
same paintings and specious titles, that as it will be impossible for
every man to distinguish their ministries of health from the methods
of death ; so it will be unsafe for any man to venture indiscriminately.
For who can safely trust that guide that teaches him 'that it is
no deadly sin to steal, or privately against his will and without his
knowledge to take a thing from him who is ready to give it if he were
asked, but will not endure to have it taken without asking' •* ' that it
is no theft k privately to take a thing that is not great from our father •'
1 that he who sees an innocent punished for what himself hath done,
he in the mean time who did it, holding his peace, is not bound to
restitution1 f ' that he who falls into fornication, if he goes to con-
fession, may the same day in which he did fornicate receive the com-
munion"1 ;' ' that communion is manducation, and therefore requires
not attention11/ 'that he who being in deadly sin receives the holy
communion commits but one sin, viz. that against the dignity of the
sacrament; and that the omission of confession is no distinct sin0/
meaning, amongst them who believe confession to be of divine insti-
tution ? As bad or worse are those affirmatives and doctrines of re-
pentance, fa dying man is not tied to be contrite for his sins, but
confession and attrition are sufficient p : and that we may know what is

a [Frid. Balduinus, Tractatus post- of conscience, distinguished into three

humus de casibus conscientiae, 4to. Wit- books, taught and delivered by M. W.

teb. 1628.] Perkins, in his holy-day lectures,' &c.

b [Bidembachius, (Felix) Consilia 4to. Lond. 1611.]

theologica, ed. 4to. Witteb. 1612.] h [' Resolutions and decisions of divers

c [Dedekennus, (Georg.) tractatus de practicall cases of conscience in conti-

peccatorum causis, &c. 8vo. Hamb. nuall use amongst men, very necessary

loll.] for their information and direction,' by

. [KSnig, (Georg.) Casus conscientiae J[oseph] H[all]. B[ishop of] N[orwich.

miscellaneae, in sex capitibus doctrinas 8vo. Lond. 1649.]

catecheticae occurrentes, 4to. Altdorffi, ; Eman. Sa., aphor. v. ' Furtum.'

1(l54-] [p. 161.]

e [Summa casuum conscientiae nova k [Prov. xxviii. 24.]

methodo elaborata, per .Tohannem Hen- ' Idem. v. ' Restitutio.' [§ 38. p. 335.]

ricum Alstedium, 12mo. Franc. 1628.] -» Diana, De euchar. in compend. n.

f [Guhelmi Amesn de conscientia, et 30. [p. 280, 281.]

ejus jure, vel casibus, libri quinque, ed. n n. 31. [p. 281.]

nova. 12mo. Oxon. 1659.] • n, 32. [p. 281.]

* ['The whole treatise of the cases p Idem de pcenit. n. 3. [p. 576.]

THE PREFACE. Vll

meant by attrition, we are told ' it is a sorrow for temporal evil, dis-
grace or loss of health, sent by God as a punishment, or feared to be
sentq/ this alone is enough for salvation, if the dying man do but
confess to the priest, though he have lived wickedly all his life-time.
And that we need not think the matter of confession to be too great
a burden, we are told, ' he that examines his conscience before con-
fession, sins if he be too diligent and careful V But as for the precept
of having a contrite and a broken heart, ' it binds not but in the article
or danger of death : nor then, but when we cannot have the sacra-
ment of penance3/ To these may be added those contradictions of
severity for the securing of a holy life ; that ' if a man purpose at the
present to sin no more, though at the same time he believes he shall
sin again, (that is, that he will break his purpose,) yet that purpose is
good enough / ' that it is not very certain whether he that hath attri-
tion does receive grace, though he does not formally resolve to sin no
more' / meaning, that it is probable, that it is not necessary to make
any such resolution of leaving their sin ; they are not certain it is so,
nor certain that it is otherwise ; that is, they find no commandment
for these things. It may be they are counselled and advised in scrip-
ture, but that it is no great matter; for fit is no sin not to cor-
respond with the divine inspirations exhorting us to counsels11/ Add
to these, that 'to detract from our neighbour's fame before a con-
scientious, silent, and a good man, is no deadly sinx / f to dispense with
our vows in a year of jubilee is valid, though the condition of obtaining
that jubilee be not performed y/ Thus men amongst them have leave
to sin, and they may live in it as long as their life lasts without re-
pentance ; and that repentance in the sum of affairs is nothing but to
call to the priest to absolve them, provided you be sorrowful for the
evil you feel or fear God will send on you : but contrition2, or sorrow
proceeding from the love of God is not at all necessary ; ' neither is it
necessary that our sorrow be thought to be contrition ; neither is it
necessary that attrition should go before confession, but. wall serve if
it be some time after ; and if you confess none but venial sins, it is
sufficient if you be sorrowful for one of them ; and the case is the
same for mortal sins formerly confessed3/ — But I am ashamed of this
heap of sad stories. If I should amass together what themselves have
collected in their books, it would look like a libel ; but who is pleased
with variety of such sores may enter in the hospitals themselves, and
walk and look till he be weary.

2) But not only with the evil matter of their propositions, but we
have reason to be offended with the strange manner of their answer-
ings. I shall not need to instance in that kind of argument which

* num. 7. [p. 577, 578.]

J ' Dispensatio,' num. 11. [p. 175.]

r num. 11, 17. [p. 579, 580.]

z Concil. Trid. sess. 14. cap. 4. [torn.

6 num. 18. [p. 580.]

x. col. 91.]

' num. 19. [p. 581.]

a Dian. Compend. de poenit. sacram.

u num. 51. [p. 589.]

n. 8. [p. 578.]

1 Id verb. ' Detractio.' [num. l.p. 170.]

viii THE PREFACE.

is but too frequent among those who prevail more by their authority
than their reason, of proving propositions by similitudes and analogies.
I remember that Gregory Sayrb says that all the precepts of the
moral law are to be reduced to the decalogue ; because as all natural
things are reduced to ten predicaments, so it is expedient that all kinds
of virtues and vice be reduced to the ten commandments. And
Bessreus c infers seven sacraments from the number of the planets, and
the seven years of full corn in Egypt, and seven water-pots changed
into wine, (though there were but six,) because as the wine filled six
water-pots, so the sacrament of the eucharist fills the other six, and
itself makes the seventh ; and that therefore peradventure the sacra-
ments are called vessels of grace. But this I look upon as a want of
better arguments in a weak cause, managed by careless and confident
persons ; and note it only as a fault, that the guides of consciences
should speak many things when they can prove but few.

3) That which I suppose to be of greatest consideration is, that
the casuists of the Roman church take these things for resolution and
answer to questions of conscience which are spoken by an authority
that is not sufficient; and they admit of canons, and the epistles of
popes for authentic warranties, which are suspicious whether ever they
were written by them to whose authority only they do pretend ; and
they quote sayings of the old doctors, which are contradicted by others
of equal learning and reputation, and all cited in their own canon law ;
and have not any sufficient means to ascertain themselves what is
binding in very many cases argued in their canons, and decretal
epistles, and bulls of popes. Nay they must needs be at a loss in
their conduct of consciences, especially in all enquiries and articles of
faith, when they choose such foundations which themselves know to
be weak and tottering ; and yet lay the greatest load upon such foun-
dations, and tie the conscience with the hardest ligature, where it is
certain they can give no security. Tor it is not agreed in the church
of Rome, neither can they tell upon whose authority they may finally
rely. They cannot tell who is the visible head of the church : for
they are not sure the pope is ; because a council may be superior to
him, and whether it be or no it is not resolved. And therefore either
they must change their principle, and rely only upon scriptures and
right reason and universal testimonies, or give no answer to the con-
science in very many cases of the greatest concernment ; for by all
other measures their questions are indeterminable. But the authority
of man they make to be their foundation ; and yet if their allegations
were allowed to be good argument, it would serve them but to very
few purposes, since the doctors, whose affirmative is the decision of
the case, are so infinitely divided.

i> Clavis regia, 1. iv. c. 2. n. 5. [p. de Besse,— Serm. pour le jour du S. sa-

202. fol. Ven. 1605.] crement, torn. i. p. 797. ed. 8vo. Par

c [Conceptions theologiques surtoutes 1618.]
les festes des saincts, &e. par M. Pierre

THE PREFACE. IX

4) This to me and to very many wise men, looks like a very great
objection ; but I find that they who are most concerned in it account
it none ; for the Roman casuists profess it, and yet do not suppose
that the consequent of this should be that the case is difficult, and
the men not to be relied upon, and the conscience to be otherwise
informed, and that we ought to walk the more warily ; but therefore
the conscience is at liberty, and the question in order to practice hath
no difficulty ; hard in the case, but easy in the action ; for by this
means they entertain all interests, and comply with all persuasions,
and send none away unsatisfied. For uncertain answers make with
them no uncertain resolution ; for they teach us, that in such cases
we may follow either part : and therefore they studiously keep up this
academical or rather sceptic theology, Alii aiunt, alii negant ; utrum-
que probabile^ . And upon this account, although with greatest severity
they bind on men's persuasions the doctrines of meats and carnal or-
dinances, yet they have left them loose enough when it comes to the
conscience, so loose that the precept is become ridiculous : for what
can it be otherwise, when they teach that ' the fast is not broken by
drinking of water or wine, nay though we eat something that our
drink may not hurt us; nor the usual collation at night if it be
taken in the morning ; nor if the butler or the cook lick his fingers ;
nor if we eat eggs or milk-meats, so it be not in the holy time of lent ;
nor if after dinner awhile you eat something at the entreaty of a
friend ; nor if you upon a reasonable cause eat before your time ? in
all these cases you eat and fast at the same timee.' All these things
are derivatives from the contrary opinions of some easy, gentle doc-
tors; and the effect of this stratagem is seen in things of greater
consequence. For ' we are free from our vow, or from a command-
ment, if it be a probable opinion of the doctors that we are freef;'
and ' it is probable, if it be the opinion of one grave doctor g :' that
is, in effect, plainly, if it be probable in the doctrine it is certain in
practice ; and it is probable if any one of their doctors says it.

5) And the mischief of this is further yet discernible if we con-
sider that they determine their greatest and most mysterious cases
oftentimes by no other argument but the saying of some few of
their writers. I shall give but one instance of it, but it shall be
something remarkable. The question was, whether the pope can dis-
pense in the law of Godh. The enquiry is not concerning a dish of
whey, but of a considerable affair, upon which the right or the wrong
of many thousand consciences amongst them do depend. It is an-
swered ' that one opinion of the catholics says that the pope can dis-
pense in all things of the law of God, excepting the articles of faith.'
The proof is this ; so Panormitan speaks, in cap. ' Proposuit,' de con-

d Sa, aphor. verb. ' Jejun.' n. 11. [p. S [n. 3. p. 101.]

186.] •> Suarez, lib. x. de leg., cap. 6. n. 3.

e Ibid. n. 8. [p. 185.] [p. 714. ed. fol. Lond. 1679.]

f Idem, verb. ' Dubium.' [n. 2. p. 100.]

THE PREPACK.

cess, pmbend. n. 20, citing Imiocentius in cap. ' Cum ad monaste-
rium,' de statu monachorum ; where he says, that without cause the
pope cannot dispense in things of divine right ; intimating that with
cause he may. And the same is the opinion of Felinush, in cap. ' Qua
in eccles.' de const, n. 19 et 20, where amongst other things he
saith, that the pope when he hath cause can change the usual form
of baptism, and make it lawful to baptize in the name of the Trinity ;
which he reports out of Innocentius, cap. i. de baptis., in fine num.
11. Yea the same Felinus is bold to affirm, in cap. 1. de const, n. 23,
that the pope with one word can create a priest, without any other
solemnity, saying, Be thou a priest ; which he reports out of Inno-
centius in cap. 1. ' Sacra unct.3 The same Felinus adds further that
the pope with his word alone can make a bishop ; and he cites An-
gelus in I. 2. C. de crim. sacrilegii ; et in LLC. de sententiam
passis. The same sentence is held by Decius, consil. 112. n. 3. in
fine ; et in diet. cap. ' Quce in eccles.' n. 25. et seq. alias n. 44, et
45, in novis. Allegantur etiam alii jurists in cap. 2. de translat.
episcopi; et in I. ' Ilanumissiones/ ff. de just, et jure ; et in 1.2. C.
de servit. 8fc. '

Here is a rare way of probation : for these allegations are not only
a testimonial that these catholic authors are of that opinion; but
it is intended to represent that this opinion is not against the catholic
faith ; that popes and great lawyers are of it, and therefore that it is
safe, and it may be followed or be let alone : but yet this is sufficient
to determine the doubting conscience of a subject, or to be pro-
pounded to him as that on which he may with security and indemnity
rely. The thing is affirmed by Felinus, and for this he quotes Inno-
centius ; and the same is the opinion of Decius, and for this opinion
divers other lawyers are alleged. Now when this or the like happens
to be in a question of so great concernment as this, it is such a dry
story, such an improbable proof, so unsatisfying an answer to the
conscience, that the great determination of all those questions and
practices which can depend upon so universal an article as this, and
a warranty to do actions which their adversaries say are abhorrent
from the law of nature and common honesty, shall in their final
resort rest upon the saying of one or two persons, who having boldly
spoken a foolish thing, have passed without condemnation by those
superiors for whose interest they have been bold to tell so great a lie.
In conclusion, the effect of these uncertain principles and unsteady
conduct of questions is this ; that though by violence and force they
have constrained and thrust their churches into an union of faith,
like beasts into a pound, yet they have made their cases of conscience
and the actions of their lives unstable as the face of the waters and
unmeasurable as the dimensions of the moon : by which means their
confessors shall be enabled to answer according to every man's humour,
and no man shall depart sad from their penitential chairs, and them-

h [See book ii. chap. 3. rule 11. p. 560 of this volume.]

THE PREFACE. XI

selves shall take or give leave to any thing ; concerning which I refer
the reader to the books and letters written by their parties of Port-
royal, and to their own weak answers and vindications.

If I were willing by accusing others to get reputation to my own,
or the undertakings of any of our persuasion or communion, I could
give very many instances of their unjustice and partialities in deter-
mining matters and questions of justice which concern the church and
their ecclesiastical persons ; as if what was just amongst the reprobates
of the laity were hard measure if done to an ecclesiastic, and that
there were two sorts of justice, the one for seculars and the other for
churchmen, of which their own books' give but too many instances.
I could also remark that the monks and friars are iniquiores in ma-
trhnonium, and make enquiries into matrimonial causes with an im-
pure curiosity, and make answers sometimes with spite and envy,
sometimes with licentiousness ; that their distinction of sins mortal
and venial hath intricated and confounded almost all the certainty
and answers of moral theology : but nothing of this is fitted to my
intention, which is only to make it evident that it was necessary that
cases of conscience should be written over anew, and established upon
better principles, and proceed in more sober and satisfying methods :
nothing being more requisite than that we should all be instructed,
and throughly prepared to every good work ; that we should have a
conscience void of offence both towards God and towards man ; that
we should be able to separate the vile from the precious, and know
what to choose and what to avoid ; that we may have our senses ex-
ercised to discern between good and evil, that we may not call good
evil, or evil good. For since obedience is the love of God, and to
do well is the life of religion, and the end of faith is the death of sin
and the life of righteousness ; nothing is more necessary than that
we be rightly informed in all moral notices : because in these things
an error leads on to evil actions, to the choice of sin, and the express
displeasure of God ; otherwise than it happens in speculation and in-
effective notices and school-questions.

And indeed upon this consideration I was always confident, that
though the questions of the school were nice and subtle, difficult and
very often good for nothing; yet that in moral theology I should
have found so perfect an accord, so easy determination of questions,
that it would have been harder to find out questions than answers ;
and the great difficulty in books of this subject w^ould be to put the
great number of enquiries into order and method. I was not deceived
in the ground and reason of my conjecture ; because I knew that in
proinptu et facili est atemitas, God had made the way to heaven
plain and simple, and what was necessary did lie open, and the lines
of duty were to be read by every eye, or heard and learned by all
understandings; and therefore it is certain that all practical truths

1 Vide Summas cas. consc. in verbis, ' Immunitas,' ' Ecclesia,' ' Hospitale,' ' Prj-.
vilegium,' ' Clericus,' ' Monasterium,' &c.

XU THE PREFACE.

are to be found out without much contention and dispute, because
justice and obedience to God in all moral conversation is natural to
us, just as logic and discourse is. But when I came to look a little
nearer, I found that men were willing enough to be tied up to believe
the unactive propositions of the doctors, but would keep a liberty of
pleasing themselves in matters of life and conversation : in the former
they would easily be governed by leading men ; but in the latter they
would not obey God himself, and without great regret would not be
confined to strictness and severity in their cases of conscience. Some
would, but many would not. They that would gave laws unto them-
selves, and they could easily be governed ; but they that would not
were ready to trample upon their yoke, if it were made gentle and
easy for their neck. But this was the least part of the evil.

Tor besides this, moral theology was made a trade for the house and
an art of the schools : and as nothing is more easy than natural logic,
and yet nothing harder than sophistical, so it is in moral theology ;
what God had made plain, men have intricated, and the easy com-
mandment is wrapped up in uneasy learning ; and by the new methods
a simple and uncrafty man cannot be wise unto salvation, which is
but small comfort to him that stands in the place of the idiot and un-
learned. Sometimes a severe commandment is expounded by the
sense of ease and liberty, and the liberty is established in rule ; but
because the rule is not true in some hundreds of cases, a conscientious
man does not know how to make use of it : and if the commandment
be kept close to the sense of strictness and severity, there are so many
outlets and escapes found out, that few men think themselves obliged.
Thus in the rule sjwliatum ante omnia restituendum, which is an ex-
cellent measure of conscience in many cases, and certainly can have
no direct abatement in the duty, and the party obliged can only be
relieved by equity in the manner of doing it ; yet of this plain and
easy rule Gabrielius brings no less than threescore and ten limita-
tions ; and to make all questions of that nature and the rule of
conscience infinite and indeterminable, Menochius hath seven hun-
dred ninety and eight questions concerning possession ; and who is
sufficient for these things? There is a rule amongst the lawyers
which very much relates to the conscience of those men who are en-
gaged in suits and sentences of law in all countries which are ruled
by the civil law, In quolibet actu req/iiiritur citatio. Of this rule
Porcius brings a hundred and sixteen ampliations, and a hundred
and four and twenty limitations. Maranta enumerates forty cases in
which a negative ought to be proved : and Socinus sets down eight
hundred and two fallencies (that's the word of the law) concerning
the contestation of suits and actions at law. Many more might be
reckoned even in the interpreters of the civil law, and in the measures
we derive from thence. But if any man thinks it better in the canon
law, which is supposed to be as great a rule of our conscience in the
matter of religion as the other is of justice; I shall only say, that the

THE PREFACE. XU1

very title of the canon law was Concordantia discordantiarum, a tying
of contradictions together in one string : and when you begin to look
into the interpreters of the Decretum, which is the best part of the
canon law, Simoncellusk tells us that the word Decretum hath five
and twenty significations. So that there is a wood before your doors,
and a labyrinth within the wood, and locks and bars to every door
within that labyrinth, and after all we are like to meet with unskilful
guides ; and yet of all things in the world, in these things an error is
the most intolerable.

But thus the enemy of mankind hath prevailed upon us while we
were earnest in disputations about things less concerning. Then he
was watchful and busy to interweave evil and uncertain principles
into our moral institutions, to entangle what was plain, to divide
what was simple, to make an art of what was written in the tables of
our hearts with the finger of God. When a gentleman was com-
mending Dr. Fisher bishop of Rochester his great pains in the con-
futation of Luther's books, the wise prelate said heartily that he
wished he had spent all that time in prayer and meditation which he
threw away upon such useless wranglings. For that was the wisdom
of the ancients. Antiqua sapienlia nihil aliud quam facienda et vi-
tanda pmcepit ; et tune meliores erant viri : postquam docti prodie-
runt, boni desunt. Simplex enim ilia et aperta virttis in obscurant et
solertem scientiam versa est ; docemurque disputare, non vivere1 : ' our
forefathers taught their children what to do and what to avoid ; and
then men were better. But when men did strive to become learned,
they did not care so much to become good ; they then were taught
to dispute rather than to live/ To this purpose I understand that
excellent saying of Solomonm, " Of making many books there is no
end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the
conclusion of the whole matter. Pear God and keep His command-
ments; for this is the whole duty of man." Meaning, that books
which serve to any other purpose are a laborious vanity, consumptive
of our time and health to no purpose : nothing else being to any pur-
pose but such things as teach us to fear God, and how to keep His
commandments. All books, and all learning which ministers to this
end, partakes of the goodness of the end ; but that which promotes
it not is not to be regarded : and therefore the Chaldee paraphrast"
reads these words into an advice of making many books tending to
holiness. Fill mi, monitus esto ut facias libros sapieutice plurimos,
adeo ut non sit finis ; el ut studeas verbis legis, conspiciasque defatU
gationem carnis : ' make books of wisdom very many, and study in the
words of the law till thou mayest see the weariness of thy flesh/
Beata cetas qua in vita hominum regenda tolam disputandi ratiouem

k Tract, de decretis. [In tractt. uni- m [Eccles. xii. 12.]

versi juris, torn. vi. part. 2. fol. 285.] n [Walton, bibl. polyglott., torn. iii.

1 Seneca ad Lucilium. [epist. xcv. p. 426.]
torn. ii. p. 458.]

XIV THE PREFACE.

pomit, ' blessed are the times in which men learn to dispute well that
they may live the better/ And truly it were much to be wished that
men would do so now; endeavouring to teach the ways of godliness
in sincerity, to shew to men the right paths of salvation ; to describe
the right and plain measures of simplicity, christian charity, chastity,
temperance and justice; to unwind the entanglements of art, and to
strip moral theology of all its visors ; to detract all the falsehoods and
hypocrisies of crafty men ; to confute all the false principles of evil
teachers, who by uncertain and deceitful grounds teach men to walk
confidently upon trap-doors and pitfalls, and preach doctrines so
dangerous and false, that if their disciples should live according to
the consequents of such doctrines, without doubt they must perish
everlastingly.

It is a great work and too heavy for one man's shoulders ; but
somebody must begin; and yet no man ever would, if he can be
affrighted with the consideration of any difficulty in the world. But
I have laid aside all considerations of myself, and with an entire de-
pendence upon God for help, I have begun an institution of moral
theology, and established it upon such principles and instruments of
probation which every man allows, and better than which we have
none imparted to us. I affirm nothing but upon grounds of scrip-
ture, or universal tradition, or right reason discernible by every dis-
interested person, where the questions are of great concern, and can
admit these probations. Where they cannot, I take the next best ;
the laws of wise commonwealths and the sayings of wise men, the
results of fame and the proverbs of the ancient, the precedents of
holy persons and the great examples of saints. Ylertatbev^xivov yap
' eariy im toctovtov t d/<pi/3s9 kTti.Qr\Teiv KaGf €i«x<ttov yivos, 60' ocrov
r] tov TTpayixaros (pvais iinbi^eTar Trapairfojo-iov yap cpatverai p.a6ri-
p.aTLKov re indavokoyovvTOs a-nohi^crOai, Kal prjropLKov a7ro5et£eis
aTTairelv0. 'he that is well instructed will require in every kind of
argument and disputation no other proof or subtilty than the subject
matter will bear. For it were ridiculous for a mathematician to go
about to persuade with eloquence, or an orator to pretend to de-
monstrations/ But moral theology is a collective body of all wis-
dom, whereof some things are demonstrable and many are probable,
and other things are better than their contraries ; and they are to be
proved accordingly, every thing in its proportion and capacity. And
therefore here I make use of all the brocardics, or rules of inter-
preters ; that is, not only what is established regularly in law, but
what is concluded wise and reasonable by the best interpreters.
Socinus, Duennas, Azo, Gabrielius, Damasus, and divers other great
lawyers attempted this way in the interpretation of the civil and
canon law. I intermeddle not in the question whether they did
well or ill, but leave the contest as it lies between Duarenus and
Balduinus who blame them, and Wesenbech and Gribaldus who are

0 Arist. lib. i. eth. Nic, [cap. 1. torn. ii. p. 1094.]

THE PREFACE. XV

their confident advocates. But in the discourses of conscience, what-
soever is right reason, though taken from any faculty or science, is,
also of use and efficacy, because whatever can guide the actions or
discourses, or be the business or the conduct of any man, does belong
to conscience and its measures; and what is true in any science is
true in conscience.

I do not say that what is true or allowed in human laws is also
true or allowed in the divine; because though God does justly and
wisely, yet men do not always so ; and what is true in sciences is not
always understood to be true in civil laws. Qualis causa, talis ef-
f edits, saith the philosopher ; ' the cause and the effect are of the same
nature/ But the lawyer says this is not always true. Eor manu-
mission, which is a cause of liberty, is of the civil law and positive
institution ; but liberty, which is the effect of it, is of the law of
nature. Now although the philosopher understands his rule of
natural causes and effects, or those causes which are artificial, but
operate by the way of nature, and intends it not at all to be per-
suasive in matters of positive and legal institution ; yet this truth
and all other truths must prevail in conscience, because they are
emanations from the fountain of truth ; from whence nothing can
derive that is not always true, and in all senses true where they are
intended to persuade or teach. But then the truths of philosophy
must be used in the measures of conscience by the intentions of
philosophy, and not be carried on to a disparate matter, and without
cause be indifferently applied, the same words to things of another
nature. There is a rule in philosophy, incorporalia sunt indiridua :
from hence Hottomanp argues, therefore dominion, heritage, usus-
fructus, or the use of a thing by him that is not the lord, are in-
dividual, because they are incorporeal. Now this will deceive him
that trusts upon it : not because what is true in one place is not
true always and every where ; but because these words applied to
other matters, and the words signifying other intentions, they abuse
the unwary hearer, but instruct not. But because the questions of
conscience do relate to all matters, therefore to these all arts and
sciences do minister.

Res fisci est ubicunque natati.

' Whatsoever swims upon any water, belongs to this exchequer ;'
that is, saith S. Austin1", Christianas Domini sui esse intelligit, ubi-
cunque invenerit veritatem, ' if it be truth, wheresoever it be found,
the Christian knows it is his Lord's soods :' and therefore I have
proved and adorned some truths with the wise sayings of philo-
sophers and poets, ut Deo serviat quicquid utile puer didici, that,
according to the expression of the same saint % ' whatsoever being a

p [Quasst. illustr. xx. — tom.i. col. 904 [torn. iii. part. 1. col. 31 B.]
E. ed. fol. 1599.] s Confess., lib. i. cap. 15. [torn. i. col.

4 [Juv. sat. iv. 55.] 71 E.]
De doctr. Christi, lib. ii. cap. IS.

xvi THE PREFACE.

child I learned which can profit, may be brought in to serve and
pay homage to God/ But still they are to be understood according
to the sense and meaning of their proper art where they dwell. And
though there is great need of skill in all those sciences from whence
we derive notices in order to the conduct of conscience ; and that it
will be hard for any man to pretend to be master of all those things
which must be used in these discourses j yet I who will not pretend
to that, have yet taken as good a course as I could to inform myself,
though not in the whole system of every art in the whole circle which
I have here occasionally used, yet I have been careful to understand
those few things which I have thence drawn in as auxiliaries : and
lest I should yet fail, I have taken another course by way of caution
and defence, that I may be right and sure in the reflex, if I had cause
to doubt of any thing in the direct notice.

For I have propounded to myself general measures to be as boun-
daries to the determination of doubts and the answer of questions ;
which so long as I do observe, my error will be very innocent if any
happens. For a) In hard and intricate questions I take that which
is easy and intelligible, and concerning which it will be easy to judge
whether it be right or wrong. j3) In odious things, and matters of
burden and envy, I take that part which is least, unless there be evi-
dent reason to the contrary, y) In favours I always choose the
largest sense, when any one is bettered by that sense, and no man is
the worse. 8) In things and questions relating to men I give those
answers that take away scruples, and bring peace and a quiet mind,
e) In things relating to God I always choose to speak that thing
which to Him is most honourable. Q In matters of duty I always
choose that which is most holy, rj) In doubts I choose what is
safest. 6) In probabilities I prefer that which is the more reason-
able, never allowing to any one a leave of choosing that which is
confessedly the less reasonable in the whole conjunction of circum-
stances and relative considerations.

Upon the account of these principles I hope to serve God and
the good of souls. For these being the points of my compass, which
way soever I sail I shall not sutler shipwreck : and if at any time
I go about, which I have avoided as much as my infirmities will
permit, yet at last, and in the whole I arrive where I ought to be.
For indeed in this whole affair I have proceeded with great fear ; as
knowing that he who writes cases of conscience, does in a manner
give laws to all that do believe him : and no man persuades more
vehemently than he that tells you, This God forbids, This God com-
mands; and therefore I knew that to be mistaken here was very
evil, and might do much evil ; but to be careless, or prejudicate, or
partial, or flattering, or oppressive with severity, or unsafe with gen-
tleness, was criminal in the cause as Avell as mischievous in the
event : and the greatest security which I have that I have not spoken
unsafely in any man's case, is because I have prayed much, and

THE PREFACE. Xvil

laboured much that I might not at all minister to error or schism, to
folly or vanity, but to the glory of God, and to the good of souls ;
and I have so determined every case that I have here presented, as I
myself would practise, as I would account at the day of judgment,
through the mercies of God in Jesus Christ, and the integrity and
simplicity of my conscience : and therefore I desire that my reader
will use the same caution and ingenuity before he condemns any
conclusion, and consider, that in these things it was impossible to
please every man,

ipy/xaffLV eV fAtyaAots iruaiv iiSeiv xa^€7r^'/''

so I designed to please no man but as he is a lover of truth, and a
lover of his own soul.

The style that I here use is according as it happens, sometimes
plain, sometimes closer ; the things which I bring are sometimes new,
sometimes old ; they are difficult and they are easy ; sometimes adorned
with cases, and the cases specificated in stories, and sometimes instead
of a story I recite an apologue, and disguise a true narrative with other
names, that I may not discover the person whose case I discourse of :
and in all things I mind the matter, and suppose truth alone and
reason and the piety of the decision to be the best ornament ; and
indeed sometimes the thing itself will not be handled otherwise.

Oruari res ipsa negat, contenta doceri.

I was here to speak to the understanding, not to win the affections ;
to convince, not to exhort : and where I had no certainty in a case,
or that the parts of a question were too violently contended for,
without sufficient evidence on either side, I have not been very for-
ward to give my final sentence, but my opinion and my reason ;

Per verbum forte respondent ssepe periti™.

and yet I hope that in some cases it will be found, that though I am
not fierce, positive, and decretory, yet the case itself is sufficiently
declared, so that he who hath occasion to use it, may upon those
accounts determine himself. For the modesty of him that teaches is
not always an argument that he is uncertain in his proposition. To

VOlliCu>, KO.I TO boKCLV, KCU TO. TOldVTa OV TTCLVTOiS 67TI d/U.^U/3oAOU T(XT-

Tovatv ot TToAaiol, akka TroAAa/ct? /cat iirl tov aAr)dev€lV ovtoos ovv
kcu to vojj.i£(o kvTavda olvtX tov npivu>, kcu 7naTei/a>, saith Ulpianx.
When the ancients said, I suppose, I think, It seems, they did not

' [Solon, apud Plutarch, in vita ejus, eipiuntur.' [i. e. Cod. Justin., lib. vii. tit.
cap. 25. torn. i. p. 368.] 65. In the corp. jur. civil, of Gothofred

u Glos. in c. ' Quorum appell. non re- the passage is not found, but the line

Sub dubio Forte respondent saepe periti,

occurs in the edition of J. Fehus (fol. x Ad Demosth. Olynth. i. [fol. 5 a fin.

Lugd. 1627) in a gloss In authent. coll. ed. fol. Ven. apud Aid. 1527.]
i. tit. 6. cap. 7, torn. v. col. 59.]

Xviii THE PREFACE.

always mean that they were uncertain ; but they sometimes intended
it for a modest, but a direct affirmative ; and so I do in some few
cases where there is great reason on one side, and a great prejudice
on the other ; I give my reasons, and lay down the case and all its
allays, and leave it to prevail without my sentence by its own strength.
And for this I hope no man will be offended at me : if he be, it is
because I was not willing to offend him ; but I was desirous to in-
struct, to comfort, to determine, and to establish him that needs.

I have studiously avoided all questions that are curious and un-
profitable ; such, I mean, which are only trials of wit, but neither
ministers of justice nor religion. Such was that which was brought
before the lawyers and all the learned men of Athens, with great
noises to little purpose ?. — A gentleman of iEgina dying left three
daughters. The one was beauteous and wanton ; the second a lover
of wine and gay pleasures; and the third a good spinster, and a
great follower of country housewifery. He made the mother of these
daughters to be his heir, upon this condition, that she should divide
all his estate between his daughters equally ; but in such a manner
that what they received they should neither possess nor enjoy, and
as soon as ever they had quitted their portions they should pay each
of them to their mother ten thousand philippics. The mother runs
to Athens, consults the lawyers and philosophers how this will should
be fulfilled ; but they know not, as supposing one part to cross another,
and altogether to be impossible; for if the whole estate be divided
amongst them, how is it that they shall not enjoy it? and if they
do not, how shall they pay their mother her assignment ? The mother
therefore finding no help there, contrives it thus herself. To the
pretty wanton she gives rich clothes, smooth eunuchs, soft beds,
sweet perfumes, silver lavatories, and all things which she supposed
might please her lust, and consume her portion. To the drinking
girl she provides vessels of rich wines, a house well furnished, and
all things fitted for expensive entertainments. But to the country
housewife, a good farm, ploughmen and a great stock, many horses
and some cows, some men-servants and a great many maidens, a ken-
nel of hounds and a few swine ; supposing this was no very probable
way for her to thrive, but the likeliest way to do her husband's will ;
because the lust of the first, and the thirst and debauchery of the
second, and the ill-contrived stock of the third would consume all
their portions. But all this while she considered not how when they
grew poor she should receive her share. But at last, a wiser man
than was in the schools of Athens advised her thus; give to the
drunken maiden the rich garments, the jewels and the eunuchs ; and
because she loves them not, she will sell them all for old wines of
Chios. To the wanton give fields and cattle, oxen and ploughs, hinds
and swine ; and she will quickly sell them that she may entertain her
lovers. But if you give vessels of wine to the country girl, she

y [Phaedr., lib. iv. fab. 5.]

THE PREFACE. XIX

knows not what to do with them, ami therefore will sell them to
the merchant for ready money. Thus shall neither of them enjoy
their portion, but by selling it they shall be enabled to pay the money
to their mother. This was a riddle rather than a case of law or con-
science; and so are many others, which I therefore resolved to lay
aside, and trouble no man's conscience or head with them ; as sup-
posing that the answer of the dull Diodorus mentioned in the Greek
epigram is sufficient for such curiosities,

yH aoi, 3) tu> £k6vti, k.t.\.z

It is so, or it is not so; it must be done this way, or some other;
the thing in question is yours, or some body's else : but make the
judge your friend, and I will warrant your cause, provided it be just;
but look you to that. A slight answer to an intricate and useless
question is a fit cover for such a dish ; a cabbage leaf is good enough
to cover a pot of mushrooms : but I have taken a shorter way, and
laid them all aside; remembering the saying of friar John Annias
to Nicolaus de Lyra; Testimonium Dei lucidum est, nee egent literce
divince plicis. The things of God are plain and easy, and therefore
I have rejected every thing that is not useful and intelligible ; choos-
ing only to make such enquiries by which we may become better,
and promoted in something of our duty ;

Quid sumus, et quidnam victuri gignimur, ordo
Quis datus, aut metae quam mollis flexus, et unde,
Quis modus argento, quid fas optare, quid asper
Utile nummus habet, patriae carisque propinquis
Quantum elargiri deceat, quern te Deus esse
Jussit, et humana qua parte locatus es in re" :

viz., that we may be taught how to know what God requires of us,
instructed to salvation, and fitted to every good work.

But now I shall desire that he who reads my book will not expect
this book to be a collective body of particular cases of conscience;
for I find that they are infinite, and my life is not so, and I shall
never live to write them all, or to understand them all : and if I
should write some and not all, I should profit I know not whom, and
do good but to a very few, and that by chance too ; and it may be
that their cases being changed by circumstances would not be fitted
by my indefinite answers. I therefore resolved upon another way,
which although no man before me hath trod in writing cases of con-
science, yet I cannot say it is new ; for 1 took my pattern from Tri-
bonianus the lawyer, who out of the laws of the old Romans collected
some choice rules which give answer to very many cases that happen.
And after I had considered and tried many others, I found this most
reasonable, most useful, and most comprehensive, of all matters re-
lating to my present undertaking. For I intend here to offer to
the world a general instrument of moral theology, by the rules and

[Agath. epigr. lxvii. — Jacobs, Antliol. torn. iv. p. 26.] * [Pers. sat. iii. 67.]

XX THE PREFACE.

measures of which the guides of souls may determine the particulars
that shall be brought before them ; and those who love to enquire
may also find their duty so described, that unless their duties be
complicated with laws, and civil customs, and secular interests, men
that are wise may guide themselves in all their proportions of con-
science : but if their case be indeed involved, they need the conduct
of a spiritual guide to untie the intrigue and state the question,
and apply the respective rules to the several parts of it j for though
I have set them down all in their proper places relating to their
several matters, yet when a question requires the reason of many
rules, it is not every hand that can apply them. Men will for ever
need a living guide, and a wise guide of souls will by some of these
rules be enabled to answer most cases that shall occur.

For although I have not given answers to every doubt, yet have I
told what we are to do when any doubt arises ; I have conducted the
doubting conscience by such rules which in all doubts will declare
her duty : and therefore if the matter of the doubt be in the reception
of the sacrament of the eucharist, or in wearing clothes, or in eating,
the rule is the same and applicable to every matter. I have not dis-
puted whether sumptuary laws be actually obligatory to us in England
or Ireland; but I have told by what measures we shall know con-
cerning all laws, whether they be obligatory or no, in any place and
to every person. I have not expounded all the laws of God, but I
have told by what rules they are to be expounded and understood.
But because these rules have influence upon all particulars, I have
by way of instance and illustration determined very many special
cases : and I was a little curious to choose such which are the matter
of our usual enquiries ; and have been very studious to draw into
particular scrutiny most of the principal and noblest questions of
Christendom which could relate to the matter of my rule, provided
that they were practical and did minister to good manners ; having
that of Lactantiusb in my mind, Non tarn de rebus humanis bene
meretur qui scientiam bene dicendi affert, quam qui pie et innocenter
docet vivere : ' he best deserves of mankind who teaches men to live
well rather than to talk well :' and therefore the wiser Greeks pre-
ferred philosophers before orators. Illi enim recte vivendi doctores
sunt existimandi, quod est longe prastabilius c ; ' it is better to be a
doctor of good life, than of eloquent or learned speaking :' for there
are but few who are capable of eloquence, but to live well is the duty
of all : and I have always been pleased with the saying of Jupiter to
Pallas in the apologue, when he kissed her cheek for choosing the
fruitful olive.

Nam quod facimus, id nisi utile est,

Stulta omnis atque inanis inde est gloria d ;

unless it does good and makes us better, it is not worth the using

[Inst, div., lib. i. pra?fat., torn. i. p. 3.] [c ibid.]

[Nisi utile est quod facimus, stulta est gloria. — Phaedr., lib. iii. fab. 17. 12.]

THE PREFACE. XXI

and therefore it hath been no small part of my labour not only to do
what was necessary, but to lay aside what was useless and unfit, at
least what I thought so.

In this manner by the divine assistance I have described a rule of
conscience : in the performance of which I shall make no excuses for
my own infirmities, or to guard myself from the censure of the curious
or the scorners. I have with all humility and simplicity desired to
serve God, and to minister to His church, and I hope He will accept
me : and for the rest, I have laid it all at His most holy feet, and
therefore will take no further care concerning myself in it. Only I
am desirous that now I have attempted to describe a general rule,
they who find it defective would be pleased to make this more perfect
by adding their own symbol ; which is much easier than to erect that
building which needs but some addition to make it useful to all its
purposes and intentions. But if any man, like a bird sitting upon a
tree, shall foul the fruit and dishonour it, that it may be unfit for
food, I shall be sorrowful for him that does so, and troubled that the
good which I intended to every one should be lost to any one. But
I shall have the prophet's6 comfort if I have done my duty in right-
eousness and humility : " though I labour in vain and spend my
strength for nought, yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and
my work is with my God/'

I know not whether I shall live to add matter to this form, that is;
to write a particular explication of all the precepts of christian re-;
ligion ; which will be a full design of all special cases and questions,
of conscience measurable by this general rule. If I do not I hopei
God will excite some other to do it, but whoever does it he will do
it with so much the more profit, by how much he does dispute the
less : and I remember that Socrates and Sozomenf tell that Aetius the
heretic was counted an atheist propter eristieum loquendi et dispu-
tandi modum, because he taught no part of religion but he minced it
into questions and chopped it into Aristotle's logic. The simple and
rational way of teaching God's commandments, as it is most easy, so
it is most useful ; and all the cases that will occur will the most
easily be answered by him that considers and tells in what cases they
bind, and in what they bind not : which is the duty of him that ex-
plicates, and may be delivered by way of plain rule and easy com-
mentary.

But this I shall advertise, that the preachers may retrench infinite
numbers of cases of conscience if they will more earnestly preach and
exhort to simplicity and love ; for the want of these is the great mul-
tiplier of cases. Men do not serve God with honesty and heartiness,
and they do not love Him greatly ; but stand upon terms with Him,
and study how much is lawful, how far they may go, and which is
their utmost step of lawful, being afraid to do more for God and for
their souls than is simply and indispensably necessary ; and oftentimes

• [Isa. xlix. 4, 5.] ' [Socrat. H. E., ii. 35; Sozom. H. E., iii. 15.]

xxiJ THE PREFACE.

they tie religion and their own lusts together, and the one entangles
the other, and both are made less discernible and less practicable.
But the good man understands the tilings of God; not only because
God's spirit by secret immissions of light does properly instruct him,
but because he hath a way of determining his cases of conscience
which will never fail him. Tor if the question be put to him whether
it be fit for him to give a shilling to the poor, he answers that it is not
only fit, but necessary to do so much at least, and to make it sure
he will give two : and in matter of duty he takes to himself the
greater share ; in privileges and divisions of right he is content with
the least : and in questions of priority and dignity he always prevails
by cession, and ever is superior by sitting lowest ; and gets his will,
first by choosing what God wills, and then what his neighbour im-
poses or desires. But when men have no love to God, and desire
but just to save their souls, and weigh grains and scruples, and give
to God no more than they must needs, they shall multiply cases of
consciences to a number which no books will contain, and to a diffi-
culty that no learning can answer.

The multiplication also of laws and ceremonies of religion does ex-
ceedingly multiply questions of practice ; and there were among the
Jews by reason of their numerous rites many more than were at first
among the Christians. For we find the apostles only exhorting to
humility, to piety towards parents, to obedience to magistrates, to
charity and justice ; and the Christians who meant well understood
well, and needed no books of conscience but the rule and the com-
mandment. But when error crept in, truth became difficult and
hard to be understood ; and when the rituals of the church and her
laws became numerous, then religion was hard to be practised : and
when men set up new interests, then the laws of conscience were so
many, that as the laws of the old Romans,

verba minantia fixo

j£re legebanturs. . .

which at first were nailed in a brass plate upon a wall, became at last
so numerous and filled so many volumes, that their very compendium
made a large digest, so are these too many to be considered, or per-
fectly to be understood ; and therefore either they must be cut off by
simplicity and an honest heart, and contempt of the world, and our
duty must look for no measures but love and the lines of the easy
commandment, or else we can have no peace and no security. But
with these there is not only collateral security, but very often a direct
wisdom. Because he that endeavours to keep a good conscience,
and hath an honest mind, besides that he will enquire after his duty
sufficiently, he will be able to tell very much of it himself : for God
will assist him, and cause that ' his own mind shall tell him more
than seven watchmen that sit in a towerh ;' and if he miss he is next

s [Ovid. Metam., lib. i. 91.] h [Ecclus. xxxvii. 14.]

THE PREFACE. XxiH

to an excuse, and God is ready to pardon him : and therefore in what
sect of Christianity soever any man is engaged, if he have an honest
heart and a good conscience, though he be in darkness, he will find
his way out, or grope his way within ; he shall be guided or he shall
be pardoned ; God will pity him and find some way for his remedy,
and if it be necessary will bring him out.

But however it comes to pass, yet now that the enquiries of con-
science are so extremely numerous, men may be pleased to observe
that theology is not every man's trade; and that it requires more
wisdom and ability to take care of souls, than those men who now-
a-days run under the formidable burden of the preacher's office can
bring from the places of their education and first employment. Which
thing I do not observe that by it I might bring reputation to the
office of the clergy; for God is their portion and lot, and as He hath
given them work enough, so He hath given them honour enough,
though the world despise them : but I speak it for their sakes who
do what they ought not, and undertake what they cannot perform ;
and consequently do more hurt to themselves and others than possi-
bly they imagine ; which it were better they should amend, than be
put to answer for it before Him who loves souls better than He loved
His life, and therefore would not entrust them to the conduct of
such persons, who have need to be taught the plain things of salva-
tion, and learn to do justice and charity, and the proper things of a
holy religion.

Concerning myself I shall make no request to my reader, but that
he will charitably believe I mean well, and have done my best. If
any man be troubled that he hath expected this nothing so long, I
cannot make him other answer but that I am afraid it is now too
soon ; and I bless God that I had abilities of health and leisure now
at last to finish it : but I should have been much longer if God had
not by the piety of one of His servants provided for me a comfort-
able retirement and opportunity of leisure ; which if I have improved
to God's glory, or to the comfort and institution of any one, He and
I both have our ends, and God will have His glory ; and that's a
good conclusion, and to that I humbly dedicate my book.

From my study in Portmore in Kilultagh,
October 5, 1659.

DUCTOR DUBITANTIUM.

THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE.

THE FIRST BOOK.

OF CONSCIENCE, THE KINDS OF IT, AND THE GENERAL
RULES OF CONDUCTING THEM.

IK.

CHAP. I.

THE RULE OP CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL.

KULE I.

CONSCIENCE IS THE MIND OF A MAN GOVERNED BY A RULE, AND MEASURED BY
THE PROPORTIONS OF GOOD AND EVIL, IN ORDER TO PRACTICE ; VIZ., TO CON-
DUCT ALL OUR RELATIONS, AND ALL OUR INTERCOURSE BETWEEN GOD, OUR
NEIGHBOURS, AND OURSELVES : THAT IS, IN ALL MORAL ACTIONS.

§ 1. God governs the world by several attributes and emanations
from Himself. The nature of things is supported by His power, the
events of things are ordered by His providence, and the actions of
reasonable creatures are governed by laws, and these laws are put
into a man's soul or mind as into a treasury or repository : some in
his very nature, some by after-actions, by education and positive sanc-
tion, by learning and custom : so that it was well said of S. Bernard3,
Conscientia candor est lucis cctcrna, et speculum sine macula Dei
majestatis, et imago bonilatis illius : 'conscience is the brightness
and splendour of the eternal light, a spotless mirror of the divine
majesty, and the image of the goodness of God/ It is higher which
Tatianusb said of conscience, jxovov elvai. avveibrjcnv Oebv, ' conscience
is God unto us / which saying he had from Menander c,

fyorcHs airaaiv r\ aweiSricris 6ebs, ■

and it had in it this truth, that God, who is every where in several
manners, hath the appellative of His own attributes and effects in
the several manners of His presence.

Jupiter est quodcunque vides, quocunque moveris*.

§ 2. That providence which governs all the world is nothing else
but God present by His providence ; and God is in our hearts by
His laws : He rules in us by His substitute our conscience. God
sits there and gives us laws ; and as God said to Moses, " I have

a Lib. de interiori donio. [vid. cap. 90.]
xxii., iii. col. 1070.] c [p. 336. ed. Meineke, ex Aldo.]

b [vid. orat. ad Graecos, cap. xli. p. d [Lucan., ix. 580.]

a 2

4 THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I,

made thee a god to Pharaohe," that is, to give him laws, and to
minister in the execution of those laws, and to inflict angry sentences
upon him ; so hath God done to us. He hath given us conscience
to be in God's stead to us, to give us laws, and to exact obedience to
those laws, to punish them that prevaricate, and to reward the obe-
dient. And therefore conscience is called oIkzlos (pvka£, cVoiko?
0eos, Zttltottos btup-MV, ' the household guardian/ 'the domestic
god/ ' the spirit or angel of the place :' and when we call God to
witness, we only mean that our conscience is right, and that God
and God's vicar, our conscience, knows it. So Lactantiusf : memi-
nerit Deum se habere iestem, id est, ztt ego ariitror, mentem suam,
qua nihil homini dedit Deus ipse divinius, ' let him remember that
he hath God for his witness, that is, as I suppose, his mind ; than
which God hath given to man nothing that is more divine/ In sum,
it is the image of God : and as in the mysterious Trinity we adore
the will, memory, and understanding, and theology contemplates three
persons in the analogies, proportions, and correspondencies of them ;
so in this also we see plainly that conscience is that likeness of God
in which He was pleased to make mau. For although conscience
be primarily founded in the understanding, as it is the lawgiver and
dictator ; and the rule and dominion of conscience fundatur in intel-
lectu, is established in the understanding part ; yet it is also memory,
when it accuses or excuses, when it makes joyful and sorrowful ; and
there is in it some mixture of will, as I shall discourse in the sequel j
so that conscience is a result of all, of understanding, will, and
memory.

§ 3. But these high and great expressions are better in the spirit
than in the letter ; they have in them something of institution, and
something of design, they tell us that conscience is a guard and a
guide, a rule and a law set over us by God, and they are spoken to
make us afraid to sin against our conscience, because by so doing
we sin against God ; He having put a double bridle upon us, society
and solitude, that is, company and ourselves, or rather, God and man ;
it being now impossible for us to sin in any circumstances, but we
shall have a reprover : I'm p/re jjlovcoctls eireyeip?? ere irpbs to jut) irpi-
7tov, nrjTt KOivcovia kva-nokoyiirov croi 'nou'ianj tt]v aixapriav, as Hie-
roclesg said well, f that neither company may give countenance or ex-
cuse to sin, or solitariness may give confidence or warranty / for as
we are ashamed to sin in company, so we ought to fear our con-
science, which is God's watchman and intelligencer.

§ 4. To which purpose it was soberly spoken of Tertullianh, Con-,
scientia optima testis Livinitatis, ' our conscience is the best argu-
ment in the world to prove there is a God.' For conscience is God's
deputy, and the inferior must suppose a superior ; and God and our

• [Exod. vii. 1.] s [in Pythag. carm. aur., p. G2.]

Lib. vi. de vero cultu, cap. 24. [torn. b Lib. de testimon. aninise. [vid. cap.

h P- 5°5-] v. p. 67 C]

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 5

conscience are like relative terms, it not being imaginable why some
persons in some oases should be amazed and troubled in their minds
for their having done a secret turpitude, or cruelty ; but that con-
science is present with a message from God, and the men feel inward
causes of fear, when they are secure from without ; that is, they are
forced to fear God, when they are safe from men. And it is impos-
sible that any man should be an atheist if he have any conscience ;
and for this reason it is there have been so few atheists in the world,
because it is so hard for men to lose their conscience wholly.

Quest.

§ 5. Some dispute whether it be possible or no for any man to be
totally without conscience. TertullianV sentence in this article is this,
Potest obumbrari quia non est Dens: extingui non potest quia a Deo
est, fit is not God, and therefore may be clouded; but it is from
God, and therefore cannot be destroyed/ But I know a man may
whollv lose the use of his reason : some men are mad, and some are
natural fools, and some are sots, and stupid; such men as these lose
their conscience as they lose their reason : and as some mad men
may have a fancy that there is no sun, so some fools may say there
is no God ; and as they can believe that, so they can lose their con-
science, and believe this. But as he that hath reason or his eyes
cannot deny but there is such a thing as the sun, so neither can he
that hath conscience deny there is a God. Tor as the sun is present
by his light which we see daily, so is God by our conscience which
we feel continually : we feel one as certainly as the other.

§ 6. 1) But it is to be observed, that conscience is sometimes
taken for the practical intellective faculty : so we say the law of
nature and the fear of God is written in the conscience of every
man.

2) Sometimes it is taken for the habitual persuasion and belief of
the principles written there : so we say, ' he is a good man, and makes
conscience of his ways/ And thus we also say, and it is true, that
a wicked person is of a profligate and lost conscience : ' he hath no
conscience in him/ that is, he hath lost the habit, or that usual per-
suasion and recourse to conscience by which good men govern their
actions.

3) Or the word conscience is used effectively for any single opera-
tion and action of conscience : so we speak of particulars, ' I make a
conscience of taking up arms in this cause/ Of the first and last
acceptation of the word conscience there is no doubt ; for the last
may, and the first can never be lost. But for the second, it may be
lost more or less, as any other habit can : though this with more
difficulty than any thing else, because it is founded so immediately
in nature, and is so exercised in all the actions and entercourses of

1 [De anini., cap. xli. p. 295 A.]

6 THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

our life, and is so assisted by the grace of God, that it is next to im-
possible to lose the habit entirely; and that faculty that shall to
eternal ages do the offices which are the last, and such as suppose
some preceding actions, I mean, to torment and afflict tliem for not
having obeyed the former acts of dictate and command, cannot be
supposed to die in the principle, when it shall be eternal in the ema-
nation ; for ' the worm shall never dieJV

For, that men do things against their conscience is no otherwise
than as they do things against their reason; but a man may as
well cease to be a man as to be wholly without conscience. Eor the
drunkard will be sober, and his conscience will be awake next morn-
ing. This is a perpetual pulse, and though it may be interrupted,
yet if the man be alive it will beat before he dies ; and so long as
we believe a God, so long our conscience will at least teach us, if it
does not also smite us : but as God sometimes lets a man go on in
sin and does not punish him, so does conscience; but in this case,
unless the man be smitten and awakened before he dies, both God
and the conscience reserve their wrath to be inflicted in hell. It is
one and the same thing ; God's wrath and an evil guilty conscience :
for by the same hand by which God gives His law, by the same He
punishes them that transgress the law. God gave the old law " by
the ministry of angels k," and when the people broke it, " He sent
evil angels among them1 •" now God gives us a law in our con-
sciences, and there He hath established the penalty. This is the
" worm that never dies ;" let it be trod upon never so much here, it
will turn again. It cannot die here, and it shall be alive for ever.

But by explicating the parts of the rule, we shall the best under-
stand the nature, use, and offices of conscience.

CONSCIENCE IS THE MIND OP A MAN

§ 7. When God sent the blessed Jesus into the world to perfect
all righteousness, and to teach the world all His Father's will, it was
said and done, "I will give My laws in your hearts, and in your
minds will I write themm :" that is, you shall be governed by the
law of natural and essential equity and reason, by that law which is
put into every man's nature ; and besides this, whatsoever else shall
be superinduced shall be written in your minds by the Spirit, who
shall write all the laws of Christianity in the tables of your consciences.
He shall make you to understand them, to perceive their relish, to
remember them because you love them, and because you need them,
and cannot be happy without them : He shall call them to your
mind, and inspire new arguments and inducements to their observa-
tion, and make it all as natural to us, as what we were born with.

§ 8. Our mind being thus furnished with a holy rule, and con-

j [Is. lxvi. 24 ; Mark ix. 44.] ' [Ps. lxxviii. 49.]

fc [Acts vii. 53.] "• [Heb. x. 16 ; Jer, xxxu 33.]

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 7

ducted by a divine guide, is called conscience ; and is the same thing
which in scripture is sometimes cal ed, "the heart";" there being in
the Hebrew tongue no proper word for conscience, but instead of it
they use the word 33? ' the heart:' " Oftentimes also thine own heart
knoweth/' that is, thy conscience knoweth, " that thou thyself hast
cursed others0:" so in the New testament, "Beloved, if our hearts
condemn us not, then have we peace towards God •" viz., if in our
consciences we are not condemned. Sometimes it is called 'spirit*/
the third ingredient of the constitution of a Christian ; the spirit, dis-
tinct from soul and body. Eor as our body shall be spiritual in the
resurrection, therefore because all its offices shall entirely minister to
the spirit, and converse with spirits, so may that part of the soul
which is wholly furnished, taught, and conducted by the Spiiit of
grace, and whose work it is wholly to serve the spirit, by a just pro-
portion of reason be called the spirit. This is that which is affirmed
by S. Paul(i, "The word of God sharper than a two-edged sword,
dividing the soul and the spirit ;" that is, the soul is the spirit sepa-
rated by the word of God, instructed by it, and by relation to it, is
called the spirit. And this is the sense of Origenr, Testimonio sane
conscientia uti apostolus dicit eos qui descriptam continent in cordi-
bus legem, 8fc. "The apostle says, that they use the testimony of
conscience who have the law written in their hearts. Hence it is
necessary to enquire what that is which the apostle calls conscience,
whether it be any other substance than the heart or soul? For of
this it is otherwise said, that it reprehends, but is not reprehended,
and that it judges a man, but itself is judged of no man : as John
saith, ' If our conscience condemn us not, then have we confidence
towards God/ and again, Paul himself saith in another place, ' Our
glorying is this, even the testimony of our conscience/ Because
therefore I see so great a liberty of it, that in good things it is always
glad and rejoices, but in evil things it is not reproved, but reproves
and corrects the soul itself to which it does adhere; I do suppose
that this is the very spirit which by the apostle is said to be with
the soul, as a pedagogue and social governor, that it may admonish
the soul of better things, and chastise her for her faults and reprove
her. ' Because no man knows the things of a man but the spirit of
a man which is in him / and that is the spirit of our conscience, con-
cerning which he saith, ' That Spirit gives testimony to our spirit.'' "
So far Origen.

§ 9. Thus conscience is the mind, and God ' writing His laws in
our minds/ is, informing our conscience, and furnishing it with laws,
and rules, and measures; and it is called by S. Paul, vofios tov voos,

" [Eijcles. vii. 22 j 1 John iii. 21.] p [Prov. xviii. 14.]

° Apud Syros conscientia dicitur 1 [Heb. iv. 12.]

N"lXn a radice "1X71 formavit, depinxit, r In epist. ad Rom., cap. 2. lib. ii.

descripsit; quia soil, conscientia notat [torn. iv. p. 486.]
et pingitaetiones nostras in tabula cordis.

8 THE RULE OP CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

'the law of the mind8;' and though it once made a distinct thing
from the mind (as in those words, " their minds and consciences are
defiled4,") yet it happens in this word as in divers others, that it is
sometimes taken largely, sometimes specifically and more deter-
minately. The mind is all the whole understanding part; it is the
memory; so "Peter called to mind the word that Jesus spake11/'
that is, he remembered it. It is the signification or meaning, the
purpose or resolution v : "No man knoweth the mind of the Spirit,
but the Spirit x." It is the discursive or reasoning part : " Mary
cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should bey." It is
the assenting and determining part : " let every man be fully per-
suaded in his own mind2 :" and it is also taken for conscience, or
that treasure of rules which are in order to practice. And therefore
when S. Paul intended to express the anger of God punishing evil
men with evil consciences and false persuasions, in order to criminal
actions and evil worshippings, he said " God gave them over" ds
vovv ahoKijiov, "to a reprobate minda," that is, to a conscience evil
persuaded, furnished with false practical principles; but the return
to holiness, and the improvement of a holy conscience, is called " a
being renewed in the spirit of our mindb," avaKaivoxris tov vobs, " the
renovation of the mindc."

§ 10. Now there are two ways by which God reigns in the mind
of a man, 1. faith, and 2. conscience. Faith contains all the treasures
of divine knowledge and speculation. Conscience is the treasury of
divine commandments and rules in practical things. Faith tells us
why, conscience tells us what we are to do. Faith is the measure of
our persuasions, conscience is the measure of our actions. And as
faith is a gift of God, so is conscience : that is, as the understanding
of a man is taught by the Spirit of God in scripture, what to believe,
how to distinguish truth from errors ; so is the conscience instructed
to distinguish good and evil, how to please God, how to do justice
and charity to our neighbour, and how to treat ourselves ; so that
when the revelations of Christ and the commandments of God are
fully recorded in our minds, then we are "perfectly instructed to
every good workd."

GOVERNED BY A RULE.

§ 11. S. Bernard e comparing the conscience to a house, says it
stands upon seven pillars. 1) Good will. 2) Memory of God's
benefits. 3) A clean heart. 4) A free spirit. 5) A right soul.
6) A devout mind. 7) An enlightened reason. These indeed are
some of them the fruits and effects, some of them are the annexes

* [Rom. vii. 23.] x [Rom. xiv. 5.]
« [Titus i. 15.] a [Rom. i. 28.]
» [Mark xiv. 72.] * [Eph. iv. 23.]
" [Phil. ii. 5.] c [Rom. xii. 2.]

* [1 Cor. ii. 16.] d [2 Tim. iii. 17.]

* [Luke i. 29.] * De interiori domo,cap.vii.[col.l065.]

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 9

and appendages of a good conscience, but not the. foundations or
pillars upon which conscience is built. For as for the first,

1. Good will.

§ 12. Conscience relies not at all upon the will directly. For
though a conscience is good or bad, pure or impure, and so the
doctors of mystic theology divide and handle it ; yet a conscience is
not made so by the will formally, but by the understanding. For
that is a good conscience, which is rightly taught in the word of
life : that is impure and defiled, which hath entertained evil and
ungodly principles; such is theirs who follow false lights, evil
teachers, men of corrupt minds. For the conscience is a judge and
a guide, a monitor and a witness, which are offices of the knowing,
not of the choosing faculty. Spiritum correctorem, et pmdagogum,
anfona, so Origenf calls it : the 'instructor of the soul, the spirit, the
corrector/ Naturale judicatorium, or naturalis vis judicandi, so S.
Basils; 'the natural power of judging/ or ' nature's judgment seat/
Lucem intellectus nostri, so Damascene11 calls it : ' the light of our
understanding/ The conscience does accuse or excuse a man before
God, which the will cannot. If it could, we should all stand upright
at doomsday, or at least those would be acquitted who fain would do
well, but miss, who do the things they love not, and love those they
do not; that is, "they who strive to enter in, but shall not be able1."
But to accuse or excuse is the office of a faculty which can neither
will nor choose, that is, of the conscience ; which is properly a record,
a book, and a judgment seat.

§ 13. But I said, 'conscience relies not upon the will directly;'
yet it cannot be denied, but the will hath force upon the conscience
collaterally and indirectly. For the evil will perverts the under-
standing, and makes it believe false principles; deceiving and being
deceived is the lot of false prophets ; and they that are given over to
believe a lie, will live in a lie, and do actions relative to that false
doctrine which evil manners first persuaded and introduced. For
although it cannot be that heretics should sin in the article against
the actual light of their consciences, because he that wittingly and
willingly sins against a known truth is not properly a heretic, but a
blasphemer, and sins against the Holy Ghost; and he that sees a
heretic run to the stake or to the gallows, or the Donatist kill
himself, or the Circumcellian break his own neck with as much
confidence to bear witness to his heresy as any of the blessed martyrs
to give testimony to Christianity itself, cannot but think he heartily
believes what so willingly he dies for; yet either heretics do sin
voluntarily, and so distinguish from simple errors, or else they are

f Ubi supra. p. 292 C]

s In Ps. xlviii. [torn. i. p. 184. E.] ' [Luke xiii. 24.]

h [Orth. fid, lib. iv. cap. 22. torn. i.

10 THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

the same thing, and either every simple error is damnable, or no
heresy. It must therefore be observed, that,

§ 14. The will of man is cause of its actions either mediately or
immediately. Some are the next products of our will : such are
pride, ambition, prejudice; and these blind the understanding, and
make an evil and a corrupted conscience, making it an incompetent
judge of truth and error, good and evil. So that the corruption
of conscience in a heretic is voluntary in the principle, but
miserable and involuntary in the product ; it may proceed from the
will efficiently, but it is formally a depravation of the understanding.

§ 15. And therefore our wills also must be humble and apt, and
desirous to learn, and willing to obey. Obedite et intelligetis, ' by
humility and obedience we shall be best instructed/ Not that by
this means the conscience shall receive direct aids, but because by
this means it will be left in its own aptnesses and dispositions, and
when it is not hindered, the word of God will enter and dwell upon
the conscience. And in this sense it is that some say that ' conscience
is the inclination and propension of the will corresponding to
practical knowledge/ Will and conscience are like the cognati sensus,
the touch and the taste ; or the teeth and the ears, affected and
assisted by some common objects, whose effect is united in matter
and some real events, and distinguished by their formalities, or meta-
physical beings.

2. Memory of God's benefits,

§ 16. Is indeed a good engagement to make us dutiful, and so
may incline the will; but it hath no other force upon the conscience
but that it reminds us of a special obligation to thankfulness, which
is a new and proper tie of duty ; but it works only by a principle that
is already in the conscience, viz., that we are specially obliged to our
gracious lords ; and the obedience that is due to God as our Lord
doubles upon us by love and zeal when we remember Him to be our
bountiful patron, and our gracious Father.

3. A clean heart,

§ 17. May be an effect and emanation from a holy conscience;
but conscience in itself may be either good or bad, or it may be good
when the heart is not clean, as it is in all the worst men who actually
sin against conscience, doing that which conscience forbids them. In
these men the principles are holy, the instruction perfect, the law re-
maining, the persuasions uncancelled ; but against all this torrent,
there is a whirlwind of passions, and filthy resolutions, and wilfulness,
which corrupt the heart, while as yet the head is uncorrupted in the
direct rules of conscience. But yet sometimes a clean conscience and
a clean heart are the same ; and a good conscience is taken for holi-
ness, so S. Paul uses the word, "holding faith and a good con-

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL, 11

science, which some having put away have made shipwreck k," on
Ti]v deoQtv iJKovaav (rvveibrjcnv aTna-ria KarejXLavav, so Clemens Alex-
andrinus1 explicates the place; 'they have by infidelity polluted
their divine and holy conscience / but S. Paul seems to argue other-
wise, and that they laying aside a good conscience fell into infidelity;
their hearts and conscience were first corrupted, and then they turned
heretics. But this sense of a good conscience is that which in mys-
tic divinity is more properly handled, in which sense also it is some-
times used in the law. Idem est conscientia quod vir bonus intrin-
sece, said Ungarellus1", out of Baldus"; and from thence Aretine0
gathered this conclusion, that ' if any thing be committed to the con-
science of any one, they must stand to his determination/ et ab ea
appellari non potest, ' there lies no appeal ;' quia vir bonus pro quo
sumitur conscientia non potest mentiri, et falsum dicere vet jndicare :
' a good man, for whom the word conscience is used, cannot lie, or
give a false judgment or testimony/ Of this sort of conscience it is
said by Ben Sirachp, Bonam substantiam habet cui non est peccatum
in conscientia: f It is a man's wealth to have no sin in our con-
science/ But in our present and future discourses the word con-
science is understood in the philosophical sense, not in the mystical,
that is, not for the conscience as it is invested with the accidents of
good or bad, but as it abstracts from both, but is capable of either.

4. A free spirit,

§ 18. Is the blessing and effect of an obedient will to a well in-
structed conscience, and more properly and peculiarly to the grace of
chastity, to honesty and simplicity ; a slavish, timorous, a childish
and a trifling spirit, being the punishment inflicted upon David before
he repented of his fact with Bathsheba. But there is also a freedom
which is properly the privilege, or the affection of conscience, and is
of great usefulness to all its nobler operations ; and that is, a being
clear from prejudice and prepossession, a pursuing of truths with
holy purposes, an enquiring after them with a single eye, not infected
with any sickness or unreasonableness. This is the same thing with
that which he distinctly calls ' a right soul/ To this is appendant
also, that the conscience cannot be constrained ; it is of itself a free
spirit, and is subject to no commands, but those of reason and re-
ligion. God only is the Lord of our conscience, and the conscience
is not to subject itself any more to the empire of sin, to the law of
Moses, to a servile spirit; but to the laws of God alone, and the obe-

>< [1 Tim. i. 19.] decretal, tit. 20. cap. 41. § 5. fol. 230 b.

' [Strom., lib, ii. cap. 6. p. 445.] ed. fol. Ven. 1595.]

"' Verb. ' Conscientia.' [Summa ange- " [Aretinus a Gambellionibus] in §

liea de casibus conscientiae, per Angelum • Sed istse,' Instit. de Act. [Comment, in

de Clavasio, cum additt. Jacob. Ungarclli iv. lib. Institt. Justinian, fol. 208 d. Ven.

Patavini; p. 241. 4to. Ven. 1582.] 1609.]— Gloss, in cap. ' Statur.' § ' As-

n In cap. ' Cum causa.' De testib. sess. detent.' [citat. ibid.]

[Baldus U baldus Perusinus in lib. ii. p [Ecclus. xiii. 30. alias 24.]

12 THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

dience of Jesus, willingly, cheerfully, and in all instances, whether
the commandment be conveyed by the holy Jesus, or by His vice-
gerents. But of this I shall afterwards give particular accounts.

5. A devout mind,

§ 19. May procure more light to the conscience, and assistances
from the spirit of wisdom in cases of difficulty, and is a good remedy
against a doubting and a scrupulous conscience ; but this is but indi-
rect, and by the intermission of other more immediate and proper
entercourses.

§ 20. 6. But the last is perfectly the foundation of conscience,

An enlightened reason.

To which if we add what S. Bernard <J before calls 'a right soul/ that
is, an honest heart, full of simplicity and hearty attention, and ready
assent, we have all that by which the conscience is informed and
reformed, instructed and preserved in its just measures, strengths,
and relations. For the rule of conscience is all that notice of things
and rules by which God would have good and evil to be measured,
thai is, the will of God communicated to us by any means, by reason,
and by enlightening, that is natural and instructed. So that con-
science is vovs (pvcrcKos and OeobibaKTos, it is principled by creation,
and it is instructed or illuminated in the regeneration. For God
being the fountain of all good, and good being nothing but a con-
formity to Him, or to His will, what measures He makes are to limit
us. No man can make measures of good and evil, any more than he
can make the good itself. Men sometimes give the instance in which
the good is measured ; but the measure itself is the will of God. For
therefore it is good to obey human laws, because it is God's will we
should ; and although the man makes the law to which we are to
give obedience, yet that is not the rule. The rule is the command-
ment of God, for by it obedience is made a duty.

MEASURED BY THE PROPORTIONS OE GOOD AND EVIL

§ 21. That is, of that which God hath declared to be good or evil
respectively, the conscience is to be informed. God hath taken care
that His laws shall be published to all His subjects, He hath written
them where they must needs read them, not in tables of stone or phy-
, lacteries on the forehead, but in a secret table. The conscience or
I mind of a man is the tyvXaKTrjpiov, the ' preserver' of the court rolls
| of heaven. But I added this clause, to the former of a rule, be-
cause the express line of God's rule is not the adequate measure of
conscience : but there are analogies and proportions, and commen-
surations of things with things, which make the measure full and
equal. For he does not always keep a good conscience who keeps
only the words of a divine law ; but the proportions also and the

■> [De dom. inter., cap. vii. col. 10b'5.]

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 13

reasons of it, the similitudes and correspondencies in like instances,
are the measures of conscience.

The whole measure and rule of conscience is the law of God, or'
God's will, signified to us by nature, or revelation ; and by the several
manners and times and parts of its communication it hath obtained
several names. The law of nature. The consent of nations. Right
reason. The decalogue. The sermon of Christ. The canons of the
apostles. The laws ecclesiastical and civil of princes and governors.
Fame, or the public reputation of things, expressed by proverbs and
other instances and measures of public honesty. This is,

t6 7' alcrxp^v kmovi tov koXov ftaOkv,

so Euripides r calls it, ' all the rule that teaches us good or evil.''
These being the full measures of right and wrong, of lawful and un-
lawful, will be the rule of conscience, and the subject of the present
books.

IN ORDER TO PRACTICE-

§ -23. In this conscience differs from knowledge, wdiich is in
order to speculation, and ineffective notices. And it differs from
faith, because although faith is also in order to practice, yet not
directly and immediately : it is a collection of propositions, the belief
of which makes it necessary to live well, and reasonable and chosen ;
but before the propositions of faith pass into action they must be
transmitted through another principle, and that is conscience. That
Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and our Lord, and our Master, is a
proposition of faith, and from thence if we pass on to practice, we
first take in another proposition, If He be our Lord, where is His
fear ? and this is a sentence, or virtual proposition of conscience.
And from hence we may understand the full meaning of the word
conscience : avvetbrims, and conscientia, and so our English word
conscience have in them science or knowledge ; the seat of it is the
understanding, the act of it is knowing, but there must be a knowing
of more together.

§ 24. Hugo de S. Yictore says, that conscientia est cordis scientia5,
' conscience is the knowledge of the heart/ It is so, but certainly
this was not the €tvjjlov and original of the word. But there is
truth in the following period. Cor noscit se et alia. Quando aatem
se noscit appellator conscientia, quando prater se alia noscit, ap-
pellator scientia : ' knowledge hath for its object any thing without ;
but when the heart knows itself, then it is conscience/ So it is
used in authors sacred and profane. Nihil mihi consents sum, saith
S. Paul*, "I know nothing by myself:" ut alios lateas, tute tibi

conscius erisu : and

hie niurus aheneus esto,

Nil conscire sibi v, —

r ["Hec. C02.] t [1 Cor. iv. 4.]

8 [Instit. monast. de anima, lib. iii. u [Isocrat. ad Demon. § 16. p. 4.]

cap. 11. torn. ii. fol. 84 F.] ' [Hor. epist., i. 1. GO.]

14 THE RULE OE CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

so Cicero to Marcus Rutiliusw uses it, cum et mihi conscius essem
quanti te facerem ; ' when I myself was conscious to myself how
much I did value thee/ But this acception of the word conscience
is true, but not full and adequate ; for it only signifies conscience as
it is a witness, not as a guide. Therefore it is more reasonable
ich Aquinas and the schoolmen generally use : that conscience is
a conjunction of the universal practical law with the particular moral
action : and so it is scientia cum rebus facti, and then it takes in
that which is called (rvvTr)p7]<ns, or the general repository of moral
principles or measures of good, and the particular cases as reduced
practice. Such as was the case of S. Peter when he denied his
jord : he knew that he ought not to have done it, and his con-
science being sufficiently taught his duty to his Lord, he also knew
that he had done it ; and then there followed a remorse, a biting, or
gnawing of his spirit, grief, and shame, and a consequent weeping :
when all these acts meet together, it is the full process of conscience.

1) The o-vvTijprjo- is or the first act of conscience S. Hieromex calls
scintillam conscientice, the spark or fire put into the heart of man.

2) The avve[br](ns, which is specifically called, conscience of the
deed done, is the bringing fuel to this fire.

3) And when they are thus laid together, they will either shine or
burn, acquit or condemn. But this complication of acts is con-
science. The first is science, practical science; but annex the
second, or it and the third, and. then it is conscience. When
David's heart smote him, that is, upon his adultery and murder,
his conscience thus discoursed : adultery and murder are high vio-
lations of the divine law, they provoke God to anger, without whom
I cannot live, whose anger is worse than death. This is practical
knowledge, or the principles of conscience; but the following acts
made it up into conscience. For he remembered that he had be-
trayed Uriah and humbled Bathsheba, and then he begs of God for
pardon ; standing condemned in his own breast, he hopes to be for-
given by God's sentence. But the whole process of conscience is in
two practical syllogisms, in which the method is ever this. The
avvTijprjcns or ' repository' of practical principles begins, and where
that leaves, the conscience or the witness and judge of moral actions
begins, like Jacob laying hold upon his elder brother's heely. The
first is this :

Whatsoever is injurious ought not to be done;

But to commit adultery is injurious,

Therefore it ought not to be done.
This is the rule of conscience, or the first act of conscience as it is a
rule and a guide, and is taken for the crwrr/prjcns, or practical ' re-
pository.' But when an action is done or about to be done, con-
science takes the conclusion of the former syllogism, and applies it to
her particular case.

w [Ad divers., lib. xiii. epist. 8.] x [In Ezech. i. torn. iii. col. 702.]

y [Gen. xxv. 26.]

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 15

Adultery ought not to be clone ;

This action I go about, or which I have done, is adultery,
Therefore it ought not to be done, or to have been done.
This is the full proceeding of this court; after which many con-
sequent solemnities and actions do pass, of sentence, and preparatory
torments and execution.

§ 25. But this I am to admonish, that although this which I have
thus defined is the proper and full sense of the word conscience ac-
cording to art and proper acceptation, yet in scripture it is used in-
differently for an act of conscience, or any of its parts, and does not
always signify in its latitude and integrity, but yet it all tends to the
same signification2; and though the name be given to the faculty,
to the habit, to the act, to the object, to the effect, to every emanation
from the mind in things practical, yet still it supposes the same
thing ; viz., that conscience is the guide of all our moral actions :
and by giving the name to so many acts and parts and effluxes from
it, it warrants the definition of it when it is united in its own proper
and integral constitution.

TO CONDUCT ALL OUR RELATIONS AND ENTERCOURSES BETWEEN GOD,
OUR NEIGHBOURS, AND OURSELVES; THAT IS, IN ALL MORAL

ACTIONS.

§ 26. This is the final cause of conscience : and by this it is dis-
tinguished from prudence, which is also a practical knowledge and
reduced to particular and circumstantiate actions. But 1) Prudence
consists in the things of the world, or relative to the world ; con-
science in the things of God, or relating to Him. 2) Prudence is
about affairs as they are of advantage or disadvantage ; conscience is
employed about them as they are honest or dishonest. 3) Prudence
regards the circumstances of actions whether moral or civil ; con-
science only regards moral actions in their substance or essential
proprieties. 4) Prudence intends to do actions dexterously and
prosperously; conscience is to conduct them justly and according to
the commandment. 5) There are many actions in which prudence
is not at all concerned, as being wholly indifferent to tins or that for
matter of advantage : but there is no action but must pass under the
file and censure of conscience; for if we can suppose any action in
all its circumstances to be wholly indifferent to good or bad, yet
none is so to lawful or unlawful, the very indifferent being therefore
lawful because it is indifferent, and therefore to be considered by
conscience, either actually or habitually. For in this sense even our
natural actions in their time and place are also moral, and where
they are not primarily moral, yet they come under conscience, as

2 [Acts xxiii. 1, and xxiv. 16; Rom. Titus i. 15; 1 Pet. ii. 19, and iii. 16;
xiii. 5; 1 Cor. viii. 10, and ii. 1, 12; Heb. xiii. 18.]
1 Tim. i. 5, 19, and iii. 9 ; 2 Tim. i. 3 ;

16 THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

being permitted and innocent; but wherever they are relative to
another person, they put on some more degrees of morality, and are
of proper cognizance in this court.

Qui didicit patriae quid debeat, et quid amicis ;
Quo sit amore parens, quo frater amandus, et hospes ;
Quid sit conscripti, quid judicis officium ; quae
Partes in bellum missi ducis, ille profecto
Reddere personae scit convenientia cuique a.

That is the full effect of conscience, to conduct all our relations, all
our moral actions.

EULE II.

THE DUTY AND OFFICES OF CONSCIENCE ARE TO DICTATE, AND TO TESTIFY OR
BEAR WITNESS ; TO ACCUSE OR EXCUSE ; TO LOOSE OR BIND.

§ 1 . The first and last are the direct acts and offices of conscience :
the other are reflex or consequent actions, but direct offices. The first
act, which is,

TO DICTATE,

is of that which divines call the avvT-qp^cns, or the ' phylactery/ the
keeper of the records of the laws, and by it we are taught our duty ;
God having written it in our hearts by nature and by the Spirit, leaves
it there, ever placed before the eye of conscience (as S. Beruardb calls
it) to be read and used for directions, in all cases of dispute, of ques-
tion or action. This is that which S. Paulc calls " the work of the law
written in our hearts," and therefore it is, that to sin against our con-
science is so totally inexcusable, and according to the degree of that
violence which is done against the conscience, puts on degrees. For
conscience dictates whatsoever it is persuaded of, and will not suffei
a man to do otherwise than it suggests and tells us :

At yap ircus <xvt6i/ /xe fxivos koI 6vj.ibs v.vr\rji
"Hfl' a/woraixv6iJt.iPov Kpea eBfavai d"

said Achilles of Hector when he was violently angry with him ; ' I
would my conscience would give me leave to eat thy very flesh/

§ 2. Its universal dictates are ever the most certain, and those are
the first principles of justice and religion; and whatsoever else can
be infallibly and immediately inferred from thence, are her dictates
also, but not primely and directly, but transmitted by the hands of
1 1 reason. The same reason also there is in clear revelation. For what-
soever is put into the conscience immediately by God, is placed there
to the same purpose, "and with the same efficiency and persuasion as

» Horat. de arte poet. [312.] c [Rom. ii. 15.]

" [De dom. inter., cap. xxiii. col. 1070.] ■» Iliad, x. [316.]

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 17

is all that which is natural. And the conscience properly dictates
nothing else, but prime natural reason, and immediate revelation;
whatsoever comes after these two, is reached forth to us by two
hands, one whereof alone is ministered by conscience. The reason
is this : because all that law by which God governs us is written in
our hearts, put there by God immediately, that is, antecedently to all
our actions, because it is that by which all our actions are to be
guided, even our discoursings and arguings are to be guided by con-
science, if the argument be moral. Now the ways by which God
speaks to us immediately, are only nature and the Spirit. Nature is
that principle which taught all men from the beginning until now ;
all that prime practical reason which is perfective of human nature,
and in which all mankind agrees. Either the perfections, or the
renovations, or the superadditions to this are taught us by the Holy
Spirit, and all this being written in the conscience by the finger of
God is brought forth upon all occasions of action ; and whatsoever
is done against any thing so placed, is directly and violently against
the conscience ; but when from thence reason spins a longer thread,
and draws it out from the clue of natural principles or express revela-
tion, that also returns upon the conscience and is placed there as
light upon a wall, but not as the stones that are there : but yet what-
ever is done against that light is also against conscience, but not so
as the other. Just as it is in nature and accident. To eat poison
and filthiness is against every man's health and stomach ; but if by
an IhioavyKpaaia, a propriety of temper, or an evil habit, or acci-
dental inordination, wine, or fish makes a man sick, then these are
against his nature too, but not so as poison is, or stones. Whatever
comes into the conscience primarily or consequently, right or wrong,
is brought forth upon occasion of action, and is part of her dictate :
but as a man speaks some things of his own knowledge, some things
by hearsay, so does conscience ; some things she tells from God and
herself, some things from reason and herself, or other accidental
notices : those and these do integrate and complete her sermons, but
they have several influence and obligation according to their proper
efficiency. But of this I shall give full accounts in the second book.

TO TESTIFY.

t § 3. Conscience bears witness of our actions ; so S. Paul , " their
conscience bearing witness :" and in this sense, conscience is a prac-
tical memory. For as the practical knowledge, or notices subjected
in the understanding, make the understanding to be conscience ; so
the actions of our life recorded in the memory and brought forth
to practical judgments, change the memory also into conscience ; tov
yap yivovs r&v avd pairtov tclvtt] biacpepovTos tojv aXku>v £c5a)i> f] p-o-
vols avTols /xeVecrri vov Kal Xoyicrp.ov, (pavepbv ws ova av tltos irapa-

e [Rom. ii. 15.]
IX. c

18 THE EULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

rpe^eiv avrovs Ti]v irpociprjfjJvrjv bicxpopav, KaOairep em toov aAAcoy
£(ticop, dAA' €TTL(Tr]paLvecrdaL to ytvopevov /cat bvcrapecrTeiarOai rots
Ttapovo-i' ' man differing from brute beasts by the use of reason, it
is not likely he should be a stranger to his own actions as the
beasts are, but that the evil which is done should be recalled to
their mind with the signification of some displeasure •' so Polybiuse
discourses of the reason and the manner of conscience.

§ 4. Every kiiowing faculty is the seat of conscience, and the same
faculty when it is furnished with speculative notions retains its natural
and proper name of understanding, or memory ; but as the same is
instructed with notices in order to judgments practical, so it takes
the christian name of conscience. The volitivef or choosing faculty
cannot, but the intellectual may. And this is that book which at
doomsday shall be brought forth and laid open to all the world. The
memory changed into conscience preserves the notices of some things,
and shall be reminded of others, and shall do that work entirely and
perfectly, which now it does imperfectly and by parts, according
to the words of S. Paul, "Then shall we know as we are known s,"
that is, as God knows us now, so then shall we see and know our-
selves. Nullum theatrum virluti conscientia majtish, shall then be
highly verified. Our conscience will be the great scene or theatre
upon which shall be represented all our actions good and bad. It is
God's book, the book of life or death. According to the words of
S. Bernard \ Ex his qua scripta erunt in libris nostris judicabuntur ;
et ideo scribi debent secundum exemplar libri vita, et si sic scripti non
sunt, saltern corrigantur; ' we shall be judged by that which is
written in our own books/ (the books of conscience), ' and therefore
they ought to be written according to the copy of the book of life ;
and if they be not so written, yet they ought to be so corrected/

§ 5. Consequently to these the conscience does

ACCUSE OR EXCUSE.

So S. Paulj joins them as consequent to the former, ' their con-
science bearing witness, and their thoughts in the mean time accusing
or excusing one another/ Si oplimorum consiliorum atque factotum
testis in omni vita nobis conscientia erit, sine ullo meho et smnma cum
lionestate vivemusk ; 'if our conscience be the witness that in our
life we do good deeds and follow sober counsels, we shall live in great
honesty and without fear/ At/cacrr?V 0eb$ eTre'o-njcre tov 8t/cato'ra-
tov ap.a kcu oLKeiorarov, to o-vveibbs avTO, /cat tov opObv Xoyov,
said Hierocles ], ' God hath constituted a most righteous and domes-
tic judge, the conscience and right reason/ /cat avTov eawrcp bv
novTutv /xaAtcrra at8etcr0ai rnpomaihev6i-\p.ev, ' every man ought most

e Lib. vi. [cap. 6. torn. ii. p. 465.] i De inter dom. [cap. 28. col. 1072.]

f ['voltitive.' ed. 1600.] i [Rom. ii. 15.]

g [1 Cor. xiii. 12.] t Cicero pro Cluentio. [cap. lviii.]

h Cicero, Tuscul. ii. [25.] ' [In Pythag. carm. aur., p. 158.]

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OP CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 19

of all to fear himself, because it is impossible but we should
know what we have done amiss, and it concerns us also to make
righteous judgment, for we cannot escape ourselves/ M^en-ore
^bkv aicrxpov 7roi?jcra? eXinC* A?/creiV kcu yap av tovs a\Aouj Aafyj,
aeavTu ye crvvzLhja-eis, said Isocratesm; etsi a cateris silentium est,
tamen ipse sibimet conscius est posse se merlto increpari, so Apuleius"
renders it. Though others hold their peace, yet there is one within
that will not.

Nee facile est placidam ac pacatam degere vitam,
Qui violat factis communia foedera pacis ;
Etsi fallit enim divum genus, humanumque,
Perpetuo tamen id fore clam diffidere debet0.

It is hard to be concealed from God and man too, and although we
think ourselves safe for a while, yet we have something within that
tells us ova eon Xddpa rt -noiovvra, ' he that does any thing is
espied/ and cannot do it privately. Quicum in tenebris ? was the
Jold proverb, ' Who was with you in the darkp ?' And therefore it was
that Epicurus affirmed it to be impossible for a man to be concealed
always. Upon the mistake of which he was accused by Plutarch i
and others to have supposed it lawful to do any injustice secretly;
whereas his design was to obstruct that gate of iniquity, and to make
men believe that even that sin which was committed most secretly
would some time or other be discovered and brought to punishment ;
all which is to be done by the extra-regular events of providence, and
the certain accusations and discoveries of conscience.

§ 6. For conscience is the looking-glass of the soul, so it was
called by Periphanes in Plautus r ;

Non oris causa modo homines sequum fuit

Sibi habere speculum, ubi os contemplarert suum;

Sed qui perspicere possent cor sapientiae :

Igitur perspicere ut possint cordis copiam.

Ubi id inspexissent, cogitarent postea

Vitam ut vixissent olim in adolescentia.

And a man looking into his conscience, instructed with the word of
God, its proper rule, is by S. James3 compared to " a man beholding
his natural face in a glass :" and that the apostle describes conscience
in that similitude is to be gathered from the word tiupvrov Xoyov,
verbum insitum, c the ingrafted word/ the word of God written in our
hearts, which whoso looks on, and compares his actions with his rule,
may see what he is : but he that neglects this word and follows not
this rule, did indeed see his face, but hath forgotten what manner of
man he was, that is, what he was framed in the works of the new
creation, when he was newly formed and created unto righteousness
and true holiness.

m [Ad Demon., § 16. p. 4.] i [De occult, vivend., torn. x. p. 637.]

- [Apol., p. -105.] r in Epidico. [iii. 3. 1.]

° Lucretius, [v. 11.53.] s [James i. 23, 4.]
p [See vol. iv. p. G32.]

c 2

20 THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK 1.

§ 7. This accusation and watchfulness, and vocal, clamorous guards
of conscience are in perpetual attendance, and though they may sleep,
yet they are quickly awakened, and make the evil man restless. Tovs
abiKovvTas kclI Trapavop.ovvTas aOkicas Kal 7re/H(/)o/3oo? Cvv tov Ttavra
\povov, on Kav kaOelv hvvavTCLL, ti'mttiv irepl tov kadelv Aa/3eiy abv-
varov €otlv' o6zv 6 tov p.ekkovTos ael (poj3os iyK.eip.evos ovk ea yaipeiv,
ovt€ dappetv em tois napovo-i, said Epicurus1, which is very well ren-
dered by Senecau, Ideo non prodest latere peccantibus, quod latendi
etiamd felicitatem habeant, fidnciam non habent, ' they that live un-
justly always live miserably and tearfully ; because although their
crime be secret, yet they cannot be confident that it shall be so :'
meaning, that because their conscience does accuse them, they per-
ceive they are discovered, and pervious to an eye, which what effect
it will have in the publication of the crime here and hereafter, is
not matter of knowledge, but cannot choose but be matter of fear
for ever.

fiet adulter

Publicus, et poenas metuet quascunque mariti
Irati debent, nee erit felieior astro
Martis, ut in laqueos nunquara incidat*.

If any chance makes the fact private, yet no providence or watchful-
ness can give security, because within there dwells a principle of fear
that can never die, till repentance kills it. And therefore Chilon in
Laertius y said upon this account, that loss is rather to be chosen than
filthy gain ; because that loss brings sorrow but once, but injustice
brings a perpetual fear and pain.

Anne magis Siculi gemuerunt asra juvenci,
Et magis auratis pendens laquearibus ensis
Purpureas subter cervices terruit? Imus,
Imus praecipites, quam si sibi dicat, et intus
Palleat infelix quod proxima nesciat uxor z.

The wife that lies by his side knows not at what the guilty man looks
pale, but something that is within the bosom knows ; and no pom-
pousness of condition can secure the man, and no witty cruelty can
equal the torment. For that also, although it be not directly the
office of conscience, yet it is the act and effect of conscience ; when
itself is injured, it will never let any thing else be quiet.

TO LOOSE OR BIND,

§ 8. Is the reflex act of conscience. Upon viewing the records,
or the owr?7p?7<n?, the legislative part of conscience, it binds to duty ;
upon viewing the act, it binds to punishment, or consigns to comfort ;
and in both regards it is called by Origen3, affectuum corrector, atque
anima padagogus, 'the corrector of the affections, and the teacher of

' [Apud Plutarch. Non posse suaviter y [lib. i. cap. 3. § 70.]

vivi secund. Epicur., torn. x. p. 486.] * Pers. sat. iii. [39.]

u [Epist. xcvii. torn. ii. p. 490.] ' » [p. 7. not. r. supra.]
* Juven. sat. x. [311.]

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 2L

the soul/ Which kind of similitude Epictetus in Stobseusb followed
also, Parentes pueros nos padagogo tradiderunt, qui ubique observaret
ne Icederemur ; deus autem clam viros insitce comcientia custodiendoa
tradidit, qua quidem custodia nequaquam conlemnenda est ; ' as our
parents have delivered us to a guardian who did watch lest we did or
suffered mischief; so hath God committed us to the custody of our
conscience that is planted within us ; and this custody is at no hand
to be neglected/

§ 9. The binding to duty is so an effect of conscience that it can-
not be separated from it ; but the binding to punishment is an act of
conscience also as it is a judge, and is intended to affright a sinner,
and to punish him : but it is such a punishment as is the beginning
of hell torments, and unless the wound be cured will never end till
eternity itself shall go into a grave.

Ulo nocens se damnat quo peccat die °,

* the same day that a man sins, on the same day he is condemned ;'
and when Menelaus in the tragedy did ask,

OpeVra tAtj^ov, t'is cr' a.Tr6\\vatv voaos ;

what disease killed poor Orestes ? he was answered,

'H ffvveais, on crvvoifia 5eti/' elpyaff/xevos d.

His disease was nothing but an evil conscience; he had done vile
things, and had an amazed spirit that distracted him, and so he died.
Curas uUrices, Virgile calls the wounds of an evil conscience, 're-
venging cares.

Nihil est miserius quam animus hominis conscius',

said he in the comedy, 'nothing is more miserable than an evil con-
science/ and the being pained with it is called ™ crvveihoTi a-nayyt-
crOai, ' to be choked or strangled with an evil conscience/ by S. Chry-
sostom (who in his twenty-second homily upon the first epistle to
the Corinthians^, speaks much and excellently to the same purpose) ;
and there are some that fancy that this was the cause of Judas' death :
the horrors of his conscience were such that his spirits were con-
founded, and restless, and uneasy; and striving to go from their
prison, stopped at the gates of emanation, and stifled him. It did
that, or as bad ; it either choked him or brought him to a halter, as
it hath done many besides him. And although I may truly say as
he did,

Non mihi si linguse centum

Omnia pcenarum percurrere nomina possemh,

no tongue is able to express the evils which are felt by a troubled
conscience or a wounded spirit, yet the heads of them are visible
and notorious to all men.

b [Lege Anton. Meliss., lib. ii. tit. 82. d [Eurip. ap. Stob. floril., xxiv. 5.]

p. 146.] » [jE-i. vi. 274.]

c Apud Publianum. [Al. Publium ' Plautus. [Mostell. iii. 1. 13.]

Syrum, ad calc. Dionys. Caton. p. 138. 6 ^tom. x. pp. 198, 9.]

ed. 8vo. Amst. 1646.] h [.En. vi 623.]

22 THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

§ 10. 1) The first is that which Nazianzen1 calls ms ev avroh reus-
beivois Z£ayopevcr€is, ' accusations and vexings of a man when he is
in misery/ then when he needs most comfort, he shall by his evil
conscience be most disquieted. A sickness awakes a dull sleeping
conscience, and when it is awakened it will make that the man shall
not sleep. So Antiochusj when his lieutenant Lysias was beaten by
the Jews, he fell sick with grief, and then his conscience upbraided
him ; " but now," said he, " I remember the evils that I did at Jeru-
salem/' quia invenerunt me mala ista, so the Latin bible reads it,
" because these evils now have found me out." For when a man is
prosperous, it is easy for him to stop the mouth of conscience, to bribe
or to abuse it, to fill it with noise, and to divert it with business, to
outvie it with temporal gaieties, or to be flatterred into weak opinions
and sentences; but when a man is smitten of God, and divested of
all the outsides and hypocrisies of sin, and that conscience is disen-
tangled from its fetters and foolish pretensions, then it speaks its own
sense, it ever speaks loudest when the man is poor, or sick, or miser-
able. This was well explicated by S. Ambrose k, Bum sumus in qua-
dam delinquendi libidine, nebulis quibasdam conscientice mens obdu-
citur, ne videat eorum quce concapiscit deformitatem ; sed cum omnis
nebula transient, gravia tormenta exercentur in quodam male conscii
secretario ; ' a man is sometimes so surprised with the false fires and
glarings of temptation, that he cannot see the secret turpitude and
deformity ; but when the cloud and veil is off, then comes the tor-
mentor from within :'

' acuuntque metum mortalibus segris,
Si quando lethum horrificum, morbosque deum rex
Molitur, meritas aut bello territat urbes1.

Then the calamity swells, and conscience increases the trouble, when
God sends war, or sickness, or death. It was Saul's case, when he
lost that fatal battle in which the ark was taken, he called to the
Amalekite, Sta super me et interfice mem, ' fall upon me and slay me/
quoniam tenent me angustia, ' I am in a great straight/ He was in-
deed ; for his son was slain, and his army routed, and his enemies
were round about : but then conscience stept in and told him of the
evil that he had done in causing fourscore of the Lord's priests to
be slain ; and therefore Abulensis11 reads the words thus, ' Fall upon
me and slay me/ quoniam tenent me ora vestimenti sacerdotalis, fI
am entangled in the fringes of the priests' garments/ Videbatur sibi
Saul quod propinquus morti videret sacerdotes Dei acctisantes eum in
judicio coram Deo, ' He thought he saw the priests of the Lord ac-
cusing him before God.' And this hath been an old opinion of the
world, that in the days of their calamity wicked persons are accused

" [Orat. v. § 2. torn. i. p. 148 B.] > iEneid. xii. [850.]

i [1 Mace, vu 12.] •» [2 Sam. i. 9.]

k [De Abrah., lib. ii. cap. 4. § 16. n [Alphons. Tostat. Abulens. in loc

torn. i. col. 319.] fol. 4 a.— Yen. 1596.]

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 23

by those whom they have injured. Not much unlike to which is that
of Plato0, describing the torments of wicked souls, fio&crC re koI /ca-
Xovaiv' ol ij.€v ov? aTTCKTZivav, 61 8e ovs vfiptcrav KaXiaavres 5' t/cerey-
ovcn tovs T/8iK?]ju.et*ou? hovvai a-cptcri crvyyvo>}xr}v, ' they roar and cry
out : some calling on them whom they killed, some on those they
have calumniated; and calling they pray them whom they have
injured to give them pardon/ Then every bush is a wild beast, and
every shadow is a ghost, and every glow-worm is a dead man's candle,
every lantern is a spirit.

pallidumque visa

Matris lanipade respicis NeronemP.

"When Nero was distressed, he saw his mother's taper and grew pale
with it.

§ 11. 2) The second effect is shame, which conscience never fails to
inflict secretly, there being a secret turpitude and baseness in sin,
which cannot be better expressed than by its opposition and contra-
diction to conscience. Conscience when it is right makes a man bold ;
qui ambulat simpliciter, ambidat conjidenter^, " he that walks honestly
walks confidently," because he hath innocence and he hath reason on
his side. But he that sins, sins against reason, in which the honour
and the nobleness of a man does consist ; and therefore shame must
needs come in the destitution of them. For as by reason men natu-
rally rule, so when they are fallen from it, unless by some accidental
courages they be supported, they fall into the state of slaves and
sneaking people. And upon this account it was that Plato r said, Si
scirem deos mihi condonaturos, et homines ignoraturos, adhuc peceare
erubescerem propter solam peccati tiirpitudlnem, ' if 1 were sure God
would pardon me, and men would not know my sin, yet I should be
ashamed to sin, because of its essential baseness/ The mistresses of our
vile affections are so ugly, we cannot endure to kiss them but through
a veil ; either the veil of excuse, or pretence, or darkness, something to
hide their ugliness ; and yet even these also are so thin that the filthiness
and shame is not hid. Bona conscientia turbam advocat, mala etiam
in solitudine anxia atque sollicita est, said Senecas. An evil conscience
is ashamed of light, and afraid of darkness ; and therefore nothing can
secure it. But being ashamed before judges and assemblies, it flies from
them into solitudes, and when it is there, the shame is changed into fear,
and therefore from thence it runs abroad into societies of merry crimi-
nals and drinking sanctuaries, which is nothing but a shutting the eyes,
and hiding the head, while the body is exposed to a more certain
danger. It cannot be avoided, it was and is and will eternally be
true, Perjurii posna divina exitium, humana dedecus esto1, which
S. Paul perfectly renders, " The things whereof ye are now ashamed ;

° [Phaed., § 144. torn. v. p. 392.] timent is ascribed to Peregrinus, or Pro-

J» [Stat, sylv., ii. 7. 118.] teus, by Aulus Gellins, xii. 11.]
* [Prov. x. 9.] s [Epist. xliii. torn. ii. p. 147.]

r [Cf. vol. iv. p. 259. The same sen- l Cicero de legib., lib. ii. [cap. 9.]

24 THE RULE OE CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

the end of these things is death".'" Death is the punishment which
God inflicts, and shame is that which comes from man.

§ 12. 3) There is another effect which cannot be well told by
hitn that feels it, or by him that sees it, what it is ; because it is a
thing without limit and without order. It is a distraction of mind,
indeterminate, divided thoughts, flying every thing, and pursuing
nothing. It was the case of Nebuchadnezzar, ol StaAoyicr/xot avrov
bieTapaarcrov avrbvv, ' his thoughts troubled him/ Varios vultus,
disparilesque sensus* ; like the sophisters, who in their pursuit of
vain-glory displeased the people, and were hissed from their pulpits ;
nothing could amaze them more, they were troubled like men of a
disturbed conscience. The reason is, they are fallen into an evil con-
dition which they did not expect; they are abused in their hopes,
they are fallen into a sad state of things, but they know not yet
what it is, nor where they are, nor whither it will bear them, nor
howr to get out of it. This indeed is commonly the first part of the
great evil ; shame goes along with the sin in the very acting it, but
as soon as it is acted, then begins this confusion,

nefas tandem incipiunt sentire peractis

Criminibus y,

they thought of nothing but pleasure before, but as soon as they have
finished, then they begin to taste the wormwood and the cottoquintida ;
perfecto demum scelere, magnitudo ejus intellecta est, said Tacitus z.
While they were doing it, they thought it little, or they thought it
none, because their fancy and their passion ruled ; but when that is
satisfied and burst with a filthy plethory, then they understand how
great their sin is, but are distracted in their thoughts, for they
understand not how great their calamity shall be.

Occultum quatiente animo tortore flagellum a,

the secret tormentor shakes the mind, and dissolves it into indis-
crimination and confusion. The man is like one taken in a lie, or
surprised in a shameful act of lust or theft ; at first he knows not
what to say, or think, or do, and his spirits huddle together, and fain
would go some where, but they know not whither, and do something,
but they know not what.

§ 13. This confusion and first amazement of the conscience, in some
vile natures and baser persons, proceeds to impudence and hardness

of face.

frontemque a crimine summit b,

when they are discovered they rub their foreheads hard, and consider
it cannot be worse, and therefore in their way they make the best of
it ; that is, they will not submit to the judgment of conscience, nor

u [Rom. vi. 21.] y [Juv. xiii. 238.]

T [Dan. v. 6. seems here confused 2 Lib. xiv. annal. [cap. 10.]

with iv. 5, or 19 : see the Greek version a [Juv. xiii. 195.]

of Theodotion among the LXX.] b [vid. Juv. vi. 285.]
« A. Gell., lib. v. [cap. 1.]

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 25

suffer her infliction, but take the fortune of the banditti, or of an out-
law, rather than by the rule of subjects suffer the penalty of the law,
and the severity of the judge. But conscience hath no hand in this,
and whatsoever of this nature happens, it is in despite of conscience ;
and if it proceeds upon that method, it goes on to obstinacy, hardness
of heart, a resolution never to repent, a hatred of God, and reproba-
tion. For if conscience be permitted to do its work, this confusion
when it comes to be stated, and that the man hath time to consider,
it passes on to fear ; and that is properly the next effect.

§ 14. 4) An evil or a guilty conscience is disposed for fear, shame
and fear cannot be far asunder.

*Ev6a. Se'os, iuravda Ka\ aiSiis".

Sin makes us ashamed before men, and afraid of God : an evil con-
science makes man a coward, timorous as a child in a church porch at
midnight : it makes the strongest men to tremble like the keepers of '
the house of an old man's tabernacle.

'O crvvuTTopuiv avrtj) ri, ntw j; Opaavraros,
'H crweats avrbv Sn\6Tarov tlvcu noit'i,

said Menanderd, 'no strength of body, no confidence of spirit is a
defensative against an evil conscience, which will intimidate the cou-
rage of the most perfect warrior/

Qui terret, plus iste timet, sors ista tyrannis
Convenit ; invideant claris, fortesque trucident,
Muniti gladiis vivant, septique venenis,
Ancipites habeant arces, trepidique minentur.

So Claudiane describes the state of tyrants and injurious persons;
they do evil and fear worse, they oppress brave men, and are afraid
of mean fellows; they are encompassed with swords, and dwell
amongst poisons ; they have towers with back doors and many out-
lets, and they threaten much, but themselves are most afraid. We
read of Belteshazzar, his knees beat against each other upon the
arrest made on him by the hand on the wall, which wrote the sen-
tence of God in a strange character because he would not read the
writing in his conscience. This fear is very great and very lasting
even in this world : and is rarely well described by Lucretius f.

Cerberus et Furise

neque sunt usquam, neque possunt esse profecto :

Sed metus in vita pcenarum pro malefactis
Est insignibus insignis ; scelerisque luela
Career, et horribilis de saxo jactu' deorsum,
Verbera, carnifices, robur, pix, lumina, taedae,
Quae tamen etsi absunt, at mens sibi conscia facti
Praemetuens adhibet stimulos, torretque flagellis ;

which description of the evil and intolerable pains and fears of con-
science is exceeded by the author of the Wisdom of Solomon g. Indis-

c Epicharm. [Al. Stasin. in Cypriac. e De iv. Honor, consul. [290.]

apud Stob. floril., xxxi. 18.] f Lucretius, [iii. 102L]

d [Apud Stob. floril., xxiv. 3.] « [Wisd. xvii.]

26 THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

ciplinata anima erraverunt ; that is the ground of their misery;
'the souls were refractory to discipline, and have erred/ They
* oppress the holy nation/ The effect was, ' they became prisoners
of darkness, and fettered with the bands of a long night f fugitivi
perpetua providentia jacnerunt, 'they became outlaws from the di-
vine providence. And while they supposed to lie hid in their secret
sins, they were scattered under a dark veil of forgetfulness f paven-
tes horrende, et cum admiratione nimia perturbati, ' they did fear
horribly, and disturbed with a wonderful amazement. For neither
might the corner that held them keep them from fear, but a sound
descending did trouble them / et persona tristes apparentes pavorem
illis prastabant, ' sad apparitions did affright them; a fire appeared to
them, very formidable / et timore percussi ejus qua non videbatur
faciei ; ' they were affrighted with the apprehensions of what they
saw not:' and all the way in that excellent description there is
nothing but fear and affrightment, horrid amazement and confu-
sion; pleni timore, and tremebundi peribant, 'full of fear/ and
'they perished trembling/ and then follows the philosophy and
rational account of all this. Frequenter enim praoccupant pessima
redarguente conscientia, ' when their conscience reproves them, they
are prepossessed with fearful expectations. For wickedness con-
demned by her own witness is very timorous/ Cum enim sit
timida nequitia dat testimonium condemnata : 'conscience gives wit-
ness and gives sentence, and when wickedness is condemned it is
full of affrightment.' For fear is prasumptionis adjutorium, ' the
allay of confidence and presumption/ and the promoter of its own
apprehensions, and betrays the succours that reason yields. For
indeed in this case no reason can dispute a man out of his misery ;
for there is nothing left to comfort the conscience, so long as it is
devested of its innocence. The prophet Jeremy h instances this in the
case of Pashur, who oppressed the prophets of the Lord, putting them
in prison and forbidding them to preach in the name of the Lord :
" Thy name shall be no more called Pashur, but Magor Missabib,"
that is, fear round about, " for I will make thee a terror unto thy-
self."

§ 15. This fear of its own nature is apt to increase, for indeed it

may be infinite.

Nee videt interea quis terminus esse malorum

Possit, nee quae sit poenarum denique finis :

Atque eadem metuunt magis, haec ne in morte gravescant.

Hinc Acherusia sit stultorum denique vita'.

He that fears in this case, knows not the greatness and measure of
the evil which he fears ; it may arrive to infinite, and it may be any
thing, and it may be every thing, and therefore there is,

§ 16. 5) An appendant perpetuity and restlessness; a man of an
evil conscience is never at quiet. Impietas enim malum infinitum

h [Jer. xx. 3, 4.] ' Lucret. [iii. 1033.]

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 27

est, quod nunquam extingui potest, said Philok. He is put to so
many shifts to excuse his crime before men, and cannot excuse it to
God or to himself, and then he is forced to use arts of forgetfulness,
that he may not remember his sorrow ; he runs to weakness for
excuse, and to sin for a comfort, and to the methods and paths of
hell for sanctuary, and rolls himself in his uneasy chains of fire, and
changes from side to side upon his gridiron till the flesh drop from
the bones on every side. This is the poet's vulture,

Immortale jecur tundens, faecundaque pcenis
Viscera, rimaturque epulis, habitatque sub alto
Pectore, nee fibris requies datur ulla renatis1.

It gnaws perpetually, and consumes not, being like the fire of hell,
it does never devour, but torments for ever.

§ 17. 6) This fear and torment, which is inflicted by conscience,
does not only increase at our death, but after death is the beginning
of hell. For these are the fire of hell : 6hvv(ap.at iv tjj (pXoyl ravrr],
" I am tormented in this flame," so said Dives when he was in tor-
ments ; that is, he had the torments of an evil conscience, for hell
itself is not to be opened till the day of judgment; but the sharpest
pain is usually expressed by fire, and particularly the troubles of mind
are so signified. Urit animum meum ; ' this burns/ that is, this ex-
ceedingly troubles my mind; and uro hominem in the comedy™, 'I
vex him sufficiently, I burn him / loris non ureris, ' thou art not tor-
mented with scourgings/

Poena autem vehemens, et multo saevior illis

Quos et Caeditius gravis invenit, et Rhadamanthus,

Nocte dieque suum gestare in pectore testem".

This is a part of hell fire, the smoke of it ascends night and day ; and
it is a preparatory to the horrible sentence of doomsday, as the being
tormented in prison is to the day of condemnation and execution.
The conscience in the state of separation does accuse perpetually, and
with an insupportable amazement fears the revelation of the day of
the Lord.

Et cum fateri furia jusserit verum,
Cogente clamet conscientia, Scripsi0.

The fury within will compel him to confess, and then he is prepared for
the horrible sentence, as they who upon the rack accuse themselves,
and then they are carried to execution. Menippus in Lucianp says that
the souls of them that are dead are accused by the shadows of their
bodies. Avrai tolvvv eireibav a-no9ava>p.tv Kar-qyopovcri re /ecu /cara-
jJiapTvpoixn kcu SteAe'y^ovcrt to. TreTrpa.yp.iva tjixlv Trapa rbv fiiov' and
these he says are a£io7ri0Toi, ' worthy of belief/ because they are always
present, and never parted from the bodies; meaning that a man's

k De profugis. [torn. iv. p. 251.] ° Martial, [x. 5. 18.]

1 [Virg. iEneid. vi. 598.] f NeKi/o^afTeia. [cap. xi. torn. i. p.

"i [Terent. Eunuch, ii. 3. 274.] 198.]

n Juvenal, [xiii. 196.]

28 THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

conscience which is inseparable as a shadow, is a strong accuser and
a perfect witness : and this will never leave them till it carries them
to hell, and then the fear is changed into despair, and indignation,
and hatred of God, and eternal blasphemy. This is the full progress
of an evil conscience, in its acts of binding.

Quest.

§ 18. But if it be enquired by what instrument conscience does
thus torment a man, and take vengeance of him for his sins, whether
it hath a proper efficiency in itself, and that it gives torment, as it
understands, by an exercise of some natural power; or whether it
be by an act of God inflicting it ; or by opinion and fancy, by being
persuaded of some future events which shall be certainly consequent
to the sin; or by religion and belief; or lastly by deception and mere
illusion, and upon being affrighted with bugbears ? I answer,

§ 19. That it does or may afflict a man by all these. Eor its nature
is to be inquisitive and busy, querulous and complaining; and to do
so is as natural to it, as for a man to be grieved when any thing
troubles him. But because men have a thousand little arts to stifle
the voice of conscience, or at least that themselves may not hear it,
God oftentimes awakens a man by a sudden dash of thunder and
lightning, and makes the conscience sick and troublesome; just as
upon other accidents a man is made sad, or hardened, or impudent,
or foolish, or restless, and sometimes every dream, or sad story that
the man hath heard, the flying of birds, and the hissing of serpents,
or the fall of waters, or the beating of a watch, or the noise of a
cricket, or a superstitious tale, is suffered to do the man a mischief
and to increase his fear.

Ergo exercentur poenis, veterumque malorum
Supplicia expendunti.

This the poets and priests expressed by their Adrastea, Nemesis,
Minos, iEacus, and Rhadamanth : not that these things were real,

neque sunt usquam, neque possunt esse profecto,

said one of themr; but yet to their pains and fears they gave names,
and they put on persons, and a fantastic cause may have a real event,
and therefore must come from some further principle : and if an evil
man be affrighted with a meteor or a bird, by the chattering of swal-
lows (like the young Greek in Plutarch8), or by his own shadow (as
Orestes was), it is no sign that the fear is vain, but that God is the
author of conscience, and will beyond the powers of nature and the
arts of concealment set up a tribunal, and a gibbet, and a rack in the
court of conscience. And therefore we find this evil threatened by
God to fall upon sinners. " They that are left alive of you in the
land of your captivity, I will send fainting in their hearts in the land

i [JEne\d. vi. 739.] > [De ser. num. vindict., torn. viii.

r [Lucret. iii. 1026.] p. 190.]

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 29

of their enemy, and the sound of a leaf shall chase them1 1" and
again, " The Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and fail-
ing of eyes, and sorrow of mind, and thy life shall hang in doubt be-
fore thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have no assur-
ance of thy life11:" and this very fear ends in death itself; it is a
mortal fear sometimes, for when the prophet Isaiahx had told con-
cerning Jerusalem, " Thy slain men are not slain with the sword, nor
dead in battle ;" to the enquiry of those who ask, how then were they
slain ? the answer is made by a learned gloss upon the place, Homines
hi 11011 expectato adventw hostis, velut transfossi exanimantur metu,
1 they were dead with fear, slain with the affrightments of their own
conscience, as if they were transfixed by the spear of their enemies/
Quid ergo nos a diis immortalibus divinitus expectemus, nisi errationi-
busfinemfaciamus, said Q. Metellus in A. Gelliusy. There is no avoid-
ing punishment, unless we will avoid sin; since even a shadow as
well as substances may become a Nemesis, when it is let loose by
God and conducted by conscience.

§ 20. But the great instrument of bringing this to pass is that
certainty of persuasion which is natural in all men, and is taught to
all men, and is in the sanction of all laws expressly affirmed by God,
that evil shall be to them that do evil ;

6eobs arlfav tis fipoTwv, Swcret 8'lktjv **

' he that dishonours God shall not escape punishment :' both in
this life,

Ultrix Erinnys impio dignum parat
Lethum tyranno",

and after this life ; for so they reckoned, that adulterers, rebels, and
traitors should be kept in prisons in fearful expectation of horrid
pains ;

Quique ob adulterium caesi, quique arma secuti
Impia, nee veriti dominorum fallere dextras,
Inclusi pcenain expectant b, ■

all this is our conscience, which in this kind of actions and events is
nothing but the certain expectation and fear of the divine vengeance.

Quest.

§ 21. But then why is the conscience more afraid in some sins
than in others, since in sins of the greatest malignity we find great
difference of fear and apprehension, when because they are of extreme
malignity there can be no difference in their demerit ?

§ 22. I answer, although all sins be damnable, yet not only in the
several degrees of sin, but in the highest of all there is great dif-

1 [Lev. xxvi. 36.] ■ jEschvl. [Suppl. 733.]

0 [Deut. xxviii. 65, 6.] a Senec." Octav. act. iii. [620.]

* [Isa. xxii. 2.] b [.<En. vi. 612.]

7 Lib. i. [c. 6.]

30 THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

ference ; partly proceeding from the divine threatenings, partly from
fame and opinion, partly from other causes. For

1) There are some sins which are called peccata clamantia,
I 'crying sins/ that is, such -which cry aloud for vengeance; such
; which God not only hath specially threatened with horrid plagues,

but such which do seldom escape vengeance in this life, but for their
particular mischief are hedged about with thorns, lest by the frequency
i they become intolerable. Such are sacrilege, oppression of widows
and orphans, murder, sodomy, and the like. Now if any man falls
into any of these crimes, he sees an angel with a sword drawn stand
before him ; he remembers the angry words of God, and calls to mind
that so few have escaped a severe judgment here, that God's anger
did converse with men, and was clothed with our circumstances, and
walked round about us ; and less than all this is enough to scare an
evil conscience. But

2) There are some certain defensatives and natural guards which
God hath placed in men against some sins : such as are a natural
abhorrency against unnatural lusts; a natural pity against murder
and oppression ; the double hedge of sacredness and religion against
sacrilege. He therefore that commits any of these sins does so much
violence to those defensatives, which were placed either in or upon
his heart, that such an act is a natural disease, and vexes the con-
science not only by a moral but by a natural instrument.

3) There are in these crying sins certain accidents and appendages
of horror which are apt to amaze a man's mind : as in murder there
is the circumstance and state of death, which when a man sees and
sees alone, and sees that himself hath acted, it must needs affright
him, since naturally most men abhor to be alone with a dead corpse ;
so also in oppression of widows, a man meets with so many sad
spectacles, and hears so many groans, and clamorous complaints,
such importunities, and such prayers, and such fearful cursings, and
perpetual weepings, that if a man were to use any artifice to trouble
a man's spirit, he could not dress his scene with more advantage.

4) Eame hath a great influence into this effect, and there cannot
easily be a great shame amongst men, but there must be a great fear
of vengeance from God ; and the shame does but antedate the divine
anger, and the man feels himself entering into it when he is enwrapped
within the other. A man committing a foul sin, which hath a special
dishonour and singular disreputation among men, is like a wolf espied
amongst the sheep. The outcry and noises among the shepherds make
him fly for his life, when he hears a vengeance coming. And besides,
in this case it is a great matter that he perceives all the world hates
him for his crime, and that which every one decries must needs be
very hateful and formidable, and prepared for trouble.

5) It cannot be denied but opinion also hath some hand in tins
affair ; and some men are affrighted from their cradle in some instances,
and permitted or connived at in others ; and the fears of childhood

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 31

are not shaken from the conscience in old age : as we see the persua»
sions of childhood in moral actions are permanent, so is the fear and
hope which were the sanction and establishment of those persuasions.
Education and society, and country customs, and states of life, and
the religion or sect of the man's professing, hath influence into their
portions of this effect.

§ 23. The consequent of this discourse is this, that we cannot take
any direct accounts of the greatness or horror of a sin by the affright-
ment of conscience : for it is with the affrightments of conscience as it
is in temporal judgments ; sometimes they come not at all, and when
they do, they come irregularly, and when they do not, the man does
not escape. But in some sins God does strike more frequently than
in others, and in some sins men usually are more affrighted than in
others. The outward judgment and the inward fear are intended to
be deleteries of the sin, and instruments of repentance; but as some
great sins escape the rod of God in this life, so are such sinners often-
times free from great affrightments. But as he who is not smitten of God,
yet knows that he is always liable to God's anger, and if he repents
not, it will certainly fall upon him hereafter : so it is in conscience ;
he that fears not, hath never the less cause to fear, but oftentimes a
greater, and therefore is to suspect and alter his condition, as being
of a deep and secret danger ; and he that does fear must alter his
condition, as being highly troublesome. But in both cases conscience
does the work of a monitor and a judge. In some cases conscience
is like an eloquent and a fair spoken judge, which declaims not against
the criminal, but condemns him justly : in others, the judge is more
angry, and affrights the prisoner more, but the event is the same.
For in those sins where the conscience affrights, and in those in which
she affrights not, supposing the sins equal but of differing natures,
there is no other difference ; but that conscience is a clock, which in
one man strikes aloud and gives warning, and in another the hand
points silently to the figure, but strikes not ; but by this he may as
surely see what the other hears, viz., that his hours pass away, and
death hastens, and after death comes judgment.

§ 24. But by the measures of binding we may judge of the
loosing, or absolution, which is part of the judgment of conscience,
and this is the greatest pleasure in the world ;

MSvov 8e tovt6 (paff' a/xtWaadat filcp,
Tv&ivqv SiKaiav KayaQ^v '6tco irapfj'.

a good conscience is the most certain, clearest, and undisturbed
felicity d. Lectulus respersus Jloribus bona est conscientia, bonis refecta
operibuse. 'No bed so soft, no flowers so sweet, so florid and
delicious as a good conscience,' in which springs all that is
delectable, all that may sustain and recreate our spirits. Nulla re
tarn latari soleo quam ojfficiorum meorum conscientia, ' I am pleased in

c Euripid. [Hippol. 427.] e [vid. Bernard, in Cant. serm. ii.

d [2 Cor. i. 12.] col. 1761.]

32 THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

nothing so much as in the remembrances and conscience of my duty,'
said Cicero f. Upon this pillow and on this bed Christ slept soundly
in a storm, and S. Peter in prison so fast that the brightness of an
angel could not awake him, or make him to rise up without a blow on
his side. This refreshed the sorrows of Hezekiah when he was
smitten with the plague, and not only brought pleasure for what was
past, and so doubled the good of it,

Vivere bis, vita posse priore frui ;

but it also added something to the number of his years,

Ampliat aetatis spatium sibi vir bonus?.

And this made Paul and Silas sing in prison and in an earthquake j
and that I may sum up all the good things in the world, I borrow
the expression of S. Bernard11, Bona conscientia non solum sitfficit ad
solatium sed etiam ad coronam, 'it is here a perpetual comfort, it
will be hereafter an eternal crown/

§ 25. This very thing Epicurus observed wisely, and in his great
design for pleasure commended justice as the surest instrument to
procure it. So Antiphon', Conscium esse sibi in vita nullius crimiuis
multum voluntatis parit : and Cato in Cicerok, Conscientia bene acta
vita multorumque benefactorum recordatio jucundissima est. Nothing
is a greater pleasure than a good conscience ; for there is peace and
no disturbance; Kapiros jueyioros arapa^ia, ' quietness is the best
fruit/ and that grows only upon the tree in the midst of paradise,
upon the stock of a holy heart or conscience. Only care is to be
taken, that boldness be not mistaken for peace, and hardness of heart
for a good conscience. It is easy to observe the difference, and no
man can be innocently abused in this affair. Peace is the fruit of a
holy conscience : but no man can say, I am at peace, therefore I have
a holy conscience; but, I have lived innocently, or I walk carefully
with my God, and I have examined my conscience severely, and that
accuses me not ; therefore this peace is a holy peace, and no illusion.
A man may argue thus, I am in health, and therefore the sleep I
take is natural and healthful : but not thus, I am heavy to sleep,
therefore I am in health ; for his dulness may be a lethargy. A man
may be quiet, because he enquires not, or because he understands
not, or because he cares not, or because he is abused in the notices
of his condition. But the true peace of conscience is thus to be
discerned.

SIGNS OF TRUE PEACE.

1) Peace of conscience is a rest after a severe enquiry. _ When
Hezekiah was upon his death-bed as he supposed, he examined his

f [Ad divers., lib. v. epist. 7.] 1069.]

g [Mart. x. 23.] ' [Antiphanes, ap. Stob. flonl. xxiv. 7.J

t> [vid. de dom. inter., cap. xix. col. k [De amicit., lib. iii. cap. 7.]

CHAP. T.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 33

state of life, and found it had been innocent in the great lines and
periods of it ; and he was justly confident.

2) Peace of conscience can never be in wicked persons, of
notorious evil lives. It is a fruit of holiness, and therefore what
quietness soever is in persons of evil lives, it is to be attributed
to any other cause, rather than innocence; and therefore is to be
called any thing rather than just peace. " The adulterous woman
eateth and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness1."
And Pilate "washed his hands," when he was dipping them in the
most innocent, the best and purest blood of the world. But S. Paul
had peace, because he really had " fought a good fight." And it is
but a fond way to ask a sign how to discern when the sun shines.
If the sun shines we may easily perceive it, and then the beams we
see are the sunbeams ; but it is not a sure argument to say, I see a
light, therefore the sun shines ; for he may espy only a tallow candle,
or a glow-worm.

3) That rest which is only in the days of prosperity"1, is not a just
and a holy peace, but that which is in the days of sorrow and
affliction. The noise and madness of wine, the transportations of
prosperity, the forgetfulness of riches, and the voice of flatterers
outcry conscience, and put it to silence; and there is no reason to
commend a woman's silence and modesty when her mouth is stopped.
But in the days of sorrow, then conscience is vocal, and her muffler
is off;

Invigilant animo, scelerisque patrati"

Supplicium exercent curse, tunc plurima versat
Pessimus in dubiis augur timor °,

and then a man naturally searches every where for comfort ; and if
his heart then condemns him not, it is great odds but it is a holy
peace.

4) Peace of mind is not to be used as a sign that God hath
pardoned our sins, but is only of use in questions of particular fact.
What evils have I done ? what good have I done ? the peace that
comes after this examination is holy and good. But if I have peace
in these particulars, then have I 'peace towards God' also, as to
these particulars. But whether I have pardon for other sins which
I have committed, is another consideration, and is always more
uncertain. But even here also a peace of conscience is a blessing
that is given to all holy penitents more or less, at some time or other
according as their repentance proceeds, and their hope is exercised :
but it is not to be judged of by sense, and ease, but by its proper
causes. It never comes but after fear, and labour, and prayers, and
watchfulness, and assiduity; and then what succeeds is a blessing,
and a fair indication of a bigger.

i [Prov. xxx. 20.] leri paratae,' MSS.]

m lEcclus. xiii. 20.] ° Statius, Tlieb. iii. [4.]

n [' parati ' vel ' peracti ;' vel ' see-
IX. D

34 THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

5) True peace of conscience is always joined with a holy fear; a
fear to offend, and a fear of the divine displeasure for what we have
offended : and the reason is, because all peace that is so allayed is a
peace after enquiry, a peace obtained by just instruments, relying
upon proper grounds ; it is rational, and holy, and humble ; neither
carelessness, nor presumption is in it.

6) True peace of conscience relies not upon popular noises, and
is not a sleep procured by the tongues of flatterers, or opinions of
men, but is a peace from within, relying upon God and its own just
measures. It is an excellent discourse which Senecap hath, Est
aliquando grains etiam qui ingratus videtur, quern mala interpres
opinio in contrarium deducit ; hie quid aliud sequitur, quam ipsarn
conscientiam, qua etiam obruta delectat, qua concioni acfama recla-
mat, et in se omnia reponit, et cum ingentem ex altera parte turbam
contra sentientium aspexit, non numerat suffragia, sed una sententia
vincit ? l Some men are thankful, who yet seem unthankful, being
wronged by evil interpretation ; but such a man what else does he
follow but his conscience, which pleases him, though it be overborne
with slander, and when she sees a multitude of men that think other-
wise, she regards not, nor reckons suffrages by the poll, but is vic-
torious by her single sentence ?' but the excellency and great effect
of this peace he afterwards describes : Si vero bonam fidem perfidia
suppliciis affici videt, non descendit efastigio, sed supra pamarn suam
consistit. Habeo, inquit, quod volui, quod petii. Non pcenitet, nee
poenitebit : nee ulla iniquitate me eo for tuna per ducet, ut hanc vocem
audiam, Quid milii volui ? Quid mihi nunc prodest bona voluntas ?
Prodest et in equuleo, prodest et in igne, qui si singulis membris ad-
moveatur, et paulatim vivum corpus circumeat ; licet ipsum corpus
plenum bona conscientia stillet, placebit illi ignis per quern bona fides
collucebit. ' A good conscience loses nothing of its confidence and
peace for all the tortures of the world. The rack, the fire shall not
make it to repent and say, what have I purchased? But its ex-
cellency and integrity shall be resplendent in the very flames.' And
this is the meaning of the proverb used by the Levantines, " heaven
and hell are seated in the heart of man." As his conscience is, so he
is happy, or extremely miserable. " What other men say of us, is no
more than what other men dream of us," said S. Gregory Nazianzenq.
It is our conscience that accuses or condemns to all real events and
purposes.

§ 26. And now all this is nothing but a persuasion partly natural,
partly habitual, of this proposition which all the nations, and all the
men in the world have always entertained as the band of all their
religion, and private transactions of justice and decency, Deum re-
muneratorem esse, 'that God is a just rewarder of all actions.'' I
sum up the premises in the words of the orator r; Magna vis est

p Lib. iv. de benefic, c. 21. [torn. i. 9 [Orat. xxxvi. § 6. torn. i. p. 639 D.]

t>. 721.] r Cicero pro Milone. [cap. xxiii.]

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 35

conscientia, judices, et magna in utramque partem : ut neque thneant
qui nihil commiserint, etposnam semper ante ocalos versari patent qui
peccarmt. 'On either side conscience is mighty and powerful, to
secure the innocent, and to afflict the criminal/

§ 27. But beyond these offices now described, conscience does
sometimes only 'counsel' a thing to be done; that is, according to
its instruction, so it ministers to holiness. If God hath put a law
into our minds, conscience will force obedience, or make us to suffer
for our disobedience ; but if a proposition tending to holiness and its
advantages be entrusted to the conduct of conscience, then it presses
it by all its proper inducements, by which it was laid up there, and
leaves the spirit of a man to his liberty ; but if it be not followed, it
upbraids our weaknesses, and chides our follies, and reproves our
despising holy degrees, and greater excellencies of glory laid up for
loving and willing spirits. Such as is that of Clemens Alexandrinus s
in the matter of an evangelical counsel; O^x apLapravei fxev nara
hiadr\Kr\v, ov yap kckojAutcu irpbs tov vop.ov' ov irXrjpol Se rrjs Kara
to evayyeXtov -TroAiretas Ti]v kolt kTiiracnv TeX^LorrjTa, 'he that does
so and so, sins not ; for he is not forbidden by the law of the gospel ;
but yet he falls short of the perfection that is designed and pro-
pounded to voluntary and obedient persons/ To sum up this :

§ 23. When S. Paul had reproved the endless genealogies of the
Gnostics and Platonists, making circles of the same things, or of
divers, whose difference they understood not; as intelligence, fear,
majesty, foundation*, wisdom, magnificence, mercy, victory, kingdom,
foundation*, God, and such unintelligible stuff which would make
fools stare, and wise men at a loss : he subjoins a short, but a more
discernible genealogy and conjugation of things to our purpose".
"The end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart, and
a good conscience, and faith unfeigned/' that is, out of 'an un-
feigned faith' proceeds 'a good conscience;' that is, abstinence
from sin; and from thence comes purity of heart, or a separation
from the trifling regards of the world, and all affections to sin ; and
these all end in charity : that is, in peace, and joy, and the fruition
and love of God, in unions and contemplations in the bosom of
eternity. So that faith is the first mover in the understanding part,
and the next is conscience, and they both purify the heart from false
persuasions, and evil affections ; and then they join to the production
of love and of felicity.

Thus far is the nature and offices of conscience. It will concern
us next, to consider by what general measures we are to treat our
conscience, that it may be useful to us in all the intentions of it, and
in the designs of God.

s Stromat. [lib. iii. cap. 12. p. 518.] Heb. ix. 14; x. 22; xiii. 18; Acts xv.

• [Sic edd.] 9.]

u [1 Tim. i. 5; 2 Tim. ii. 22; i. 3 ;

D 2

36 THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

RULE III.

BE CAREFUL THAT PREJUDICE OR PASSION, FANCY AND AFFECTION, ERROR OR
ILLUSION, BE NOT MISTAKEN FOR CONSCIENCE.

§ 1. Nothing is more usual, than to pretend conscience to all the
actions of men which are public, and whose nature cannot be con-
cealed. If arms be taken up in a violent war, enquire of both sides
why they engage on that part respectively ; they answer, because of
their conscience. Ask a schismatic why he refuses to join in the
communion of the church ; he tells you, it is against his conscience.
And the disobedient refuse to submit to laws ; and they also in many
cases pretend conscience. Nay, some men suspect their brother of a
crime, and are persuaded (as they say) in conscience that he did it :
and their conscience tells them that Titius did steal their goods, or
that Caia is an adulteress. And so suspicion, and jealousy, and
disobedience, and rebellion, are become conscience ; in which there is
neither knowledge, nor revelation, nor truth, nor charity, nor reason,
nor religion. Quod volumus sanctum estn, was the proverb of Tichonius
and the Donatists.

Nemo suae mentis motus non sestimat sequos,
Quodque volunt homines se bene velle putant*,

' Every man's way seems right in his own eyes •' and what they think
is not against conscience, they think or pretend to think it is an effect
of conscience, and so their fond persuasions and fancies are made
sacred, and conscience is pretended, and themselves and every man
else is abused. But in these cases and the like, men have found a
sweetness in it to serve their ends upon religion, and because con-
science is the religious understanding, or the mind of a man as it
stands dressed in and for religion, they think that some sacredness
or authority passes upon their passion or design, if they call it con-
science.

§ 2. But by this rule it is intended that we should observe the
strict measures of conscience. For an illusion may make a conscience,
that is, may oblige by its directive and compulsive power. Conscience
is like a king whose power and authority is regular, whatsoever counsel
he follows ; and although he may command fond things, being abused
by flatterers, or misinformation, yet the commandment issues from a
just authority, and therefore equally passes into a law : so it is in con-
science. If error or passion dictates, the king is misinformed, but
the inferiors are bound to obey ; and we may no more disobey our
conscience commanding of evil things, than we may disobey our king
enjoining things imprudent and inconvenient. But therefore this rule
gives caution to observe the information and inducement, and if we
can discern the abuse, then the evil is avoided. Eor this governor,

a [August, contr. epist. Parmen., lib. v Prosper., Epigr. de cohibenda ira.

ii. cap. 13. torn. ix. col. 46 E.] [p. 95 F.]

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 37

conscience, is tied to laws, as kings are to the laws of God and nations,
to justice and charity; and a man's conscience cannot be malicious;
his will may, but if the error be discovered, the conscience, that is,
the practical understanding cannot. For it is impossible for a man
to believe what himself finds to be an error : and when we perceive
our conscience to be misguided, the deception is at an end. And
therefore to make up this rule complete, we ought to be strict and
united to our rule, for by that only we can be guided, and by the pro-
portions to it we can discern right and wrong, when we walk safely,
and when we walk by false fires. Concerning which, besides the direct
survey of the rule and action, and the comparing each other, we may
in cases of doubt and suspicion be helped by the following measures.

ADVICES FOR THE PRACTICE OF THE FORMER RULE.

§ 3. 1) We are to suspect our conscience to be misinformed when
we are not willing to enquire into the particulars. He that searches,
desires to find, and so far takes the right course ; for truth can never
hurt a man, though it may prejudice his vice, and his affected folly.
In the enquiries after truth, every man should have a traveller's indif-
ferency, wholly careless whether this or that be the right way, so he
may find it. For we are not to choose the way because it looks fair,
but because it leads surely. And to this purpose, the most hearty
and particular inquest is most prudent and eifective. But we are
afraid of truth when we will not enquire, that is, when the truth is
against our interest or passion, our lust or folly, that is, seemingly
against us, in the present indisposition of our affairs.

§ 4. 2) He that resolves upon the conclusion before the premises,
enquiring into particulars to confirm his opinion at aventures, not to
shake it if it be false, or to establish it only in case it be true, unless
he be defended by chance, is sure to mistake, or at least can never be
sure whether he does or no.

This is to be understood in all cases to be so unless the particular
unknown be secured by a general that is known. He that believes
Christ's advocation and intercession for us in heaven upon the stock
of scripture, cannot be prejudiced by this rule, although in the en-
quiries of probation, and arguments of the doctrine, he resolve to be-
lieve nothing that shall make against his conclusion ; because he is
ascertained by a proposition that cannot fail him. The reason of this
exception is this, because in all discourses which are not perfectly
demonstrative, there is one lame supporter, which must be helped out
by the better leg ; and the weaker part does its office well enough, if
it can bring us to a place where we may rest ourselves and rely. He
that cannot choose for himself, hath chosen well enough if he can
choose one that can choose for him ; and when he hath, he may pru-
dently rely upon such a person in all particulars, where lie himself
cannot judge, and the other can, or he thinks he can, and cannot
well know the contrary. It is easier to judge of the general lines of

38 THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

duty, than of minutes and particulars : and travellers tliat are not
well skilled in all the little turnings of the ways, may confidently rely
upon a guide whom they choose out of the natives of the place ; and
if he understands the coast of the country, he may well harden his
face against any vile person that goes about wittily to persuade him
he must go the contrary way, though he cannot answer his arguments
to the contrary. A man may prudently and piously hold a conclusion
which he cannot defend against a witty adversary, if he have one strong
hold upon which he may rely for the whole question ; because he de-
rives his conclusion from the best ground he hath, and takes the wisest
course he can, and uses the best means he can get, and chooses the
safest ways that are in his power. No man is bound to do better than
his best.

§5.3) Illusion cannot be distinguished from conscience, if in our
search we take a wrong course and use incompetent instruments. He
that will choose to follow the multitude which easily errs, rather than
the wise guides of souls ; and a man that is his partner in the ques-
tion rather than him that is disinteressed ; and them that speak by
chance, rather than them who have studied the question ; and a man
of another profession, rather than him whose office and employment
it is to answer ; hath no reason to be confident he shall be well in-
structed. John Nider tells an apologue well enough to this purpose w :
Two brethren travelling together, whereof one was esteemed wise, and
the other little better than a fool, came to a place where the way
parted. The foolish brother espying one of them to be fair and plea-
sant, and the other dirty and uneven, would needs go that way,
though his wiser brother told him, that in all reason that must needs
be the wrong way; but he followed his own eyes, not his brother's
reason : and his brother being more kind than wise, though against
his reason, followed his foolish brother ; they went on till they fell
into the hands of thieves, who robbed them and imprisoned them,
till they could redeem themselves with a sum of money. These
brothers accuse each other before the king as author of each other's
evil. The wiser complained that his brother would not obey him,
though he was known to be wiser, and spake reason. The other
complained of him for following him that was a fool, affirming that
he would have returned back if he had seen his wise brother confi-
dent, and to have followed his own reason. The king condemned them
both ; the fool because he did not follow the direction of the wise,
and the wise because he did follow the wilfulness of the fool. So
will God deal with us at the day of judgment in the scrutinies of
conscience. If appetite refuses to follow reason, and reason does not
refuse to follow appetite, they have both of them taken incompetent
courses, and shall perish together. It was wisely said of Brutus to
Cicero x, Malo tnum judicium, quam ex altera parte omnium istorum.

w In Lavacro Conscient. [in prolog., 8vo. Rothom. s. a., incerto auctore.]
* Lib. xi. faniil. epist. [10.]

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 89

Tu enim a certo sensn el vero judieas de nobis, quod isti ne facianty
summa malcvolentia et livore impediuntur, 'I prefer thy judgment
singly before all theirs, because thou judgest by intuition of the
thing ; they cannot do that, being hindered by envy and ill will.' The
particulars of reducing this advice to practice in all special cases, I
shall afterwards enumerate ; for the present, I say this only, that a
man may consent to an evil authority, and rest in a false persuasion,
and be conducted by an abused conscience, so long as the legislative
reason is uot conjoined to the judge conscience, that is, while by un-
apt instruments we suffer our persuasions to be determined.

§ 6. 4) That determination is to be suspected that does appa-
rently serve an interest, and but obscurely serve a pious end.

Utile quod non vis do tibi consilium y;

when that appears, and nothing else appears, the resolution or coun-
sel is to be considered warily before it be pursued. It is a great
allay to the confidence of the bold talkers in the church of Rome,
and hinders their gain and market of proselytes from among the wise
and pious very much ; that most of their propositions for which they
contend so earnestly against the other parts of Christendom, do evi-
dently serve the ends of covetousness and ambition, of power and
riches, and therefore stand vehemently suspected of design and art,
rather than of piety or truth of the article, or designs upon heaven.
I instance in the pope's power over princes and all the world ; his
power of dispensation ; the exemption of the clergy from jurisdiction
of secular princes; the doctrine of purgatory and indulgences, by
which once the friars were set awork to raise a portion for a lady, the
niece of pope Leo the tenth z; the doctrine of transubstantiation, by the
effects and consequence of which the priests are made greater than
angels, and next to God ; and so is also that heap of doctrines, by
the particulars of which the ecclesiastical power is far advanced be-
yond the authority of any warrant from scripture, and is made highly
instrumental for procuring absolute obedience to the papacy. In
these things every man with half an eye can see the temporal ad-
vantage ; but how piety and truth shall thrive in the mean w7hile, no
eye hath yet been so illuminate as to perceive. It was the advice of
Ben Siracha, "Cousult not with a woman touching her of whom she
is jealous, neither with a coward in matters of war, nor with a mer-
chant concerning exchange, nor with a buyer of selling, nor with an
envious man of thankfulness, nor with an unmerciful man touching
kindness, nor with the slothful for any work, nor with the hireling
for a year of finishing work, nor with an idle servant of much
business ; hearken not unto these in any matter of counsel." These
will counsel by their interest, not for thy advantage.

But it is possible that both truth and interest may be conjoined ;
and when a priest preaches to the people the necessity of paying
tithes, where they are by law appointed, or when a poor man pleads
for charity, or a man in debt urges the excellency of forgctfulness ;

1 Mart., lib. v. [cp. 20.] * [See vol. vi. p. 650.] ■ [Ecclus. xxxvii. 11.]

40 THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

the truth which they discourse of cannot be prejudiced by their
proper concernments. For if the proposition serves the ends in
religion, in providing for their personal necessities, their need makes
the instances still the more religious, and the things may otherwise be
proved. But when the end of piety is obscure, or the truth of the
proposition is uncertain, then observe the bias ; and if the man's zeal
be bigger than the certainty of the proposition, it is to be estimated
by the interest, and to be used accordingly.

But this is not to prejudice him that gives the counsel, for although
the counsel is to be suspected, yet the man is not, unless by some
other indications he betray himself. For he may be heartily and in-
nocently persuaded of the thing he counsels, and the more easily and
aptly believe that against which himself did less watch, because he
quickly perceived it could not be against himself.

Add to this, the counsel is the less to be suspected if it be asked,
than if it be offered. But this is a consideration of prudence, not of
conscience directly.

§ 7. 5) If the proposition serve or maintain a vice, or lessen a virtue,
it is certainly not conscience, but error and abuse ; because no truth
of God can serve God's enemy directly, or by its own force and per-
suasion. But this is to be understood only in case the answer does
directly minister to sin, not if it does so only accidentally. Q. Furius
is married to Valeria, but she being fierce and imperious, quarrelsome
and loud, and he peevish and fretful, turns her away that he might
have peace and live in patience. But being admonished by Hor-
tensius the orator to take her again, he asked counsel of the priests,
and they advise him to receive her. He answers, that then he cannot
live innocently, but in a perpetual state of temptation, in which he
daily falls. The priest replies, that it is his own fault ; let him learn
patience and prudence; for his fault in this instance is no warranty
to make him neglect a duty in another ; and he answered rightly. If
he had counselled him to drink intemperately to make him forget his
sorrow, or to break her bones to make her silent, or to keep company
with harlots to vex her into compliance, his counsel had ministered
directly to sin, and might not be received.

§ 8. 6) Besides the evidence of the thing, and a direct conformity to
the rule, to be judged by every sober person, or by himself in his
wits, there is ordinarily no other collateral assurance, but an honest
hearty endeavour in our proportion, to make as wise enquiries as we
can, and to get the best helps which are to be had by us, and to obey
the best we do make use of. To which (because a deception may
tacitly creep upon our very simplicity) if we add a hearty prayer, we
shall be certainly guided through the labyrinth, and secured against
ourselves, and our own secret follies. This is the counsel of the son
of Siracha; "Above all this, pray to the most High, that He will
direct thy way in truth."

a [Ecclus. xxxvii. 15.]

CHAP. I.J THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 41

RULE IV.

THE CONSCIENCE OF A VICIOUS MAN IS AN EVIL JUDGE, AND AN IMPERFECT

RULE.

§ 1. That I mean the superior and inferior part of conscience is
therefore plain, because the rule notes how the acts of conscience may
be made invalid both as it is a ruler, and as it is a judge. But
according to the several offices this truth hath some variety.

§2.1) The superior part of conscience, or the crvvTijpria-ii', repository
of practical principles (which for use and brevity sake, I shall call the
phylactery), or the keeper of records ; that is, that part which contains
in it all the natural and reasonable principles of good actions, (such
as are, God is to be worshipped, Do to others as they should do to
thee, The pledge is to be restored, By doing harm to others thou must
not procure thy own good, and the like) is always a certain and
regular judge in the prime principles of reason and religion, so long
as a man is in his wits, and hath the natural use of reason. For
those things which are first imprinted, which are universal principles,
which are consented to by all men without a teacher, those which
Aristotle calls kolvols ivvoias, those are always the last removed, and
never without the greatest violence and perturbation in the world.
But it is possible for a man to forget his name and his nature : a
lycanthropy made Nebuchadnezzar to do so, and a fever made a learned
Greek do so : but so long as a man's reason is whole, not destroyed
by its proper disease; that is, so long as a man hath the use of
reason, and can and will discourse, so long his conscience will teach
him the general precepts of duty; for they are imprinted in his
nature, and there is nothing natural to the soul, if reason be not;
and no reason is, unless its first principles be, and those first princi-
ples are most provided for, which are the most perfective of a man, and
necessary to his well being, and those are such which concern the
entercourse between God and man, and between men in the first and
greatest lines of their society. The very opening of this chain is a
sufficient proof; it is not necessary to intricate it by offering more
testimony.

§ 3. 2) But then these general principles are either to be considered
as they are habitually incumbent on the mind, or as actually applied
to practice. In the former sense they can never be totally extin-
guished, for they are natural and will return whenever a man ceases
from suffering his greatest violence; and those violences which are so

42 THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

destructive of nature as this must be, that makes a man forget his
being, will fall off upon every accident and change. Difficile est per-
sonam dm sustinere*. But then when these principles come to be
applied to practice, a strong vice and a malicious heart can draw a
veil over them, that they shall not then appear to disorder the sensual
resolution. A short madness, and a violent passion, or a fit of drunk-
enness, can make a man securely sin by incogitancy, even when the
action is in the matter of an universal principle. No man can be
brought to that pass, as to believe that God ought not to be honoured;
but supposing there is a God, it is unavoidable, that this God must
be honoured : but a transient and unnatural violence intervening in
a particular case suspends the application of that principle, and makes
the man not to consider his rule ; and there he omits to worship and
honour this God in many particulars to which the principle is appli-
cable. But this discourse is coincident with that question, whether
conscience may be totally lost ? of which I have already given ac-
counts0. That and this will give light to each other.

§ 4. 3) But further, there are also some principles which are in-
deed naturally known, that is, by principles of natural reason ; but
because they are not the immediate principles of our creation and
proper being, they have the same truth, and the same seat, and the
same certainty ; but not the same prime evidence, and connaturality
to the soul ; and therefore these may be lost, or obscured to all pur-
poses of usefulness, and their contradictories may be admitted into
the rule of conscience. Of this nature, I reckon, that fornication,
violent and crafty contracts with many arts of deception, and over-
reaching our brother, theft, incest in some kinds, drunkenness, and
the like, are to be avoided. For concerning these, it is certain that
some whole nations have so abused their conscience by evil manners,
that the law in their mind hath been cancelled, and these things have
passed for lawful. And to this day, that duels may be fought by
private persons and authority, is a thing so practised by a whole sort
of men, that it is believed, and the practice, and the belief of the law-
fulness of it are interchangeably daughter and mother to each other.
These are such of whom the apostle speaksd, they are " given over to
believe a lie," they are delivered " to a reprobate mind." And this
often happens, and particularly in those cases wherein one sin is in-
ferred by another naturally, or morally, or by withdrawing of the
divine grace.

§5.4) Wherever the superior or the ruling part of conscience is
an imperfect rule; in the same cases the inferior is an evil judge,
that is, acquits the criminal, or condemns the innocent, calling good
evil, and evil good : which is to be understood when the persuasion
of the erring conscience is permanent and hearty, not sudden, and by
the rapid violence of a passion ; for in this case the conscience con-

[vid. Sen. de clem., lib. i. cap. 1. c In rule I. § 5, et seq. [p. 5. supra.]

torn. i. p. 128.] d [Rom. i. 28.]

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 43

demns as soon as that is acted, to which before the action it was
cousened and betrayed : but it proceeds only in abiding and lasting
errors. And this is the cause why so many orders of persons con-
tinue in a course of sin with delight, and uninterrupted pleasure,
thinking rebellion to be a just defence, sacrilege a lawful title, while
other men that are otherwise and justly persuaded wonder at their
peace, and hate their practices. Our blessed Lord foretold concern-
ing the persecutors of the church, that they should ' think they did
God good service/ But such men have an evil portion, they sing
in the fire, and go dancing to their graves, and sleep on till they be
awakened in hell. And on the other side, this is because of super-
stition, and scruples, and sometimes of despairing and unreasonable
fears, when the conscience is abused by thinking that to be a sin,
which is none.

RULE V.

ALL CONSCIENCES ARE TO WALK BY THE SAME RULE, AND THAT WniCH IS JTJST
TO ONE, IS SO TO ALL, IN TILE LIKE CIRCUMSTANCES.

§ 1. If all men were governed by the same laws, and had the
same interest, and the same degrees of understanding, they would
perceive the truth of this conclusion. But men are infinitely differ-
enced by their own acts and relations, by their understandings and
proper economy, by their superinduced differences and orders, by in-
terest and mistake, by ignorance and malice, by sects and deceptions.
And this makes that two men may be damned for doing two contra-
dictories : as a Jew may perish for not keeping of his sabbath, and a
Christian for keeping it; an iconoclast for breaking images, and
another for worshipping them; for eating, and for not eating; for
receiving the holy communion, and for not receiving it ; for coming
to church, or staying at home.

§ 2. But this variety is not directly of God's making, but of man's.
God commands us to walk by the same rule, and to this end, to avrb
fypovtiv, 'to be of the same mind;' and this is a«pt/3eia avveio'ijo-tajs,
' the exactness of our conscience ;' which precept were impossible to
be observed, if there were not one rule, and this rule also very easy.
Tor some men have but a small portion of reason and discretion, and
they cannot help it ; and yet the precept is incumbent upon them all
alike; and therefore as the rule is one, so it is plain and easy, and
written in every man's heart ; and as every man's reason is the same
thing, so is every man's conscience; and this comes to be altered,
just as that.

44 THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

§ 3. Neither is the unity of the rule prejudiced by the infinite dif-
ference of cases. For as a river springing from the mountains of the
East is tempted by the levels of the ground and the uneasiness of its
passage, to make some turns backward toward its head, even while it
intends westward ; so are the cases of conscience branched out into
instances, sometimes of contrary proceedings, who are to be deter-
mined to cross effects, but still upon the same account. For in all
things of the world the obligation is uniform, and it is of the same
persuasion.

The case is this :

§ 4. Autolycus robbed the gardens of Trebonius, and asked him
forgiveness and had it. But when Trebonius was chosen consul,
and Autolycus robbed him again, and was taken by others, and as a
thief brought before him, he asked forgiveness again ; but Trebonius
condemned him to the galleys : for he who being a private man was
bound to forgive a repenting trespasser, being a magistrate was bound
not to forgive him ; and both these were upon the same account. A
man may forgive an injury done to himself, because it is his own right,
and he may alone meddle in it ; but an injury done to the common-
wealth, she only could forgive, not her minister. So,

§ 5. He that fasted upon a Saturday in Ionia or Smyrna was a
schismatic; and so was he who did not fast at Milan or Rome upon
the same day, both upon the same reason ;

Cum fueris Roma?, Romano vivito more :
Cum fueris alibi, vivito sicut ibie.

because he was to conform to the custom of Smyrna, as well as to
that of Milan, in the respective dioceses.

§ 6. To kill a man in some cases denies a land; in others it
cleanses it, and puts away blood from the people. And it was plain
in the case of circumcision : S. Paul did it, and did it not ; both be-
cause he ought, and because he ought not, and all upon the same ac-
count and law of charity. And therefore all enquiries, and all con-
tentions and questions, should be relations to the rule, and be tried
by nothing but a plain measure of justice and religion, and not stand
or fall by relations to separate propositions and distinct regards. For
that is one and easy ; these are infinite, uncertain, and contradictory.
Tovt eari to aiTLov toXs avOpdirois iravroiv tG>v /ca/ccoy, to raj Trpo\.ij-
\frets tos Koivas ixt] bvvacrdat i<papfx6C^i-v Teas em ixipovs : ' it is a
very great cause of mischief not to be able to deduce general propo-
sitions, and fit them to particular cases/ said Arrianusf. But. because
all meu cannot, therefore there will be an eternal necessity of spiritual
guides, whose employment, and the business of their life, must be to
make themselves able respondere de jure, fto answer in matters of law/
and they also must be truly informed in the matters of facts.

0 [vid. gloss, ad Gratian. Decret., f In Epictet., lib. iii. cap. 26. [p.

part. 1. dist. xii. cap. 11. col. 49] 358.]

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERA!,. 45

RULE VI.

IN CONSCIENCE THAT WHICH IS FIRST IS TRUEST, EASIEST, AND MOST USEFUL.

§ 1. There are some practices, which at the first sight, and by
the very name and nature of the things themselves, seem as directly
unreasonable and against a commandment, as any other thing of the
foulest reproach ; and yet object the sin to the owners, and they will
tell so many fine stories, and struggle, and distinguish, and state the
question in a new manner, and chop it into fragments, and disguise
the whole affair, that they do not only content and believe themselves,
but also lessen the confidence of the adversary, and make a plain rule
an uneasy lesson. I instance in the question of images, the making
of some of which, and the worshipping of any, does at the first sight
as plainly dash against the second commandment, as adultery does
against the sixthg. But if you examine the practice of the Roman
church, and estimate them by the more wary determination of the
article in Trenth, and weigh it by the distinctions and laborious de-
vices of its patrons, and believe their pretences and shews, it must
needs be that you will abate something of the reproof; and yet all
the while the worship of images goes forward : and if you lay the
commandment over against the devices and distinctions, it will not
be easy to tell what the commandment does mean ; and yet because
it was given to the meanest understandings, and was fitted for them,
either the conscience is left without a clear rule, or that sense is to
be followed which stands nearest the light, that which is next to the
natural and proper sense of the words. For it is certain God put no
disguises upon His own commandments, and the words are meant
plainly and heartily; and the further you remove from their first
sense, the more you have lost the purpose of your rule. In matters of
conscience, that is the best sense which every wise man takes in before
he hath sullied his understanding with the disguises of sophisters, and
interessed persons ; for then they speak without prejudice and art,
that is, so as they should speak, who intend to guide wise men, and
all men.

§ 2. But this is to be understood otherwise, when the first sense
of the words hath in its letter a prejudice open and easy to be seen ;
such as is that of putting out the right eye, or cutting off the hand.
The face is a vizor and a metaphor, and the heart of it only is the
commandment ; and that is to be understood by the measures of this
rule, that is, the prime and most natural signification is the best, that

s [Qu. 'seventh,' which is however the h [Sess. xxv., torn. k. col. 1C8.]

sixth in the Roman division.]

46 THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

which is of nearest correspondency to the metaphor and the design
of the speaker, and the occasion and matter of the discourse.

§ 3. But in all things where the precept is given in the proper
style of laws, and the veil is off, and the words are plain, he that
takes the first sense is the likeliest to be well guided. If a war be
commenced between a king and his people, he that is willing to read
his duty, may see it in the words of Christ and of three apostles, and
it is easy to know our duty; but when we are engaged against our
prince, it is certain we are hugely put to it to make it lawful, and
when our conscience must struggle for its rule, it is not so well as
when it takes that which lies easy before us. Truth is easy, error is
intricate and hard. If none but witty men could understand their
duty, the ignorant and idiot could not be saved ; but in the event of
things it will be found, that this man's conscience was better guided
while simplicity held the taper, than by all the false fires of art, and
witty distinctions. Qui ambulat simpliciter, ambulat confidenter, saith
Solomon11. It is safer to walk upon plain ground, than with tricks
and devices to dance upon the ropes.

RULE VII.

CONSCIENCE BY ITS SEVERAL HABITUDES AND RELATIONS, OR TENDENCIES TO-
WARD ITS PROPER OBJECT, IS DIVIDED INTO SEVERAL KINDS.

§ 1. Conscience in respect of its information, or as it relates to its
object, taken materially, and in the nature of the thing, is either true
or false, right or wrong. True when it is rightly informed, and
proceeds justly : false when it is deceived. Between these as par-
ticipating of either extreme, stands the probable conscience; which
if we consider as it relates to its object, is sometimes right, and
sometimes wrong, and so may be reduced to either, according as it is
in the event of things. For in two contradictories which are both
probable, as if one be, both are, if one part be true, the other is
false; and the conscience of the several men holding the opposite
parts, must be so too, that is, right and wrong, deceived and not
deceived respectively. The division then of conscience in respect of
its object is tripartite.

§ 2. For in all questions, if notice can be certainly had, he that
gets the notice, hath a true conscience : he that misses it, hath a
false or erring conscience. But if the notices that can be had be
uncertain, imperfectly revealed, or weakly transmitted, or understood
by halves, or not well represented ; because the understanding cannot
be sure, the conscience can be but probable. But according as the
understanding is fortunate, or the man wise and diligent, and honest

11 [Prov. x. 9.]

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 47

enough to take the right side of the probability, so the conscience
takes its place in the extreme, and is reduced to right or wrong
accordingly.

§ 3. But to be right or wrong, is wholly extrinsical to the formal
obligation of conscience, as it is a judge and a guide, and to the con-
sequent duty of the man. For an erring conscience binds as much
as the right conscience, directly and immediately, and collaterally
more ; that is, the man who hath an erring conscience is tied to more
and other duties, than he that is in the right. The conscience binds
because it is heartily persuaded, not because it is truly informed ; not
because it is right, but because it thinks so.

§ 4. It does indeed concern the duty of conscience, and its feli-
city, to see that it be rightly instructed, but as to the consequence of '
the action, it is all one : this must follow whatsoever goes before.
And therefore although it concerns the man as much as his felicity
and all his hopes comes to, to take care that his conscience be not
abused in the matter of duty ; yet a right and a wrong conscience
are not made distinct guides and different judges. Since therefore-
we are to consider and treat of conscience, as it is the guide of our
actions, and judge of our persons, we are to take it in other aspects,
than by a direct face towards its object ; the relation to which alone,
cannot diversify its kind, so much as to become an universal rule to
us in all cases and emergencies.

§ 5. Now because intellectual habits employed about the same
general object, have no way to make them of different natures, but
by their formal tendencies, and different manners of being affected
with the same object ; we are in order to the perfect division and
assignation of the kinds of conscience, to consider the right con-
science, either as it is sure, or as it is only confident, but not sure.
Tor an erring conscience and the unerring are the same judge, and
the same guide, as to the authority and persuasion, and as to the
effect upon the person : but yet they differ infinitely in their rule ;
and the persons under their conduct differ as much in their state and
condition.. But our conscience is not a good guide unless we be
truly informed and know it. For if we be truly informed and know
it not, it is an uncertain and an imperfect guide. But if we be con-
fident and yet deceived, the uncertainty and hesitation is taken off,
but wre are still very miserable. For we are like an erring traveller, who
being out of the way, and thinking himself right, spurs his horse and
runs full speed. He that comes behind is nearer to his journey's end.

§ 6. 1) That therefore is the first kind of conscience, the right
sure conscience ; and this alone is fit to be our guide, but this alone
is not our judge.

§ 7. 2) Opposite to this is the confident or erring conscience;
that is, such which indeed is mis-informed, but yet assents to its ob-
ject with the same confidence as does the right and sure; but yet
upon differing grounds, motives, and inducements : which because

48 THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. [BOOK I.

they are always criminal, although the assent is peremptory and con-
fident, yet the deception is voluntary and vicious in its cause; and
therefore the present confidence cannot warrant the action, it only
makes the sinner bold. So that these two differ in their manner of
entering into the assent ; the one entering by the door, the other by
the breaches of the wall. Good will and bad, virtue and vice, duty
and sin, keeping the several keys of the persuasion and consent.

§ 8. This erring conscience I therefore affirm to be always volun-
tary and vicious in its principle, because all God's laws are plain in
all matter of necessary duty : and when all men are to be guided,
learned and unlearned, the rule is plain and easy, because it is neces-
sary it should be so. But therefore if there happen any invincible
ignorance, or involuntary deception, it is there where the rule is not
plain, and then the matter is but probable, and then the conscience
is according. And this makes the third kind of conscience, in re-
spect of the different manner of being affected with the object.

§ 9. 3) The probable conscience is made by that manner of assent
to the object, which is indeed without fear, but not without imper-
fection. The thing itself is of that nature, that it cannot properly
make faith or certainty of adherence ; and the understanding con-
siders it as it is represented without any prejudice or prepossession;
and then the thing must be believed as it deserves and no more : but
because it does not deserve a full assent, it hath but an imperfect
one ; but it is perfect enough in its kind, that is, it is as much as it
ought to be, as much as the thing deserves. These are all the kinds
of conscience that are perfect.

§ 10. 4) But sometimes the state and acts of conscience are
imperfect ; as the vision of an evil eye, or the motion of a broken
arm, or the act of an imperfect or abused understanding : so
the conscience in some cases is carried to its object but with
an imperfect assent, and operates with a lame and deficient prin-
ciple : and the causes of it are the vicious or abused affections,
accidents or incidents to the conscience. Sometimes it happens
that the arguments of both the sides in a question seem so in-
different, that the conscience being affrighted and abused by fear
and weakness dares not determine, and consequently dares not do
any thing; and if it be constrained to act, it is determined from
without, not by itself, but by accidents and persuasion, by impor-
tunity or force, by interest or fear : and whatever the ingredient be,
yet when it does act, it acts with fear, because it reflects upon itself,
and considers it hath no warrant, and therefore whatever it does be-
comes a sin. This is the calamity of a doubting conscience. This
doubting does not always proceed from the equality of the parts of
the question, but sometimes wholly from want of knowing any thing
of it : as if we were put to declare whether there were more men or
women in the world? whether the number of the stars were even or odd?
sometimes from inconsideration, sometimes from surprise, sometimes

CHAP. I.] THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE IN GENERAL. 49

from confusion and disease ; but from what principle soever it be,
there is always some fear in it. This conscience can neither be a
good guide, nor a good judge : we cannot do any thing by its con-
duct, nor be judged by it; for all that can be done before or after it,
is not by it, but by the suppletories of the perfect conscience.

§ 11. 5) A less degree of this evil, is that which by the masters
of moral theology is called the scrupulous conscience, which is not
a distinct kind of conscience as is usually supposed, but differs from
the doubtiiig conscience only in the degrees of the evil. The doubt
is less, and the fear is not so violent as to make it unlawful to do
any thing : something of the doubt is taken off, and the man can
proceed to action without sin, but not without trouble ; he is uneasy
and timorous even when he is most innocent ; and the causes of this
are not only portions of the same weaknesses which cause the doubt-
ing conscience; but sometimes superstition, and melancholy, and
pusillanimity, and mean opinions of God, are ingredients into this im-
perfect assent : and in such cases, although the scrupulous man may
act without sin, and produce his part of the determination, yet his
scruple is not innocent, but sometimes criminal, but always calamit-
ous. This is like a mote in the eye, but a doubt is like a beam.

§ 12. This conscience may be a right guide, but dares not be a
judge : it is like a guide in the dark that knows the way, but fears
every bush ; and because he may err, thinks he does. The effect of
this imperfection is nothing but a heartless and uncomfortable pro-
ceeding in our duty, and what else the devil can make of it, by
heightening the evil and abusing the man, who sits upon a sure foun-
dation, but dares not trust it : he cannot rely upon that, which yet
he cannot disbelieve.

§ 13. 6) There are some other affections of conscience, and acci-
dental appendages ; but because they do not vary the manner of its
being affected with its proper object, they cannot diversify conscience
into several kinds, as it is a guide and judge of human actions. But
because they have no direct influence upon our souls, and relate not to
duty, but are to be conducted by rules of the other kinds, I shall here
only enumerate their kinds, and permit to preachers to discourse of
their natures, and collateral obligations to duty, of their remedies and
assistances, their advantages and disadvantages respectively. These
also are five : 1) The tender conscience; 2) The hardened or obdu-
rate; 3) The quiet; 4) The restless or disturbed ; 5) and lastly, The
perverse conscience. Concerning which, I shall at present say this
only, that the two first are seated principally in the will, but have a
mixture of conscience, as docibility hath of understanding. The two
next are seated in the fancy, or the affections, and are not properly
placed in the conscience, any more than love or desire ; but yet from
conscience they have their birth. And for the last, it is a heap of
irregular principles, and irregular defects, and is the same in con-
science, as deformity is in the body, or peevishness in the affections.

IX. E

50 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

CHAP. II.

OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE.

EULE I.

A RIGHT CONSCIENCE IS THAT WHICH GUIDES OUR ACTIONS BY RIGHT AND
PROPORTIONED MEANS TO A RIGHT END .

The end is, God's glory, or any honest purpose of justice or reli-
gion, charity or civil conversation. Whatsoever is good for us, or
our neighbours, in any sense perfective of our being as God purposed
it, all that is our end. The means ought to be such as are apt in-
struments to procure it. If a man intends to live a severe life, and
to attend religion, his end is just and fair, and so far his conscience
is right : but if his conscience suggest to him, that he to obtain his
end should erect colleges of women ; and in the midst of feasts and
songs, and society, he should preach the melancholy lectures of the
cross, it is not right ; because the end is reached at by a contrary
hand. But when it tells him, that to obtain continence he must fast
and pray, watch diligently, and observe prudently, labour and read,
and deny his appetite in its daily attempts upon him, then it is a right
conscience. For a right conscience is nothing but right reason re-
duced to practice, and conducting moral actions. Now all that right
reason can be defined by, is the propounding a good end, and good
means to that end.

EULE II.

IN A RIGHT CONSCIENCE, THE PRACTICAL JUDGMENT, THAT IS, THE LAST DETER-
MINATION TO AN ACTION, OUGHT TO BE SURE AND EVIDENT.

§ 1. This is plain in all the great lines of duty, in actions deter-
minable by the prime principles of natural reason, or divine revela-
tion ; but it is true also in all actions conducted by a right and perfect

CHAP. II.] OE THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 5]

conscience. This relies upon all that account on which it is forbidden
to do actions of danger, or doubt, lest we perish in the danger; which
are to be handled in their proper place. But for the present we are
to observe, that in the question of actions, whose rule is not notorious
and primely evident, there is or may be a double judgment.

§ 2. The first judges the thing probable by reason of the differing
opinions of men wise and pious ; but in this there is a fear or sus-
picion of the contrary, and therefore in the direct act nothing is cer-
tain. But secondly, there is also a reflex act of judgment; which upon
consideration that it is certain that a probable action may lawfully be
done, or else that that which is but probable in the nature of the
tbing (so far as we perceive it) may yet by the superadding of some
circumstances, and prudential considerations, or by equity, or neces-
sity, become more than probable in the particular ; although (I say)
the conscience be uncertain in the direct act, yet it may be certain,
right, and determined in the reflex and second act of judgment; and
if it be, it is innocent and safe, it is that which we call the right sure
conscience.

§ 3. For in moral things there cannot ordinarily be a demonstra-
tive, or mathematical certainty ; and in morality we call that certain,
that is, a thing to be followed and chosen, which oftentimes is but
very highly probable : and many things do not attain that degree ; and
therefore, because it is very often impossible, it is certainly not neces-
sary that the direct judgment should be sure and evident in all cases.
To p.ev yap k-ni<rrr\Tov anoheiKToV riyyy] be kcu (ppovrja-ts Tvyyavovcnv
ovcrai iTtpl tcl kvhey6p.eva akXoos eyeiv1' 'science is of those things
which can be demonstrated ; but prudence (and conscience) of things
which are thus, or may be otherwise/ But if it be not supplied in
the reflex and second act of judgment, so that the conscience be
either certain in the object, or in the act, the whole progress is a
danger, and the product is criminal ; the conscience is doubtful, and
the action is a sin.

§ 4. It is in this as is usually taught concerning the divine know-
ledge of things contingent ; which although they are in their own
nature fallible and contingent, yet are known certainly and infallibly
by God, and according to the nature of the things, even beyond what
they are in their natural, proper, and next causes : and there is a
rare, and secret expression of Christ's incarnation used by S. Paulj,
" in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the godhead bodily/' that is,
the manner is contrary to the thing; the godhead that is wholly in-
corporeal dwells in Him corporally. After the like manner of sig-
nification is the present certainty I speak of. If it be not certain in
the object, it must be certain in the faculty, that is, at least it must
be a certain persuasion, though of an uncertain article : and we must
be certain and fully persuaded that the thing may be done by us law-

1 Aristot. Ethic. Nic, lib. vi. cap. 6. [torn. ii. p. 1140.] J [Col. ii. 9.]

E 2

52 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

fully, though whether the thing itself be lawful, is at most but highly
probable.

§ 5. So that in effect it comes but to this : the knowledge that is
here required, is but the fulness of persuasion, which is and ought to
be in a right conscience : oioa teal Tik-nzi(T\x,ai, " I know and am per-
suaded in the Lord Jesus ;" so S. Paulk. Our knowledge here,
which is but in part, must yet be a full confidence for the matters of
duty. The conclusions then are these : —

1) There must be a certainty of adherence in the actions of a

right conscience.

2) It must also for the matter of it too, at least be on the right

side of the probability.
The conscience must be confident, and it must also have reason
enough so to be : or at least, so much as can secure the confidence
from illusion ; although possibly the confidence may be greater than
the evidence, and the conclusion bigger than the premises. Thus
the good simple man that about the time of the Nicene council con-
futed the stubborn and subtle philosopher by a confident saying over
his creed1 : and the holy and innocent idiot m, or plain easy people of
the laity, that cannot prove Christianity by any demonstrations, but
by that of a holy life, and obedience unto death ; they believe it so,
that they put all their hopes upon it, and will most willingly prove it
again by dying for it, if God shall call them. This is one of the ex-
cellencies of faith ; and in all cases where the mercies of God have
conducted the man into the right, it is not subject to illusion. But
for that particular, I mean, that we be in the right, we are to take
all that care which God hath put into our power ; of which I have
already said something, and shall give fuller accounts in its proper
place.

EULE III.

THE PRACTICAL JUDGMENT OP A EIGHT CONSCIENCE IS ALWAYS AGREEABLE TO
THE SPECULATIVE DETERMINATION OJ? THE UNDERSTANDING.

§ 1. This rule is intended against those whose understanding is
right in the proposition, and yet declines in the application ; it is
true in thesi, but not in hypothesis it is not true when it comes to
be their case : and so it is in all that sin against their conscience,
and use little arts to evade the clamour of the sin. They are ri'^ht
in the rule, and crooked in the measuring; whose folly is apparent
in this, because they deny in particular what they affirm in the
general ; and it is true in all, but not in some. David was redargued
wittily by Nathan upon this account ; he laid the case in a remote

k [Rom. xiv. 14.] i. 8 ; Ruffin., H. E. i. 3.]

1 [Sozom., H. E. i. 18 ; Socrat., H. E. m [jS^-njy.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 53

scene : Titius, or Sempronius, a certain rich man, I know not who,
somebody or other, robbed the poor man of his ewe lamb. Therefore
said David, he shall die whoever he be. Yea, but you are the man :
what then ? shall he die still ? This is a new arrest ; it could not
be denied, his own mouth had already given the sentence.

§ 2. And this is an usual, but a most effective art to make the
conscience right in the particular, by propounding the case separate
from its own circumstances, and then to remove it to its own place
is no hard matter. It was an ingenious device of Erasistratus the
physician, of which Appian tells" : " When young Antiochus almost
died for love of Stratonica his father Seleucus his wife, the physician
told the passionate and indulgent father, that his son was sick of a
disease, which he had indeed discovered, but found it also to be in-
curable. Seleucus with sorrow asking what it was, Erasistratus
answered, he loves my wife. But then the old king's hopes began
to revive, and he turned wooer in the behalf of his son, begging of
the physician who was his counsellor and his friend, for pity sake, for
friendship and humanity to give his wife in exchange or redemption
for the young king's life. Erasistratus replied, Sir, you ask a thing
too unreasonable and great ; and though you are his father, yourself
would not do it, if it were your own case ; and therefore why should
I ? "When Seleucus swore by all his country gods that he would do it
as willingly as he would live ; Erasistratus drew the curtain of the
device, and applied it to him, by telling, that the cure of his son de-
pended upon his giving the queen Stratonica to him, which he did ;
and afterwards made it as lawful as he could, by a law postnate to
that insolent example, and confirmed it by military suffrages."

§ 3. In all cases we are to consider the rule, not the relation ; the
law, not the person : for if it be one thing in the proposition, and
another in the assumption, it must be false in one place or the other,
and then the conscience is but an ill guide, and an ill judge.

§ 4. This rule is not to extend to the exception of particular cases ;
nor to take away privileges, pardons, equity. For that which is fast
in the proposition, may become loose in the particular by many inter-
vening causes, of which I am to give account in its due place. For
the present, this is certain, that, whatsoever particular is of the same
account with the general, not separate, or let loose by that hand which
first bound it, is to be estimated as the general. But this rule is to
go further also.

§ 5. For hitherto I have called the act of particular conscience
directing to a single and circumstantiate action by the name of prac-
tical judgment : and the general dictate of the a-vvTr]prj(ns, or ' phy-
lactery,' or upper conscience, teaching the kinds of good actions, by
the name of speculative judgment. But the rule also is true, and so
to be understood, when practical and speculative are taken in their
first and proper sense. If in philosophy we discourse that the true

n De bellis Syriacis. [capp. lix. — lxi.]

51 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

God, being a spirit without shape or figure, cannot be represented by
an image ; although this be only a speculation, and demonstrable in
natural philosophy, and no rule of conscience; yet when conscience
is to make a judgment concerning the picturing of God the Father,
it must not determine practically against that speculation. That an
idol is nothing, is demonstrable in metaphysics ; and therefore that we
are to make nothing of it, is a practical truth : and although the first
proposition be not directly placed in the upper region of conscience,
but is one of the prime metaphysical propositions, not properly the-
ological, according to those words of S. Paul0, " Concerning things
sacrificed to idols, we know on Trdvres yvSxriv e^ojuey, that we all
have knowledge, and we know that an idol is nothing in the world "
meaning, that this knowledge needs no revelation to attest it, we by
our own reason and principles of demonstration know that; yet, the
lower, or particular practical conscience must never determine against
that extrinsical, and therefore (as to conscience) accidental measure.

§ 6. For whatsoever is true in one science, is true also in another,
and when we have wisely speculated concerning the dimensions of
bodies, their circumscriptions, the acts of sense, the certainty of their
healthful perceptions, the commensuration of a place and a body ; we
must not esteem these to be unconcerning propositions, if ever we
come to use them in divinity : and therefore we must not worship
that which our senses tell us to be a thing below worship ; nor believe
that infinite which we see measured ; nor esteem that greater than the
heavens which I see and feel goes into my mouth. If philosophy
gives a skin, divinity does not fleap it off : and truth cannot be con-
trary to truth ; and God would not in nature teach us any thing to
misguide us in the regions of grace.

§ 7. The caution for conducting this proposition is only this: that
we be as sure of our speculation, as of any other rule which we or-
dinarily follow ; and that we do not take vain philosophy for true
speculations. He that guides his conscience by a principle of Zeno's
philosophy, because he hath been bred in the stoical sect, and resolves
to understand his religion to the sense of his master's theorems, does
ill. The christian religion suffered much prejudice at first by the
weak disputings of the Greeks ; and they would not admit a religion
against the academy, or the cynics, or the Athenian schools; and
the christian schools drew some of their articles through the limbecks
of Plato's philosophy, and to this day the relish remains upon some
of them. And Baroniusq complains of Origen, that, In paganorum
commentis enutritus, eaque propagate in animo habens, divinas se uti-
que scripturas interpretari simulavit : ut hoc modo nefariam doctrinam
suam sacrarum literarum monumentis maligne admiscens, paganicum
et manichceicum errorem snum atque Arrianam vesaniam induceret.
' He mingled the gentile philosophy with christian religion, and bv

0 [1 Cor. viii. 1.] q Ad ann. dxxxviii. sect. 34. [torn. vii.

P [Sic edd.] p. 28 D.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 55

analogy to that, expouuded this/ and how many disciples he had, all
the world knows. Nay not only from the doctrine, but from the
practices and rites of the pagan religion, many Christians did derive
their rites, and they in time gave authority and birth to some doc-
trines. Vigilias anniversarias habes apud Suetoniiim. Lustralem aquam,
aspersionem sepulchrorum^ lumina in iisdem parare, sabbato lucernam
accendere, cereos in populum distrib?iereT, — The staff, the ring, the
mitre, and many other customs, some good, some only tolerable, the
Christians took from the gentiles ; and what effect it might have, and
what influence it hath had in some doctrines, is too notorious to dis-
semble. Thomas Aquinas did a little change the scene, and blended
Aristotle so with school divinity, that something of the purity was
lost, while much of our religion was exacted and conducted by the
rules of a mistaken philosophy. But if their speculations had been
right, Christianity would at first have entered without reproof, as be-
ing the most reasonable religion of the world, and most consonant to
the wisest and most sublime speculations ; and it would also have con-
tinued pure, if it had been still drawn from the fountains of our Savi-
our through the limbecks of the evangelists and apostles, without the
mixture of the salt waters of that philosophy, which every physician
and witty man now-a-days thinks he hath reason and observation
enough easily to reprove. But men have resolved to verify their sect
rather than the truth ; but if of this particular we be careful, we must
then also verify every speculation in all things where it can relate to
practice, and is not altered by circumstances.

§ 8. As an appendage, and for the fuller explication of this rule,
it is a worthy encpiiry which is by some men made, concerning the
use of our reason in our religion. For some men finding reason to
be that guide which God hath given us, and concreated with us,
know that religion which is superinduced, and comes after it, cannot
prejudice that noblest part of this creation. But then, because some
articles which are said to be of faith cannot be made to appear con-
sonant to their reason, they stick to this, and let that go. Here is a
just cause of complaint. But therefore others say, that reason is a
good guide in things reasonable and human, but our reason is blind
in things divine, and therefore is of little or no use in religion. Here
we are to believe, not to dispute. There are on both sides fair pre-
tences, which when we have examined, we may find what part of truth
each side aims at, and join them both in practice. They that speak
against reason speak thus :

§ 9. 1) There is to every state and to every part of man given a
proportionable light to guide him in that way where he ought, and
is appointed to walk. In the darknesses of this world, and in the ac-
tions of common life, the sun and moon in their proper seasons are to
give us light : in the actions of human entercourse, and the notions
tending to it, reason is our eye, and to it are notices proportioned,

r A.D. xnv. n. 88. [torn. i. p. 340 E.]

56 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

drawn from nature and experience, even from all the principles with
which our rational faculties usually do converse. But because a man
is designed to the knowledge of God, and of things spiritual, there
must spring a new light from heaven, and he must have new capacities,
and new illuminations; that is, new eyes, and a new light: for here
the eye of reason is too weak, and the natural man is not capable of
the things of the spirit, because they are spiritually discerned. Faith
is the eye, and the holy Spirit gives the light, and the word of God
is the lantern, and the spiritual not the rational man can perceive the
things of God. Secreta Dei Deo meo, etjiliis domus ejus9 : ' God and
God's secret ones only know God's secrets/

§ 10. 2) And therefore we find in holy scripture that to obey
God, and to love Him, is the way to understand the mysteries of the
kingdom. Obedite et intelUgetls, ' If ye will obey, then shall ye
understand :' and it was a rare saying of our blessed Saviour*, and is
of great use and confidence to all who enquire after the truth of God,
in the midst of these sad divisions of Christendom ; " If any man will
do His will, he shall know whether the doctrine be of God or no."
It is not fineness of discourse, nor the sharpness of arguments, or
the witty rencontres of disputing men that can penetrate into the mys-
teries of faith : the poor humble man that prays, and enquires simply,
and listens attentively, and sucks in greedily, and obeys diligently, he
is the man that shall know the mind of the Spirit. And therefore
S. Paulu observes that the sermons of the cross were " foolishness to
the Greeks •" and consequently, by way of upbraiding, he enquires,
" Where is the wise man, wThere is the scribe, where is the disputer
of the world? God hath made the wisdom of the world foolishness;"
that is, God hath confounded reason, that faith may come in her
place.

§ 11. 8) Tor there are some things in our religion so mysterious,
that they are above all our reason ; and well may we admire but can-
not understand them : and therefore the Spirit of God is sent into
the world to bring our understanding into the obedience of Christv ;
we must obey and not enquire, and every proud thought must be
submitted to Him who is the wisdom of the Father, who hath in the
holy scriptures taught us all His Father's will.

§ 12. 4) And therefore as to this nothing can be added from the
stock of nature, or principles of natural reason, so if it did need a
supply, reason could ill do it. For the object of our faith must be
certain and infallible ; but no man's reason is so, and therefore to
put new wine into broken bottles is no gain, or real advantage ; and
although right reason is not to be gainsaid, yet what is right reason
is so uncertain, that in the midst of all disputes, every man pretends
to it, but who hath it no man can tell, and therefore it cannot be a
guide or measure of faith.

§ 13. 5) But above all, if we will pretend to reason in religion, we

• [See vol. viii. p. 386. note g.] * [John vii. 17.] ° [1 Cor. i. 20.] v [2 Cor. x. 5.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 57

have but one great reason that we can be obliged to ; and that is, to
believe that whatsoever God hath said is true : so that our biggest
reason in religion, is to submit our reason, that is, not to use our
reason in particular enquiries, but to captivate it in the whole. And
if there be any particular enquiries, let them seem what they will to
my reason, it matters not ; I am to follow God, not man ; I may be
deceived by myself, but never by God. It is therefore sufficient to
me that it is in the scriptures. I will enquire no further. This
therefore is a concluding argument ; this is in scripture, therefore
this is true : and this is against scripture, therefore it is absurd, and
unreasonable.

§ 14. 6) After all, experience is our competent guide and warning
to us : for we see when witty men use their reason against God that
gave it, they in pursuit of reason go beyond religion ; and when by
reason they look for God, they miss Him ; for He is not to be found
but by faith, which when they dispute for, they find not ; because
she is built and persuaded by other mediums, than all schools of
philosophy to this day have taught. And it was because of reason,
that the religion of Jesus was so long opposed and hindered to pos-
sess the world. The philosophers would use their reason, and their
reason would not admit this new religion : and therefore S. Paul
being to remove every stone that hindered, bade them to beware of
"vain philosophy;" which does not distinguish one kind of philoso-
phy from another, but marks all philosophy. It is all vain, when
the enquiries are into religious mysteries.

§ 15. 7) For is it not certain that some principles of reason are
against some principles of faith and scripture ? and it is but reason,
that we should hear reason wherever we find it ; and yet we are to
have no entercourse with devils, though we were sure they would tell
us of hidden treasures, or secrets of philosophy : and upon this ac-
count it is that all genethliacal predictions, and judicial astrology is
decried by all religious persons ; for though there be great preten-
sions of reason and art, yet they being against religion and revelation
are intolerable. In these and the like cases reason must put on her
muffler, and we must be wholly conducted by revelation.

§ 16. These are the pretences against the use of reason in ques-
tions of religion ; concerning which the same account may be given
as is by the Pyrrhonians and sceptics concerning their arguments
against the certainty of sciences. These reasons are like physic,
which if it uncertainly purges out the humour, it most certainly purges
out itself : and these arguments either cannot prevail against the use
of reason in religion, or if they do, they prevail against themselves :
for either it is against religion to rely upon reason in religion, or it is
not : if it be not, then reason may without danger to religion be safely
relied upon in all such enquiries. But if it be against religion to
rely upon reason, then certainly these reasons intended to prove it
so are not to be relied upon ; or else this is no question of religion.

58 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

For if this be a question of religion, why are so many reasons used in
it ? if it be no question of religion, then we may for all these reasons
to the contrary, still use our reason in religion without prejudice to
it. And if these reasons conclude right, then we may for these rea-
sons' sake trust the proposition which says, that in religion reason is
to be used ; but if these reasons do not conclude right, then there
is no danger, but that reason may still be used, these arguments to
the contrary notwithstanding.

§ 17. But there is more in it than so. This foregoing discourse,
or to the like purpose, is used by two sorts of persons. The one is
by those, who in destitution of particular arguments, make their last
recourse unto authority of men. For by how much more they press
their own peremptory affirmative, by so much the less will they endure
your reasons and arguments for the negative. But to these men I
shall only say, let God be true, and every man a liar : and therefore
if we trust men concerning God, we do not trust God concerning
men ; that is, if we speak of God as men please, we do not think of
men as God hath taught us ; viz., that they are weak, and that they
are liars : and they who have by artifices, and little devices, acquired
to themselves a reputation, take the less care for proving what they
say, by how much the greater credulity that is, by which men have
given themselves up to be possessed by others. And if I would have
my saying to prevail whether it be right or wrong, I shall the less
endure that any man should use his own reason against me. And
this is one of the great evils for which the church of Eome hath
given Christendom a great cause to complain of her, who not only
presses men to believe or to submit to what she says upon her own
authority, without enduring them to examine whether she says true
or no, but also requires as great an assent to what she cannot prove,
as to what she can ; requiring an adherence not less than the greatest,
even to those things which she only pretends to be able to prove by
prudential motives. Indeed in these cases if they can obtain of men
to bring their faith, they are safe ; but to come accompanied with
their reason too, that is dangerous.

§ 18. The other sort of men, is of those who do the same thing
under another cover ; for they not having obtained the advantages of
union or government, cannot pretend to a privileged authority, but
resolving to obtrude their fancies upon the world, and yet not being
able to prove what they say, pretend the Spirit of God to be the
author of all their theorems. If they could prove Him to be their
author, the thing were at an end, and all the world were bound to
lay their necks under that pleasant yoke; but because they cannot
prove any thing, therefore it is that they pretend the Spirit for every
thing : and if the noise of so sacred a name will persuade you, you
are within the snare ; if it will not, you are within their hatred. But
it is impossible that these men can prevail, because there are so many
of them ; it is as if there were twenty mountebanks in the piazza.

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 59

and all saying they had the only antidote in the world for poison ;
and that what was not theirs, was not at all, and yet all pretend seve-
rally. For all men cannot have the Spirit, unless all men speak the
same thing : it were possible that even in union they might be de-
ceivers ; but in division they cannot be right ; and therefore since all
these men pretend the Spirit, and yet all speak several things and
contradictory, they do well to desire of us not to use our reason, for
if we do, they can never hope to prevail ; if we do not, they may
persuade, as they meet with fools that were not possessed before.

§ 19. Between these two there is a third that pretends to no
authority on one hand, nor enthusiasm on the other ; but offers to
prove what he says, but desires not his arguments to be examined by
reason, upon pretence that he urges scripture ; that is in effect, he
must interpret it ; but your reason shall not be judge whether he
says right or wrong : for if you judge his interpretation, he says you
judge of his argument, and make reason umpire in questions of faith :
and thus his sect is continued, and the systems of divinity rely upon
a certain number of propositions from generation to generation, and
the scholar shall be no wiser than his master for ever; because he is
taught to examine the doctrines of his master by his master's argu-
ments, and by no other. In effect, they all agree in this; they would
rule all the world by religion, and they would have nobody wiser
than themselves, but be fools and slaves, till their turn come to use
others as bad as they have been used themselves : and therefore as
the wolves offered peace to the sheep upon condition they would put
away their dogs ; so do these men allow us to be christians and dis-
ciples, if we will lay aside our reason, which is that guard of our
souls, whereby alone we can be defended against their tyrannies and
pretensions.

§ 20. That I may therefore speak close to the enquiry, I premise
these considerations :

1) It is a weak and a trifling principle, which supposes faith and
reason to be opposite : for faith is but one way, by which our reason!
is instructed, and acquires the proper notices of things. For ourj
reason or understanding apprehends things three several ways. The
first is called voiiats, or the first notices of things abstract, of princi-
ples and the primo intelligibilia : such as are, the whole is greater
than the half of the whole; good is to be chosen; God is to be
loved ; nothing can be and not be at the same time ; for these are
objects of the simple understanding, congenite notices, concreated
with the understanding. The second is called hi.av6r)(n<s, or 'dis-
course/ that is, such consequents and emanations which the under-
standing draws from her first principles. And the third is tticttis,
that is, such things which the understanding assents to upon the re-
port, testimony, and affirmation of others, viz., by arguments extrin-
secal to the nature of the thing, and by collateral and indirect princi-
ples. For example, I naturally know that an idol or a false god is

60 OP THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

nothing ; this is vor]<ns, or the act of abstract and immaterial reason.
Prom hence I infer, that an idol is not to be worshipped : this my
reason knows by hiavo-qcris, or illation and inference from the first
principle. But therefore that all monuments of idolatry are to be
destroyed was known to the Jews by tt'httis, for it was not primely
known, nor by the direct force of any thing that was primely known ;
but I know it from God by the testimony of Moses, into the notice
of which I am brought by collateral arguments, by tradition, by
miracle, by voices from heaven, and the like.

§ 21. 2) These three ways of knowing, are in all faculties sacred
and profane : for faith and reason do not divide theology and philo-
sophy, but in every science reason hath notices all these ways. For
in natural philosophy there are prime principles, and there are con-
clusions drawn from thence, and propositions which we believe from
the authority of Plato, or Socrates, or Aristotle; and so it is in
theology, for every thing in scripture is not in the divided sense a
matter of faith. That the sun is to rule the day, the moon and the
stars to govern the night, I see and feel : that God is good, that He
is one, are prime principles : that nothing but good is to be spoken
of this good God, reason draws by a hiavorjais, or discourse and
illation : but that this good God will chastise His sons and servants,
and that afflictions sent upon us are the issues of His goodness ; or
that this one God is also three in person, this is known by ttCo-tis,
or by belief-; for it is not a prime truth, nor yet naturally inferred
from a prime truth, but told by God, and therefore is an object of
faith ; reason knows it by testimony, and by indirect and collateral
probations.

§ 22. 3) Beason knows all things as they are to be known, and
enters into its notices by instruments fitted to the nature of things.
Our stock of principles is more limited than our stock of words ; and
as there are more things than words, so there are more ways of know-
ing, than by principles direct and natural. Now as God teaches us
many things by natural principles, many by experience, many at first,
many more in time ; some by the rules of one faculty, some by the
rules of another : so there are some things which descend upon us
immediately from heaven, and they communicate with no principle,
with no matter, with no conclusion here below. Now as in the other
things we must come to notices of things, by deriving them from their
proper fountains ; so must we do in these. He that should go to
revelation to prove that nine and nine makes eighteen, would be a
fool ; and he would be no less, that goes about to prove a Trinity of
Persons by natural reason. Every thing must be derived from its
own fountain : but because these things which are derivatives from
heaven, and communicate not at all with principles of philosophy, or
geometry, yet have their proper fountains, and these fountains are too
high for us to search into their bottom, we must plainly take all
emanations from them, just as they descend. For in this case, all

CHAP. II.] OP THE EIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 61

that is to be clone, is to enquire from whence they come. If they
come from natural principles, I search for them by direct arguments :
if they come from higher, I search for them by indirect arguments ;
that is, I enquire only for matter of fact, whether they come thence
or no. But here my reason is set on work : first, I enquire into the
testimony or ways of probation ; if they be worth believing in what
they say, my reason sucks it in. As if I be told that God said
"there are Three and One in heaven/' I ask, who said it? is He
credible, why ? If I find that all things satisfy my reason, I believe
him saying that God said so ; and then ttlcttis or faith enters. I
believe the thing also, not because I can prove it directly, for I can-
not, but I can prove it indirectly; testimony and authority is my
argument, and that is sufficient. The apostles entered into much of
their faith by their senses, they saw many articles of their creed ; but
as they which saw and believed were blessed, so they which see not,
but are argued and disputed into their faith, and believe what they
find reasonable to believe, shall have the reward of their faith, while
they wisely follow their reason.

§ 23. 4) Now in all this, here is no difference in my reason, save
that as it does not prove a geometrical proposition by moral philo-
sophy, so neither does it prove a revelation by a natural argument,
but into one and the other it enters by principles proper to the in-
quisition ; and faith and reason are not opposed at all. Faith and
natural reason are several things, and arithmetical and moral reasons
are as differing, but it is reason that carries me to objects of faith,
and faith is my reason so disposed, so used, so instructed.

The result of these propositions is this one :

§ 24. That into the greatest mysteriousness of our religion, and
the deepest articles of faith we enter by our reason. Not that we can
prove every one of them by natural reason, for to say that, were as
vain, as to say we ought to prove them by arithmetic or rules of
music ; but whosoever believes wisely and not by chance, enters into
his faith by the hand of reason ; that is, he hath causes and reasons
why he believes. He indeed that hath reasons insufficient and in-
competent, believes indeed not wisely, but for some reason or other
he does it ; but he that hath none, does not believe at all : for the
understanding is a rational faculty, and therefore every act of the
understanding is an act of the rational faculty, and that is an act of
reason ; as vision is of the visive faculty : and faith, which is an act
or habit of the understanding consenting to certain propositions for
the authority of the speaker, is also as much an act of reason, as to
discourse in a proposition of Aristotle. Eor faith assenting to a pro-
position for a reason drawn a testimonio, is as very a discourse, as to
assent to a proposition for a reason drawn from the nature of things.
It is not less an act of reason, because it uses another topic. And
all this is plain and certain, when we discourse of faith formally in its

62 OF THE EIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

proper and natural capacity, that is, as it is a reception of propositions
a testimonio.

§ 25. Indeed if we consider faith as it is a habit infused by God,
and by God's holy Spirit, so there is something more in it than thus :
for so, faith is a vital principle, a magazine of secret truths, which we
could never have found out by natural reason, that is, by all that reason
which is born with us, and by all that reason that grows with us, and
by all secular experiences and conversations with the world ; but of
such things which God only teaches, by ways supernatural and divine.

§ 26. Now here is the close and secret of the question, whether or
no faith in this sense, and materially taken, be contrary to our worldly
or natural reason, or whether is any or all the propositions of faith to
be exacted, interpreted, and understood according to this reason
materially taken? that is, are not our reasons which we rightly
follow in natural philosophy, in metaphysics, in other arts and
sciences, sometimes contrary to faith? and if they be, whether shall
be followed ? or can it in any sense be an article of faith, if it be
contrary to right reason ? I answer to this, by several propositions.

§ 27. I. Right reason (meaning our right reason, or human rea-
son) is not the affirmative or positive measure of things divine, or of
articles and mysteries of faith ; and the reasons are plain : because,

1) Many of them depend upon the free will of God, for which, till
He gives us reasons, we are to be still and silent, admiring the secret,
and adoring the wisdom, and expecting till the curtain be drawn, or
till Elias come and tell us all things. But he that will enquire and pry
into the reason of the mystery, and because he cannot perceive it,
will disbelieve the thing, or undervalue it, and say it is not at all, be-
cause he does not understand the reason of it, and why it should be
so, may as well say that his prince does not raise an army in time of
peace, because he does not know a reason why he should; or that
God never did suffer a brave prince to die ignobly, because it was a
thousand pities he should. There is a ragione di stato, and a ragione
di regno, and a ragione di cielo, after which none but fools will en-
quire, and none but the humble shall ever find.

§ 28. Who can tell why the devil, who is a wise and intelligent
creature, should so spitefully, and for no end but for mischief, tempt
so many souls to ruin, when he knows it can do him no good, no
pleasure, but fantastic ? or who can tell why he should be delighted
in a pleasure that can be nothing but fantastic, when he knows things
by intuition, not by fantasm, and hath no low conceit of things as we
have ? or why he should do so many things against God, whom he
knows he cannot hurt, and against souls, whose ruin cannot add one
moment of pleasure to him ? and if it makes any change it is infinitely
to the worse. That these things are so, our religion tells us ; but
our reason cannot reach it why it is so, or how. Whose reason can
give an account why, or understand it to be reasonable, that God

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 63

should permit evil for good ends, when He hates that evil, and can
produce that good without that evil ? and yet that He does so we are
taught by our religion. Whose reason can make it intelligible, that
God who delights not in the death of a sinner, but He and His Christ,
and all their angels, rejoice infinitely in the salvation of a sinner, yet
that He should not cause that every sinner should be saved ; working
in him a mighty and a prevailing grace, without which grace he shall
not in the event of things be saved, and yet this grace is wholly His
own production.

omnipotens hominem cum gratia salvat,

Ipsa suum consummat opus, cui tempus agendi
Semper adest quae gesta velit ; non moribus illi
Fit mora, non causis anceps suspenditur ullis1.

Why does not He work in us all to will and to do, not only that we
can will, but that we shall will ? for if the actual willing be any thing,
it is His creation ; we can create nothing, we cannot will unless He
effect it in us, and why He does not do that which so well pleases
Him, and for the want of the doing of which He is so displeased, and
yet He alone is to do it some way or other ; human reason cannot
give a wise or a probable account.

Nam prius immites populos urbesque rebelles,
Vincente obstantes animos pietate, subegit;
Non hoc consilio tantum hortatuque benigno
Suadens atque docens, quasi normam legis haberet
Gratia, sed mutans intus mentem atque reformans,
Vasque novum ex fracto fingens, virtute creandi.
Non istud monitus legis, non verba prophetae,
Non praestata sibi praestat natura, sed unus
Quod fecit reficit. Percurrat apostolus orbem,
Praedicet, hortetur, plantet, riget, increpet, instet,
Quaque viam verbo reseratam invenerit, intret j
Ut tamen his studiis auditor promoveatur,
Non doctor neque discipulus, sed gratia sola
Efficif.

Where is the wise disco urser, that can tell how it can be, that God
foreknows certainly what I shall do ten years hence, and yet it is free
to me at that time, to will or not to will, to do or not to do that
thing? Where is the discerning searcher of secrets, that can give
the reason why God should determine for so many ages before, that
Judas should betray Christ, and yet that God should kill him eternally
for effecting the divine purpose, and fore-determined counsel ? Well
may we wonder that God should wash a soul with water, and with
bread and wine nourish us up to immortality, and make real impresses
upon our spirits by the blood of the vine, and the kidneys of wheat ;
but who can tell why He should choose such mean instruments to
effect such glorious promises ? since even the greatest things of this
world had not been disproportionable instruments to such effects, nor
yet too great for our understanding; and that we are fain to stoop to

' Prosper, de ingrat., c. xv. [p. 107 A.] ■ Prosper, [ibid., c. xiv. p. 106 F.]

64 OP THE RIGHT OB, SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

make these mean elements be even with our faith, and with our un-
derstanding. Who can divine, and give us the cause, or understand
the reason, why God should give us so great rewards for such nothings,
and yet damn men for such insignificant mischief, for thoughts, for
words, for secret wishes, that effect no evil abroad, but only might
have done, or it may be were resolved to be unactive? For if the
goodness of God be so overflowing in some cases, we in our reason
should not expect, that in such a great goodness, there should be so
great an aptness to destroy men greatly for little things : and if all
mankind should join in search, it could never be told, why God should
adjudge the heathen or the Israelites to an eternal hell, of which He
never gave thern warning, nor created fears great enough to produce
caution equal to their danger; and who can give a reason why for
temporal and transient actions of sin, the world is to expect never-
ceasing torments in hell to eternal ages ? That these things are thus,
we are taught in scripture, but here our reason is not instructed to
tell why or how ; and therefore our reason is not the positive measure
of mysteries, and we must believe what we cannot understand.

§ 29. Thus are they to be blamed, who make intricacies and circles
in mysterious articles, because they cannot wade through them ; it is
not to be understood why God should send His holy Son from His
bosom to redeem us, to pay our price ; nor to be told why God should
exact a price of Himself for His own creature ; nor to be made intel-
ligible to us, why He who loved us so well, as to send His Son to
save us, should at the same time so hate us, as to resolve to damn us,
unless His Son should come and save us. But the Socinians who
conclude that this was not thus, because they know not how it can
be thus, are highly to be reproved for their excess in the enquiries of
reason, not where she is not a competent judge, but where she is not
competently instructed ; and that is the second reason.

§ 30. 2) The reason of man is a right judge always when she is
truly informed ; but in many things she knows nothing but the face
of the article : the mysteries of faith are oftentimes like cherubim's
heads placed over the propitiatory, where you may see a clear and a
bright face and golden wings, but there is no body to be handled;
there is light and splendour upon the brow, but you may not grasp
it ; and though you see the revelation clear, and the article plain, yet
the reason of it we cannot see at all ; that is, the whole knowledge
which we can have here is dark and obscure ; " We see as in a glass
darkly," saith S. Paulx, that is, we can see what, but not why, and
what we do see is the least part of that which does not appear ; but
in these cases our understanding is to submit, and wholly to be obe-
dient, but not to enquire further. Delicata est ilia obedientia qua
causas qnaritY. If the understanding will not consent to a revelation,
until it see a reason of the proposition, it does not obey at all, for it
will not submit, till it cannot choose. In these cases, reason and re-
"* [1 Cor. xiii. 12.] ? [Bernard, de prsecept. et dispens., cap. xiii. col. 930 D.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE JtlGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 65

ligion are like Leah and Rachel : reason is fruitful indeed, and brings
forth the first-born, but she is blear-eyed, and oftentimes knows not
the secrets of her Lord ; but Rachel produces two children, Faith and
Piety, and Obedience is midwife to them both, and Modesty is the
nurse.

§ 31. From hence it follows that we cannot safely conclude thus,
This is agreeable to right reason, therefore this is so in scripture, or in
the counsel of God ; not that one reason can be against another, when
all things are equal, but that the state of things, and of discourses is
imperfect; and though it be right reason in such a constitution of
affairs, yet it is not so in others ; that a man may repel force by force
is right reason, and a natural right, but yet it follows not that it can
be lawful for a private Christian to do it, or that Christ hath not for-
bidden us to strike him that strikes us. The reason of the difference
is this. In nature it is just that it be so, because we are permitted
only to nature's provisions, and she hath made us equal, and the con-
dition of all men indifferent ; and therefore we have the same power
over another that he hath over us ; besides, we wili do it naturally,
and till a law forbad it, it could not be amiss, and there was no rea-
son in nature to restrain it, but much to warrant it. But since the
law of God hath forbidden it, He hath made other provisions for our
indemnity, and where He permits us to be defenceless (as in cases of
martyrdom and the like) He hath promised a reward to make infinite
amends : so that, ' we may repel force by force/ says nature, f we may
not/ says Christ, and yet they are not two contradictory propositions.
For nature says we may, when otherwise we have no security, and no
reward for suffering ; but Christ hath given both the defence of laws
and authority, and the reward of heaven, and therefore in this case it
is reasonable. And thus we cannot conclude, This man is a wicked
man because he is afflicted, or his cause is evil because it does not
thrive ; although it be right reason, that good men ought to be happy
and prosperous ; because although reason says right in it, yet no rea-
son can wisely conclude, that therefore so it should be in this world,
when faith and reason too tell us it may be better hereafter. The
result is this; every thing that is above our understanding is not
therefore to be suspected or disbelieved, neither is any thing to be
admitted that is against scripture, though it be agreeable to right
reason, until all information is brought in by which the sentence is
to be made.

§ 32. For as it happens in dreams and madness, where the argu-
ment is good, and the discourse reasonable oftentimes ; but because
it is inferred from weak phantasms, and trifling and imperfect notices
of things, and obscure apprehensions, therefore it is not only desul-
torious and light, but insignificant, and far from ministering to know-
ledge : so it is in our reason as to matters of religion, it argues well
and wisely, but because it is from trifling, or false, or uncertain
principles, and unsure information, it oftentimes is but a witty no-

IX. k

66 OP THE RIGHT Oil SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

thing : reason is an excellent limbeck, and will extract rare quintes-
sences, but if you put in nothing but mushrooms, or egg-shells, or the
juice of coloquintida, or the filthy gingrany, you must expect produc-
tions accordingly, useless or unpleasant, dangerous or damnable.

§ 33. II. Although right reason is not the positive and affirma-
tive measure of any article, yet it is the negative measure of every
one; so that, whatsoever is contradictory to right reason, is at no
hand to be admitted as a mystery of faith, and this is certain upon
an infinite account.

§ 34. 1) Because nothing can be true and false at the same time,
otherwise it would follow that there could be two truths contrary to
each other : for if the affirmative be true, and the negative true too,
then the affirmative is true and is not true, which were a perfect
contradiction, and we were bound to believe a lie, and hate a truth ;
and yet at the same time obey what we hate, and consent to what
we disbelieve. No man can serve two such masters.

§ 35. £) Out of truth nothing can follow but truth; whatsoever
therefore is truth, this is therefore safe to be followed, because no
error can be the product of it. It follows therefore, that by believ-
ing one truth, no man can be tied to disbelieve another. Whatso-
ever therefore is contrary to right reason, or to a certain truth in any
faculty, cannot be a truth, for one truth is not contrary to another :
if therefore any proposition be said to be the doctrine of scripture, and
confessed to be against right reason, it is certainly not the doctrine
of scripture, because it cannot be true, and yet be against what is true.

§ 36. 3) All truths are emanations and derivatives from God, and
therefore whatsoever is contrary to any truth in any faculty whatso-
ever, is against the truth of God, and God cannot be contrary to
Himself; for as God is one, so truth is one; for truth is God's
eldest daughter, and so like Himself, that God may as well be mul-
tiplied, as abstracted truth.

§ 37. 4) And for this reason God does not only prove our religion,
and Jesus Christ prove His mission by miracles, by holiness, by veri-
fication of prophecies, and prediction of future contingencies, and
voices from heaven, and apparition of angels, and resurrection from
the grave, and fulfilling all that was said of Him by the prophets,
that our faith might enter into us by discourse, and dwell by love,
and be nursed and supported by reason : but also God is pleased to
verify His own proceedings, and His own propositions, by discourses
merely like ours, when we speak according to right reason. Thus
God convinces the peevish people that spake evil of Him, by arguing
concerning the justice of His ways, and exposes His proceedings to
be argued by the same measures and proportions by which He judges
us, and we judge one another2.

§ 38. 5) For indeed how can it be possibly otherwise ? how can

y [Gingroen, s. f. (gin-croen) The — Owen's Welsh Dictionary.]
toad flax, a kind of stinking mushroom. * [Isa. i. 18, and v. 3 ; Ezek. xviii. 25.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT Oil SUltE CONSCIENCE. G7

we confess God to be just if we understand it not ? but how can we
understand Him so, but by the measures of justice? and how shall
we know that, if there be two justices, one that we know, and one that
we know not, one contrary to another? If they be contrary, they are
not justice ; for justice can be no more opposed by justice, than truth
to truth : if they be not contrary, then that which wre understand to
be just in us is just in God, and that which is just once is just for
ever in the same case and circumstances : and indeed how is it that
we are in all things of excellency and virtue to be like God, and to
be meek like Christ, to be humble as He is humble, and to be pure
like God, to be just after His example, to be " merciful as our hea-
venly Father is merciful ?" If there is but one mercy, and one jus-
tice, and one meekness, then the measure of these and the reason is
eternally the same. If there be two, either they are not essential to
God, or else not imitable by us : and then how can we ' glorify
God/ and ' speak honour of His name/ and ' exalt His justice/
and ' magnify His truth/ and ' sincerity/ and ' simplicity/ if truth,
and simplicity, and justice, and mercy in Him is not that thing
which we understand, and which we are to imitate ? — To give an ex-
ample. I have promised to give my friend a hundred pounds on
the calends of March. The day comes, and he expects the donative ;
but I send him answer, that I did promise so by an open promise
and signification, and I had an inclination to do so ; but I have also
a secret will to keep my money, and instead of that to give him a
hundred blows upon his back : if he reproaches me for an unjust and
a false person, I have nothing to answer, for I believe he would
hardly take it for good payment to be answered with a distinction,
and told, I have two wills, an open and a secret will, and they are
contrary to each other : he would tell me that I were a false person
for having two wills, and those two wills were indeed but one, nothing
but a will to deceive and abuse him. Now this is reason, right rea-
son, the reason of all the w7orld, the measure of all mankind, the mea-
sure that God hath given us to understand, and to walk, to live, and
to practise by. And we cannot understand what is meant by hypo-
crisy and dissembling, if to speak one thing and not to mean it be
not that hypocrisy. Now put case God should call us to give Hiin
the glory of His justice and sincerity, of the truth of His promises
and the equity of His ways, and should tell us that we perish by our
own fault, and if we will die, it is because we will, not because we
must ; because we choose it, not because He forces us ; for He calls
us and offers us life and salvation, and gives us powers, and time,
and advantages, and desires it really, and endeavours it passionately,
and effects it materially, so far as it concerns His portion ; this is a
certain evidence of His truth and justice : but if we can reply and
say, It is true, O God, that Thou dost call us, but dost never intend
we should come, that Thy open will is loving and plausible, but Thy
secret will is cruel, decretory, and destructive to us whom Thou hast

F 2

68 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

reprobated; that Thy open will is ineffective, but Thy secret will
only is operative, and productive of a material event, and therefore
although we are taught to say, Thou art just, and true in all Thy
sayings ; yet certainly it is not that justice which Thou hast com-
manded us to imitate and practise, it is not that sincerity which we
can safely use to one another, and therefore either we men are not
just when we think we are, or else Thou art not just who doest and
speakest contrary things, or else there are two contrary things which
may be called justice.

§ 39. For let it be considered as to the present instance; God
cannot have two wills, it is against the unity of God, and the sim-
plicity of God. If there were two divine wills, there were two Gods ;
and if it be one will, then it cannot at the same time will contrary
things ; and if it does not, then when God says one thing, and yet
He wills it not, it is because He only wills to say it, and not to do
it; and if to say this thing of the good, the just, the true, the righte-
ous judge of all the world be not blasphemy, I know not what is.

§ 40. The purpose of this instance is to exemplify, that in all vir-
tues and excellencies there is a perfect unity : and because all is
originally and essentially in God, and from Him derived to us, and
all our good, our mercy, our truth, our justice, is but an imitation of
His, it follows demonstratively, that what is unjust in men, and what
is falsehood in our entercourses, is therefore false or unjust because
it is contrary to the eternal pattern : and therefore whatsoever our
reason does rightly call unjust, or hypocrisy, or falsehood, must needs
be infinitely far from God ; and those propositions which asperse God
with any thing of this nature, are so far from being the word of God,
or an article of faith, or a mystery of religion, that it is blasphemous
and false, hateful to God and good men.

§ 41. In these things there is the greater certainty, because there
is the less variety and no mystery ; these things which in God we
adore as attributes, being the lines of our duty, the limits and scores
we are to walk by : therefore as our reason is here best instructed,
so it cannot easily be deceived, and we can better tell what is right
reason in these things than in questions not so immediately relative
to duty and morality.

§ 42. But yet this rule also holds in every thing where reason is,
or can be right : but with some little difference of expression, but
generally thus :

§ 43. 1) Whatsoever right reason says cannot be done, we cannot
pretend from scripture that it belongs to God's almightiness to do
it : it is no part of the divine omnipotency to do things contradic-
tory ; for that is not to be done which is not, and it is no part of
power to do that which is not an act or effect of power. Now in
every contradictory, one part is a nonentity, a nothing, and therefore
by power cannot be produced ; and to suppose it producible or pos-
sible to be effected by an almighty power, is to suppose an almighty

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. fi9

power to be no power, or to do that which is not the effect of
power.

§ 44. But I need say no more of this, for all men grant it, and
all sects and varieties of Christians endeavour to clear their articles
from inferring contradictions, as implicitly confessing, that it cannot
be true to which any thing that is true is contradictory. Only some
men are forced by their interest and opinions to say, that although
to human reason some of their articles seem to have in them contra-
dictions, yet it is the defect of their reason, and their faith is the more
excellent, by how much reason is more at a loss. So do the Luthe-
rans about the ubiquity of Christ's body, and the papists about tran-
substantiation, and the Calvinists about absolute reprobation, as being
resolved upon the propositions, though heaven and earth confute
them. For if men can be safe from argument with such a little arti-
fice as this, then no error can be confuted, then there is nothing so
absurd but may be maintained, and a man's reason is useless in en-
quiry and in probation ; and (which is to me very considerable) no
man can in any article be a heretic or sin against his conscience. For
to speak against the words of scripture is not directly against our
conscience, there are many ways to escape, by interpretation or au-
thority ; but to profess an article against our reason, is immediately
against our conscience; for reason and conscience dwell under the
same roof, and eat the same portions of meat, and drink the same
chalice. The authority of scripture is superinduced, but right reason
is the eternal word of God ; "the kingdom of God" that is " within
usa;" and the best portions of scripture, even the law of Jesus
Christ, which in moral things is the eternal law of nature, is written
in our hearts, is reason, and that wisdom to which we cannot choose
but assent; and therefore in whatsoever he goes against his reason
he must needs go against his conscience, because he goes against
that by which he supposes God did intend to govern him, reason
not having been placed in us as a snare and a temptation, but as a
light and a star to lead us by day and night. It is no wonder that
men maintain absurd propositions, who will not hear great reason
against them, but are willing to take excuses and pretences for the
justification of them.

§ 45. 2) This is not to be understood as if God could do nothing
but what we can with our reason comprehend or know how. For
God can do every thing, but we cannot understand every thing : and
therefore infinite things there are, or may be, which our reason can-
not master ; they are above our understanding, but are to be enter-
tained by faith. It is not to be said or believed that God can do
what right reason says cannot be : but it must be said and believed
that God can do those things to which our understanding cannot, by
all its powers ministered here below, attain. For since God is omni-
potent, unless we were omniscient we could not understand all that

* [Luke xvii. 21.]

70 OF THE RTGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

He can do; but although, we know but little, yet we know some
propositions which are truths taught us by God, and they are the
measures whereby we are to speak and believe concerning the works
of God.

§ 46. For it is to be considered, whatsoever is above our under-
standing is not against it : supra and secundum may consist together
in several degrees. Thus we understand the divine power of work-
ing miracles, and we believe and know God hath done many : and
although we know not how our dead bones shall live again, yet our
reason tells us that it is within the power of God to effect it ; and
therefore our faith need not be troubled to believe it. But if a thing
be against our understanding, it is against the work of God, and
against a truth of God, and therefore is no part, and it can be no
effect of the divine power : many things in nature are above our
understanding, and no wonder if many things in grace are so too ;
"The peace of God passeth all understanding h," yet we feel some-
thing of it, and hope for more, and long for all, and believe what we
yet cannot perceive. But I consider further :

§ 47. There are some things in reason which are certainly true,
and some things which reason does infallibly condemn : our blessed
Saviour's argument was certain, " A spirit hath not flesh and bones
as ye perceive Me to havec ;" therefore " I am no spirit :" and
S. John's argument was certain, "That which we have seen with our
eyes, and heard with our ears, and which our hands have handled of
the Word of life, that we preach d," that is, we are to believe what we
see and hear and feel ; and as this is true in the whole religion, so it
is true in every article of it. If right sense and right reason tell us
clearly, that is, tell us so that there is no absurdness, or contradic-
tion or unreasonableness in it, we are to believe it, as we are to be-
lieve God ; and if an angel from heaven should tell us any thing
against these propositions, I do not doubt but we would reject him.
Now if we enquire what things are certainly true or false ; I must
answer that in the first place I reckon prime principles and contra-
dictions ; in the next place, those things which are manifestly ab-
surd : but if it be asked further, which things are manifestly absurd,
and what it is to be manifestly absurd ? there can no more answer be
given to this, than to him who asks, how shall I know whether I
am in light or in -darkness ? If therefore it be possible for men to
dote in such things as these, their reason is useless in its greatest
force and highest powers. It must therefore be certain, that if the
parts of a contradiction, or a right reason, be put in bar against a
proposition, it must not pretend to be an article of faith ; and to pre-
tend God's omnipotency against it, is to pretend His power against
His truth. God can deliver us from our enemies, when to human
reason it seems impossible, that is, when we are destitute of all
natural help, and proper causes and probabilities of escape, by what

» [Phil. iv. 7.] " [Luke xxiv. 39.] d [1 John i. 1.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT Oil SURE CONSCIENCE. 71

we see or feel ; that is, when it is impossible to men, it may be pos-
sible with God; but then the faith which believes that God can do
it, is also very right reason : and if we hope He will do it, there is
more than faith in it, but there is nothing in it beyond reason, ex-
cept love also be there.

§ 48. The result is this ; —

1) Our reason is below many of the works, and below all the
power of God, and therefore cannot perceive all that God hath, or
can, or will do, no more than an owl can stare upon the body of the
sun, or tell us what strange things are in that immense globe of fire.
But when any thing that is possible is revealed, reason can consent ;
but if reason cannot consent to it when it is told of it, then it is
nothing, it hath no being, it hath no possibility : whatsoever is in our
understanding is in being ; for that which is not, is not intelligible,
and to wThat reason cannot consent, in that no being can be supposed.

§ 49. 2) Not only what is impossible to reason is impossible in
faith, but if any thing be really absurd or unreasonable, that is,
against some truth in which human reason is really instructed, that
is a sufficient presumption against a proposition, that it cannot be an
article of faith. For even this very thing (I mean) an avoiding of an
absurdity, or an inconvenience, is the only measure and rule of inter-
preting very many places of scripture. For why does not every
Christian pull out his right eye, or cut off his hand, and leg, that he
might enter into heaven halt and blind ? why do not we believe that
Christ is a door, and a vine, and a stone, since these things are dog-
matically affirmed in scripture ? but that we expound scriptures as we
confute them who deny principles, by declaring that such senses or
opinions introduce evil and foolish consequents, against some other
truth in some faculty or other in which human reason is rightly
taught. Now the measure and the limit of this is that very thing
which is the reason of this, and all the preceding discourse, — One
truth cannot be against another ; if therefore your opinion or inter-
pretation be against a truth, it is false, and no part of faith. A com-
mandment cannot be against a revelation, a privilege cannot be
against a promise, a threatening cannot mean against an article, a
right cannot be against a duty ; for all reason, and all right, and all
truth, and all faith, and all commandments, are from God, and there-
fore partake of His unity and His simplicity.

§ 50. 8) This is to be enlarged with this advice, that in all ques-
tions of the sense of scripture, the ordinary way is to be presumed
before the extraordinary, and if the plain way be possible, and reason-
able, and useful, and the extraordinary of no other use but to make
wonder and strangeness to the belief of the understanding, we are to
presume for that, and to let this alone, because that hath the ad-
vantage of reason, it being more reasonable that God will keep the
methods of His own creation, and bring us to Him by ways with
which we are acquainted, and by which we can better understand our

72 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

way to Him, than that He will do a miracle to no purpose, and
without necessity ; God never doing any thing for the ostentation,
but very many things for the manifestation of His power, for His
wisdom and His power declare each other, and in every thing where
He shews His mightiness, He also shews His wisdom, that is, He
never does any thing without great reason. And therefore the
Romans' doctrine of the holy sacrament suffers an intolerable preju-
dice, because it supposes daily heaps and conjugations of miracles,
wholly to no purpose ; since the real Body can be taken by them to
whom it does no good; and all the good can be conveyed to us,
though the body be only taken in a spiritual sense ; all the good
being conveyed by moral instruments, and to spiritual effect ; and
therefore the ordinary way, and the sense which the church of Eng-
land gives, is infinitely to be preferred, because it supposes no
violences and effects of miracles, no cramps and convulsions to
reason : and a man may receive the holy sacrament, and discourse of
all its effects and mysteriousnesses, though he do not talk like a
madman, or a man going out of his wits, and a stranger to all the
reason and philosophy of the world ; and therefore it is remarkable,
that there is in our faith no article, but what is possible to be effected
by the ordinary power of God. That a virgin should conceive is so
possible to God's power, that it is possible in nature, say the Ara-
bians6; but however, He that made the virgin out of nothing, can
make her produce something out of something ; and for the resur-
rection of the dead, it is certainly less than the creation, and it is like
that which we see every year, in the resurrection of plants and dead
corn, and is in many degrees imitable by art, which can out of ashes
raise a flower. And for all the other articles of our creed, they are
so far from being miraculous and strange to reason, that the greatest
wonder is, that our belief is so simple and facile, and that we shall
receive so great and prodigious events hereafter, by instruments so
fitted to the weakest capacities of men here below. Indeed some
men have so scorned the simplicity of the gospel, that because they
thought it honourable to have every thing strange and unintelligible,
they have put in devices and dreams of miracles of their own, and
have so explicated them, that as without many miracles they could
not be verified, so without one they can hardly be understood. That
which is easy to reason, and most intelligible, is more like the plain-
ness, and truth, and innocence, and wisdom of the gospel, than that
which is bones to philosophy, and iron to the teeth of babes.

§ 51. But this is to be practised with caution ; for every man's
reason is not right, and every man's reason is not to be trusted : and
therefore,

4) As absurd foolish things are not to be obtruded, under the pre-
tence of being mysteries, so neither must mistaken philosophy and
false notices of things be pretended for reason. There are mistakes

e [It is said of the Egyptians by Caslius Rhodiginus : lectt. antiq., lib. ix. cap. 19.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 73

on all hands ; some Christians explicate their mysteries, and mince
them into so many minutes and niceties, and speak of them more
than they are taught, more than is said in the scriptures or the first
creeds, that the article which in its own simplicity was indeed mys-
terious, and not to be comprehended by our dark and less instructed
reason, but yet was not impossible to be believed, is made impossible
to be understood by the appendages, and exposed to scorn and
violences by heretics and misbelievers ; so is the incarnation of the
Son of God, the mysterious Trinity, the presence of Christ in the holy
sacrament. Eor so long as the mysteries are signified in simple, wise,
and general terms, reason can espy no particular impossibilities in
them : but when men will explicate what they cannot understand,
and intricate what they pretend to explicate, and superinduce new
clauses to the article, and by entering within the cloud, do less see
the light, they find reason amazed, where she could easily have sub-
mitted, and clouds brought upon the main article, and many times
the body itself is supposed to be a phantasm, because of its tinsel and
fairy dressing; and on the other side, he that would examine an
article of faith by a proposition in philosophy, must be careful that
his philosophy be as right as he pretends. For as it will be hard to
expect, that right reason should submit to a false article, upon pre-
tence it is revealed, so it will be as hard to distrust an article, because
it is against a false proposition, which I was taught in those schools
of learning who speak things by custom, or by chance, or because
they are taught, and because they are not suffered to be examined.
Whoever offers at a reproof of reason, must be sure that he is right
in the article, and that must be upon the strength of stronger reason;
and he that offers by reason to reprove a pretended article, must be
sure his reason must be greater than the reverence of that pretension.
§ 52. And therefore holy scriptures command us in those cases to
such purposes, as not only teach us what to do in it, but also confirm
the main enquiry ; for therefore we are commanded to " try all
things*'.'" Suppose that be meant that we try them by scriptures ;
how can we so try them, but by comparing line with line, by con-
sidering the consequents of every pretence, the analogy of faith, the
measures of justice, the laws of nature, essential right, and prime
principles ? and all this is nothing but by making our faith the limit
of our reason, in matters of duty to God ; and reason the minister of
faith, and things that concern our duty. The same is intended by
those other words of another apostle, " Beloved, believe not every
spirit, but try if the spirits be of God&;" how can this be tried? by
scripture ? yea ; but how if the question be of the sense of scripture,
as it is generally at this day ? Then it must be tried by something
extrinsical to the question, and whatsoever you can call to judgment,
reason must still be your solicitor and your advocate, and your
judge; only reason is not always the law, sometimes it is, for so our

' [1 Thess. v. 21.] e [1 John iv. 1.]

74 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

blessed Saviour was pleased to say, " Why of yourselves do you not
judge that which is reasonable11 ?" for so hUaiov there is used, that
which is fitting and consonant to reason ; and in proportion to this
it was, that so much of the religion of Jesus was clothed with para-
bles, as if the theorems and propositions themselves were clothed with
flesh and blood, and conversed after the manner of men, to whom
reason is the law, and the rule, the guide and the judge, the measure
of good and evil for this life, and for that which is to come. The
consequent is this :

§ 53. He that says thus, ' this doctrine is against the word of God,
and therefore it is absurd and against reason/ may as it falls out say
true ; but his proposition will be of no use, because reason is before
revelation, and that this is revealed by God must be proved by
reason. But,

§ 54. He that says, ' this is absurd/ or ' this is against reason,
therefore this is against the word of God/ if he says true in the ante-
cedent, says true in the consequent, and the argument is useful in
the whole, it being the best way to interpret difficult scriptures, and
to establish right senses, and to confute confident heresies. For
when both sides agree that these are the words of God, and the
question of faith is concerning the meaning of the words, nothing is
an article of faith, or a part of the religion, but what can be proved
by reasons to be the sense and intentions of God. Reason is never
to be pretended against the clear sense of scripture, because by reason
it is that we came to perceive that to be the clear sense of scripture.
And against reason, reason cannot be pretended; but against the
words of scripture produced in a question, there may be great cause
to bring reason ; for nothing seems plainer than those words of
S. James", " Above all things, my brethren, swear not at all /' and yet
reason interposes and tells us, that plain words must not be under-
stood against plain reason and plain necessity : for if oaths before
magistrates were not permitted and allowed, it were necessary to ex-
amine all men by torture ; and yet neither so could they so well be
secured of truth as they can by swearing. What is more plain than
the words of S. Paulk, veKpu>vaTe tcl ixiXrj vfx&v ra eirl rrjs yfjs, e mor-
tify ' or ' kill your members, that are upon the earth / and yet
reason tells us, that we must not hurt or destroy one limb, and
wherever the effect would be intolerable, there the sense is still un-
reasonable; and therefore not a part of faith, so long as it is an
enemy to reason, which is the elder sister, and the guide and guardian
of the younger.

§ 55. For as when the tables of the law were broken by Moses,
God would make no new ones, but bade Moses provide some stones
of his own, and He would write them over : so it is in our religion,
when God with the finger of His spirit writes the religion and the
laws of Jesus Christ, He writes them in the tables of our reason, that

b [Luke xii. 57.] • [James v. 12.] k [Col. iii. 5.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 75

is, 'in the tables of our hearts/ Homo cordalus, a wise, rational
man, sober, and humble, and discursive hath the best faith, but the
cltottol (as S.Paul calls them) 'the unreasonable/ they are such
who 'have no faith1/ For the christian religion is called by
S. Paul AoyiK?) Aarpeta, 'a reasonable worship1"/ and the word of
God is called by S. Peter ydka AoyiKov aboXov, ' the reasonable and
uncrafty milkn/ it is full of reason, but it hath no tricks, it is
rational, but not crafty, it is wise and holy : and he that pretends
there are some things in our religion, which right reason cannot
digest and admit, makes it impossible to reduce atheists, or to con-
vert Jews and heathens. But if reason invites them in, reason can
entertain them all the day.

And now to the arguments brought against the use of reason ; the
answers may easily be gathered from the premises :

§ 56. I. To the first I answer, that reason is the eye of the soul in
all things, natural, moral, and religious; and faith is the light of that
eye, in things pertaining to God ; for it is true, that natural reason
cannot teach us the things of God, that is, reason instructed only by
this world, which S. Paul calls ' the natural man/ cannot discern the
things of the Spirit, for they are 'spiritually discerned0/ that is,
that they are taught and perceived by the aids of God's Spirit, by re-
velation, and divine assistances and grace : but though natural reason
cannot, yet it is false to say that reason cannot ; for reason illumi-
nated can 'perceive the things of God/ that is, when reason is
taught in that faculty, under that master, and by those rules which
are proper for spiritual things, then reason can do all its intentions.

§ 57. II. To the second I answer, that therefore humility and
piety are the best dispositions to the understanding the secrets of the
gospel :

1) Because these do remove those prejudices and obstructions
which are bars and fetters to reason ; and the humble man does best
understand, because the proud man will not enquire, or he will not
labour, or he will not understand any proposition that makes it neces-
sary for him to lay aside his employment or his vanity, his interest or
his vice.

2) These are indeed excellent dispositions to understanding, the
best moral instruments, but not the best natural. If you are to dis-
pute against a heathen, a good reason will sooner convince him than
an humble thought. If you be to convert a Jew, an argument from
the old prophets is better to him than three or four acts of a gracious
comportment.

3) Sometimes by way of blessing and reward. God gives under-
standing to good persons, which to the evil He denies, but this which
effects any thing by way of divine blessing, is not to be supposed the
best natural instrument. Thus the divines say that the fire of hell

[2Thrss. iii. 2] n [1 Pet. ii. 2.1

[Rom. xii. 1.] ° [1 Cor. ii. 14.]

76 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

shall torment souls, tanquam instrumentum divina voluntatis, ' as the
instrument in the hand of a voluntary, and almighty agent/ but not
as a thing apportioned properly to such an event, for the worm of
conscience is more apt to that purpose.

4) And when we compare man with man, so it is true that the
pious man should be sooner instructed than the impious, ceteris pa-
ribus, but if we compare discourse and piety, reason and humility,
they excel each other in their several kinds, as wool is better than a
diamond, and yet a diamond is to be preferred before a bag of wool ;
they operate to the same purpose of understanding in several manners.
And whereas it is said in the argument, that 'the doctrine of the
cross was foolishness to the Greeks p/ it is true, but nothing to the
present question. For therefore it was foolishness to them, because
they had not been taught in the secrets of God, they were not in-
structed how God would by a way so contrary to flesh and blood,
cause the spirits of just men to be made perfect. And they who
were wise by Plato's philosophy, and only well skilled in Aristotle,
could do nothing in the schools of Jesus, because they were not in-
structed in those truths by which such proceedings were to be
measured ; but still, reason is the great wheel, though according as
the motion was intended, new weights must be proportioned accord-
ingly.

§ 58. III. The third objection presses upon the point of duty, and
' because the scripture requires obedience of understanding, and sub-
mitting our most imperious faculties, therefore reason is to be ex-
cluded/ To this I answer, that we must submit our understanding
to God, is very true, but that is only when God speaks. But because
we heard Him not, and are only told that God did speak, our reason
must examine whether it be fit to believe them that tell us so ; for
some men have spoken falsely, and we have great reason to believe
God, when all the reason in the world commands us to suspect the
offerings of some men : and although we ought for the greatest rea-
sons submit to God, yet we must judge and discern the sayings of
God, from the pretences of men ; and how that can be done without
using our reason in the enquiries of religion, is not yet discovered ;
but for the obedience of understanding, it consists in these parti-
culars.

The particulars in which obedience of understanding consists.

§ 59. 1) That we submit to God only and not to man; that is,
to God wherever it appears reasonable to be believed that He hath
spoken, but never to man unless he hath authority from reason or
religion to command our conformity.

§ 60. 2) That those things which by the abuse and pretence of
reason are passed into a fictitious and usurped authority, make no
part of our religion ; for because we are commanded to submit our

p [1 Cor. i. 23.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 77

understanding to God, therefore we must " call no man master upon
earth ;" therefore it is certain that we must not believe the reports
or opinions of men against a revelation of God. He that commu-
nicates with holy bread only, and gives not the chalice to all God's
people that require the holy communion, does openly adhere to a fond
custom and authority of abused men, and leaves the express, clearest,
undeniable institution of God.

§ 61. 3) When reason and revelation seem to disagree, let us so
order ourselves that so long as we believe this to be a revelation, no
pretence of reason may change our belief from it ; if right or suffi-
cient reason can persuade us that this is not a revelation, well and
good ; but if reason leaves us in the actual persuasion that it is so,
we must force our reason to comply with this, since no reason does
force us to quit this wholly ; and if we cannot quit our reason or
satisfy it, let us carry ourselves with modesty, and confess the reve-
lation, though with profession of our ignorance, and unskilfulness to
reconcile the two litigants.

§ 62. 4) That whatsoever is clearly and plainly told us, we obey
it, and rest in it, and not measure it by the rules of folly and weak
philosophy, or the sayings of men in which error may be ingredient;
but when things are unequal, that is, when we can doubt concerning
our reason, and cannot doubt concerning the revelation, we make no
question but prefer this before that.

§ 63. 5) That in particular enquiries, we so order ourselves as to
make this the general measure, that we never do violence to the word
of God, or suspect that, but resolve rather to call ourselves liars, than
that religion should receive detriment; and rather quit our arguments
than hazard an article ; that is, that when all things are equal, we
rather prefer the pretence of revelation, than the pretences of reason,
for the reverence of that and the suspicion of this. Beyond this we
can do no more.

§ 64. IV. To the fourth I answer, that it is true, reason is fallible,
or rather, to speak properly, ratiocination, or the using of reason, is
subject to abuse and deception; for reason itself is not fallible: but
if reason, that is, reasonings be fallible, so are the pretences of reve-
lation subject to abuse ; and what are we now the nearer ? Some
reasons are but probable, and some are certain and confessed, and so
it is in the sense of scriptures, some are plain and need no interpreter,
no discourse, no art, no reasonings to draw out their sense; but
many are intricate and obscure, secret and mysterious ; and to use a
fallible reasoning to draw out an obscure and uncertain sense of
scripture, is sometimes the best way we have, and then we must make
the best of it we can : but the use of reasoning is not only to find
out truth the best we can, but sometimes we are as sure of it, as of
light; but then and always our reason (such as it is) must lead us
into such proportions of faith as they can : according as our reason
or motives are, so ordinary is the degree of our faith.

78 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

§ 65. V. To the fifth I need give no other answer but this, that
it confesses the main question : for if this be the greatest reason in
the world, ' God hath said it, therefore it is true/ it follows, that all
our faith relies upon this one reason ; but because this reason is of
no use to us till the minor proposition be proved, and that it appear
that God hath said it, and that in the enquiry after that, we are to
use all our reason; the consequent is, that in the first and last,
reason lends legs to faith, and nothing can be wisely believed, but
what can by some rational inducement be proved. As for the last
proposition in the objection, ' This is against scripture, therefore it
is absurd and unreasonable/ I have already made it appear to be an
imprudent and useless affirmative.

§ 60. VI. The sixth objection complains of them that by weak rea-
sonings lose their religion, but this is nothing against right reasoning.
For 1) because mountebanks and old women kill men by vile physic,
therefore is it true, that the wise discourses of physicians cannot
minister to health ? Half-witted people talk against God, and make
objections against religion, and themselves have not wit or will
enough to answer them, and they intending to make reason to be the
positive and affirmative measure of. religion, are wholly mistaken, and
abuse themselves and others. 2) We are not to exact every thing in
religion according to our weak reasonings ; but whatsoever is certain
in reason, religion cannot contradict that, but what is uncertain or
imperfect, religion oftentimes does instruct and amend it. But there
are many mysteries of religion contrary to reason, corrupted with evil
manners, and many are contrary to reason, corrupted with false pro-
positions; now these men make objections, which upon their own
principles they can never answer : but that which seems impossible
to vicious persons is reason to good men, and that which children
and fools cannot answer, amongst wise men hath no difficulty ; and
the ignorant, and the unstable, " wrest some scriptures to their own
damnation :" but concerning the new atheists that pretend to wit, it
is not their reason, but their want of reason that makes them such,
for if either they had more learning, or did believe themselves to have
less, they could never be atheists.

§ 67. VII. To the last I answer, 1) that it is reason we should hear
reason wherever we find it, if there be no greater evil brought by the
teacher than he can bring good : but if a heretic preaches good
things, it is not always lawful to hear them, unless when we are out
of danger of his abuses also. And thus truth from the devil may be
heard, if we were out of his danger ; but because he tells truth to evil
purposes, and makes wise sayings to become craft, it is not safe to
hear him. 2) But besides this, although it is lawful to believe a
truth which the devil tells us, yet it is not lawful to go to school to
the devil, or to make enquiries of him, because lie that does so,
makes him his master, and gives something of God's portion to God's
enemy. As for judicial astrology and genethliacal predictions, for

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 79

uiy part I therefore reprove them, not because their reason is against
religion, for certainly it cannot be ; but because I think they have
not reason enough in what they say; they go upon weak principles
which they cannot prove; they reduce them to practice by impossible
mediums : they draw conclusions with artless and unskilful heads,
they argue about things with which they have little conversation,
they cannot make scientifical progress in their profession, but out of
greediness to do something; they usually at least are justly suspected
to take in auxiliaries from the spirits of darkness; they have always
spoken uncertainly, and most part falsely; and have always lived
scandalously in their profession : they have by all religions been cried
down, trusted by none but fools, and superstitious people ; and there-
fore although the art may be very lawful, if the stars were upon the
earth, or the men were in heaven, if they had skill in what they pro-
fess, and reason in all their pretences, and after all that their princi-
ples were certain, and that the stars did really signify future events,
and that those events were not overruled by every thing in heaven
and in earth, by God, and by our own will and wisdom, yet because
here is so little reason, and less certainty, and nothing but confidence
and illusion, therefore it is that religion permits them not ; and it is
not the reason in this art that is against religion, but the folly or the
knavery of it, and the dangerous and horrid consequents, which they
feel that run a whoring after such idols of imagination.

EULE IV.

A JUDGMENT OF NATURE, OR INCLINATION IS NOT SUFFICIENT TO MAKE A

SURE CONSCIENCE.

§ 1. Because this rule is of good use, not only for making judg-
ment concerning the states of some men, but also in order to many
practices, it will not be lost labour to consider, that there are three
degrees of practical judgment.

§ 2. 1) The first is called an inclination, or the first natural conso-
nancy between the faculty or disposition of man, and some certain
actions. All men are naturally pitiful in some degree, unless their
nature be lame and imperfect ; as we say all men naturally can see,
and it is true, if they have good eyes : so all men naturally are pitiful,
unless they have no bowels; but some more, some less. And there-
fore there is in their natures a conveniency, or agreeing between their
dispositions and acts of charity. In the first or lowest sort there is
an aptness to it. 2) In the sweeter and better natures there is a
virtual charity. 3) But in those that consider and choose, and ob-

80 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

serve the commandment, or the proportions of right reason, there is
in these only a formal, deliberative, compound or practical judg-
ment.

§ 3. Now concerning the first sort, that is, the natural disposition
or first propensity, it is but a remote disposition towards a right con-
science and a practical judgment ; because it may be rescinded, or
diverted by a thousand accidents, and is nothing else but a relic of
the shipwreck which Adam and all the world have made, and may
pass into nothing as suddenly as it came. He that sees two cocks
fight, though he have no interest in either, will assist one of them at
least by an ineffective pity and desire q : but this passes no further
than to natural effects, or the changes or affections of a loadstone ; it
may produce something in nature, but nothing in manners.

§ 4. Concerning the second, that is, a virtual judgment, that is, a
natural inclination passing forth into habit or custom, and delight, in
the actions of some virtues ; it is certain that it is one part of the
grace of God, and a more promoted and immediate disposition to the
virtue of its kind than the former. Some men are naturally very
merciful, and some are abstemious, and some are continent ; and
these in the course of their life take in every argument and accidental
motive, and the disposition swells, and the nature is confirmed. But
still it is but nature. The man, it may be, is chaste, because he hates
the immodesty of those addresses which prepare to uncleanness ; or
he loves his quiet, or fears the accidents of his enemy-crime ; or there
was a terror infused into him by the sight of a sad spectacle, the evil
reward of an adulterous person.

quosdam incechos dum mugilis intratr.

Concerning this kind of virtual judgment or confirmed nature, I have
two things to say.

§ 5. 1) That this virtual judgment can produce love or hatred to
certain objects, ineffective complacencies or disrelishes respectively,
proper antipathies and aversations from a whole kind of objects : such
as was that hatred that Tamerlanes had to Zercon, or some men to
cats. And thus much we cannot deny to be produced by the opera-
tion and simple apprehension of our senses by pictures and all im-
pressions of fancy. Cum opinamur difficile aliquid aut terribile sla-
tim compatimtir ; secundum imaginem autem similiter nos /tabemus*;
' we find effects and impresses according to the very images of things
we see, and by their prime apprehensions ;' and therefore much rather
may these actus imperati, or more natural and proper effects and
affections of will be entertained or produced respectively. Men at
first sight fall in love with women, and that against their reason and
resolution, and counsel, and interest, and they cannot help it ; and so

i [Aristot. Eth. Nic, lib. viii. cap. 2. Compare vol. viii. p. 512.]
torn. ii. p. 1155.] . ' Vide Aristot. de aninia, [lib. iii.

f [Juv. x. 317.] cap. 3. torn. i. p. 427.]
9 [Read * Attila ;' see Suidas, Zepicwv.

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 81

they may do with some actions of virtue. And as in the first case
they are rather miserable than vicious; so in this they are rather
fortunate than virtuous : and they may be commended as we praise
a fair face, or a strong arm, an athletic health, or a good constitution ;
and it is indeed a very good disposition and a facilitation of a virtuous
choice. But,

§ 6. 2) This virtual judgment, which is nothing but nature con-
firmed by accidents, is not a state of good by which a man is accept-
able to God. Neither is it a sufficient principle of a good life, nor in-
deed of the actions of its own kind. Eirst, not of good life, because
it may be in a single instance ; and it can never be in all. The man
that is good-natured, that is, naturally meek, and loving, goes the
furthest upon this account; but without the conjunction of other
virtues, it is a great way off from that good state whither naturally
it can but tend and incline : and we see some good things are made
to serve some evil ; and by temperance, and a moderate diet, some pre-
serve their health, that they may not preserve their chastity : and they
may be habitually proud, because they are naturally chaste ; and then
this chastity is no virtue, but a disposition and an aptness only. In
this sense that of S. James may be affirmed u, " He that offends in
one, is guilty of all ;" that is, if his inclinations, and his accidentally
acquired habits be such as to admit a mixture, they are not genuine
and gracious : such are these that are the effects of a nature fitted
towards a particular virtue. It must be a higher principle that
makes an entire piety; nature and the habits growing upon her
stock cannot do it. Alexander was a continent prince, and the
captive beauties of Persia were secured by it in their honours ; but
by rage he destroyed his friend, and by drunkenness he destro} ed
himself.

But secondly, neither is this virtual judgment a sufficient principle
of the actions of its own kind ; for this natural strength is nothing
but an uneasiness and unaptness to suffer by common temptations;
but place the man where he can be tempted, and this good disposi-
tion secures him not, because there may be something in nature
bigger than it.

§ 7. It remains then, that to the constitution of a right and sure
conscience, there is required a formal judgment, that is, a delibera-
tion of the understanding, and a choice of the will, that being in-
structed, and this inclined by the grace of God : tantoque laudabilior
munificentia nostra fore vldebatur, quod ad Mam non impetu quodam
sed consll'w trahebamur, said Secundus v : then it is right and good,
then when it is not violent, necessary, or natural, but when it is
chosen. This makes a right and sure conscience, because the grace
of God hath an universal influence into all the course of our actions.
For He that said "Do not kill," said also, "Do not steal ;" and if
he obeys in one instance, for that reason must obey in all, or be

u [ii. 10.] * Lib. i. [tp. 8.]

IX. G

82 OP THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

condemned by himself, and then the conscience is right in the prin-
ciple and fountain, though defiled in the issue and emanation. Por
he that is condemned by his own conscience, hath the law written
and the characters still fair, legible, and read ; but then the fault is
in something else ; the will is corrupted. The sum is this :

§ 8. It is not enough that the conscience be taught by nature,
but it must be taught by God, conducted by reason, made operative
by discourse, assisted by choice, instructed by laws and sober princi-
ples : and then it is right, and it may be sure.

EULE V.

WHEN TWO MOTIVES CONCUR TO THE DETERMINATION OF AN ACTION, WHEREOF
ONE IS VIRTUOUS, AND THE OTHER SECULAR, A RIGHT CONSCIENCE IS NOT
PREJUDICED BY THAT MIXTURE.

§ 1. He that fasts to punish himself for his sins, and at the same
time intends his health, though it will be very often impossible for
him to tell himself which was the final and prevailing motive and in-
gredient into the persuasion, yet it is no detriment to his conscience ;
the religious motive alone did suffice to make it to be an act of a
good conscience ; and if the mixture of the other could change this,
it could not be lawful to use, or in any degree to be persuaded by the
promises of those temporal blessings which are recorded in both tes-
taments, and to which there is a natural desire, and proper inclination.
But this also is with some difference.

§ 2. Secondly, if the secular ingredient be the stronger, it is in the
same degree as it prevails over the virtuous or religious, a diminution
of the worthiness of the action ; but if it be a secular blessing under a
promise, it does not alter the whole kind of the action. The reason
is this, because whatever God hath promised, is therefore desirable
and good, because He hath promised it, or He hath promised it be-
cause it is of itself good, and useful to us ; and therefore whatever
we may innocently desire, we may innocently intend : but if it be
mingled with a religious and spiritual interest, it ought not to sit
down in the highest place, because a more worthy is there present,
lest we be found to be passionate for the things of this life, and in-
different for God and for religion.

§ 3. Thirdly, if the secular or temporal ingredient be not under a pro-
mise, and yet be the prime and chief motive, the whole case is altered:
the conscience is not right, it is natural inclination, not conscience,
it is sense or interest, not duty. He that gives alms with a purpose
to please Ins prince, who is charitable and religious, although his

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 83

purpose be innocent, yet because it is an end which God hath not
encouraged by propounding it as a reward of charity, the whole deli-
beration is turned to be a secular action, and passes without a reward.
Our blessed Saviour hath by an instance of His own determined this
case : " When thou makest a feast call not the rich," who can make
thee recompense, but " call the poor, and thou slialt have reward in
heaven*." To call the rich to a feast is no sin, but to call them is
to lose the reward of charity, by changing the whole nature of the
action from charity to civility, from religion to prudence.

§ 4. And this hath no other exception or variety in it, but when
the mixture is of a thing that is so purely natural, that it is also
necessary. Thus to eat upon a festival day to satisfy a long hunger,
to be honestly employed to get a living, do not cease to be religious,
though that which is temporal be the first and the greatest cause of
the action or undertaking. But the reason of this difference (if
any be apprehended) is because this natural end is also a duty, and
tacitly under a promise.

Quest.

§ 5. It is usually required that all that enter into the holy offices
of the ministry should so primely and principally design the glory of
God, that all other considerations should scarce be ingredients into
the resolution ; and yet if it be enquired how far this is obligatory,
and 'observe how little it is attended to in the first preparations to
the order, the very needs of most men will make the question
material.

§ 6. But I answer to the question, in proportion to the sense of
the present rule :

1) Wherever a religious act by God's appointment may serve a
temporal end and a spiritual, to attend either is lawful; but it is still
more excellent, by how much preference and greater zeal we more
serve the more excellent. Therefore although it be better to under-
take the sacred function wholly for ends spiritual, yet it is lawful to
enter into it with an actual design to make that calling the means of
our natural and necessary support. The reason is :

§ 7. Because it is lawful to intend what God hath offered and pro-
pounded. The end which God hath made cannot be evil, and there-
fore it cannot be evil to choose that instrument to that end, which
by God's appointment is to minister to that end. Now since "God
hath ordained that they who preach the gospel should live of the
gospel V it cannot be unlawful to design that in order to this.

§ 8. 2) If our temporal support and maintenance be the first and
immediate design, it makes not the whole undertaking to be unlawful.
"For all callings, and all states, and all actions, are to be directed or
done to the glory of God; according to that saying of S. Paul2,
" Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory

* [Luke xiv. 12, 13.] f [1 Cor. ix. 14.] * [1 Cor. x. 31.]

84 OP THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

of God :" and that one calling should be more for God's glory than
another, is by reason of the matter and employment ; but in every
one, for its portion still, God's glory must be the principal, and yet
no man questions but it is lawful for any man to bring his son up to
the most gainful trade, if in other things there be no objection : and
therefore why this may not be the first moving consideration in the
susception of, or designation to the calling ecclesiastical, cannot have
any reason in the nature of the thing. For if in all things God's
glory must be the principal end, and yet in some callings the tem-
poral advantage is the first mover, then it may be so in all ; the in-
tention of God's glory notwithstanding : for if it hinders not in that,
it hinders not in this. But yet,

§ 9. 3) It is a great imperfection actually to think of nothing but
the temporal advantages, of which God hath in that calling made
provisions ; but I say, it is not always a sin to make them the first
mover in the designing the person to that calling.

§ 10. But therefore this is only tolerable in those persons, who at
great distance design the calling ; as when they first study to make
themselves capable of it, then it is tolerable, because they are bound
to provide for themselves in all just ways, and standing at so great
distances from it, cannot behold the beauties which are in interiori
domo ; the duty which is on them, is to do that which is their proper
work, that is, to fit themselves with abilities and skill to conduct it,
and therefore their intention must be fitted accordingly, and move by
the most powerful and prevailing motive, so it be lawful. He that
applies himself to learn letters, hath an intention proportionable to
his person and capacity when he first enters, and as he grows in
powers, so must he also in purposes ; so that as he passes on to per-
fection, he may also have intentions more noble and more perfect :
and a man in any calling may first design to serve that end that
stands next him, and yet when he is possessed of that, look on further
to the intention of the thing, and its own utmost capacity. But
therefore,

§ 11. 4) Whoever does actually enter into orders, must take care
that his principal end be the glory of God, and the good of souls.
The reasons are these :

§ 12. a) Because no man is fit for that office, but he that is spiri-
tual in his person, as well as his office : he must be a despiser of the
world, a light to others, an example to the flock, a great denier of
himself, of a celestial mind, he must mind heavenly things : with
wdrich dispositions it cannot consist, that he who is called to the lot
of God, should place his chief affections in secular advantages.

§ 13. /3) This is that of which the apostle was a glorious prece-
dent, " We seek not yours, but you ; for the parents lay up for the
children, not children for their parents a :" meaning, that between the
spiritual and the natural paternity, there is so much proportion, that

a [2 Cor. xii. 14.]

CHAP. II.] OF TLtE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 85

when it is for the good of the children, they must all quit their tem-
poral advantages ; but because this is to be done for the spiritual, it
follows, this must be chief.

§ 14. And this I suppose is also enjoined by another apostle,
" Feeding the flock of God, not for filthy lucre sake/' ak\a irpodv-
poos, that is, "but of a prompt, ready mindb ;" a mind moved by in-
trinsic arguments of fair design, not drawn by the outward cords of
vanity and gain.

§ 15. y) The work of the calling being principally and immedi-
ately for the good of souls, and for the glory of God, it cannot be
pursued as the nature of the work requires, if that be not principally
intended, which is principally to be procured. All that which is
necessary in order to it must also be taken care of; thus the minis-
ters of religion may attend their health, and must look to their neces-
sary support, and may defend themselves against all impediments of
their offices in just and proportionable ways : but because all these
have further purposes, although they standing nearest may be first
regarded by an actual care, at some times, and in some circumstances,
and by actual attention ; yet habitually, and principally, and con-
stantly, the glory of God, and the good of souls must be in the heart,
and in the purpose of every action.

§ 16. But the principality and pre-eminence of this intention is no
otherwise to be judged of, cither by ourselves or others, than by these
following significations.

§ 17. 1) No man can in any sense principally, that is, as he ought,
intend the good of souls, who enters into the sacred ministry with-
out those just measures of preparation and disposition, which are re-
quired by the church, and the nature of the thing itself; that is, that
he be well instructed in the holy scriptures, and be fit to teach, to
exhort, to reprove. For he who undertakes a work which can serve
God's end and his own in several capacities, and is not sufficiently
instructed to serve the ends of God, it is apparent that what he un-
dertakes is for his own end.

2) His intentions cannot be right, who by any indirect arts does
enter, for that which does not begin at God, cannot be for God. Non
enim ambitione, velpretio, seel probata, vita et disciplinarum testimonio,
ad honoris et sacerdotii insignia oportet promoveri, said the emperor
Theodosius. He therefore who simoniacally enters, fixes his eye and
heart upon that which he values to be worth money, not upon the spi-
ritual employment, between which and money there can be no more
proportion, than between contemplation and a cart rope ; they are not
things of the same nature; and he that comes into the field with an
elephant, cannot be supposed to intend to hunt a hare : neither can
he be supposed to intend principally the ministry of souls, who comes
to that office instructed only with a bag of money.

§ 18. 3) He may be supposed principally to intend the ministry of

b [l Pet. v. 2.]

86 OF THE EIGHT OR SUltE CONSCIENCE. |_B00K *■

souls, and in it the glory of God, who so attends to the execution of
his office, that it do really and sufficiently minister to the thing. For
since the calling is by God really designed to that end, and if the
ministers be not wanting to themselves, they are sufficiently enabled
and assisted to that purpose; he that zealously and wisely ministers
in the office, hath given a most real testimony of his fair intention,
because he does that thing so as those intentions only can be effected.
The thing itself is sufficient for the end if God blesses it; he there-
fore that does the thing, does actuate the intention of God, and sanc-
tifies his own : but this is to be understood with the addition of the
following caution.

§ 19. 4) He may be confident that his intentions for God's glory
and the good of souls are right and principal, who so conjoins his
other lesser ends with the conduct of the greater, that they shall
always be made to give place to the greater. That is, who still pur-
sues the interest of souls, and the work of his ministry, when the
hopes of maintenance, or honour, or secular regards do fail. For he
that for carnal or secular regards will either quit or neglect his
ministry, it is certain his carnal or secular ends were his chief motive
and incentive in the work. It was the case of Demas who was S. Paul's0
minister and work -fellow in the service of the gospel, but he left him,
because "he loved the present world;" concerning which, «« ia to be
considered, that this lapse and recession of Demas from the assistances
of S. Paul, did not proceed from that love of the world which S. John
speaks ofd, and is criminal, and forbidden to all Christians, which
" whosoever hath, the love of the Father dwells not in him/' but is
to be understood of such a love, which to other Christians is not un-
lawful, but was (in those times especially) inconsistent with the duty
of evangelists, in those great necessities of the church : Demas was
a good man, but weak in his spirit, and too secular in his relations,
but he returned to his station, and did the work of an evangelist, a
while after, as appears in the epistle to the Colossians and Philemon ;
but for the present he was to blame. For he would secure his rela-
tions and his interests with too great a caution and diligence, and
leave the other to attend this. Such as now-a-days is too great care of
our estates, secular negotiations, merchandises, civil employments, not
ministering directly unto religion, and the advantages of its minis-
tration. For our great king the Lord Jesus hath given to all Chris-
tians some employment, but to some more, to some less, and in their
own proportion they must give a return : and in a minister of the
gospel, every inordination of carefulness, and every excess of attend-
ance to secular affairs, and every unnecessary avocation from, or neglect
of his great work is criminal, and many things are excesses in them,
which are not in others, because the ministerial office requires more
attendance and conversation with spiritual things, than that of others.

§ 20. 5) If ever the minister of holy things, for hope or fear, for

c [2 Tim. iv. 10.] d [1 John ii. 15.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 87

gain or interest, desert his station, when he is persecuted, or when he
is not persecuted, it is too much to be presumed, that he did not
begin for God, who for man will quit God's service. They that
wander till they find a rich seat, do all that they do for the riches of
the place, not for the employment. Si non ubi sedeas locus est, est
ubi ambules, said he in the comedy e; the calling of these men is not
fixed but ambulatory : and if that which fixes them be temporal ad-
vantages, then that which moved them principally is not spiritual
employment.

§ 21. For it is considerable, that if it be unlawful to undertake
the holy calling without a divine vocation to it, then to forsake it
without a divine permission must be criminal. He that calls to come
calls to continue, where the need is lasting, and the office perpetual.
But to leave the calling when the revenue is gone, to quit the altar
when it hath no offering, to let the souls wander, when they bring
no gifts, is to despise the religion, and to love only the fat of the
sacrifices. For the altar indeed does sanctify the gift, but not the
gift the altar ; and he hath but a light opinion of an eternal crown
of glory, or thinks God but an ill paymaster, that will not do Ilitn
service upon the stock of His promises, and will not feed the flock,
though he have no other reward but to be feasted in the eternal
supper of the Lamb. Who are hirelings, but they who fly when the
wolf comes ? and woe be to that evangelist who upon any secular re-
gard neglects to preach the gospel ; woe be to him, to whom it shall
be said at the day of judgment, 1 I was hungry, and My flock was
hungry, and ye fed neither it nor Me.'

But this is to be understood with these liberties :
§ 22. 1) That it be no prejudice to those ecclesiastics, who in time
of persecution, do so attend to their ministries, that no material part
of it be omitted, or slightly performed, and yet take from it such por-
tions of time as are necessary for their labour, or support by any just
and honest employment. Thus S. Paul wrought in the trade of a
tent- maker, because he would not be a burthen to the church of
Corinth ; and when the church is stripped naked of her robes, and
the bread of propositionf are stolen from her table by soldiers, there
is no peradventure but the ecclesiastical offices are so to be attended
to, that the natural duty and necessity be not neglected.

§ 23. 2) That it be no prejudice to ecclesiastics in the days of
peace or war, to change their station from bishopric to bishopric &,
from church to church, where God or the church, where charity
or necessity, where prudence or obedience calls. Indeed it hath been
fiercely taught, that ecclesiastics ought never and upon no pretence
to desert their church and go to another, any more than a man may
forsake his wife ; and for this a decretal of P. Evaristus is pretended,

e [Plaut. Captiv., prolog. 12.] s [See Taylor's letters to Ormond,

[&pTovs TTJs Trpodeaecos, Matt. xii. 4, Nov. 2, 1661, and to Abp. Sheldon, May
'panes propositionis,' ed. vulg.] 25, 166-i ; now printed with his life.]

88 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

and is recorded in the canon law : Can. 'Sicut vir / Cans. 7. q. 1 h.
Sicut vir non debet adulterate uxorem suam, ita nee episcopus eccle-
siam suam, tit illam dimiltat ad quam sacratus est : and therefore
when Eusebius the bishop of Csesarea was called to be bishop of
Antioch, he refused it pertinaciously, and for it was highly com-
mended by the emperor, and S. Hierome in his epistle to Oceanus1
tells, In Niccena synodo a pair id us deer e turn est, ne de alia ad aliam
ecclesiam episcopus transfer atur, ne virginalis pauperculce societate
contempta ditioris adulters qucerat amplexus. Something indeed like
it was decreed by the fifteenth and sixteenth canons of the Nicene
council k ; and it was an usual punishment amongst the holy primi-
tives, Careat cathedra propria qui ambit alienam. But these things
though they be true and right, yet are not a contradictory to the
present case. For,

§ 24. 1) Evaristus (it is clear) forbad translations and removes
from church to church, ambitus causa, ' for ambition or covetousness ;'
and therefore it is by him expressly permitted in their proper cases
and limits ; that is, in inevitabili necessitate, aut apostolica vel regu-
lari mutatione, ' when there is inevitable necessity, or the command
and authority of a superior power :' and yet upon perusal of the
decree I find, that Evaristus his intent was, that a bishop should not
thrust his church from him by way of divorce and excommunication,
and take another, as appears not only by the corresponding part of
the decree, viz. 'That neither must the church take in another bishop
or husband upon him to whom already she is espoused ;' but by the
expression used in the beginning of it, dimittere ecclesiam episcopus
non debet ; and it is compared to the adultery of a man that puts
away his wife, and marries another ; and also it appears more yet by
the gloss, which seems to render the same sense of it, and wholly dis-
courses of the unlawfulness to excommunicate a church or a city,
lest the innocent should suffer with the criminal : for when a church
is excommunicated, though all those persons die upon whom the
sentence fell, yet the church is the same under other persons their
successors, and therefore all the way it does injustice, by involving
the new arising innocents, and at last is wholly unjust by including
all and only innocent persons. But which way soever this decree be
understood, it comes not home to a prohibition of our case.

§ 25. 2) As for Eusebius, it is a clear case he imposed upon the
good emperor, who knew not the secret cause of Eusebius his denial
to remove from Csesarea to Antioch. Eor he having engaged the
emperor before time to write in his behalf, that he might be permitted
to enjoy that bishopric, was not willing to seem guilty of levity and
easiness of change. But that was not all, he was a secret favourer
of the Arians, and therefore was willing to go to that church where
his predecessor Eustathius had been famous for opposing that pest.

b [Gratian. Decret., part. 2. caus. vii. qusest. 1. can. 11. col. 889.]
' [Epist. lxxxii. torn. iv. part. 2. col. 649.] k [tom. i. col. 330.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 89

3) To that of S. Jerome out of the Nicene council, I answer, that
the prohibition is only of such, 'as without authority, upon their own
head, for their own evil purposes/ and ' with injury to their own
churches'' did it : and of covetousness it is, that S. Jerome notes
and reproves the practice. To despise our charge because it is poor,
is to love the money more than the souls, and therefore this is not
to be done by any one of his own choice ; but if it be done by the
command or election of our superior, it is to be presumed it is for
the advantage of the church in matter of direct reason, or collateral
assistances, and therefore hath in it no cause of reproof.

§ 26. And to this purpose the whole affair is excellently stated by
the fourteenth canon of the Apostles1; 'A bishop must not leave his
own parish or diocese, and invade that of another man/ nisi forte quis
cum rationabili causa coynpellatur, tanquam qui possit ibidem consti-
tiitus plus lucri conferre, et in causa religionis aliquid profectus pro-
spicere : ' If there be a reasonable cause' he may; and the cause is
reasonable, if by going he may ' do more good, or advantage to re-
ligion :' but of this he is not to be judge himself, but must be judged
by his superiors; et hoc non a semetipso pertentet, sed multoriim epis-
copor/imjudicio, et maxima supplicatione perficiat ; 'he must not do
it on his own head, but by the sentence and desire of the bishops/

§ 27. There needs no more to be added to this, but that if a
greater revenue be annexed to another charge, and that it be in rem
ecclesm that the more worthy person should be advanced thither, to
enable his better ministries by those secular assistances which our in-
firmity needs, there is nothing to be said against it, but that if he be
the man he is taken for, he knows how to use those advantages to
God's glory, and the good of souls, and the services of the church ;
and if he does so, his intentions are to be presumed pure and holy,
because the good of souls is the principal.

§ 28. Upon the supposition of these causes, we find that the prac-
tice of the ancient bishops and clerks in their translations was ap-
proved. Origen did first serve God in the church of Alexandria,
afterwards he went to Csesarea, to Antioch, to Tyre ; and S. Gregory
Nazianzen changed his episcopal see eight times. Nay the apostles
themselves did so. S. Peter was first bishop of Antioch, afterwards
of Koine : and the necessity and utility of the churches called S. Paul
to an ambulatory government and episcopacy, though at last he also
was fixed at Koine, and he removed Timothy and Titus from church
to church, as the need and uses of the church required. But in this,
our call must be from God, or from our superiors, not from levity or
pride, covetousness or negligence. Concerning which, who please
further to be satisfied, may read S. Athanasius his epistle to Dracon-
tius"1 of old; and of late, Chytreeus in Epistolis, p. 150 and 678",
and Conradus Porta in his Formalia. This only ; if every man were

1 [Coteler. Patr. apost, torn. i. p. 443.] <" [torn. i. p. 263 sqq.]

n [8vo. Hanov. 1614.]

90 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

indispensably tied to abide where he is first called to minister, then
it were not lawful for an inferior minister to desire the good work of
a bishop ; which because it is not to be administered in the same
place or charge, according to the universal discipline of the church
for very many ages, must suppose that there can be a reasonable
cause to change our charges, because the apostle commends that
desire which supposes that change.

§ 29. These being the limits and measures of the rule, it would
be very good if we were able to discern concerning the secrets of our
intentions, and the causes of actions. It is true, that because men
confound their actions and deliberations, it will be impossible to tell
in many cases what motive is the principal ingredient. Seel ut tunc
communibus magis commodis quam privala jactantia studebamns,
quum intentionem, effectumque muneris nostri vellemus intettigi; ita
nunc in ratione edendi, veremur ne forte non aliorum utilltatibus, sed
propria laudi servisse videamur0. It is hard for a wise and a gallant
man, who does public actions of greatest worthiness deserving honour,
to tell certainly whether he is more pleased in the honours that men
do him or in the knowledge that he hath done them benefits. But
yet in very many cases, wre may at least guess probably which is the
prevailing ingredient, by these following measures; besides those
which I have noted and applied to the special case of undertaking
the calling ecclesiasticalp.

SIGNS OF DIFFERENCE, WHEREBY WE MAY IN A MIXED AND COMPLI-
CATED INTENTION, DISCERN WHICH IS THE PRINCIPAL INGREDIENT.

§ 30. 1) Whatsoever came in after the determination was made,
though it add much the greater confidence, and makes the resolution
sharper and more active, yet it is not to be reckoned as the prevail-
ing ingredient ; for though it add degrees, yet the whole determina-
tion was perfected before. The widow Fulvia was oppressed by
Attilius; she complains to Secundus the lawyer. He considers
whether he should be advocate for his friend Attilius, or for the
oppressed Eulvia; and at last determines on the side of piety and
charity, and resolves to relieve the widow, but with some abatement
of his spirit and confidence, because it is against his friend : but
charity prevails. As he goes to court he meets with Caninius, who
gloriously commends the advocation, and by superadding that spur
made his diffidence and imperfect resolution confident and clear. In
this case the whole action is to be attributed to piety, not to the love
of fame ; for this only added some moments, but that made the de-
termination.

§ 31. 2) When the determination is almost made, and wants some
weight to finish it, whatsoever then supervenes and casts the scales,

0 Plin., lib. i. [ep. 8.]

t Vide ' Rule of Holy Living,' chap. i. sect. 2. [vol. iii. p. 19.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 91

is not to be accounted the prevailing ingredient, but that which made
most in the suspension and time of deliberation, and brought it for-
ward. It is like buvim? and selling : not the last maravedi that was
stood upon was the greatest argument of parting with the goods : but
that farthing added to the bigger sum, made it big enough ; and a
child's finger may thrust a load forward, which being haled by
mighty men stands still for want of a little assistance.

§ 32. 3) That is the prevailing ingredient in the determination
which is most valued, not which most pleases ; that which is rationally
preferred, not that which delights the senses. If the man had rather
lose the sensual than the intellectual good, though in that his fancy
is more delighted, yet this is the stronger, and greater in the divine
acceptance ; though possibly in nature it be less active, because less
pleasing to those faculties, which whether we will or no, will be very
much concerned in all the entercourses of this life. He that keeps
a festival in gratitude and spiritual joy to do God glory, and to give
Him thanks, and in the preparation to the action is hugely pleased
by considering the music, the company, the festivity and innocent re-
freshments, and in his fancy leaps at this, but his resolution walks
on by that, hath not spoiled the regularity of his conscience by the
intermixture of the sensual with the spiritual, so long as it remains
innocent : for though this flames brightest, yet the other burns hot-
test, and will last longer than the other. But of this there is no
other sign, but that first we be infinitely careful to prescribe measures
and limits to the secular joy, that it may be perfectly subordinate to,
and complying with the spiritual and religious : and secondly, if we
are willing to suppress the light flame, rather than extinguish the
solid fire.

§ 33. 4) Then the holy and pious ingredient is overpowered by
the mixture of the secular, when an instrument toward the end is
chosen more proportionable to this than to that. Csecilius, to do a
real not a fantastic benefit to his tenants, erected a library in his villa,
and promised a yearly revenue for their children's education, and
nobler institution. And thus far judgment ought to be made, that
he intended piety rather than fame ; for to his fame, plays and spec-
tacles would (as the Roman humour then was) have served better :
but when in the acting his resolution he praised that his pious pur-
pose, and told them he did it for a pious, not a vain-glorious end,
however the intention might be right, this publication was not right.
But when he appointed that anniversary orations should be made in
the praise of his pious foundation, he a little too openly discovered
what was the bigger wheel in that motion. For he that serves a
secret piety by a public panegyric, disorders the piety by dismantling
the secret : it may still be piety, but it will be lessened by the pub-
lication ; though this publication be no otherwise criminal, than be-
cause it is vain. Meminimus quanlo majore animo hoaestatis fractus
in conscientia quam hi jama reponatur. Sequi enim gloria, non aj>peti

92 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

debet ; nee si casu all quo non sequatur, idcirco quod gloriam meruit
minus pulchrum est : hi vero qui bene/acta sua verbis adornant, non,
ideo pradicare quia fecerint, sed ut pradicarent fecisse creduntur0 ;
which is the very thing which I affirm in this particular. If the in-
termediate or consequent actions serve the collateral or secular end,
most visibly it is to be supposed, that this was the greater motive, and
had too great an influence into the deliberation.

§ 34. But because the heart of man is so intricate, trifling, and
various, in most cases it must be sufficient for us to know, that if the
mixture be innocent, the whole deliberation is secured in the kind of
it, and for degrees we must do as well as we can.

§ 35. But on the other side, if the secular end mixed with the
spiritual and religious, the just and the honest, be unlawful, and yet
intended, though in a less degree, though but accidentally and by an
after consent ; the conscience is neither sure nor right, but is dis-
honoured and defiled : for the whole deliberation is made criminal
by mingling with forbidden purposes. He that takes up arms under
his prince in a just war, and at the same time intends revenge against
his private enemy, casually engaged on the adverse party, loses the
reward of his obedience, and changes it for the devilish pleasures of

revenge.

Concerning the measure and conduct of our intentions, there are
some other things to be said, but because they are extrinsical to the
chief purpose of this rule, they are properly to be considered under
their own head.

EULE VI.

AN ARGUMENT NOT SUFFICIENT NOR COMPETENT, THOUGH IT DO PERSUADE US
TO A THING IN ITSELF GOOD, IS NOT THE GROUND OF A RIGHT, NOR A SUFFI-
CIENT WARRANT FOR A SURE CONSCIENCE.

§ 1. He that goes to public prayers because it is the custom, or
communicates at Easter to avoid a censure, hath done an act in itself
good, but his motive was neither competent, nor sufficient to make
the action religious, or to manifest and declare the conscience to be
sure and right. For conscience is the repository of practical reasons :
and as in civil actions we count him a fool who wears clothes only
because they cost him nothing, or walks because he would see his
shadow move upon the wall ; so it is in moral. When the reason is
incompetent, the action is by chance, neither prudent, nor chosen,
alterable by a trifle, tending to a cheap end, proceeding by a regard-
less motion : and conscience might as well be seated in the fancy, or
in the foot, as in the understanding, if its nature and proper design

0 Plin., lib. i. [ep. 8.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 93

were not to be conducted with reasons proportionable to such actions
which tend to an end perfective of man, and productive of felicity.

§ 2. This rule is so to be understood, that it be not required of all
men to have reasons equally good for the same determinations, but
sufficient and reasonable in themselves, and apt to lead them in their
proper capacities and dispositions, that is, reasons proportionable to
that kind of things in which the determination is instanced, viz., a
religious reason for an action of religion ; a prudent reason for a civil
action : but if it be in its proper kind, it is sufficient if it be pro-
bable, provided always, that it makes a sure mind, and a full per-
suasion.

§ 3. He that believes christian religion, because the men are cha-
ritable and chaste, and so taught to be, and commanded by the reli-
gion, is brought into a good place by a single taper ; but he came in
by no false light, and he is there where he ought to be. He did not
see the way in so brightly as S. Paul did, who was conducted in by
an angel from heaven, with a bright flame in his hand ; but he made
shift to see his way in : and because the light that guided him came
from heaven, his conscience was rightly instructed, and if it per-
suaded him heartily, his conscience is as sure as it is right.

Quest.

§ 4. Upon the account and consequence of this rule it is proper
to enquire, whether it be lawful and ingenuous to go about to per-
suade a man to the belief of a true proposition, by arguments with
which himself is not persuaded, and which he believes are not suffi-
cient ? The case is this :

§ 5. Girolami a learned priest of Ferrara finds that many of his
parishioners are infected with Judaism, by reason of their conversa-
tion with the Jewish merchants. He studies the Jewish books to
discover the weakness of their arguments, and to convince them
upon their own grounds. But finding his parishioners moved only by
popular arguments, and not capable of understanding the secrets of
the old prophets, the synchronisms, nor the computation of Daniel's
weeks, the infinite heaps of reasons by which Christianity stands firm
in defiance of all pretensions to the contrary ; sees it necessary to
persuade, them by things as easy as those are by which they were
abused. But then he considers, If they were by error led into
error, it is not fit that by error also they should be led out of it into
truth; for God needs not to be served with a lie, and evil must not
be done that good may be thence procured : but if I go by a false
argument to cozen them into truth, I tell a lie to recover them from
a lie, and it is a disparagement to the cause of God, that it must be
supported by the devil. But having discoursed thus far, he con-
siders further; every argument which I am able to answer, 1 know
cannot conclude in the question ; for if it be to be answered, it is at
most but a specious outside of reason ; and he that knows this, or

94 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

believes it so, either must not use that instrument of persuasion, or
if he does, he must resolve to abuse the man's understanding before
he can set it right : and this he believes to be against the honour of
truth, and the rules of charity, and the simplicity and ingenuity of
the spirit of a Christian.

To this question I answer by several propositions.

§ 6. 1) It is not lawful to tell a lie for God and for truth ; be-
cause God will not be served by that which He hates, and there are
no defects in truth which need such violent remedies. Therefore
Girolami might not to persuade his judaizing parishioners tell them
a tale of a vision, or pretend a tradition which is not, or falsify a
record, because these are direct arts of the devil, this is a doing evil for
a good end ; and every single lie is equally hated by God, and where
there is a difference, it is made by complication, or the mixing of
something else with the lie : and because God hath created and com-
municated to mankind, not only sufficient but abundant justifications
of whatsoever He hath commanded us to believe, therefore He hates
infinitely to have His glorious economy of faith and truth to be dis-
ordered and discomposed by the productions of hell. For every lie
is of the devil.

§ 7. 2) It is lawful to use an argument cui potest subesse falsum,
such which I know is not certain, but yet I actually believe it to be
true. That is, though the argument be not demonstrative but pro-
bable only, yet I may safely use it, if I believe myself to be on the
right side of the probability. For a real truth, and a supposed truth,
are all one as to the innocence of my purposes. And he that knows
how little certainty there is in human discourses, and how we know
in part, and prophesy in part, and that of every thing whereof we
know a little, we are ignorant in much more, must either be content
with such proportions as the things will bear, or as himself can get,
or else he must never seek to alter or to persuade any man to be of
his opinion. For the greatest part of discourses that are in the
whole world, is nothing but a heap of probable inducements, plausi-
bilities, and witty entertainments : and the throng of notices is not
unlike the accidents of a battle, in which every man tells a new tale,
something that he saw, mingled with a great many things which he
saw not, his eyes and his fear joining together equally in the instruc-
tion and the illusion, these make up the stories. And in the obser-
vation of things there is infinitely more variety than in faces, and in
the contingencies of the world. Let ten thousand men read the
same books, and they shall all make several uses, draw several notes,
and understand them to several effects and purposes. Knowledge is
infinite, and out of this infinity every one snatches some things real,
and some images of things; and there are so many cognoscitive
faculties above and below, and powers ministering to knowledge, and
all these have so many ways of being abused or hindered, aud of

CHAP. II.] OF THIS RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 95

being imperfect; and the degrees of imperfection, positive, and pri-
vative, and negative, are also themselves absolutely so infinite, that
to arrive at probabilities in most things is no small progression.
But we must be content to make use of that, both for ourselves and
others.

§ 8. Upon this account we may quote scriptures to those senses
which they can well serve in a question, and in which they are used
by learned men, though we suppose the principal intention be of a
different thing, so it be not contrary. Eor all learned men know
that in scripture many sayings are full of potential significations, be-
sides what are on the face of the words, or in the heart of the design :
and therefore although we may not allege scripture in a sense con-
trary to what we believe it meant ; yet to any thing besides its first
meaning, we may, if the analogy will bear it ; and if by learned men
it be so used, that is in effect, because for aught we know it may be
so indeed.

§ 9. 3) If a man suppose his arguments sufficient and competent
to persuade, though they be neither fitting to persuade, nor at all
sufficient, he may yet lawfully use them. For in this case though
himself be deceived, yet because it is upon the strength of those
arguments he relies, he can be tied to use no better than he hath :
and since his conscience is heartily persuaded, though it be in error,
yet that which follows that persuasion is innocent (if it be not min-
gled with design) though it may be that which went before was
not so.

§ 10. 4) In the persuasion of a truth, it is lawful to use such
arguments whose strength is wholly made prevailing by the weakness
of him that is to be persuaded. Such as are arguments ad hominem,
that is, proportionable to the doctrines, customs, usages, belief, and
credulity of the man. The reasons are these :

a) Because ignorant persons are not capable of such arguments
as may demonstrate the question ; and he that goes about to draw a
child to him, may pull him by the long sleeve of his coat, and need
not to hire a yoke of oxen.

/3) That which will demonstrate a truth to one person, possibly will
never move another. Because our reason does not consist in a mathe-
matical point : and the heart of reason, that vital and most sensible
part, in which only it can be conquered fairly, is an ambulatory
essence, and not fixed ; it wanders up and down like a floating island,
or like that which we call the life blood ; and it is not often very
easy to hit that white by which only our reason is brought to perfect
assent : and this needs no other proof but our daily experience, and
common notices of things. That which at one time is not regarded,
at another time is a prevailing motive ; and I have observed that a
discourse at one time hath been lightly regarded, or been only pleas-
ing to the ear, which a year or two after hath made great impressions
of piety upon the spirit of the hearers. And therefore, that I can

96 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [COOK I.

answer the argument, it is not enough to make me think it necessary
to lay it aside or to despise it ; there may be something in him that
hears me, that can make the argument to become perfect and effec-
tual ; and the want of that it may be in me, makes me apt to slight
it. And besides that some pretended answers are illusions rather
than solutions, it may be, that beyond my answer, a wiser man may
make a reply, and confirm the argument so as I know not : and
therefore if it be truth you persuade, it were altogether as good, and
I am sure much more easy, to let the man you persuade enter at the
first and broadest gate of the true proposition, than after having
passed through a great many turnings and labyrinths, at last come
but to the same place where he might first have entered. There are
some witty men that can answer any thing ; but suppose they could
not, yet it would be impossible that men should be tied in all cases
to speak nothing but demonstrations.

y) Some men are to be wrought upon not by direct argument, but
by artifices and back blows; they are easy enough to believe the
truth, if they could; and therefore you must, to persuade them, re-
move their prejudices and prepossessions ; and to this purpose, it will
not be necessary to bring those things which are proper to the crues-
tion, but things accidental and extrinsical. They who were pre-
judiced at our blessed Saviour because He was of Galilee, needed no
other argument to make them to believe in Him, but to confute that
foolish proverb, " Out of Galilee comes no goodp :" and yet He that
from thence thinks the question of His being the Messias sufficiently
concluded, is very far from understanding the effect and powers of
argument.

8) The hindrances of belief are seated in several faculties, in our
fancy, in our will, in our appetite : now in these cases there is no way
to persuade, but by arguing so as to prevail with that faculty. If
any man should say that our blessed Saviour is not yet come in the
flesh, upon a foolish fancy that he believes not that God would
honour such a wicked nation with so great a glory, as that the
Saviour of the world should be born of them ; he needs no argument
to persuade him to be a Christian, but by having it proved to him,
that it was not only likely, but really so, and necessary it should be
so, not only for the verification of the prophecies of Him, but for
divers congruities in the nature and circumstances of tilings. Here
the argument is to confute the fancy only, not the reason.

e) Sometimes the judgment is right, but the affections are per-
verse ; and then, not demonstrations, but popular arguments are not
only lawful, but useful, and sufficient. For reasons of abstracted
speculation move not the lower man. Make the people in love with
your proposition, and cause them to hate the contrary, and you have
done all that they are capable of. When some divines in Germany
were forced for their own defence to gain the people to their party,

p [John i. 46 ; vii. 52.]

CHAP. II.] OP THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 97

they disputed against the absolute decree of reprobation, by telling
them that their adversaries' doctrine did teach that God did drag
the pretty children from their mothers' breasts, and throw many of
them into the eternal portion of devils : this moved the women, who
follow reason as far as they can be made in love with it, and their
understanding is oftentimes more in their heart than in their head.
And there are thousands of people, men and women, who believe
upon no other account than this, neither can they be taught other-
wise. When S. Paul would persuade the Jews to reason, and from
laying violent hands upon him ; he was not to attempt it by offering
undeniably to prove that he did well by going to the gentiles, since
God had rejected the Jews, excepting a remnant only : but he per-
suaded them by telliug them he did nothing against the law of Moses
and the temple.

C) There are some fondnesses and strange adherencies to trifles
in most people, humours of the nation, love of the advantage of their
families, relations to sects or dignities, natural sympathies and anti-
pathies, in a correspondency to which all those arguments which are
dressed, are like to prevail, and cannot otherwise do it. For when a
man's understanding is mingled with interest, his arguments must
have something of this, or else they will never stir that : and there-
fore all our arguments cannot be freed from such allays.

rj) In all the discourses of men, not only orators, but philosophers,
and even in their severest discourses, all the good and all the wise
men of the world heap together many arguments, who yet cannot
suppose them all certain ; but yet they therefore innocently use them,
because as there are several capacities of men to be dealt withal ; so
there are several notices of things ; and that may be highly con-
cluding, which it may be is not well represented, and therefore not
fancied or observed by him that uses it; and to another it becomes
effective because he does.

6) The holy Spirit of God himself in His entereourses with men
is pleased to descend to our capacities* and to use arguments taken
from our own principles, and which prevail more by silencing us,
rather than demonstrating the thing. Thus S. Paul in his argu-
ments for the resurrection uses this ; " If Christ be not risen, then is
our preaching vain, and your faith is also vainV There are some,
even too many now-a-days, and many more then, who would have
granted both the antecedent and the consequent; but because the
Corinthians disavowed the consequent, they were forced to admit the
antecedent. And at last, thousands of persons could never be drawn
from their error, if we might not make use of arguments, weak like
their capacities, and more proportionable to their understanding than
to the question.

There are two cautions to be added to make the rule perfect :

<J [1 Cor. xv. 14.]
IX. u

98 OE THE RIGHT Oil SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

1) That if the disciple relying upon his master's authority more
than his own ability to judge, ask the doctor, whether upon his
knowledge and faith that argument does evict the question ; if the
doctor himself does not believe it, he must then put no more force
upon it by his affirmation and authority than he thinks it does in
nature bear ; but must give prudent accounts of the whole question
in compliance to the present necessity of the demauder.

Of the same consideration it is, when a question being disputed
between two parties, the standers by expect the truest and most
proper account of things. In this case, all openness and ingenuity
is to be used according to our own sense of things, not according to
what may comply with any man's weakness ; and the not doing so is
want of ingenuity, and the worthiness of christian charity, and a
perfect deceiving them who expect and desire such tilings as ought
to be finally relied upon.

2) In all arguments which are to prevail by the weakness or ad-
vantages taken from the man, he that goes about to persuade, must
not say any thing that he knows to be false ; but he must comply
and twist about the man's weakness, so as to be innocent all the way.
Let him take him that is weak and wrap him in swaddling clothes,
but not encompass him with snakes. But yet this hath one loose
and permission that may be used.

§11.3) It is lawful for a man in persuading another to a truth,
to make use of a false proposition, which he that is to be persuaded
already doth believe : that is, a man may justly dispute upon the
supposition, not upon the concession and granting of an error. Thus
S. Paul disputed with the Corinthianss, and to induce them into a
belief of the resurrection, made use of a foolish custom among them
in use, of being baptized for the dead. Tor the christian church
hath but two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's supper ; at the be-
ginning some of the Christians used baptism, and in succeeding ages
they used to celebrate the Lord's supper for the dead, and do to
this day in the church of Rdme. Upon this fond custom of theirs
S. Paul thus argues', If there be no resurrection, then it is to no
purpose that you are baptized for the dead ; but that is to purpose,
as you suppose; therefore there is a resurrection. — Thus prayer for
the dead, and invocation of saints, according to the principles taught
in the primitive church, might have been made use of against each
other. If all men are imperfect till the day of judgment, and till
then enter not into heaven, then you cannot with confidence make
prayers to them, who for aught you know, need your help more : but
if all that die well, that is, if ail that die in the Lord do instantly
enjoy the beatifical vision, and so are in a condition to be prayed to,
then they need not to be prayed for. As for the middle place, they
in those ages knew no such thing as men have since dreamed of.
As God in some cases makes use of a prepared wickedness, though

* [ver. 29.] l [Compare vol. v. p. 309.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 99

He infers none, much less does He make any to be necessary and
unavoidable; so may good men and wise make use of a prepared error,
a falsehood already believed ; but they must neither teach, nor betray
any one into it.

The objections mentioned in the state of this question, are already
answered in the stating the propositions.

But now arises another question, and the solution will follow upon
the same grounds.

Quest.
§12. Whether it be lawful for a good end for preachers to
affright men with panic terrors, and to create fears that have no
ground ; as to tell them if they be liars, their faces will be deformed ;
if they be perjured, the devil will haunt them in visible shapes; if
they be sacrilegious, they shall have the leprosy; or any thing
whereby weak and ignorant people can be most wrought upon.

I answer briefly :

§ 13. There are terrors enough in the New testament to af-
fright any man from his sins, who can be wrought upon by fear :
and if all that Moses and the prophets say, and all that Christ and
His apostles published be not sufficient, then nothing can be. For
I am sure nothing can be a greater or more formidable evil than
hell ; and no terrors can bring greater affrightment than those
which are the proper portion of the damned. But the measures of
the permission and liberty that can be used, are these :

§ 14. 1) A preacher or governor may affright those that are under
them, and deter them from sin, by threatening them with any thing
which probably may happen. So he may denounce a curse upon the
estate of sacrilegious persons, robbers of churches, oppressors of
priests, and widows, and orphans ; and particularly, whatsoever the
widow or orphan in the bitterness of their souls do pray may
happen upon such evil persons ; or what the church in the instru-
ments of donation have expressed : as, to die childless ; to be
afflicted with the gout ; to have an ambulatory life, the fortune of a
penny, since for that he forsakes God and his religion ; a distracted
mind or fancy, or any thing of this nature. For since the curses of
this life and of the other are indefinitely threatened to all sinners,
and some particularly to certain sins, as want is to the detainers of
tithes, a wandering fortune to church robbers u ; it is not unreasonable,
and therefore it is lawful to make use of such particulars as are most
likely to be effective upon the consciences of sinners.

§ 15. 2) It is lawful to affright men with the threatening of any
thing that is possible to happen in the ordinary effects of providence.
For every sin is against an infinite God, and His anger is sometimes
the greatest, and can produce what evil He please ; and He uses to

u [Malacbi iii. S, &c. ; Psalm lxxxiii. 12.]
li 2

100 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

arm all His creatures against sinners, and sometimes strikes a stroke
with His own hand, and creates a prodigy of example to perpetuate
a fear upon men to all ages.

But this is to be admitted with these cautions :

a) It must be done so as to be limited within those ways which
need not suppose a miracle to have them effected. Thus to threaten
a sinner in England, that if he profanes the holy sacrament a tiger
shall meet him in the churchyard and tear him, is so improbable
and unreasonable, that it is therefore not to be done, lest the autho-
rity, and the counsel, and the threatening become ridiculous : but
we have warrant to threaten him with diseases, and sharp sicknesses,
and temporal death ; and the warrant is derived from a precedent in
scripture, God's dealing with the Corinthian communicants v.

/3) He who thus intends to dissuade, must in prudence be careful
that he be not too decretory and determinate in the particular ; but
either wholly instance in general threatenings, or with exceptive and
cautious terms in the particular; as, take heed lest such an evil
happen : or, it is likely it may, and we have no security for a minute
against it : and so God hath done to others.

y) Let these be only threatenings, not prophecies, lest the whole
dispensation become contemptible ; and therefore let all such threat-
enings be understood with a provision, that if such things do not
happen, the man hath not escaped God's anger, but is reserved for
worse. God walketh upon the face of the waters, and His footsteps
are not seen ; but however, evil is the portion of the sinner.

§ 16. 3) In all those threatenings which are according to the
analogy of the gospel, or the state of things and persons with which
we have entercourse, we may take all that liberty that can by apt
instruments concur to the work of God ; dressing them with circum-
stances of terror and affrightment, and representing spiritual events
by metaphors, apologues, and instances of nature. Thus our blessed
Lord expressing the torments of hell, signifies the greatness of them
by such things which in nature are most terrible ; as brimstone and
fire, the worm of conscience, weeping and wailing, and gnashing of
teeth. But this I say must ever be kept within the limits of analogy
to what is revealed, and must not make excursions to extra-regular
and ridiculous significations. Such as is the fancy of some divines
in the Roman church, and particularly of Cornelius a Lapide x, that
the souls of the damned shall be rolled up in bundles like a heap and
involved circles of snakes, and in hell shall sink down like a stone
into the bottomless pit, falling still downward for ever and ever.
This is not well ; but let the expressions be according to the propor-
tions of what is revealed. The divines in several ages have taken
great liberty in this affair, which I know no reason to reprove, if
some of their tragical expressions did not, or were not apt to pass

v [1 Cor. xi. 30.] * In Apocal. [vid. in cap. xiv. p. 240.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE EIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 101

into dogmatical affirmatives, and opinions of reality in snch in-
ventions.

§ 17. 4) If any extra-regular example hath ever happened, that
may be made use of to affright men from the same or the like sins,
and so pass into a regular warning. Thus, though it but once
happened, that God punished rebellion by causing the earth to open
and swallow up the rebels against their prince and priest, Moses and
Aaron, that is, it is but once recorded in holy scripture ; yet God
hath the same power now, and the same anger against rebellion ; and
as He can, so we are not sure that He will not oftentimes do the
same. Whatsoever hath happened and can happen, we ought to
fear lest in the like cases it should happen. And therefore this is a
proper instrument of a just fear, and apt rightly to minister to a sure
and a right conscience.

§ 18. 5) If any prodigy of accident and judgment hath happened,
though it be possible it may be done for the manifestation of the
divine glory, yet because it is ten thousand to one, but it is because
of sin too ; this may be made use of to affright sinners, although
there be no indication for what sin that judgment happened. Thus
the ruin of the Greek monarchy finished upon the day of pentecost y :
the fearful and prodigious swallowing up the cities of the Colossians
and Laodiceans z ; the burning towns and villages by eruption of fire
from mountains; the sudden cataracts of water breaking from the
Indian hills ; the sudden deaths and madness of many people ; the
horrible ruin and desolation of families and kingdoms, may be indif-
ferently used and propounded to all sorts of persons, where there is
need of such violent courses : and provided that they be charitably
and prudently applied, may effect fear and caution in some sinners,
who otherwise would be too ready for gaieties and unsafe liberties.

§ 19. 6) To children and fools, and all those whose understanding
is but a little better, it hath been in all ages practised, that they be
affrighted with mormos and bugbears, that they may be cozened into
good. But this is therefore permitted, because other things which
are real, certain, or probable, cannot be understood or perceived by
them : and therefore these things are not to be permitted, where it
can well be otherwise. If it cannot, it is fit that their understandings
should be conducted thither where they ought to go, and by such
instruments as can be useful.

y [So vol. ii. p. 588. — Obsessa vide- emend, temp., p. 530. For the history

tur (Constantinopolis) postridie pascha, and authorities, see Gibbon, chap, lxviii.]

capta in die pentecostes ; sed pericu- z [Oros. Hist., lib. vii. cap. 7 p. 473.]
lo.sum est haec definire. — Scaliger, de

102 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

KITLE VII.

A CONSCIENCE DETERMINED BY THE COUNSEL OP WISE MEN, EVEN AGAINST
ITS OWN INCLINATIONS, MAY BE SUBB AND BIGHT.

Por in many cases tne counsel of wise men is the best argument ;
and if the conscience was first inclined by a weaker, every change to
a better is a degree of certainty. In this case, to persist in the first
inclination of conscience, is obstinacy, not constancy : but on the
other side, to change our first persuasion when it is well built, for
the counsel of men of another persuasion, though wiser than our-
selves, is levity, not humility. This rule is practicable only in such
cases where the conscience observes the weakness of its first induce-
ment, or justly suspects it, and hath not reason so much to suspect
the sentence of wiser men. How it is further to be reduced to
pi-actice, is more properly to be considered in the third chapter, and
thither I refer it.

KULE VIII.

HE THAT SINS AGAINST A BIGHT AND A STIBE CONSCIENCE, WHATEVER THE
INSTANCE BE, COMMITS A GBEAT SIN, BUT NOT A DOUBLE ONE.

§ 1. His sin is indeed the greater, because it is less excusable and
more bold. For the more light there is in a regular understand-
ing, the more malice there is in an irregular will. " If I had not
come to them/' said Christ, " they had not had sin ; but now have
they no cover for their sina:" that is, because they are sufficiently
taught their duty. It is not an aggravation of sin, barely to say, it
was done against our conscience : for all sins are so, either directly
or indirectly, mediately or immediately, in the principle or in the
emanation. But thus, the more sure and confident the conscience
is, the sin receives the greater degree. It is an aggravation of it,
that it was done against a clear light, and a full understanding, and
a perfect, contrary determination.

§ 2. But even then it does not make it to be a distinct sin.
" Whatsoever is not of faith is sin b," said the apostle, but he did
not say it was two. It is a transcendant passing upon every sinful
action, that it is against a known law, and a contrary reason and
persuasion ; but if this could make the act to be doubly irregular, by

a [John xv. 22.] b [Rom- xiv. 23.]

CHAT, it.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 103

the same reason, every substance must be two, viz., by having a
being, and a substantial being. And the proper reason of this is
because the conscience obliges and ties us by the band of the com-
mandment, the same individual band, and no other. The conscience
is therefore against the act, because the commandment is against it;
the conscience being God's remembrancer, the record, and the re-
gister of the law. A thief does not sin against the law and the judsje
severally ; neither does the magistrate punish him one way, and the law
another. The conscience hath no law of its own, but the law of God
is the rule of it : therefore where there is but one obligation to the
duty, there can be but one deformity in the prevarication. But,

§ 3. In sins where there is a double formality, there indeed in
one action there may be two sins, because there is a double law : as
he that kills his father sins twice, he is impious and unjust ; lie
breaks the laws of piety and justice ; he sins against the fifth and
the sixth commandments at once ; he is a murderer, and he is
ungrateful, and he is impious. But in sins of a single nature there
is but a single relation : for the conscience and the law is the rule
and the parchment; and he that sins against the one, therefore also
sins against the other, because they both terminate but one relation.

§ 4. But although he does not commit two sins, yet he commits
one great one, there being nothing that can render an action culpable
or imputable in the measures of justice, but its being a deviation
from, or a contradiction to the rule. It is against my conscience,
that is, against my illuminated and instructed reason, therefore it
is a sin : this is a demonstration, because it is against God, and
against myself; against my reason, and His illumination; and that
is, against all bands divine and human.

Quest.

§ 5. But then what shall a judge do, who knows the witnesses in
a criminal cause to have sworn falsely. The case is this : Conopus
a Spartan judge, walking abroad near the gardens of Onesicritus,
espies him killing of his slave Asotus; who to palliate the fact,
himself accuses another of his servants, Orgilus, and compelled some
to swear it as he affirmed. The process was made, advocates enter-
tained by Onesicritus, and the poor Orgilus convict by testimony
and legal proof. Conopus the judge knows the whole process to be
injurious, but knows not what to do, because he remembers that he
is bound to judge according to allegation and proof, and yet to do
justice and judgment, which in this case is impossible. He there-
fore enquires for an expedient, or a peremptory resolution on either
hand : since he offends against the laws of Sparta, the order of law
and his own life, if he acquits one who is legally convicted ; and yet
if he condemns him whom he knows to be innocent, he sins against
God, and nature, and against his own conscience.

§ 6. That a judge not only may, but is obliged to proceed

104 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

according to the process of law, and not to his own private con-
science, is confidently affirmed by Aquinas, by his master, and by his
scholars, and of late defended earnestly by Didacus Covaruvias, a
learned man indeed and a great lawyer; and they do it upon this
account :

§7.1) For there is a double person or capacity in a judge. He
is a private person, and hath special obligations and duties incum-
bent upon him in that capacity ; and his conscience hath a proper
information, and gives him laws, and hath no superior but God : and
as he is such an one, he must proceed upon the notices and per-
suasions of his conscience, guided by its own measures. But as he
is a judge, he is to do the office of a judge, and to receive infor-
mation by witnesses and solemnities of law, and is not to bring his
own private conscience to become the public measure. Not Attilius
Regulus, but the consul must give sentence : and since he is bound
to receive his information from witnesses, as they prove, so the law
presumes ; whose minister because he is, if there be any fault, it is
in the law, not in the judge, and in this case the judge does not go
against his conscience, because by oath he is bound to go according
to law. He indeed goes against his private knowledge; but that
does not give law to a judge, whose knowledge is to be guided by
other instruments. 2) And it is here as in case of execution of
sentences, which is another ministry of law. Ordhiarius tenetur
oisequi delegato, et si sciat sentent'iam Mam injnstam, exsequi nihilo-
minus tenetur eandem : said Innocentius the third c : the executioner
is not to refuse his office, though he know the judge to have con-
demned an innocent, for else he might be his judge's judge, and that
not for himself alone, but also for the public interest. For if an
executioner upon his persuasion that the judge did proceed unjustly
against the life of an innocent, shall refuse to put him to death, he
judges the sentence of the judge over again, and declares publicly
against it, and denies to the commonwealth the effect of his duty :
so does a judge, if he acquits him whom the law condemns, upon
the account of his private knowledge. 3) It is like speaking oracles
against public authority from a private spirit. 4) Which thing if
it were permitted, the whole order and frame of judicatures would
be altered, and a door opened for a private and an arbitrary pro-
ceeding : and the judge if he were not just, might defame all wit-
nesses, and acquit any criminal, and transfer the fault to an inno-
cent and unsuspected, and so really do that which he but pretends to
avoid. 5) And the case would be the same, if he were a man con-
fident and opinionative. For he might seem to himself to be as sure
of his own reason, as of his own sense, and his conscience might be
as effectively determined by his argument as by his eyes ; and then
by the same reason he might think himself bound to judge against

c Cap. ' Pastoralis.' § ' Quia vero.' De officio et potestate judicis delegati. [Greg
ix. Decret, lib. i. tit. 29. cap. 28. col. 342.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 105

the sentence of the law according to his own persuasion, as to judge
against the forms of law, and proceedings of the court according to
his own sense. 6) And therefore not only in civil but in the eccle-
siastical courts we find it practised otherwise : and a priest may not
refuse to communicate him whom he knows to have been absolved
upon a false allegation, and unworthily ; but must administer sacra-
ments to him according to the public voice, not to his own private
notice : for it would be intolerable, if that which is just in public
should be rescinded by a private pretence, whether materially just or
no ; not only because there are other measures of the public and
private, and that to have that overborne by this would destroy all
government ; but because if this private pretence be admitted, it may
as well be falsely as truly pretended. And therefore since real justice
by this means cannot be secured, and that unless it were, nothing
could make amends for the public disorder, it follows that the public
order must be kept, and the private notice laid aside. 7) For the
judge lays aside the affections of a man, when he goes to the seat of
judgment, and he lays aside his own reason, and submits to the
reason of the law ; and his own will, relinquishing that to satisfy the
law : and therefore he must bring nothing of a private man with him,
but his own abilities fitted for the public. 8) And let no man in
this case pretend to a zeal for truth and righteousness ; for since in
judicatures, legal or seeming truth is all that can be secured, and
with this the laws are satisfied, we are sure we may proceed upon the
testimony of concurring witnesses, because they do speak legal truth,
and that being a proportionable conduct to legal persons, is a perfect
rule for the conscience of a judge; according to the words of our
blessed Saviour quoted out of Moses' law d, " it is written in your
law, the testimony of two men is true," that is, it is to be accepted
as if it were true, and proceedings are to be accordingly. In pur-
suance and verification of this are those words of S. Ambrose, Bonus
judex nihil ex arbitrio suo facit, et domestica propositi voluntatis,
sed juxta leges et jura pronunciat, scitis juris obtemperat, non m-
dulget propria voluntati, nihil paratum et meditatum domo defert,
sed sicut audit, ita judicat e ; ' a good judge does nothing of his
will, or the purpose of his private choice, but pronounces according
to laws and public right, he obeys the sanctions of the law, giving no
way to his own will, he brings nothing from home prepared and
deliberated, but as he hears, so he judges/ This testimony is of the
more value, because S. Ambrose had been a judge and a ruler him-
self in civil affairs, and therefore spake according to the sense of
those excellent laws, which almost all the civil world have since
admitted. 9) And the thing is confessed in the parallel cases. For
a judge may not proceed upon the evidence of an instrument which
he hath privately perused, if it be not produced in court, though he
by that could be enabled to do justice to the oppressed party ; for

d [John viii. 17.] e In psalm, cxviii. [Serm. 20. — torn. i. col. 1231 E.]

100 OF THE RIGHT Oil SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

he does not know it as a judge, but as a private man ; and though
that be a distinction without a real difference of subject, yet in effect
it means, that the laws do not permit a judge to take notice of any
private information, which might prove an inlet to all manner of
violence and robbery. 10) And therefore if a priest hearing the
confession of Caius, understands that Titius was the complice of
Caius his crime, he may not refuse to absolve Titius, though he do
not confess the fact in which he took part with Caius ; because he is
to proceed by the method of that court where he sits judge. For
private and personal notice is not sufficient. 11) And if I do
privately know that my neighbour is excommunicate, I am not
bound to refuse him my society till I know it legally ; and therefore
much less may a judge do a public act upon private notice, when we
may not do even a private act referring to law without a public
notice. 12) And all this is confirmed by the authority of Ulpianf,
Veritas rerun erroribus gestarum non vitiatur, et ideo prases pro-
vincia id sequatur quod convenit eum ex fide eorum qua probabuntur :
' the truth of tilings is not prejudiced by errors in matters of fact ;
and therefore let the president of the province follow that which is
fitting for him, proceeding by the faith of those things which shall be
proved/ 13) For since no man must judge by his own private
authority, he must not judge by his own private knowledge. 14) And
to what purpose shall he call in witnesses to give him public infor-
mation, if when they have done so, he by his private may reject
the public ?

§ 8. But if after all this you enquire what shall become of the
judge as a man, and what of his private conscience? these men
answer, that the judge must use what ingenious and fair artifices he
can to save the innocent, or to do justice according to truth, but yet
so as he may not prevaricate the duty of a judge : he may use the
prudence of a friend and a private man : let him by various and
witty interrogatories, in which he may be helped by the advantage of
his private knowing the secret, make ways to entrap the false wit-
nesses, as Daniel did to the two elders in the case of Susanna : or
let him refer the cause to the supreme power, or resign his office, or
make a deputation to another, or reprieve the injured man, or leave
a private way for him to escape, or use his power of interpretation, or
find some way to elude the unjust hand of justice, which in this case
does him wrong by doing right. But if none of these ways, nor any
other like them can preserve the innocent man, or the judge's private
conscience, he must do justice according to law, standing upright as
a public person, but not stooping to particulars, or twisting himself
by his private notices.

§ 9. This is the sum of what is or can be said in this opinion ;

L. ' IlHcitas.' § 'Veritas.' [Digest., lib. i. tit. 18. § 6, Gothofred. Corp. Jur.
civil., col. 31.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 107

and though they speak probably and well, yet I answer otherwise,
and I suppose, for reasons very considerable. Therefore,

To the question I answer, that a judge in this case may not do
any public act against his private conscience ; he may not condemn
an innocent whom he knows to be so, though he be proved criminal
by false witnesses. And my reasons are these :

§ 10. 1) Innoceniem etjustum non occides5, said God; to slay an inno-
cent person is absolutely and indispensably evil. Upon which ground I
argue : that which is in its own nature essentially and absolutely evil,
may not be done for any good, for any pretence, for any necessity,
nor by any command of man. Since therefore in the present case
the man is supposed innocent, he ought not to be delivered to death
for any end in the world, nor by any authority, much less for the
preservation of the forms of courts, or to prevent a possible evil that
may accidentally and by abuse arise ; especially since the question
here is not matter of prudence or policy, but of justice and con-
science; nor yet of the public interest, but of the judge's duty ; nor
at all, what the laws actually do constitute and appoint, but what the
judge may really practise. Now, in all cases, if a man dies, it must
be by the merit of the cause, or for some public end. The first is
not supposed in this question, because the man is supposed innocent ;
and if the latter be pretended, it is an open profession of doing evil
that good may come of it. And if it be answered, that this is true,
if the man did appear to be innocent, but in law he appears other-
wise : I reply, that it is true, to the law he does so, but not to the
judge ; and therefore though the law can condemn him, yet she
cannot do it by that judge. He must not do it, because it being by
an unavoidable defect or error that the law may do it, and if the
law could be rightly informed, she would not, she could not do it, it
follows that the judge who is rightly informed can no more do it
than the law itself, if she had the same information.

§ 11. 2) To judge according to forms and processes of law, is but
of human positive right and constitution ; for the law may command
a judge to proceed according to his own knowledge, if she will trust
him and his knowledge : and in all arbitrary courts it is so ; and in
the supreme power it is always so, if it be absolute. But not to
condemn the innocent, is of divine and eternal right, and therefore
cannot be prejudiced by that which only is human. And indeed if
we look into the nature and causes of things, we shall find, that the
reason why judges are tied to forms and processes of laws, to testi-
monies and judicial proofs, is, because the judge is supposed not to
know the matters brought before him, till they appear in the forms
of law. For if a judge did know men's hearts, and the secrets
of things and causes, supposing him to be honest, he were the fittest
person in the world to be a judge, and can proceed summarily, and
needs no witnesses. But this is the way of the divine -'udgmeut,

K [Exod. xxiii. 7.]

108 OF THE EIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

who proceeds upon His own knowledge, though for the declaration of
His justice to men, He sometimes seems to use processes, and mea-
sures of human enquiry; as in the case of Sodom, and the like.
And in proportion, if God should reveal to a judge the truth of every
cause that lies before him, I think no man doubts, but he might
safely proceed to judgment upon that account. This was the case of
Daniel and Susanna. For she was convicted and proved guilty by
concurrent witnesses; God revealed the truth to Daniel, and he
arrested judgment upon that account. Upon examination of the
witnesses he finds them disagree in the circumstances ; but this was
no legal conviction of their falsehood in the main ; but it was there-
fore sufficient, because Daniel came in the manner of a prophet, and
knew the truth from God, not by forms of law. Now it matters not
(as to the justice of the proceeding) which way the truth be known ;
for the way of receiving it is but extrinsical to the main question :
and as Daniel being made judge by God, might not have consented
to the death of Susanna, though not only the two elders, but ten
more had sworn that they had seen Susanna sin : so neither can a
judge, to whom God by some special act of providence in behalf of
truth and innocence hath made known the matter, proceed to sen-
tence against that knowledge, which he by divine dispensation hath
received.

§12.3) If a king or senate, or any supreme power receive testi-
mony of a matter of fact concerning any of their council, whom they
know to be innocent; as if it be legally proved that Sempronius
robbed a man upon the kalends of March, a hundred miles from the
place where the king or senate saw him sitting all that day ; that
they may not deliver him to death appears therefore because they
being accountable to none but God, must judge by His measures,
that is, so as to preserve the innocent, and not by those measures
which men's necessity, and imperfection, and weaknesses have made
regularly necessary. But that which is regularly necessary, may
irregularly and by accident in some cases be unjust, and in those
the supreme power must make provisions where it can, and it can
when it knows the truth of the particular. Tor since the legislative
power can dispense in the administration of its own laws upon par-
ticular necessities or charity, upon the affirmation and petition of
him that needs it : much more must it dispense with the forms of
proceedings in a case of such necessity, and justice, and charity, and
that upon their own knowledges. The affirmation of the argument
is, that princes and senates may, and must do this ; that it is neces-
sary, and therefore also just in them to do so. The consequent of
the argument is this : that therefore if private judges may not do so,
it is because they have no authority to do so, but are compelled by
their princes to proceed by forms : and if this be all, it declares the
necessity of such proceedings to be only upon man's authority ; and
so, though by law he may be bound to do so, yet our enquiry being

CHAP. II.] OP THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 109

what lie is tied to do in conscience, the law cannot prevail above
conscience, the subordinate above the superior, there being in this
case, a knowledge of the fact, and the law of God for the right.

§ 13. 4) For the case is this : God says, thou shalt not slay the
innocent, and the judge does certainly know that the accused man
is truly innocent : the conclusion is, therefore this man must not die.
Against this, the argument opposed is this : human authority says,
thou shalt slay him that is convicted of a fault, whether by true or
false witnesses : here are witnesses which do convict him, and I know
them to be false. The conclusion is, therefore this man must die.
Which of these two arguments ought to prevail, I think needs not
much enquiry.

§ 14. 5) And what if Titius be accused for killing Eegulus, whom
the consul at that time hath living in his house, or hath lately sent
abroad ; would not all the world hoot at him, if he should deliver
Titius to the tormentors for killing the man whom the judge knows
to be at home, it may be dressing of his dinner, or abroad gathering
his rents? But if this be so absurd (as it is indeed extremely), it
follows that he may use his private knowledge against a false testi-
mony that is public. Or how if he sees the fact done before him in
the court? a purse cut, or a stone thrown at his brother judge, as it
happened at Ludlow h not many years since? The judge proceeded
to sentence upon intuition of the fact, and stayed not for the solem-
nities of law. Or put case that there be depositions offered on both
sides, for and against the innocent, either directly or indirectly. If
in this case the judge's private knowledge may determine for either,
it follows that his private knowledge can be admitted as the instru-
ment of justice ; and if it may, it must : for nothing can hinder him
to do it, but because he may not. But that he may, appears in the
now alleged instances.

§ 15. 6) S. Adrianus* puts another case, in which it is also with-
out contradiction evident that private notice is to be preferred before
public solemnity where there is an error in this and none in that.
The case I choose to express in this narrative. Viretta, a naughty
woman, pretends to be wife to Coloro, an Italian gentleman, and brings
a priest and witnesses whom she had suborned, to prove the marriage.
The judge gives sentence for Viretta, and commands Coloro to pay
the duties of a husband to her, and to use her as a wife. He knows
the contrary, and that he is husband to Yittoria Morisini, and there-
fore pays her all his duty, and neglects the other ; and he is bound

h [The judge alluded to was Chief que puis son condemnation jectun Brick-
Justice Richardson, but the scene of the bat a le dit Justice, que narrowly mist,
outrage Salisbury, as appears from the et pur ceo immediately fuit Indictment
following marginal note in Sir James drawn per Noy euvers le prisoner, et son
Dyer's Reports, fol. 188. b, (ed. fol. Lond. dexter manus ampute et fix al Gibhet,
1088), which is given verbatim : sur que luy mesme imniediatement hange

" Richardson C. J. de C.Banc. al Assizes in presence de Court."]

at Salisbury in Summer 1631 fuit assault ' [Hadrian. Pap. vi. Quaest. quodlib.

per prisoner la condemne pur felony : i. art. 3. fol. 4. a, ed. fol. 1'ar. 1527.]

110 OK THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK. I.

to it, because no man's error or malice can alter the laws of God,
and from paying that duty which he knows is due by the laws of
God, he cannot be excused by any formal error arising in the admi-
nistration of the laws of man. The same is the judge's case. For if
the law commands him to do an act against a known private duty, he
is so to follow the duty he knows he owes to God in preserving the
innocent, as Coloro is bound to preserve his duty to his wife, and the
judge may no more commit murder than Coloro may commit adul-
tery; but neither of them can be rescued but by their private
conscience, therefore they may use that. And there is no escape in
this instance, because the subject is as much bound to submit to the
sentence of the law, as the judge is to the forms of it; and that
which secures one, secures both.

§ 16. 7) The evils that may be consequent to the strict adherence
to the forms and proofs of law against the judge's conscience may be
so great as to be intolerable, and much greater than can be supposed
to be consequent to the following a certain unsolemn truth. And
there is no man, but put the case so as himself and his party may be
involved in ruin by false witness, and he will grant that himself is by
all means to be preserved. Put case a whole order of the clergy, of
monks, of lawyers, should be accused falsely and oppressed by evil
men, as the knights templars were accused fiercely, and so were the
religious in Henry the eighth's time. If the king had known that
the monks, and the pope had known that the templars had been
innocent, no man ought to have persuaded them to condemn the
guiltless. For if the king had proceeded against them to confiscation,
making use of his advantage gotten by the sin of vile men, the effect
had been, that he would rather have gotten money by a lie, than
have done justice to the oppressed according to his conscience. And
indeed because it is not to be supposed but all the world would have
given sentence for themselves in their own case, it is to be supposed
that the contrary opinion is but the sentence of men in prosperity, or
of unexperienced scholars, who care not what load they put upon
others to verify their own opinion. And what Christian will not
condemn Pilate for condemning the most holy Jesus, according to
the testimonies of His false accusers, and against his own conscience ?
And let the case be put, that the witnesses had agreed, and proved
foul things against the unspotted Lamb of God, and made all clear
in forms of law, and that Pilate had known the Lord to be innocent
and injured, could the water in the basin have washed him clean, if
he had against his conscience in compliance with the solemn perjurers
have condemned Him who was purer than the angels ? In this case
the effect had been intolerable, for which no pretence of necessity or
legal formalities could have made recompense.

§ 17. 8) A law founded upon presumption binds not in the court
of conscience, when the presumption is found to be an error. The
law presumes that the heir entering upon an estate, if he makes not

CHAP. II.] OF THE EIGHT OH SURE CONSCIENCE. Ill

an inventory, docs it to conceal the goods and defraud the creditors.
But if an heir does so by negligence or ignorance, or an impertinent
tear, or upon ill counsel, or be betrayed to do so; if the creditor
knows that the goods are not sufficient, he may not in conscience
take the advantage the law gives him, but is bound to do charity
and justice by the measures of his private knowledge, and not by the
measures of the law to do violence and oppression, which was the
thing in question.

§ 18. U) To the verification of the sentence of death upon an
accused person there are required, a) A reality of the crime. /3) A
power in the judge, y) And equity in the law. Now if divers men
should swear that the judge hath a competent power, nay though
they threaten him with death if he does not, yet he may not exercise
any such power, which himself privately knows that he hath not.
So also if he knows the fact does not deserve death, though men
swear it, or a higher power declare it, or another competent judge
affirm it, yet a judge must not consent to it if himself knows it to
be unjust. And I have read of an excellent prince1, who because he
did conseut to the forms and processes of law made by his senate
against the bravest of his subjects, against his own conscience and
knowledge, repented of it all the days of his life, and was not par-
doned for it till the day of his death ; and the first confidence he had
of pardon was upon the account of S. Paul's words, ' he that is dead
is justified from sinsj/ But then, since the defect of either of these
two makes it unlawful for a judge to proceed according to the forms
of law, and ties him to follow his conscience even against allegation
and proof, much more must it be so if there be no reality of fact in
the accused party ; because in the destitution of this, the laws them-
selves have no power, and therefore they can give none to a judge
their minister. Jastis lex non est poslta k ; ' the law was not made
for the innocent/ but to defend them ; and therefore hath no power
to destroy them; and then the judge can have none, and so cannot
in that case be tied to proceed according to formalities, and therefore
must proceed according to his conscience, or not at all. .For,

§19. 10) If a law were made that a judge should be bound to
condemn an innocent person, though he knows him to be so, and to
be accused by calumny and supplanted by perjury, it were an unjust
law, as all men (that I know of) grant, and indeed must grant. Tor
it were a law made to encourage perjurers and oppressors, to dis-
courage innocence : a law made against the intention of laws, which
is, to defend the right, and punish the wrong doer : it were a law
disabling the judge to rescue the oppressed, and a law expressly
disowning the cause of the afflicted : and if any judge should under-
take his office upon such terms, he should openly profess that if the
case happened, he would do against his conscience. And all laws
going the best way they can to find out truth, would never disable a

' [See vol. iv. p. 20i>.] J [Rom. vi. 7.] k [1 Tim. i. 9.]

112 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

judge to make use of it when lie had found it out, and assisted the
enquiry of the laws by a fortunate discovery. Tor the examining of
■witnesses being but a means to find out truth, cannot possibly be so
adhered to, as to be preferred before the end to which it is designed,
that were as if a man should rather love to seek than find. Since
therefore no law ever was, or can be so unreasonable as to decree
that a judge shall not in such a case directly relieve the innocent,
but proceed to his condemnation, it follows that he can have no
obligation to do so, and then the obligation of his conscience can
upon no pretence be declined. The law does not intend to oblige
the judge in that case, because no law can be made expressly to do
so ; he therefore being free from the law in that case, stands bound
to his private conscience, without excuse. Nay, the canon law
expressly enjoins that a judge should give sentence according to his
own conscience, as appears in C. i. Be rejudic. in 6 \ et in Clem. i.
§. ' Yernm,' Be hceret. m

§ 20. 11) Suppose a judge should suborn false witnesses against
an innocent j either he is bound not to proceed according to allega-
tion and proof, but according to his secret conscience, or else he is
bound to go on in his crime, and effect that which he had maliciously
designed. For it is not enough that he is bound to disengage the
witnesses and take off the subornation : for suppose the persons
already appearing will not cease, lest they should be shamed and
ruined, but will take confidence from their crime, and perseverance
from their publication, then there is no remedy for the innocent,
neither can the judge rescue him from himself, nor give over sinning,
unless he proceed by his private certain measures, and not by those
which are false and public. For to say he may be sorry for his fault
and yet proceed in it, is to make him a hypocrite : if he confesses
that he suborned the witnesses, and yet proceed to condemn the
innocent, he is ridiculous, and makes the lawr put on the face of
tyranny and unreasonable violence and oppression. So that either
he must go on and sin to the end without remedy, or he must be
admitted to proceed by his private conscience, and that in his case
would be justice and penitence besides.

§ 21. ]2) Lastly, all laws being intended for the good of the
subjects, are bound not only to comply with their ordinary cases by
ordinary provisions, but for their accidental needs by the extraordinary.
And so we find it, that all laws yield in particulars, when the law is
injurious in the special cases, and this is the ground of all chancery,
because summum jus, summa injuria ; and Solomon advised well,
Noli esse Justus nimium, ' be not over righteous"/ and the justice
of God being e7ue6<eia, gentleness and favour, equity and mercy,
ours is best when we follow the best precedent; now since no case is
more favourable than the present, the laws are unjust that will not

1 [Lib. Sext. Decretal., lib. ii. tit. 14. m [Clem., lib. v. tit. 3. cap. i. col. 251.]

cap. i. col. o35.] n [Eccles. vii. 16.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 113

bend and stoop to the miseries of the oppressed; and therefore the
judge having no hindrance, he is tied by a double band to relieve
the oppressed innocent, by his direct sentence (where it can be
admitted) or by his open declaration, and quantum in se est, but at
no hand to consent to his condemnation.

§ 22. I conclude therefore with that rule of the canon law, Uti-
lius scandalum nasci permittitur quam Veritas relinquatnr ° ; 'It is
better that a scandal should be suffered, and an offence done to the
forms and methods of judicial proceedings, than that truth should be
betrayed and forsaken ;' and what was said in the prophecy p con-
cerning our blessed Saviour, Non secundum auditum aurium arguet,
' he shall not reprove according as he hears/ but according as he
knows, is also true of judges in this case; they do judge most
perfectly when in truth and in defence of the innocent they follow
the pattern of the divine judgment, and not the imperfection of the
human; that is, they are to judge by the eyes, not by the ears :

Scgnius irritant animos demissa per aures
Quam quae sunt oculis commissa fidelibus 1.

That is a sure sentence that can rely upon ocular demonstration ; for
our eyes are a better guard of innocence than the tongues of syco-
phants, and our consciences are surer informers than the forms of
law ; and since no law hath declared against it, the conscience is at
perfect liberty ; and yet if it were not, we are certain it is better to
obey God than men ; the conscience is no man's servant, it is God's
only. Conscience is God's angel : " Grieve not the angel, lest he
smite thee, do nothing against him, lest he forsake thee r." Viro bono
fixum in omni vita est, transversum unguent a recta conscientia non
discedere, said Cicero 3 ; ' every good man is perfectly resolved not to
depart from his right conscience a hair's breadth during his whole life/
§ 23. And now to the pretences which are made on the other
side, there will be the less need of a reply, if we consider that they
only prove that a judge is tied to observe the forms of judicial pro-
cess, and to proceed according to allegation and proof, ordinarily and
regularly, as supposing that this is the best ordinary way of infor-
mation, as it is most certainly. But as the lawr, using the best she
hath, would not yet refuse a prophet from heaven, or a miracle to
bring truth from her retirements or her veil, so neither will she
refuse any better way that can be offered; but whatever the law
would do, yet the question now being concerning the judge, it is
certain that the judge in the case now put, hath a surer way of
evidence ; and therefore as the law, if she had a surer way of evidence,
ought not to go against so clear a light, so neither can the judge.
And the arguments only proceeding upon the usual suppositions

0 C penult. De reg. jur. [Greg. ix. P [Is. xi. 3, ed. vulg.]

Decret., lib. v. tit. 41. cap. 3. col. 1796, 1 [Horat., de art. poet. 180.]

from Bede on Mark ix., torn. v. col. 1.39 : » [See Exod. xxiii. 21.]

it is found however in S. Gregory on s [Ad Attic, lib. xiii. cpist. 20.]

Ezech.,lib. i. horn. 7. torn. i. col. 1225. B.]

IX. I

114 OF THE RIGHT Oil SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

conclude that regularly judges must do as usually they can do, that
is, proceed according to proof, because they can have no better way,
but they cannot be drawn to this extra-regular and rare contingency.
Eor though most men are brought in upon suspicion or private accu-
sation, yet the apostle says that some men's sins are manifest, going
before unto judgment : and when this happens, the judge must not
go in inquest after what he sees. And the same arguments may as
well be urged against all dispensations and remissions, against favour
and chancery, and destroy all equity and all religion, as to destroy
all conscience when it is certain and infallible. But I shall say
something to the particulars.

§ 24. 1) It is true that a judge hath a double capacity, and he
hath offices proportionable; some as a man, some as judge; that is,
he hath some natural and essential obligations, some which are super-
induced upon his office. And therefore I refuse to use this dis-
tinction as it is commonly used, and so made more subject to
mistake and abuse. In this case the judge is not to be considered
as a public man and a private man ; for private is as much super-
induced as public ; and all his other relations are as much to yield to
his essential duty, as that of a judge : such as are the relation of a
husband, of a father, of a tutor, of a master ; and amongst these, the
more private is often tied to yield to the more public. But therefore
in this case the judge is to be considered as a judge and as a man ;
and in this case the duties are sometimes disparate, but never con-
trary ; and when there is a dispute, the superinduced must yield to
that which is original; for whatsoever is his duty as a man, the
judge may not prevaricate; for it is the man that is the judge, in
the man that office is subjected, and the office of a judge is bound
upon him by the conscience of the man. If the judge had two con-
sciences f, and two real persons, then it were to be granted that they
were to be served and attended to in their several callings ; but it is
not so, they are but two persons in fiction of law, but materially, and
to all real events, the same : it is the same conscience ministering to
divers duties : and therefore as the judge is always that man, so his
conscience is the conscience of that man ; and because as a man he

1 [The author may have had present kingdom, the conscience of a husband to

to his mind the advice given to king preserve his wife, the conscience of a

Charles concerning the trial of the earl father to preserve his children, (all which

of Strafford by the archbishop of York, were now in danger, ) weighed down abun-

(John Williams), " who to his argu- dantly all the considerations the con-

ment of conscience told him, ' that science of a master or a friend could

there was a private and a public con- suggest to him, for the preservation of a

science ; that his public conscience as friend or servant.' And by such un-

a king might not only dispense with prelatical ignominious arguments, in

but oblige him to do that which was plain terms advised him ' even for con-

against his private conscience as a man : science sake, to pass the act.' " — Claren-

and that the question was not whether don, Hist, of the Rebellion, Book iii.

he would save the earl of Strafford, but vol. i. p. 451. Compare book iv. vol. ii.

whether he would perish with him : that p. 111. ed. 8vo. Oxon. 182C]
the conscience of a king to preserve his

CHAP. II.] OP THK RTGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 115

must not go against his conscience, so when that man is a judge lie
must not go against the man's conscience, for the judge is still that
man ruled by that conscience. The essential duty of a man cannot
by any superinduced formality be dispensed with. Now to go
according to our conscience and knowledge is the essential rule and
duty of a man, which he cannot put off by being a judge. The new
office superinduces new obligations, but none contrary, no more than
he can cease being a man by being a judge. Ccrte prior anima
quam Utera, et prior sermo quam liber, et prior sensus quam stylus, et
prior homo ipse quam philosophus el poetan : ' he is first a man, and
then a philosopher, a poet, or a judge ; and that which is first cannot
be prejudiced by what is superinduced/ And if the judge go against
the conscience of the man, pretending to do according to the con-
science of the judge, the man shall be damned, and where the judge
shall then appear any child can tell. If the bishop of Bayeux as
earl of Kent will rebel against his prince, the earl of Kent shall
lose his head, though the bishop of Bayeux may plead his clergy.
For in this there is a great mistake. To be a man and to be a judge
are not to be compared as two distinct capacities of equal considera-
tion. To be a bishop and to be a judge are properly such, and have
distinct measures ; but to be a man is the subject of the two capa-
cities, and cannot be laid aside as either of the other may; and
therefore the distinction is vain and sophistical, and if it could be
admitted in metaphysics (in which yet it appears to have an error),
yet it can never be suffered to pass to real events. This being the
ground of all the contrary opinion, and being found false, the super-
structure must also fall to the ground. To the special cases this I
answer :

§ 25. 2) An executioner may not refuse to do his office, though
the judge hath given an unjust sentence : it is true only when the
matter is dubious, or not known, or intolerable. But if the judge
commands the hangman to slay a prophet alive, or to crucify Christ,
or to strike his king through with a sword, I doubt not but the
adversaries themselves will think he is not obliged to obey. Indeed
this ought not easily to be drawn into a rule, lest such people turn
it into a pretence. But if the executioner be sure, and the matter
be notorious and such as cannot deceive him, his hand ought not
to be upon an innocent. For as receivers are to thieves, so are
executioners to unjust judges. "When the fact is notorious, and the
injustice evident, then it is such as all men can see it: and then, as
if there were no receivers there would be no thieves ; so if there were
no executioners of unjust sentences, the judge would be apt to reverse
his sentence.

§ 26. 3) Now whereas it is pretended that if a private notice
were admitted against public evidence, it were like a private spirit
against a public article, and would open a way to every pretension, it

u Tertull. lib. de testim. animae. [cap. r. p. G7 C.J

I 2

116 OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

would dissolve the forms of judicatures, and introduce many evils : I
answer, that if all this were true, and that for this there could be no
reined)', nor yet any recompense in the special cases, it would follow
that the law were prudent if it did refuse to admit such a proceeding,
unless she had some reason to trust the judge. But this were
nothing to the judge : for the law therefore refuses his testimony,
because she hath that which she presumes is better, and because she
not knowing the secret follows the best way she hath. But the judge
knows the secret, and he is not deceived, and he does not make pre-
tences, for the case supposes him to speak according to his con-
science ; and therefore although the law in prudence does not believe
him, yet he cannot but believe himself, and therefore in duty to God
must proceed accordingly, or must not proceed at all.

§ 27. 4) Neither is this like a private spirit against a public
article ; because this conscience of the judge does not impose upon
the public, who hath power to admit or to refuse his sentence ; but
it is only for himself, and although his conscience ought not to be
the public measure, yet it ought to be his own. I do not doubt but
the law may go against the judge's conscience, but the judge himself
may not go against his own.

§ 28. 5) And this we see verified in the matter of a private evi-
dence : for though the judge hath seen it in a chamber, yet he must
not judge by it in the court, the law will not suffer him to do so ;
but yet for himself he may so far make use of it, as to be persuaded
in his conscience, and to understand on which side the right stands,
and to favour it in all the ways that are permitted him. But the
case here being not matter of life and death, the law hath power to
dispose of estates, and the conscience of the judge is not obliged to
take more care of a man's money or land than himself does, but it
can be obliged to take care of men's lives when the injured person
is not able. A man may give away his estate, but he may not give
his life away ; and therefore he may lose his estate by such ways, by
which he ought not to be permitted to lose his life. Add to this,
that a judge having seen an instrument in private which could much
clear the cause depending, may not upon that account proceed to
sentence, because it may be the adverse party can give an answer to
it, and make it invalid; whereas in matters of fact of which the
judge is conscious, there is no uncertainty nor fallibility. And
lastly, the suffering party in the question of money or lands suffers
no inconvenience, but what is outweighed to the public by the order
of justice and solemnities of law, and the man that loses to-day for
want of producing his evidence, may produce it to-morrow and
recover it. But in matter of life and death, nothing can make
recompense to the oppressed innocent, and if he suffers to-day, he
cannot plead an error in the indictment to-morrow. For these and
many other considerations the case is wholly different.

§ 29. 6) By some of these things we may also answer to the

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 117

instance of a confident and opinionative judge. He may not prefer
his private opinion before the sentence of the law, and bring it into
open judgment, o) Because he himself may be deceived in his
opinion, and his confidence is no argument that he is not deceived.
/3) Because if the sentence and decree of the law be less reasonable,
yet the judge without sin may proceed to it, because the more
reasonable is not in his choice, and the less reasonable is not abso-
lutely and simply unjust, y) In matters of prudence and civil
government there is no demonstration of reason, but the legislative
power may determine for the public interest as is presently appre-
hended, and may refuse the better counsel, and yet do well enough ;
for that which is simply the better is not in these cases necessary ;
and in such things a man's reason ought not to be so confident, as
he is of what he sees, or what is matter of faith ; and therefore in
these only he is to be guided by his own, in the other he must
proceed by the public measures. And as in all things not demon-
stratively certain or evident the executioner is bound to obey the
judge; so is the judge bound to obey the law; and the presumption
will lie for the law against the judge, as it will lie for the judge
against the officer. 8) And yet after all, I do not doubt but if a
judge's conscience were effectively determined against a law, and that
he did believe it to be unjust and unlawful, he ought to follow his
conscience. As if a judge did believe it to be a sin to put a man to
death for stealing V6 d. ob. v, he might not condemn such a thief to
the gallows. And he is not excused by saying, it is not the judge
but the law that does amiss. For if the judge believe the law to be
unjust, he makes himself a partner in the injustice by ministering to
an unjust law against his conscience. For not only he that com-
mands evil to be done is guilty, but he that obeys such a command.
In this case, either the judge must lay aside his opinion or his office,
for his conscience must not be laid aside.

§ oO. 7) The instance of a priest and an excommunicate person
unworthily absolved will no way conclude this cpiestion. a) Because
the case is infinitely differing between condemning an innocent, and
acquitting the guilty. If any man pretends he is satisfied in con-
science that the accused person is criminal, though it cannot be
legally proved, yet there is no wrong done, if the accused man be
let free ; an inconvenience there may be, but the judge must not be
permitted to destroy by his private conscience, against or without
legal conviction, because the evil may be intolerable if it be per-
mitted, and the injustice may be frequent and unsufferable ; but if it
be denied, there may sometimes happen an inconvenience by pennit-

v [Allusion is probably intended to the incurred the punishni3nt of death. See

custom called the Gibbet law of Halifax, Ruding's Annals of the coinage of Great

by which every felon arrested within the Britain, vol. i. p. 30' 1. Ito., Loud. 18 10 ;

liberties having stolen goods of the value Watson's History of Halifax, p. 214, &c.

of a Scotch mark, (or thirteen pence 4to., Lond. 1775.]
halfpenny English, written xiii. d. ob.,)

118 OP THE EIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

ting a criminal to live, but there can be no injustice done. It may
have excuse, and it may have reason, and it may have necessity that
a judge refuse to consent to the death of an innocent, but that he
should against his conscience kill him can have no warrant; and if
he be not innocent, there may be reason to let him alone, but none
to condemn him if he be. Conscience can oblige a judge to an un-
solemn absolution, but not to an illegal and unsolemn condemnation.
This should have been considered in the earl of Strafford's case. The
law hath power to forgive the criminal, but not to punish the guilt-
less. And therefore if a man be absolved when he deserved it not,
we may suppose him pardoned, and the private priest is not his judge
in that case. Eor to refuse to communicate him is an act of public
judicature, and to absolve him is an act of the same power, and there-
fore must be dispensed by authority, not by usurpation, that is, by
the public sentence, not by the private minister, since to give the
holy communion to such a person is not against any essential duty of
a Christian. And therefore if the priest knows him unworthy to
communicate, he may separate him so far as he hath power to sepa-
rate him, that is, by the word of his proper ministry : let him admo-
nish him to abstain, represent his insufficiency, threaten him with the
danger ; but if he will despise all this, the private priest hath no more
to do, but to pray and weep for him, and leave him to God and the
church. But of this I am to speak more largely in its proper place.

§ 31. 8) As for the case of the priest hearing confessions, though
lie find Titius accused by Caius, yet if Titius does not accuse himself,
Titius is rather to be believed in his own case than Caius in another
man's. Because in this entcrcourse every man is so concerned to do
his duty, that every man is to be believed for himself and against
himself, because if he speaks false himself only is the loser. j3) Caius
accusing Titius may for aught the confessor knows tell a lie and abuse
him, and therefore he cannot pretend knowledge and conscience
against Titius; and so this comes not home to the present case
which supposes the judge to know the accused person to be inno-
cent, y) This argument supposes that a man cannot be absolved
unless he enumerate all his sins to the priest, which being in many
cases false (as I have shewn otherwhere w) that which relies upon it
can signify nothing.

§ 32. 9) Last of all, although the judge must lay aside his affec-
tions, and his will, and his opinion, when he sits upon the seat of judg-
ment, because these are no good measures of judicature, nor ought to
have immediate influence upon the sentence ; yet he cannot lay aside
his knowledge, and if he lay aside his conscience he will make but
an ill judge. And yet the judge must lay his affections and his
will aside never but when they tempt him to injustice. For a judge
must not cease to be merciful when it does not make him unjust ;
nor need he cease to please himself, so long as he is pleased to do

w Unum nece-ssar. [chap. x. § 4, vol. vii. p. 488, &c]

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 119

right : these if they do hurt indeed must be left off, else not ; and
therefore it cannot with any colour from hence be pretended that he
must lay aside his knowledge when it is the only way by which he
can do good.

§ 33. 10) To the authority of S. Ambrose, what I have already
said is a sufficient answer. For he speaks of a judge's office regularly
and usually, not what he is to do in cases extraordinary, and such as
is the present question. But he that said, Stent audit, ita judical,
would no less have said, Sicut vldet, ita judical. The seeing of his
eyes is as sure a measure as the hearing of his ears.

§ 34. 11) As for the words of Ulpian I will give no other answer
than that Panormitan and Covaruvias who urge them, and who are
concerned to make the most of them, do yet confess that they make
as much against them as for them; and that they say true, will
appear to any ordinary understanding that considers them.

12) For although no judge must do acts of a private authority,
yet he may as well use his own private knowledge, as he may use the
private knowledge of the witnesses; for their knowledge is as private
as the judge's, till it be brought into open court, and when his is
brought thither, it is as public as theirs; but however from the
authority to the knowledge to argue is a plain paralogism ; for the
prince who armed him with public authority did not furnish him
with a commission of knowledge, but supposed that to be induced
by other ways.

13) And therefore the judge may when he hath called witnesses
reject them upon his own certain knowledge, as well as use arts of
discovery, or any other collateral ways to secure the innocent. For
it may as well be enquired concerning the judge's using his knowledge
to the infatuating or discovering the falsehood of the evil witnesses
as to the rejecting them. For if he must absolutely take all for
granted which they say, then lie must use no arts to invalidate their
testimony ; but if he may do that, he may do the other, and yet the
calling in of witnesses may be to many good purposes, and by the
collision of contraries light may arise, and from falsehood also truth
may be produced like a fair child from a foul mother. And after all,
though this question is not to be determined on either side by autho-
rities, yet because amongst the writers of cases of conscience very
many rely much upon the testimony of authors, I think it not amiss
to say that this sense of the question which I defend was the sen-
tence of many eminent divines and lawyers, particularly, Nicolaus
Lyra, Adrianus, Angelus, Navarre, Hostiensis, Calderinus, Panor-
mitan, Martinus, Johannes Arboreeus, Oldendorp, Corrasius, Lessius,
Bresser, and divers others; and therefore besides the strength of the
reasons, I walk the more confidently by having such good company*

§ 35. To conclude : all those advices of prudence which are given
by the adverse party in this affair as expedients for the judges to
proceed. by in such cases, I am ready to admit if they will secure

120 OF THE IlIGHT OR SUItE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

their conscience and the life of the. innocent oppressed. But if they
will not, but that the judge must give sentence for law or for con-
science, the case to me seems very clear. God is greater than our
conscience, but our conscience is greater than any thing besides.
Fiat jus et pereat mundus, said S. Austin, adhcec imagine ne natures
Veritas obumbretur curandum. ' l\>r images and forms of things,
the natural and substantial truth of things may not be lost or pre-
judiced. Let justice be done whatsoever be the event/

Accipere personam improbi non est bonum, ut pervertas jnstum in
judicio. ' It is not good to receive the person of a wicked man,
thereby to overthrow the righteous in his cause*/

RULE IX.

THE GOODNESS OF AN OBJECT IS NOT MADE BY CONSCIENCE, BUT IS ACCEPTED,
DECLARED, AND PUBLISHED BY IT, AND MADE PERSONALLY OBLIGATORY.

§ 1. No object can have its denomination from the judgment of
rearon, save only that from thence it may be said to be understood
to be good, to be declared, to be consented to ; all which supposes
the object to be good, or to be so apprehended. Just as an emerald
is green before the eye perceives it so : and if the object were not in.
itself good, then the reason were deceived in consenting to it, and a
deceiver in publishing it.

§ 2. This is trne in respect of the material, fundamental, and
proper goodness of the object ; for this it hath independently of the
conscience : and the rectitude of the conscience is dependent on
this, and consequent to the perception of it. But yet there is a
formal, extrinsical, and relative goodness passed upon an object by
the conscience, by whose persuasion although an evil object do not
become naturally good, yet it becomes personally necessary ; and in
the same proportion a good object may become evil.

§ 3. The purpose of this is to remonstrate that we must rather
look to the rule than to the present persuasion; first taking care
that our conscience be truly informed, before it be suffered to pass a
sentence; and it is not enough that our conscience tells us thus,
unless God hath told the conscience. But yet if the conscience
does declare, it engages us, whether it be right or wrong. But this
hath in it some variety.

§ 4. 1) The goodness of an act depends upon the goodness of an
object, that is, upon its conformity to a rational nature and the com-
mands of God. Eor all acts of will and understanding are of them-
selves indefinite and undetermined till the relation to an object be
considered, but they become good or bad when they choose or refuse

x [Prov. xviii. 5.]

CHAP. II.] OP THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 121

that which is good or bad respectively. To will to do an act of
theft is bad, because theft itself is so : to be willing to commit an
act of adultery is evil, because all adultery is evil : and on the other
side, to be willing to do an act of justice, is therefore good because
justice itself is good. And therefore Aristotle y defines justice by a
habitude or relation to its object. It is voluntas dancli suum cuique,
a will of giving to every one that which is their due. And therefore
our conscience, because it is to receive its information from the rule
by which every action is made good or bad, and its motion from the
object, is bound to take in that only which is really and truly good,
and without sin or error cannot do otherwise.

§ 5. 2) Although conscience is bound to proceed this way, yet
sometimes the younger takes the elder brother by the heel, or gets
out before him, and the act gets before the object by indirect means.
For though all things should be thought good because they are
good, yet some things are made good because they are thought so ;
and the conscience looking out upon its object finds error dressed up
in the shape of truth, and takes it in, and adopts it into the portion
of truth. And though it can never be made really and naturally
good, yet by being supposed so by the conscience, it is sometimes
accepted so by God.

§ 6. 3) Although the rule by which good and bad is measured be
in itself perfect, yet it is not always perfectly received by us. Good
is proportionable to reason ; and as there is probahiliter verum, so
there is probahiliter bonum, a probable good, as well as a probable
truth: and in the inquest after this, we often shew a trick of
humanity, even to be pitifully deceived ; and although when it is so,
it is an allay of the good it intends, yet it does not wholly destroy
it : God in His goodness accepting at our hands for good, what we
really and innocently suppose to be so. Just like the country fellow
that gave a handful of water to his prince2; he thought it a fine
thing, and so it was accepted. For when the action and the rule are
to be made even, if either of thern comply and stoop, the equality is
made. God indeed requires the service of all our faculties, but calls
for no exact measures of any but the will. For the acts of the will
are perfect in their kind, but our understanding is imperfect, there-
fore this may find an excuse, but that never.

§ 7. 4) Upon this account it is that though the goodness or
badness of an act depends upon the quality of the object regularly
and naturally, yet the acts become irregularly or accidentally good or
bad by the conscience, because the conscience changes the object ;
that is, the act is good by the object really good, or so apprehended.
The object always changes or constitutes the act, but the conscience
changing the object immediately, hath a mediate influence upon the
act also, and denominates it to be such as in the event it proves.

r [Eth. Nic, lib. v. cap. 1. torn. ii. p. 1129: Eth. Meg., lib. i. cap. 33. p. 1193.]
* [Plutarch. Artax., cap. v. tom. v. p. 452.]

12£ OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

But then in what degrees, and to what events this change is made is
of more intricate consideration.

WHAT CHANGES CAN BE MADE IN MORAL ACTIONS BY THE PERSUASION

AND FORCE OF CONSCIENCE.

§ 8. 1) Whatsoever is absolutely and indispensably necessary to
be done, and commanded by God expressly, cannot be changed by
conscience into an evil, or into that which is unnecessary. Because
in such cases where the rule is plain, easy, and fitted to the con-
science, all ignorance is voluntary, and spoils the consequent act, but
never can legitimate it. And the same reason is for tilings plainly
and expressly forbidden, as adultery, murder, sacrilege, and the like;
they can never become good by any act of conscience. And therefore
in such cases it often happened that God did declare His judgment
to be contrary to the opinion which men had of themselves and of
their actions. Sometimes men live contrary to their profession ;
they profess the worship of God, but " deny Him in their hearts *"
even when they least think they do. Thus the Israelites having con-
strained Aaron to make a golden calf proclaimed a feast, " to-morrow
is a feast unto Jehovah b •" but God says of them, " they offered
sacrifice to devils and not to Godc." And so it was with their
children after them, who killed and persecuted the apostles and
servants of Jesus, and thought they did God good service. He that falls
down before an idol, and thinks to do honour to the Lord ; or robs
a temple, and thinks it is for religion, must stand or fall, not by his
own fancy, but by sentence of God, and the rule of His law ; protes-
tatio contra factum is invalid in law. To strike a man's eye out,
and say he done it in sport ; to kill his brother, and think it is well
done, because done to prevent his sin, though it may be thought
charity by the man, yet it is murder before God.

§ 9. 2) Where the rule is obscure, or the application full of
variety or the duty so intricate that the conscience may inculpably
err, there the object can be changed by conscience, and the acts
adopted into a good or an evil portion by that influence. He that
thinks it unlawful to give money to a poor Turk, hath made it to
become unlawful to him, though of itself it seems to be a pious act.
So also it is in the uncertain application of a certain proposition. It
is certainly unlawful to commit adultery ; but if Jacob supposes he
lies with Rachel, and she prove to be Leah, his conscience hath not
changed the rule, but it hath changed the object and the act : the
object becomes his own by adoption, and the act is regular by the
integrity of the will. This is that which is affirmed by the apostle d,

a [Tit. i. 16.] hunc locum, [torn. ix. p. 711 sq.] S.

*> [Exod. xxxii. 5.] Ambros. ibid. [torn. ii. append, col. 102.]

c [Deut. xxxii. 17.] et Theopli/l. ibid. [p. 138.]

0 [Rom. xiv. 14.] Vide Chrysost. in

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 123

" I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing
unclean of itself, but he that thinketh it is unclean, to him it is
unclean." This instance is in a case in which they might easily be
mistaken, and innocently abused by reason of the prepossession of
their minds by Moses' law; and therefore in such cases the con-
science rides. They who believe themselves married, may mutually
demand and pay their duty. But if they be not married, it is forni-
cation or adultery (as it happens.) But if conscience says they are
married, it is not adultery, but an act of duty, because the same con-
science that declares for the marriage, obliges also to pay their duty,
as a matter of necessity. Wherever the understanding is wrong,
and the will is wholly right, the action is accepted, and the error
pardoned.

§ 10. 3) When the act is materially evil, the conscience adopting
it into a good portion, that is, believing it to be good, does not make
a perfect change, but leaves an allay in the several degrees of its
persuasion. For it is impossible that a right conscience and a wrong
should have no difference in the effect, especially if there be any
thing criminal or faulty in the cause of the error. When two men
take up arms in a differing cause, as suppose one for his prince, and
the other against him ; though they be both heartily persuaded, and
act according to conscience, yet they do not equally do well or ill.
The one shall be accepted, and it may be, the other pardoned, or
excused in various degrees. But this which needs a pardon for one
thing, is not in the whole constitution of it, good for any thing, nor
can it be accepted to reward.

§ 11. 4) If the conscience dictate a thing to be necessary, the
thing is become necessary, and at no hand to be declined. This was
it which S. Paul said e, " He that is circumcised is a debtor of the
whole law;" meaning, that though Christ had broken the yoke of
Moses, yet if conscience did take up one end of it, and bound it
upon itself; the other end would be dragged after it, and by the act
of conscience become necessary. If a man enquires, whether he is
bound to say his prayers kneeling, or whether he may do it standing,
or lying, or leaning : if his conscience be persuaded that he must do
it kneeling, it is necessary he should do so, and he may not do it in
his bed. Because the conscience is a lawgiver, and hath authority
over the man, and ought to prevail, when the contrary part is only
that they may do otherwise. For whether this part be true or false,
the matter is not so great, because there is no danger if a man do
not make use of a liberty that is just. He can let it alone and do
well enough ; and therefore to follow the other part which is sup-
posed necessary, must needs be his safest way.

But if the question be, whether it be necessary to keep a holy
day, or necessary to let it alone ; there if the conscience determine
that for necessary to be done, which is necessary to be let alone, the

* [Gal. v. 3.]

124 OP THE EIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

man is indeed bound to follow his conscience, but he cannot escape
a sin. Tor conscience makes no essential alterations in the thing,
though it makes personal obligations to the man; and if it be an
evil superstition to keep a holy day, it cannot be made lawful, because
the conscience mistaking calls it necessary. And if this were other-
wise, it were not a pin matter what a man thought, for his thinking
so becomes his law, and every man may do what is right in his own
eyes. And therefore God was pleased expressly to declare it, that if
a prophet did mislead the people, both he and they should perish ;
and our blessed Saviour signified the same thing in a parabolical
expression, " if the blind lead the blind, they both fall into the
ditch i." But in this case there is a fault somewhere, and the man
smarts under the tyranny, not the empire of his conscience; for
conscience can have no proper authority against the law of God. In
this case that which the conscience falsely calls necessary, becomes
so relatively and personally (that is, he thinks so, and cannot inno-
cently go in the right way, so long as his guide conducts him in the
wrong, and yet cannot innocently follow his guide because she does
abuse him ;) but in itself, or in the divine acceptation, it only passes
for a bonum, something there is in it that is good, and that God may
regard; there is a praparatlo animi, a willingness to obey.

§ 12. 5) If the conscience being mistaken in a question, whether
an action be good or no, calls that good which is nothing but in-
different; the conscience alters it not, it is still but lawful; but
neither necessary nor good, but relatively and collaterally. The
person may be pitied, and have a gift given him in acknowledgment,
but the thing itself cannot expect it. When the lords of the Philis-
tines, that they might deprecate the divine judgments, offered to God
golden mice and emerods, the thing itself was not at all agreeable to
the way by which God chose to be worshipped ; but their conscience
told them it was good, it therefore became lawful to them, but not
good in itself; and God who is the Father of mankind saw their heart,
and that they meant it for good, and He was pleased to take it so.
But the conscience (I say) cannot make it good. For to be good or
bad is wholly another consideration than to be necessary or not
necessary. This distinction is relative to persons, and therefore can
be made by conscience in the sense above allowed. But good and
bad is an abstract consideration, and relates to the materiality of the
object, and is before the act of conscience, not after.

§ 13. 6) If the conscience being mistaken calls a thing lawful
which is not so in the rule, or law of God, there the conscience neither
makes an alteration in the thing, nor passes an obligation upon the
person. Eleonora de Ferrante was married to a Spanish gentleman,
who first used her ill, then left her worse. After some years she is
courted by Andrea Philippi her countryman, to marry him. She
enquires whether she may or no, and is told by some whom she ought

f [Matt. xv. 14 j Luke vi. 39.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE RIGHT OR SURE CONSCIENCE. 125

not easily to have believed, that she may ; and so she does. But
being told by her confessor of her sin and shame, she pretends that
she did it bono animo, her conscience was persuaded she might do
it, and therefore hopes to be excused or pardoned. He answers her,
that her conscience could not make that lawful which God had
forbidden, and therefore she ought not to pretend conscience ; for
though her conscience did say it was lawful, she was not bound to
follow it ; because though she must do nothing that is unlawful, yet
she is not tied to do every thing that is lawful : and though her con-
science can give her a law, yet it cannot give her a privilege. She
is bound to do what her conscience says is necessary, though it be
deceived, and if she does not, she sins against her conscience, which
can never be permitted or excused. But if her conscience tells her
only it is lawful so to do ; if she does not do the thing which her
conscience permits, she offends it not, because though it allows, yet
it does not command it. If therefore she does it, and there be an
error in the conscience, the sin is as great as the error, great as the
matter itself; as if the fact materially be adultery, it is also morally
so, and the persuasion of the conscience does not excuse it from
being such. The reason is plain : for since the conscience when she
allows does not command, if the person chooses that thing which
materially is a sin, it is in pursuance of her own desires, not in
obedience to her conscience; it is lust more than conscience. But
yet whereas she says she hopes for pardon in this case, there is no
question but she may : for she sinned as S. Paul did in persecuting
the church; he did it ignorantly, and so did she. Here only was
the difference; he was nearer to pardon than she; because he
thought he was bound to do so, and therefore could not resist his
conscience so persuaded : she only thought she might do it, and
therefore might have chosen. The conscience hath power in obliga-
tions and necessities, but not so much, nor so often in permissions.

126 OF THE CONFIDENT, [_BOOK I.

CHAP. III.

OF THE CONFIDENT, OR ERRONEOUS CONSCIENCE.

EULE I.

AN ERRONEOUS CONSCIENCE COMMANDS US TO DO WHAT WE OUGHT TO OMIT ;
OR TO OMIT WHAT WE OUGHT TO DO, OR TO DO IT OTHERWISE THAN WE
SHOULD.

§ 1. In this there is no other difficulty but in the last clause.
For when our blessed Lord had propounded an instance of perfection,
he that not only obeys the counsel, but thinks it to be a command-
ment, and necessary to be done in all times and persons, enters into
an error at the gate of zeal, and at the same place lets out the excel-
lency of his love. Christ hath recommended renunciation of the
world, spiritual castration for the kingdom of God, dying for our
enemies, &c. ; he that in zeal, with charity and prudence follows
these advices will find his reward swell high ; but he whose zealous
desire to grow towards perfection, shall so determine his practice, as
that by degrees he shall think these counsels individually necessary,
hath abused his conscience, laid a snare for others, put fetters upon
christian liberty, and is passed into that state of doing it, that
though he entered first by love, he is gone beyond it, and changed
it into fear, and scruple, and superstition : he is at last got so far
that he would not do it at all if he durst do otherwise ; and he dares
not, because his love was zealous, and his zeal was imprudent, and
his imprudence was a furious snare, and the passion of a mighty folly.
§ 2. But an erroneous conscience is generally abused by two
manners of proceeding. First, by a true application of a false pro-
position : thus,

Whatsoever is done against my conscience is a sin :
But to allow of magistrates is against my conscience,
Therefore it is certainly a sin that they be allowed.
The first proposition is not true, unless it be understood of him only,
against whose conscience it is done, and then it is always true,
either absolutely or relatively, originally or accidentally. But if it
be intended to conclude, that because it is against my conscience to
allow them, therefore it is simply unlawful, or unlawful to every one
else, this is a paralogism, and makes an erring conscience. Or
secondly, the conscience is abused, and made erroneous by a false
application of a true proposition.

CHAP. III.] OR ERRONEOUS CONSCIENCE. 127

Whatsoever is forbidden by God is a sin :

But every oath is forbidden by God,

Therefore every oath is a sin.
Every thing here is true but the conclusion. The second proposition
is true, but not universally. For S. James saying, " swear not at alls,"
forbids all kinds of oaths materially : that is, in that sense in which
any is forbidden, in the same all are forbidden. Without just
authority and occasion it is not lawful to swear by God, therefore
without such authority, neither is it lawful to swear by a creature.
So that his words mean thus; except in such a case, f swear not at
all/ that is, not with any kind of oath ; for unless that case occurs
to warrant it, this or that oath is criminal as well as any : that is, it
is no excuse in common talk to say, it was but a slight oath, for you
must not swear at all, viz., in such circumstances.

THE CAUSES OF ERROR, ARE

§ 3. 1) Ignorance, either of right or fact. For no other division
of ignorance can concern the relation of an erring conscience : for
although a man is otherwise concerned in ignorance if it be vincible,
otherwise if it be invincible, yet his will is concerned in that directly,
and his conscience but collaterally and indirectly.

§ 4. 2) Fear whether it be pusillanimous, or superstitious, that is,
whether it begin upon religion, or upon natural imbecility, they
alike abuse the conscience. Ignorance makes it erroneous, but takes
not away its confidence, but oftentimes increases it : fear makes it
erroneous too, and though it begins in doubting, it ends in a silly
choice, which grows to as much confidence as it can, so much as to
establish the error.

§ 5. 3) To this usually is reduced a morose humility and abjec-
tion of mind, which because it looks pitifully and simply, some men
in charity think it laudable : so Antoninus particularly : and it is the
same that S. Gregory h recommends, Bonanim quippe mentium est, ibi
etiam aliquo modo culpas suas agnoscere, ubi culpa noil est : ' it is
the sign of a good mind to accuse themselves of a fault when there
is none/ Which if it relates to the present affairs is dangerous and
illusive. For if the question be in a case of conscience, and the
conscience be determined upon its proper grounds innocently and right,
there to acknowledge a fault in the conscience or determination, is to
make the rule itself crooked, to introduce eternal scruples and irre-
solution, to disturb our own peace, and a device to snatch at a
reward by thrusting it from us, and to think to please God by telling
of a lie. But if the saying relates to all the whole action in all its
conjugation of circumstances and appendages, then it may consist
with humility and prudence both, to suspect a fault where there is
none ; to fear lest we have erred by excess of degrees in passion, or
by remissness and slackness of action, or by obliquity of intention, or

a [James v. 12.] * Part. 1. deorct. diet. v. c. 4. [col. 17.]

] 28 OP THE CONFIDENT, [BOOK I.

intertexture of some undecency, cr weariness, or sensuality, or com-
placency, and phantastic deliciousness, or something secret, and we
know not what. But even in this case, we may best follow S. Paul's
expedient and manner of expression, Nihil mihi conscius sum, ' I am
guilty of nothing V my heart smites me not, ' yet I am not hereby
justified, for God is greater than my conscience/ I may for aught I
know have done some thing amiss, or my duty not well, but as I
cannot accuse myself, so neither can I acquit myself, but refer myself
to God's equal and merciful sentence. What goes beyond this may
abuse the conscience, not only by a secret scruple, but by an evil
principle and false conclusions : and this, although it looks like
modesty, and seems contrary to confidence, and therefore cannot be
so well reduced to this kind of conscience, but to the doubting, or
the scrupulous ; yet I have chosen to place it here, for the reason
above mentioned. It looks in at the door with a trembling eye, but
being thrust in, it becomes bold. It is like a fire-stick which in the
hand of a child being gently moved, gives a volatile and unfixed
light, but being more strongly turned about by a swift circular
motion, it becomes a constant wheel of fire : or like a bashful sinner
sneaking to his lust, till he be discovered, and then he is impudent
and hardened. And there are very many wise men who tremble in
their determinations, and not being able clearly to resolve, fall upon
one part by a chance, or interest, or passion, and then they are forced
for their peace sake to put on an accidental hardness, and a voluntary,
not a natural confidence. But this confidence is commonly peevish,
impatient, and proud, hating all contradiction and contradictors;
because it was only an art to sleep, and to avoid the first trouble,
and therefore hates every thing that brings them forth from their
phantastic securities.

§ 6. Other causes of an erroneous conscience here usually are
assigned, but in artificially I suppose, and not of present concernment
or relation. Such as are the subtraction of the divine aids, God's
leaving a man, and giving him over ds vovv aboKi^xov, and to believe
a lie; perplexity, or irresolution, self-love, pride, prejudice, and
passion ; perit enim omne judicium cum res transient in affectum,
quia affcctus obscurat intellectum ne recte judicet, said Seneca.
When affection sits judge, there reason and truth are seldom admitted
to plead, or if they are, yet they cannot prevail.

Impedit ira ammum ne possit cernere verum k.

But these are no otherwise causes of an erroneous conscience, but as
they are causes of ignorance or deception ; for in this case I reckon
them to be but one; an error being nothing else but an ignorance
of truth, which whether it be culpable or inculpable, and at what
gate it enters, is of another disquisition, and shall be reserved to its
proper place.

1 [1 Cor. iv. 4.]

k [Dionys. Cato, lib. ii. distich. 5. p. 29, 8vo. Amst. 164C]

CHAP. III.] OR ERKONEOUS CONSCIENCE. 129

EULE II.

AN ERRONEOUS CONSCIENCE BINDS US TO OBEDIENCE, BUT NOT SO AS A RIGHT

CONSCIENCE DOES.

§ 1. The object can move the will no otherwise than as it is pro-
pounded by the understanding. If it be propounded as evil, the
will that chooses it under that formality is criminal and malicious :
if it be propounded as good, the will that rejects it so propounded
despises good; for it is so to the will, if it be so to the understand-
ing, which is the judge and the immediate rule of all human actions.
And he that does a good thing while he believes it to be evil, does
choose the evil, and refuse the good ; for he does therefore because
he believes it evil, or though he thinks it so, and therefore is equally
disposed to choose a real evil : for that this is not so, is but extrin-
sical and accidental to his choice.

§ 2. If this were not thus, but that it were possible to be other-
wise, then we might suppose that a man might do a thing reason-
ably, for which he hath no reason; and a human action without
the natural process of humanity, that is, to choose by chance, and
unnaturally, to choose for a reason that he hath not, and a good
that appears not, which is like beholding of a thing that he sees not.
The Jew thinks it is his duty to be circumcised, and to keep the
sabbath. While in this error he is confident, by what argument can
he be moved to omit it? If you give him reasons, you seek to cure
his error, and to alter his persuasion : but while this persuasion is
not altered, how can he be moved to omit it? If you give him no
reasons, you desire him to omit it because he thinks he ought not,
and to do an action because it seems unreasonable, and follow your
opinion because he believes it false ; that is, to obey you because he
ought not, which is a way not possible to prevail with a wise man, or
with a fool ; how it may work with any sort of madness, I know not.

§ 3. But against this rule, some contend earnestly, in particular
Gulielmus Parisiensis ', and some that follow him, saying it is impos-
sible that an erring or a lying conscience should oblige a man to
follow it. The thing hath great influence upon our whole life, and
therefore is wrorth a strict survey.

Quest.

Whether a false and an abused conscience can oblige us to pursue
the error?

That it cannot these reasons are or may be pretended.

1) Because it seems to be absurd to say, that when the error
itself is not a sin at all, or but a little one, that it can be a great sin
to follow a man's own humour against that error. If a man should
do according to his error, it could at most be but a small sin, and

1 [De vit. et peccat, cap. x. p. 278, 9.]

130 OF THE CONFIDENT, [BOOK I.

therefore to go against it cannot be greater. For the error can
oblige no higher than its own nature, as rivers cannot arise above
their fountains.

§ 4. 2) But it is a more material consideration ; if an erring con-
science obliges us to follow it, then some men are bound to persecute
the church, and the high-priests sinned not in crucifying Christ;
and the zealots of the Jews did well in afflicting the apostles and
disciples of Jesus, because they did it ignorantly, and by the dictate
of an erring conscience ; and S. Paul n says of himself before his
conversion, ' I myself thought I ought to do many things against the
name of the Lord Jesus •' and yet he sinned in following his erring
conscience; and therefore certainly could not be bound to it. In
pursuance of which,

§ 5. 3) S. Bernard argues thus ° : ' To follow truth is always good ;
but if by the conscience we can be bound to follow error, and that
in that case it is not good to follow truth ; that is, if a good may
become evil by the sentence of an erring conscience, and so great an
evil as it supposes it to be, then by the same reason that which is
evil may by the like sentence become good, and so great a good as
it is supposed ; and then may a man be chaste for committing adul-
tery, and charitable for committing murder, and religious for worship-
ing idols, and pious to his parents in denying to relieve them from
the corban ; all which consequence being intolerable, the antecedent
which infers them must needs be false/

§ 6. 4) It is true indeed, the conscience is our guide and our
lawgiver, our judge and our rule ; but it is not our lord, nor in the
present case is it an authentic record, but a xj/evheTTLypaipov, a heap of
lies and errors, and therefore cannot be a true guide, and we are not
tied to follow any leader to hell. Better it is in this case to follow
the conscience of a wiser and a better man than myself, it being
more reasonable that we be tied to follow his right, than our own
wrong conscience.

§ 7. 5) For if still we were bound to follow our abused con-
science, then we were bound to impossibilities, for then either we
wrere not at all bound to follow God, or if we w7ere, and yet bound
to follow our conscience against God, we were bound at the same
time to do and not to do the same thing ; ' to serve two masters,'
which our blessed Saviour said ' no man can do/

§ 8. 6) But therefore in this case God must be obeyed and not
man ; it being impious to say that the law of our conscience should
derogate from, or wholly evacuate the law of God, by which alone
we ought to be governed. TW if this law of conscience takes away
the obligation of the divine lawr, or if the divine law take away
the obligation of conscience when it errs, then they must cease re-
spectively; and the event will be this, that as long as God's law

n [Acts xxvi. 9. ] ° Lib. <le praecept., et dispels, [capp. xvii, xviii. col. 934 — 6.]

CHAP. III.] OB, ERRONEOUS CONSCIENCE. 181

binds us (which is for ever) the law of an erring conscience cannot
bind us.

§ 9. 7) And there are in this great proportions of reason. For
if the will be bound to lay down all its rods and axes, all the ensigns
of empire at the foot of the throne of God, doing or refusing by the
command of God against its own inclination, it will not be imagined
that the conscience, that is, the practical understanding, hath any
such privilege indulged to it, that it can be exempt from the juris-
diction of God, or that it can oblige in defiance of His laws.

§ 10. 8) For it is certain, conscience is God's creature, bound to
its Lord and maker by all the rights of duty and perfect subordina-
tion, and therefore cannot prejudice the right and power of its Lord ;
and no wise man obeys the orders of a magistrate against the express
law of his king ; or the orders of a captain against the command of
his general; and therefore neither of conscience which is God's
messenger, against the purpose of the message with which God
intrusted it. However, it is better to obey God than man; to
follow the law of God than to go against it; to do that which we
should, rather than that which we should not.

§ 11. 9) And there can be no more necessity upon us to follow
our conscience teaching us, than our conscience binding us; and
yet if a contract that is vicious be made, or an oath that is unlawful
be uttered, the obligations of conscience cease, because they are
against the law of God ; and how then can conscience against this
law of God in any sense pass an obligation? But this rather, that
as we are bound not to commit a crime, so not to follow an error
and a lie.

§ 12. 10) For it is impossible that our opinion, or falsely per-
suaded conscience, should make any alteration in the thing. If it
was evil in itself, it is so still ; and my thinking that mercury is not
poison, nor hellebore purgative, cannot make an antidote and deletery
against them, if I have upon that confidence taken them into my
stomach; and the sun is bigger than the earth, though I foolishly
think it no wider than a bushel. And therefore in such cases the
conscience can have no power, and can bind us to nothing but to lay
our error down. Because as to him that is in error, it were mad-
ness to bid him err more ; so to him that hath an erring conscience,
it were equally evil to bid him pursue, and actuate and consummate
his error; which yet he were bound to do, if an erring conscience
could bind him.

§ 13. 11) Lastly, if an erring conscience binds us to obedience, it
either binds us by its own independent, ingenite power, or by a
power derived from God. If by a power derived from God, then
God commands us to believe a lie, to commit a sin, to run after false
fires and illusions, which to affirm seems to be blasphemy; but if it
binds us by its own power, then our conscience can make God's law
to become unlawful to us, and we shall be stronger than God, and a

k 2

132 OK THE CONFIDENT, [BOOK I.

man's self becomes his own rule ; and he that is deceived by a false
opinion is a lawgiver to himself, and error shall be the measure of
good and evil.

§ 14. These are the arguments which are used by several persons
respectively in verification of the opinion of Parisiensis, which I have
not only heaped here together, but added some and improved the
rest, that by the collision of these with their answers, the truth might
be made more useful and evident ; and divers collateral things inci-
dent to the main question might be spoken of; and those arguments
remain valid which I brought for the affirmative in the first and
second paragraphs of this rule. To the first therefore I answer:

§ 15. 1) That it is not the error that binds us to follow it, but
the conscience in error; and therefore although the error can have
no force greater than its own nature and proper energy, yet our
conscience can bind beyond the force of error. As if a general com-
mands a soldier to turn to the right hand under pain of death ; if he
mistaking turn to the left, the event is greater than can be effected
by the intentional relations of right or left hand, but depends upon
the reason, and the command, the power and empire of the general.
§ 16. 2) To the second, I answer, that it follows not, because the
erring conscience binds, therefore the obedience is not a sin. For
such is or may be the infelicity of an abused conscience, that if it
goes forward, it enters into folly, if it resists, it enters into madness,
if it flies, it dashes its head against a wall, or falls from a rock, if it
flies not, it is torn in pieces by a bear ; and the very instances make
it clear; the rulers of the Jews and S. Paul were both called to
repent of that wThich they did in obedience to their erring conscience,
which cannot legitimate impiety, but only make the one or the other
instance to be unavoidable.

§ 17. 3) To that which S. Bernard objects, the answer is easy
upon another account; for conscience may make a good thing evil
to it, because besides the goodness of the object to make an action
lawful there is required the faith and persuasion of the agent ; and
if this be wanting, as it is in an erring conscience that believes not
the goodness of it, the action is evil, by reason of the destitution of
an integral part. Por, bonum ex Integra causa, malum ex quallbet
particttlari* ', and by the same reason, conscience cannot make an
evil thing good, because besides the persuasion of conscience, there
is required the goodness of the object, which if it be wanting, one
ingredient cannot make it good ; all must enter into the constitution
of good, though the want of one is enough to spoil it.

§ 18. 4) To the fourth I answer, that because the conscience is
in error, and the principle within is a \p-€vb€7riypa<fiov, a false record,
therefore it is true, that we are not absolutely tied to follow its
conduct, but we are tied to lay the error aside, that we may follow
it in strait ways; but in the present constitution of affairs it is

r> [Dionys. Areop. — See vol. iv. p. 514.]

CHAP. III.] OR ERRONEOUS CONSCIENCE. 133

miserable, and because we must follow our leader, that is, all that
can go before us, we do go to hell, or to mischief ; not that we are
by God bound to do this, but only to do that, and it is by our own
fault that we are bound to fall into an evil portion : God binds
us to follow our conscience, we spoil it by some folly or other, and
then we follow it ; the evil appendage is our own, the law by which
God bound us was holy. Nature requires of us to drink at our
meals : but if we have corrupted all our beverage q, we must drink
unwholesome draughts, but yet nature did not bind us to this
misfortune.

§ 19. 5) And therefore the answer to the next objection provides
us of a remedy against the former. We are bound absolutely to fol-
low the law of God ; but we are bound to follow the contrary law of
conscience erring, conditionally and by accident, that is, because we
have made our rule crooked which God had made straight. For to be
absolutely and irrespectively bound to follow God, and yet respectively
and by accident to be bound to follow the contrary conscience, are
not incompossibilities, or the parts of a contradiction, because they are
not ad idem, not in the same regards. But then, since it is impos-
sible that both these should be actually followed, therefore God does
not command us to follow our conscience and not to follow it at the
same time, but to follow our conscience, and to lay aside the error,
and then both parts are reconciled ; for God and the conscience are
but accidentally opposed, and God commanding us to follow our
conscience, took care that at the same time we should follow God
too, and therefore God taught our conscience, but when we get other
teachers, we make it impossible to obey God. Let us submit our
conscience to God, that is, lay aside our error, and then God and
conscience are not two masters, but one,, that is, God ; and conscience
is His deputy and subordinate. And in order to this, it is not ill
advised in the fourth objection, to follow the right conscience of a
wiser man ; to do so is a good expedient for the laying down our
error ; but it is not directly obligatory, so long as the error is con-
fident ; for I must not follow a wiser man in his right, if I believe
him to be in the wrong, and if I believe him to be in the right, and
he really be so, then I have laid aside my error, and indeed to do
this is our duty ; but this cannot be done till the error be discovered,
till then I must follow my own conscience, not the conscience of
another man.

§ 20. 6) To the sixth I answer, that the law of conscience cannot
derogate from the law of God, when they are placed in the eye of reason
over against each other ; that is, when the conscience sees the law of
God, no law, no persuasion, no humour, no opinion can derogate from it.
But an erring confident conscience believes that it follows God when
it does not. So that the law of God hath here a double effect. The
law of God apprehended by the conscience binds him to action ; but

i ['beaurage,' A, B.]

134 OF THE CONFIDENT, [BOOK I.

the law of God real and proper binds the man to lay aside Ills error.
Tor he that goes against the matter and the instance of the law of
God, does yet at the same time obey the sanction and authority,
because he proceeds to action in obedience to, and in reverence of the
law of God. The wife of Amphitryo was kind to her lord, when she
entertained Jupiter in his semblance ; and for Sosia's sake Mercury
was made much of : and because the error is dressed like truth, for
truth's sake we hug and entertain the error. So here : the law of
God is not despised, much less evacuated by following the dictate of
conscience, because it is for the sake of God's law that this con-
science is followed : and therefore since by accident they are made
opposite, the event of it cannot be that one must cease, for both
may and must stand, but nothing must cease but the error.

§ 21. 7) And therefore although the will must cease from its own
pleasure, when God's will is known to be clear against it, yet the under-
standing must not cease from that which it supposes to be the will
of God, till the error be discovered, but when it is, then it must as
much cease from its own ways as the will must, for every under-
standing as well as every proud will must be submitted to the
obedience of Jesus.

§ 22. 8) For conscience being God's creature, and His subordinate,
cannot possibly prejudice the rights of God, for as soon as God's
right appears, and His laws are read, conscience doth and must obey ;
but this hinders not but that conscience must be heard when she
pretends the law of God for her warrant, so long as it is not known
but that she says true.

§ 23. 9) For it is in this as it is in contracts and oaths, so long as
they seem lawful they must be observed, and must not be rescinded
until it be discovered that they are against the law of God, and so it
is with the dictates of an erring conscience.

§ 24. 10) And the reason is plain, because conscience does not
make a real change in extreme objects (as I have formerly discoursed^) :
the things are good or bad by their proportions to God's law, and
remain so, whatever the conscience thinks ; but yet they put on vizors
and shapes, and introduce accidental obligations by error. Indeed
the error brings in no direct obligation but that it be discovered and
laid down : but so neither can it hinder but that conscience shall still
retain the power that God hath given it directly and principally ; that
is, that it be the man's rule and guide. For the fallacy that runs
through all the objections is this, that the erring conscience is in its
obligation considered as erring. Now it does not bind as erring, but
as conscience; that is, not by its error, but by its nature, and the
power of God, as being the reporter and record of His commands ;
against which he that bids our conscience to proceed indeed gives
ill counsel. He that counsels a man to follow his erring conscience,

i Chap. ii. rule 9. [p. 120, &c. above.]

CHAP. III.] OR ERRONEOUS CONSCIENCE. 135

invites him to folly ; he tells him he is in error, and bids him not lay
it down. But he that advises him to follow his conscience, though it
happens in the truth of things that his conscience be in error, med-
dles not at all in the countenancing the error, but in the power of
conscience.

§ 25. 11) For all the obligation which our conscience passes on
us is derivative from God, and God commands us to follow our con-
science, but yet He commands us not to sin ; because His com-
manding us to follow our conscience supposes our conscience in-
structed by the word of God and right reason, and God had ap-
pointed sufficient means it should be; but that conscience offers a
sin to the obedience is wholly the man's fault, and besides the in-
tention of God. God hath not made us to sin, but hath committed
us to the conduct of conscience, which by prevaricating its instruc-
tions hath betrayed us.

§ 26. By this it appears what manner of obligation is passed upon
us by an erring conscience ; the conscience always hath the same
commission, as being the same faculty, the same guide : but because
itself is bound to the laws of God and right reason, so far as it fol-
lows them, so far it binds. But because when it is in error, it also
pretends them, by them it still binds, till the illusion be discovered.
Durandus expressed this by a distinction of words, in which himself
only made the difference. Ligat, sed non obliged r, so he. That is, it
hath not the same power that is in a right conscience. But it binds
us so that we cannot proceed to good. A right conscience directly
and finally binds us to the action itself : an erring conscience cannot
do that, because the action it offers is criminal, but it makes us take
that instead of what it ought to bind us to. That is, it hath the
same authority, but an evil exercise of it. The formal obligation is
the same, but when it comes to be instanced, it binds us to that in
which it hath no power. For though it hath power over us, yet it
hath no direct power in that particular matter.

§ 27. Cordubensis and Vasquez contradict this expression of Du-
randus, affirming that an erring conscience does llgare et obit gave.
I cannot well translate the words into a distinction, but their meaning
is this, that we are not bound positively to follow the error, but yet
so that we must not do the contrary. Which indeed is the same
thing ; and they going to reprove Durandus his distinction that hath
no difference, they do it by a contradiction that hath in it no oppo-
sition. For to say that an erring conscience does so bind us that we
must not contradict it, is to say that it positively binds us to follow
it. For if it commands us to follow it, and we must not go against
that command, is it not notorious and evident that we must positively
follow it. But for the establishing the measures of obedience in the
present case, these following rules are the best proportions.

r [Durandus a Sancto Portiano, in 2 Sent, tlist. xxxix. quasst. 5. § 7. p. -H3.]

136 OF THE CONFIDENT, [BOOK I.

THE MEASURES OF OBEDIENCE DUE TO AN ERRING CONSCIENCE.

§ 28. ]) If an erring conscience commands a tiling that is of
itself indifferent, we are bound to follow it, and we may do it without
sin. Because if it be indifferent, it is therefore lawful, and it cannot
cease in itself to be lawful, by being supposed to be necessary. Indeed
if a governor commands us to do a thing indifferent, and says it is
necessary, we may not do it under that compliance ; that is, we may
not betray our christian liberty, and accept that as simply necessary
which Christ hath left under liberty. We must do the thing, but
not own the necessity. But if an erring conscience bid us do an
indifferent, and represent it as a necessary action, though it may be a sin
to believe it necessary, yet it is no sin to do the action. For nothing
that supervenes can alter the nature of the thing, and a new personal
necessity introduced by an erring conscience, by making it seem
necessary to him, changes it not from being lawful in itself. But
then it infers this also, that as it may be done without sin, so without
a sin it cannot be left undone : because the error hath made it per-
sonally necessary, and the truth of God hath made it lawful really.

§ 29. 2) If an erring conscience dictate a thing to be good which
is not good, not to follow that dictate, and not to do that thing is no
sin. Because every good is not necessary, and it may be good or
seem so, and yet to omit it in certain circumstances, may be equally
good or better.

§*3Q. 3) If an erring conscience affirm that which is good, or
which is indifferent, to be evil and vicious ; as if it says, it is a sin to
spit upon the pavement of a church, or that it is superstition to serve
the poor in an hospital, it is no sin to omit that indifferent or that
commendable action ; because here is no command of God to counter-
mand the resolution of conscience, and therefore the error may become
a snare and a hindrance, but no direct cause of sin ; because such
actions in themselves not being necessary, it cannot be criminal upon
a less reason to omit them. But upon the same account it is a sin
to do them, because they are not of faith, and the conscience being
persuaded against them, they are sins. For any deficiency of a neces-
sary ingredient makes a sin.

§ 31. 4) If an erring conscience say that such an action is lawful
only, when of itself it is good and laudable, we sin not if we do it, or
if we do it not. For in this case neither is there any direct obligation
from God, nor any indirect obligation from conscience, and therefore
the man is wholly permitted to his liberty : although it may be a pious
action to pray kneeling on the ground with bare knees, or prostrate
on our faces, yet if conscience says it is in no sense laudable, but that
it is lawful only, we may safely do it ; but then there is no other effect
of such an action, than there is of scratching a man's head with one
finger, and it cannot be commendable in him to do an action in which
he believes there is no worthiness.

CHAP. III.] OR, ERRONEOUS CONSCIENCE. 1,37

§ 32. 5) If an erring conscience commands what is simply evil, or
forbids to do that which is absolutely commanded, the man sins
whether he obeys or obeys not. In one case he sins against his rule,
and in the other against his guide, and any one miscarriage is enough
to introduce a sin : but this will be the matter of the next rule. The
use of these rules is not at all effective upon erring consciences, while
the error remains ; for the advices supposing the error are not appli-
cable to them who will not suppose themselves in error. But they
are applicable to consciences recovered from their error, and are useful
in the conduct of their repentance, because they describe the respective
measures of sin and innocence, and what obligations of sorrows and
amends are left behind when the error is gone.

To these may be added those rules which I have already given,
concerning the changes which can be made in moral actions, by the
persuasion and force of conscience, chap. ii. rule 9s.

RULE III.

A CONSCIENCE ERRING VINCIBLY OR CULPABLY IS AN UNAVOIDABLE CAUSE OF
SIN, WHETHER IT BE RESISTED OR COMPLIED WITH.

§ 1. When the error proceeds of malice or negligence, the man is
guilty according to the venom of the ingredient ; there is a sin in the
principle, and this leads to an action materially evil. He that makes
assemblies against his prelate, and thinks he may lawfully do it, does
an action for which by the laws he is punishable ; but to God he is
to answer besides the action, for the sin that led him to that error.

Quest.

§ 2. But if it be enquired, whether that also be a sin which is in
obedience to his conscience, that is, whether the instance of the action
be a sin, beside the malice of the principle, and so every such action
become a double sin : I answer, that it is according as the instance is.

§ 3. 1) If it be against a prime principle, in which we are natu-
rally, or any way greatly instructed, then the error is culpable in that
manner that it remains voluntary all the way ; and then not only the
introduction or first principle, but the effect also is a sin. The man
hath only put a blind before his eyes, and in every reflex action it is
discovered, and he knows it habitually all the way. And therefore
in this case the conscience ought not to be obeyed. For the conscience
is but imperfect and equivocal, violent and artificial1. It is persuaded

" Tp- 120.] disp. i. punct. 6. n.3. [p. 5. ed. fol. Lugd.

« Castropal. op. moral., toin. i. tract, i. 1631.]

138 OF THE CONFIDENT, [BOOK. I.

in the act, and convinced of the evil in the habit or reflex act, and is
no otherwise deceived, than a man is blind that wears a hood upon
his eye.

§ 4. 2) If the conscience be possessed with a damnable error, and
in a great matter, and this possession is a dereliction and a punish-
ment from God for other crimes, it is no matter whether we call the
consequent action a sin or no. For the man is in a state of repro-
bation, and the whole order of things and actions in that state are
criminal formally or equivalently. His prayers are an abomination ;
and if so, then the actions that are materially evil are much worse,
and in estimation are prosecutions of the state of sin. Of this sort
are they that are given over to believe a lie ; all the consequent
actions are sins, just as the envies and blasphemies of damned people
are sins, or as the acts of devils are imputed : they are consigned to
death, and all the consequent actions are symbolical ; and it will be
always so, unless they can return to a state of repentance.

§ 5. 3) If the conscience be abused in a deduction, consequence,
or less certain proposition, by evil arts and prejudice, by interest and
partiality, there is so much evil in the whole determination, as there
was in the introducing cause of the error, and no more. For if the
action consequent to the persuasion were also a sin, then it ought not
to be done; but because in this case the conscience ought to be
obeyed, though in the whole affair there is a sin, and it is unavoid-
able, yet the sin is antecedent to the action and determination, but
no proper appendage or qualification of it. And since the object in
the present case transmits honesty and equity into the action, not
according to what it is in the thing, but according to what it is in
reason, it must needs be that we are obliged according to what we
find it to be in conscience. For in this case we know not what it is
in itself, and therefore by it we cannot be guided to choose or to
refuse ; but because we must be guided by something, it must be
wrholly by opinion and conscience.

§ 6. 4) If the conscience be weakly and innocently misguided,
there is no sin either in the error, or in the consequent action. Be-
cause no man is bound to do better than his best ; and if he hath no
sin in the principle of his error, it is certain he did his best, that is,
he did all his duty, and then to proceed by the best light he hath, is
agreeable to right reason and to religion.

§ 7. Upon the ground of these conclusions we may easily infer,
that though an erring conscience is to be followed (as it is above
explained) and yet that God also is entirely to be followed, and that
therefore a man by accident, and by his own fault may be entangled
in nervis testiculorum Leviathan (as S. Gregory's expression is out
of Job), in the infoldings of sin and Satan, and cannot escape inno-
cently so long as he remains in that condition ; yet because he need
not remain in that condition, but either by suspecting himself, or being
admonished by another, by enquiry and by prayer, he may lay his

CHAP. III.] OR ERRONEOUS CONSCIENCE. 139

error down, it follows, that to obey God never hath an unavoidable
dilemma, and never is impossible so long as the man is in a state and
possibility of repentance. Because every error that infers an action
that is formally as well as materially sinful, not only ought but may
also be deposed or laid down, because in such cases no man is invin-
cibly abused. No man can ever be in that condition, that to love
God shall become a sin to him ; because no man can really be igno-
rant, or properly entertain this opinion, that it is a sin to love God ;
that rebellion is lawful ; that adultery is no sin ; that it can be law-
ful to strike a prince for justice, or to break a commandment to pre-
serve the interest of a sect ; that a man may rob God in zeal against
idolatry and images. These things are so plainly taught, that an
error in these cannot choose but be malicious.

§ 8. But when the error is in such cases where either it is invincible
and irremediable, or where weakness pleads excuse, the action is in
that degree innocent in which the error is unavoidable. And if it
could be otherwise, then a case might happen in which by the laws of
God a man could be bound to that which is intrinsically evil, and
then God and not man were the author of the sin.

§ 9. The sum is this : God is supreme, and conscience is His
vicegerent and subordinate. Now it is certain, that the law of
an inferior cannot bind against the command of a superior when it
is known : but when the superior communicates the notices of his
will by that inferior, and no otherwise, the subject is to obey that
inferior; and in so doing he obeys both. But the vicegerent is to
answer for the misinformation, and the conscience for its error,
according to the degree of its being culpable.

RULE IV.

IT IS A GREATER SIN TO DO A GOOD ACTION AGAINST OUR CONSCIENCE, THAN
TO DO AN EVIL ACTION IN OBEDIENCE TO IT.

§ 1. This rule concerns degrees only, but is useful in the con-
ducting some actions of repentance ; and it is to be understood to
be true only in equal cases, and when there is no circumstance
aggravating one part. Eriar Clement the Jacobine thinks errone-
ously, that it is lawful to kill his king". The poor Darnoiselle
Eaucette thinks it unlawful to spit in the church v ; but it happened
that one day she did it against her conscience ; and the friar with
Ins conscience and a long knife killed the king. If the question be
here, who sinned most, the disparity is next to infinite, and the poor

u [See vol. vi. p. 284, and viii. 467.1 v [vid. Bardum, discept. iii. cap. 5. § i.

p. 102.] *

140 OP THE CONFIDENT, [BOOK I.

woman was to be chidden for doing against her conscience, and the
other to be hanged for doing according to his. Because the friar's
error could not be invincible and inculpable, hers might; and in
such questions, the effect of which is of so high concernment, because
the errors in them are supreme and dangerous, the inquisition ought
to be very great where there can be difficulty, and therefore the
negligence is always intolerable, and it is malicious where the dis-
covery is easy, as it is in these cases. And therefore in so different
materials the case can no way be equal, because in one there is a
greater light, a more ready grace, a perfect instruction, an evident
provision, an open restraint, and a ready commandment.

§ 2. But when the effect of the questions are equal and not
differenced by accidents, the rule is certain upon this reason : because
a sin done against knowledge, is greater than a sin done ignorantly.
He that sins against his conscience, sins against all his knowledge
in that particular. But if he sins against a commandment, which
he knows not to be such, he sins ignorantly, and therefore the more
excusably. " But I found mercy," saith S. Paul, " for 1 did it
ignorantly in unbelief V

§ 3. Upon this account it comes to be the same kind, and the
same degree of crime to sin against an erring, and to sin against a
ri°'ht conscience in the same instances. He that omits to hear
divine service on a festival when he hath no reasonable impediment,
and he who omits it upon a common day, which he erroneously
supposes to be a festival, hath equally prevaricated the law of the
church, and the analogy of the commandment of God on which this
of the church is founded, they being equally against his rule by
which he is to walk ; and this error hath no influence upon the will
or choice, but is wholly extrinsical to it. But this is to be under-
stood in errors of fact, and such as are inculpable, and have no
effect, and make no change in the will.

§ 4. And therefore in our penitential sorrows and expiations we
need not be curious to make a difference of them which have the
same formal malice ; and if we be taught to make any, it may have
this evil consequence in it, that we may love our ignorance, and
flatter ourselves in our irregularities, which we think will not be so
severely imputed, by reason of the error. If this be a great crime
to disobey our conscience teaching us righteous and true pro-
positions, it is on the other side also very great to suffer our con-
science to be so misled, that a good action shall become criminal
by such mistaking; so that besides the departing from our rule
which is equal in both, they have their own superadded evil to

weigh against each other.

» [1 Tim. i. 13.]

CHAP. III.] OR ERRONEOUS CONSCIENCE. 141

RULE V.

IT IS NOT LAWFUL TO DELIGHT IN AN EVIL ACTION (AFTER THE DISCOVERY OF

OUR error) which we did innocently in an erroneous conscience.

§ 1. The case is this; Quintus Hortensiusy received a forged
will of Minutius from some heeredipeta or testamentary cheaters,
and because they offered to verify it, and to give him a share, he
defended the forgery and possessed his part ; but when he afterwards
perceived the cheat, and yet detained the purchase, he grew infamous.
It was innocent till he knew it, but then it wras criminal. He should
not have pleased himself in it, because he should have restored it.
But in this there is no question.

§ 2. 1) But when the possession or purchase may lawfully remain,
there is some difference in the decision of the question. Spurinna2
striking a stag, involuntarily and unwittingly kills his brother, and
becomes rich by the inheritance. Here the man must separate the
effect from its relation, and so proceed. The inheritance was a
blessing, the accident wras a misfortune; and if he may not rejoice
in that, he may not give thanks for it, but as for a cross. But if he
pleases himself in the way of his entrance to it, he had a mind ready
to have killed his brother if he durst, or at least did secretly wish
him dead, that he might openly have his living. In this there is no
great difficulty to make the separation. God strikes a man with
blindness, and gives him a good memory; he sighs for that, and
rejoices for this. A little metaphysics makes this abstraction.

§ 3. 2) But concerning the act when it is discovered to have
been evil, he is to have no other complacency, but because he did it
ignorantly. He that suffers nocturnal pollution, if he finds a remedy
by it, is to rejoice that himself suffered it involuntarily, that is, he
may rejoice that he did not sin ; and of the innocence of the joy, he
can have no other testimony but by his hating the act in all cases in
which it is a sin, and refusing to do it. But the Trench woman
whom my L. Montaigne a speaks of, who having suffered a rape by
clivers soldiers, gave God thanks that without sin she had enjoyed
pleasure, had a criminal joy, and delighted in the action, for the
voluntary entertainment of which she only wanted an excuse.

§ 4. 3) If we consider the whole conjunction of things together,
the evil act with the advantageous effect, we are to be indifferent to
joy and sorrow, that is, to do neither directly, but to look on it as an

7 [Cic. de offic, lib. iii. cap. 18.] rales de conscientia, &c, of Bardus. See

[This case, as many others in the discept. iii. cap. 4, p. 100.]

present work, is apparently derived, with " [lib. ii. cap. 3. torn. ii. p. 294, 8vo.

the exception of the proper name, from Par. 1828.]
the Disceptationes et conclusiones mo-

142 OF THE CONFIDENT, [BOOK L

effect of the divine providence bringing good out of evil, and to fear
lest a joy in the whole should entitle us too nearly to the sin by the
relation of an after act and approbation ; or lest we be so greedy of
the effect that we be too ready to entertain the like upon terms
equally evil, but less fortunate.

§5.4) This is also to be understood only in such cases, in which
we are not obliged to restitution. For if we rejoice in that effect
which we ought to destroy, we recal the sin from the transient
action, and make it dwell with the possession, and then the first
involuntary error becomes a chosen rapine.

§ 6. 5) If the action was only materially, and therefore inno-
cently, an error against a human law, and turns to our secular
advantage, we are more at liberty to rejoice and please ourselves fn
the advantage; because human laws make no action intrinsically
and essentially evil, but only relatively and extrinsically : and there-
fore the danger is not so great of polluting the conscience by the
contact and mingling of the affections with the forbidden action.
He that eats flesh in Lent b in those places and circumstances where
it is forbidden, and did not remember it was Lent, or did not know
it, and by so doing refreshes himself well, and does advantage to
his health, may not be accused easily if he delights in the whole
action, as it joins the error and the advantage. For besides the
former reason, this also is considerable ; that human laws not being
so wise and excellent as divine laws do bend more easily and readily,
that they may comply with the ends of charity and gentleness, and
have in them a more apt dispensation, and almost offer themselves to
go away, when a greater good comes in their room. But of this in
its due place.

§ 7. 6) In actions materially evil against the divine laws, if the
event cannot be clearly separated from the irregularity, the first
innocent error is by the after- pleasure turned into a direct sin.
Cneius Carbo lay with Lseha unwittingly c, supposing her to be his
wife Posthumia, but afterwards having discovered the error was
pleased in the mistake, because he by the arts of fancy did by an
after-thought represent to himself the change and the variety ; and
then he was adulterous. For to be pleased in the mistake which
brings no advantage separable from the sin, is directly to choose the
sin for the advantage sake ; and this was Carbo's case.

b [Bardus, ibid. p. 101, et cap. 9, p. 114.] « [vid. Bardum, ibid. p. 100.]

CHAP. III.] Oil ERRONEOUS CONSCIENCE. 143

RULE VI.

AN INNOCENT, OK INVINCIBLY ERRING CONSCIENCE, IS TO BE OBEYED EVEN
AGAINST TUE KNOWN COMMANDMENT OF OUR SUPERIORS.

§1.1) Against tins S. Bernard d seems to argue earnestly : Si tanto-
pere caxenda sunt scandala parvulorum, quanto amplius pralatoruw,
quos sibi Deus aquare quodammodo in utraque parte dignatus, sibi met
imputab illornm et reverentlam et contemptum ? fyc. ' If with so
great caution we must be careful that we do not offend any of God's
little ones, how much more must we be curious to avoid giving
offence to great ones, to our superiors, whom God seems in some
manner to make equal to Himself, while the reverence or the con-
tempt that is done to them, He takes unto Himself; saying, he that
heareth you, heareth Me, and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me.
But if you say that men may be deceived in their inquest after the
will of God, and may deceive others in reporting it ; what is that to
thee who knowest not that they are deceived ? especially since from
scriptures thou art taught that ' the lips of the priest shall preserve
knowledge, and they shall require the law at his mouth, because he
is the angel of the Lord of hosts/ ' To which discourse of S. Bernard,
the following consideration may add some moment; and the discuss-
ing them may give light to the enquiry.

2) For in things indifferent the command of the superior must
needs be accounted the will of God ; for although our superiors are
executioners of the divine laws, yet because they have also a legis-
lative power, they who can alter nothing in things commanded or
forbidden by God, must have a power to command or to forbid
respectively in things indifferent, or not at all. And therefore in
such things our conscience is bound to obey.

3) And if conscience be pretended against it, it is an error and
ought to be laid down, for to follow this erring conscience engages
us in sin all the way.

4) But as he that submits his understanding to the obedience of
Jesus, pleases God most, even when he does it in defiance of all
arguments and temptations to the contrary, which though he cannot
answer, yet he resolves to follow Christ; so he does best who though
his conscience pretend reasons against it, will yet lay aside those
reasons that he may submit to his superiors.

5) For it is a great crime by rebelling against or slighting the
command of our rulers, to give offence to whole societies of men ;
and there can be no greater contempt done to them, than by under-

d Lib. de praecept. et dispens. [cap. xii. col. 929 E.]

144 OF THE CONFIDENT, [BOOK I.

valuing their judgment to prefer our own ; and therefore the prophet
pronounces woe to them who are ' wise in their own eyes e.'

6) But let a subject be never so wise, he ought not to judge his
superior, or to condemn his sentence; and therefore he must be
judged by it, and not by his own erring conscience.

7) For as he who hath made a vow of obedience, hath divested
himself of all pretences of contradicting what shall be imposed ; and
if his conscience shall check him in the instance, he ought to look
upon it as a temptation and use it accordingly ; so must it be also in
every subject, who by the laws of God is as much tied to obey his
superior, as he can be by any law which he puts upon himself. The
effect of these suggestions is this, that in things where the law of
God hath not declared positively, an erring conscience is not to be
attended to, but the law of the superior, and his sentence must be
the guide of his conscience.

§ 2. To this discourse I answer in short, — That it is all very true,
that the lawful superiors are God's vicegerents appointed over us in
things pertaining to God, so as to be executioners of the divine laws;
and besides this, to make laws in things indifferent and pertaining to
men ; that all contempt done to them is done to God ; that it is
scandalous to refuse obedience to them ; that he is a proud man who
says he is wiser than his superiors ; and he is intolerable that prefers
his private folly before the public wisdom : and therefore it is well
inferred, that the error of an abused conscience ought to be laid
down, and though he cannot in particular answer the arguments
which trouble him, yet if he have reason to believe that though the
arguments be too hard for him, yet that the superior's command is
innocent; it were well if he would lay aside those arguments and
adhere to authority. — Yet all this touches not the secret of the
question. For,

§ 3. He that compares the law of conscience with the law of the
superior, compares the law of God and the law of man; and the
question is not whether a man should follow his superior or follow
himself, but whether God or man be to be obeyed, whether the
superior or the supreme be to be attended to ? The reason of this is,
because the conscience stands bound by the supposed law of God,
which being superior to all the law of man must rather be obeyed ;
and therefore although the arguments conclude rightly that an erring
conscience disobeying his superior's lawful command does sin greatly,
yet they cannot conclude that he avoids sin by obeying against his
conscience f. For his condition is indeed perplexed, and he can no
way avoid sin, but by laying his error aside first, and then obeying.
And since he sins whether he obeys his superior's just command, or
the unjust command of his conscience, the enquiry is, in this sad
conjunction of things, by what hand he must be smitten, on which
side he must fall, that he may fall the easier? To this the rule

8 [Isa. v. 21.] f [Bardus, ubi supra, p. 103.]

CHAP. III.] OR ERRONEOUS CONSCIENCE. 145

answers, that his erring conscience must be obeyed rather, because
he is persuaded that God speaks there, and is not persuaded that
God speaks by his superior. Now though in this he be deceived,
yet he that will not go there where he thinks God is, and leave that
where he thinks God is not, does uncertainly go towards God, but
does certainly forsake Him, as much as lies in him. For,

§ 4. It is to the conscience all one as if the law of God were
really upon it, if it be thought it is. Idem est esse et apparere in
this case, and therefore the erring conscience is to be attended to,
because the will and the affections are for God, though the judgment
hath mistaken a glow-worm for the sun. But this is to be under-
stood only, when the conscience errs innocently and unavoidably, which
it can never do in the precepts of nature and brightest revelation.

§ 5. But if the conscience does err vincibly, that is, with an
actual fault, and an imperfect, artificial resolution, such a one as a
good man will not, and a wise man need not have, his present per-
suasion excuses him not from a double sin, for breaking a double
duty. For he is bound to correct his error, and to perform the
precepts of his superior, and if he does not, his sin is more than that
which was in the vicious cause of his mispersuasion, as I shewed in
the explication of the former rules.

§ 6. But according as the ignorance and error approaches towards
pity, lessening or excusing, so the sin also declines. He that thinks
it is not lawful at all to take up arms at the command of his prince
in an unjust, or a dubious cause, sins if he does what he thinks so
unlawful, and he commits no sin in disobeying, that only excepted
which entered into his mispersuasion, which is greater or less, or
next to none at all, according as was the cause of his error, which in
the whole constitution of affairs, he could not well avoid. But he
that is foolishly persuaded that all government is unlawful and anti-
christian, is bound to lay his error down, and besides the vicious
cause of his error, he sins in the evil effect of it, though his imper-
fect equivocal conscience calls on him to the contrary, yet he sins if
he does not obey, because in such notorious and evident propositions
an error is not only malicious in the principle, but voluntary all the
way ; and therefore may easily, and must certainly be laid aside in
every period of determination.

Whatsoever cases are between these, partake of the extremes ac-
cording to their proper reason and relation.

IX.

146 OF THE CONFIDENT, [BOOK I,

RULE VII.

THE ERROR OF AN ABUSED CONSCIENCE OUGHT TO BE REFORMED, SOMETIMES
BY THE COMMAND OP THE WILL, BUT ORD1NAIULY BY A CONTRARY REASON.

§ 1. 1) If the error did begin upon a probable reason, it cannot
be reformed but by a reason seeming equal to it, because a less reason
hath not naturally the same efficacy with a greater, and to assent to
a less probability against a greater is to do against reason, against all
that by which this lesser reason is outweighed s. For in this case the
will can have no influence, which not being a cognoscitive and dis-
coursing faculty, must be determined by its own motives when it is
not determined by reason, that is, by the motives of understanding.
Now the motives of will when it is not moved by right reason, are
pleasure and profit, ambition and revenge, partiality and pride, chance
or humour; and how these principles can disabuse a conscience is
very hard to understand, how readily and certainly they do abuse it
is not hard. Whether the stars be even or odd h ? whether the soul
be generated, or created and infused ? whether it be lawful to fight
or rail against a prince, — what hath the will to do with it ? If the
will meddles, and makes the resolution, it shall be determined, not as
it is best, but as it falls out by chance, or by evil or by vain induce-
ments. For in the will there is no argument good but reason ; I
mean both in the matter of nature and of grace, that is, reason
changed into a motive, and an instrument of persuasion from what-
soever inducing principle.

§ 2. 2) Some1 have affirmed that the error of a conscience may
fairly be deposed upon any probable argument though of less per-
suasion ; which if it could be admitted, would give leave for a man
to choose his side as he pleases, because in all moral things as dressed
with circumstances it is very easy to find some degrees of probability,
but very difficult to find a case against which nothing can be disputed.
And therefore if it happens that a man be better persuaded of his
error than of the contrary truth, that truth cannot be chosen wisely,
nor the error honestly deposed, because it is done against the way of
a man, not absolutely, but comparatively against reason.

§ 3. 3) If the reason on both sides seems equally probable, the
will may determine by any of its proper motives that are honest ; any
prudent interest, any fair compliance, any custom, in case these
happen to be on the right side. When the arguments seem equal,
the understanding or conscience cannot determine. It must either

e Vide cap. 4. 1636.] Merolla, Bassaeus in florileg.

h [Bardus; vid. not. seq.] verb, conscientia, nu. 14. [Cited by] Bar-

1 Sanchez [Johannes Abulensis], select. dus de conscientia, discept. iii. cap. 11.

disp. xli., num. 27, [p. 262, fol. Lugd. [p. 120.]

CHAP. III.] OR ERRONEOUS CONSCIENCE. 147

be a chance, and a special providence of God, or a particular grace
that casts us on the right side. But whatsoever it be that then
determines us to the right, if of itself it be innocent, it is in that
case an effect of God's grace, and an apt instrument of a right
conscience.

§ 4. 4) "When the conscience is erroneous, and the error unrea-
sonable, commenced wholly upon interest, trifling regards, or vicious
principles, the error may be deposed honestly, though there be no
reason thought of to the contrary, besides the discovery of the first
abuse. The will in this case is enough. Volo servare ammam
meam, said one k ; ' I will, I am resolved to save my own soul/ A
man may and ought to hate the evil principle of his error, and
decline it upon the stock of indignation, which in this case is a part
of repentance. And this insinuates the reason of this discourse. For,

§ 5. Repentance is founded principally in the will, and whatsoever
a man is to leave upon the stock of repentance, he may do it wholly
upon the stock of his will, informed or inclined by general propo-
sitions, without any cognizance of the particulars of the present ques-
tion. Eratosthenes coming amongst the Persian magi, and observing
their looser customs of marrying their sisters and their mothers, falls
in love with his half sister Lampra and marries her. A while after
perceiving that he entered upon this action upon no other account
but lust, and fancy, and compliance with the impurer magi, began to
hate his act for the evil inducement, and threw away her and his folly
together. This he might do without any further reasonings about
the indecency of the mixture, by perceiving that a crime or a folly
stood at the entrance and invited him to an evil lodging. He that
begins without reason, hath reason enough to leave off, by perceiving
he had no reason to begin; and in this case the will is the great
agent, which therefore here is no ill principle, because it leaves the
error upon the stock of grace and repentance1.

§6.5) If the will entertained the error without any reason at all,
as oftentimes it does, it knows not why; she may also depose it
honestly without any reason relating to the particular, upon this
general, that it could not make the action to be conscientious to
have it done without any inducement. But then the taking up the
contrary truth upon as little reason is innocent, because it happens
to be on the right side ; but it is not virtue nor conscience till it be
persuaded by something that is a fit inducement either in the general
or in the particular.

k [Pelag. apud Rosweyd. vitt. patr. referred to in vol. iv. p. 14.]
lib. iii. § 2l(i. p. 405, et lib. v. p. 431; i Vide chap. iv. rule 5.

148 OF THli CONFIDENT, [BOOK I.

EULE VIII.

THE ERROR OF A CONSCIENCE IS NOT ALWAYS TO BE OPENED TO THE ERRING
PERSON BY THE GUIDES OF SOULS, OB ANY OTHEB CHABITABLE ADVISER.

§ ] . If the error began with a sin, and still dwells there upon
the same stock, or if it be productive of a sin, it is always to be dis-
covered, though the greatest temporal inconvenience were certainly
consequent to the discovery. Because a man must not be suffered
to lie in sin, no not a minute, if he can be recovered or rescued from
it; and no temporal advantage or disadvantage can be considerable
in this case, which is the case of a soul. An error that is vincible is
all the way criminal and must not be permitted.

§ 2. If the error be invincible and innocent or pitiable in the
cause, and yet ends in an intolerable event, and the effect be a crime
or a great danger to souls, the error must be discovered by them that
can. The Novatians erred in the matter of repentance : the inducing
cause of their error was an over-active zeal, and too wary a tender-
ness in avoiding scandal and judging concerning it. God served the
ends of His glory by the occasion of that error, for He uses to bring
good out of every evil ; and the church under a better article grew
as wary as the Novatians, as watchful against scandal, as severe
against lapsed persons. Now although in this case the error was
from an innocent cause> yet because it landed them upon a course of
discipline, and persuasion that was not innocent, they were not to be
permitted in their error, though the dissolution of the error might or
would have occasioned the remission of discipline. Tor their doc-
trine of repentance was dishonourable to the mercies of God, an in-
strument of despair, a rendering the power of the keys and the
ministry of the order ecclesiastical in a manner wholly useless, and
would if it were pursued to its just consecpients have hindered re-
penting sinners to revert to the folds of the church ; and therefore
for the accidental good which God brought, or which was likely to
have come from that error or the innocence of its principle, it was
not to be concealed, but reproved and destroyed because it dwelt in
sin. He that believes that repentance to be sufficient which hath in
it nothing but sorrow for what is past, and a present purpose with-
out amendment really in the future, upon no pretence is to be com-
plied withal in the palliation of his error, because the consequent of
his error is such a clanger, or such a state of sin, for which nothing
can make amends.

§ 3. If the error be invincible, and the consequent of the per-
suasion be consistent with the state of grace, the error must be
opened or not opened, according to prudent considerations relating
to the person and his state of affairs. So that the error must rather
be suffered than a grievous scandal, or an intolerable, or a very great

CHAP. III.] OR ERRONEOUS CONSCIENCE. 149

inconvenience. To this purpose Comitolus"1 says it was determined
by a congregation of learned and prudent persons in answer to a
strange and a rare case happening in Venice. A gentleman igno-
rantly did lie with his mother; she knew it, but intended it not, till
for her curiosity and in her search whether her son intended it to her
maid, she was surprised and gotten with child. She perceiving her
shame and sorrow hasten, sent her son to travel for many years ; and
he returned not till his mother's female birth was grown to be a
handsome pretty maiden. At his return he espies a sweet-faced girl
in the house, likes her, loves her, and intends to marry her. His
mother conjured him by all that was sacred and profane that he
should not, saying, she was a beggar's child, whom for pity's sake
she rescued from the streets and beggary, and that he should not by
dishonouring his family make her to die with sorrow. The gentle-
man's affections were strong, and not to be mastered, and he marries
his own sister and his own daughter. But now the bitings of the
mother's conscience were intolerable, and to her confessor she dis-
covered the whole business within a year or two after this prodigious
marriage, and asked whether she were bound to reveal the case to
her son and daughter, who now lived in love and sweetness of society,
innocently, though with secret misfortune which they felt not. It
was concluded negatively, she was not to reveal it, lest she bring an
intolerable misery in the place of that which to them was no sin ; or
lest upon notice of the error they might be tempted by their mutual
endearment and their common children, to cohabit in despite of the
case, and so change that into a known sin, which before was an un-
known calamity ; and by this state of the answer, they were permitted
to their innocence, and the children to their inheritance, and all under
the protection of a harmless, though erring and mistaken conscience.
§ 4. If it be doubtful whether more good or hurt may be conse-
quent to the discovery, it is better to conceal it. Because it is more
tolerable to have a good omitted, than to have an evil done. That
may sometimes be lawful, this can never; and a known evil that is
not a sin is rather to be admitted than an unknown, which no man
can tell whether it will arrive. But in this, the prudence of a good
and a wise man is to be his only guide, and God's glory his only
measure, and the public good, and the greater concernments of the
interested be chiefly regarded.

m [Respons. moral., lib. i. quasst. 112. p. 245. ed. 4to. Lugd. 1609.]

150 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

CHAP. IV.
OF THE PROBABLE, OB THINKING CONSCIENCE.

RULE I.

A PROBABLE CONSCIENCE IS AN IMPERFECT ASSENT TO AN UNCERTAIN PROPO-
SITION, IN WHICH ONE PART IS INDEED CLEARLY AND FULLY CHOSEN, BUT
WITH AN EXPLICIT OR IMPLICIT NOTICE THAT THE CONTRARY IS ALSO FAIRLY
ELIGIBLE.

§ 1. A probable conscience dwells so between the sure and the
doubtful that it partakes something of both. For a sure conscience
may begin upon a probable inducement, but is made sure either by
an assent to the conclusion, stronger than the premises will infer, or
by a reflex act, or some other collateral hardness and adventitious
confidence, and therefore the probable is distinguished from that by
the imperfection of the assent. But because in that respect it
approaches to the doubtful, and in that is alike, it is differenced from
this by the determination. For a doubtful conscience considers the
probabilities on each side, and dares not choose, and cannot. But
the probable does choose, though it considers that in the thing itself
there can be no certainty. And from them both it is distinguished
by the intervening of the will. For in the sure conscience the will
works not at all, because it is wholly conducted by the understanding,
and its proper motives. In the doubtful the will cannot interpose by
reason of fear and an uncertain spirit ; but in the probable it can
intervene, not directly, but collaterally and indirectly, because the
motives of the probable conscience are not always sufficient to make
the conclusion without something of the will applied to extrinsical
motives which reflect also upon the understanding ; and yet in this
conscience there is no fear, and therefore the will can here be obeyed,
which in the first it needs not, in the last it cannot. For it is
remarkable, that a probable conscience though it be in speculation
uncertain, yet it may be practically certain, that is, he that believes his
opinion to be probable, cannot but think that it is possible he may be
in an actual error, but yet he may know that it is innocent to do that
for which he hath a probable reason ; for though in all these cases he

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 151

may choose that which is the wrong part, yet he proceeds as safely
as if he had chosen right, for if it were not safe to do that which is
only probable, then nothing could be clone till something were demon-
strated ; and then in moral theology we should often stand still and
suspend our act, but seldom do anything ; nay, sometimes we should
neither act nor suspend, it being but probable that either is to be
chosen. Yea, sometimes it happens what Aristotle said, that false
things are made more probable than true, as it is to all them who are
innocently and invincibly abused ; and in this case, if probability were
not a sufficient conviction of conscience, such persons could not
honestly consent to truth. For even wise men disagree in their sen-
tences of truth and error, and after a great search, scarcely do they
discover one single truth unto just measures of confidence ; and
therefore no other law could be exacted for human actions, than an
opinion honestly entered into, and a probable conscience. And it is
remarkable that Cicero11 saith that the word arbitror is verbum consi-
deratissimum, and the old Eomans were reserved and cautious in the
decrees of judges, and the forms of their oath began with arbitror,
although they gave testimony of things whereof they were eye-wit-
nesses ; and the words which their praetors did use in their sentences,
WAsfecisse videtur, or rum videtur. " He that observeth the winds
shall not sow, and he that watcheth the clouds shall never reap0 /'
which means, that if we start at every objection, and think nothing
safe but what is certain, and nothing certain but what can be demon-
strated, that man is over wise and over just, and by his too curious
search misses what he enquires for. Aeyotro 8' av iKav&s d KaTarijv
vT;oK€i\Aevr}v vkr\v OLaaa(pr\6drj, ' that is well enough proved, that is
proved according to the subject matter/ For there is not the same
exactness to be looked for in all disciplines, any more than in all
manufactures. But in those things which are honest and just, and
which concern the public, rocravT^v e^et hiafyopav kcu irkdvqv, ' there
is so much dissension and deception/ that things are good or bad not
by themselves, but as they are in law; ireiraibeviJievov ovv earlv eirl
Toaovrov t aKpt/3e? iTnQrlT&v Ka$' enao-Tov yivos, e<^' ocrov i] tov Trpd<y-
Hcltos (pvo-is l-nthi^Tai' ' he is well instructed who expects that
manner of proof for things, which the nature of the things will bear/
said Aristotle p. And in moral things, it is sufficient that a thing is
judged true and certain, though by an uncertain argument ; and the
opinion may be practically certain, when the knowledge of it is in
speculation only probable.

§ 2. It hath two sorts of motives, intrinsical and extrinsical. That
is reason, this is authority, and both of them have srreat considerations
m order to practice, of which I am to give account in the following
rules.

n [Pro Font., cap. ix.] ° [Eccl. xi. 4.]

p Ethic. Nic, lib. i. cap. 1. [torn. ii. p. 10<H-.]

152 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

RULE II.

A CONSCIENCE THAT IS AT FIRST, AND IN ITS OWN NATURE PROBABLE, MAT BE
MADE CERTAIN BY ACCUMULATION OF MANY PROBABILITIES OPERATING THE
SAME PERSUASION.

§ 1. Every probable argument hath in it something of persuasion
and proof, and although it cannot produce evidence and entire con-
viction to a wise and a discerning spirit, yet it can effect all that it
ought ; and although, if the will list, or if passions rule, the under-
standing shall be made stubborn against it, and reject it easily; yet
if nothing be put in bar against it, it may bring a man to adhere to
it beyond the evidence. But in some cases there are a whole army
of little people, heaps of probable inducements which the under-
standing amasses together, and from every side gathers all that can
give light and motion to the article in question, it draws auxiliaries
from every thing, fights with every weapon, and by all means pursues
the victory ; it joins line to line, and precept to precept, reason to
reason, and reason to authority ; the sayings of wise men with the
proverbs of the people; consent of talkers, and the arguings of
disputers; the nature of the thing, and the reasonableness of its
expectations ; the capacities and possibilities of men, and of accidents ;
the purposes and designs, the usefulness, and rewards ; and by what
all agents are and ought to be moved : customs are mingled with
laws, and decencies with consideration of profit ; the understanding
considers the present state and heap of circumstances, and by prudence
weighs every thing in its own balance ; it considers the consequent of
the opinion it intends to establish, and well weighs the inconvenience
of the contrary. But from the obscurity and insufficiency of these
particulars, there cannot come a perfect light ; if a little black be
mingled with white, the product must have something of every influ-
ence that can be communicated from its principle, or material
constitution ; and ten thousand millions of uncertains cannot make
one certain.

§ 2. In this case the understanding comes not to any certainty by
the energy of the motives and direct arguments of probability, or by
the first effort and impresses of their strength, but by a particular
reflection which it makes upon the heap, and by a secondary
discoursing extracted from the whole, as being therefore convinced,
because it believes it to be impossible that so many considerations,
that no way conspire either in matter or design, should agree in the
production of a lie. It is not likely that so many beams of light
should issue from the chambers of heaven for no other reason but to
lead us into a precipice. Probable arguments and prudential motives

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 153

are the great hinges of human actions, for as a pope once said, ' It is
but a little wit that governs the world ;' and the uncertainty of argu-
ments is the great cause of contingency in events ; but as uncertain
as most counsels are, yet all the great transactions of the affairs of the
world are resolved on and acted by them ; by suspicions and fears and
probable apprehensions infinite evils are prevented; and it is not
therefore likely to be an error by which so perpetually so many good
things are procured and effected. For it were a disparagement to
the wise providence of God, and a lessening the rare economy of the
divine government that He should permit almost all the world, and
all reiglements p, the varieties of event, and all the changes of king-
doms, and all counsels and deliberations, to be conducted by moral
demonstrations, and to be under the power of probabilities, and yet
that these should be deceitful and false. Neither is it to be imagined,
that God should permit wise men, and good, men that on purpose
place their reason in indifference, that abate of their heats and quench
their own extravagant fires, men that wipe away all clouds and mists
from their eyes, that they may see clearly, men that search as they
ought to do for things that they are bound to find, things that they
are commanded to search, and upon which even all their interests
depend, and yet enquiring after the end whither they are directed,
and by what means it is to be acquired ; that these men should be
inevitably abused by their own reason, by the best reason they have ;
and that when concerning the thing which cannot be demonstrated
by proper and physical arguments, yet we are to enter into a persua-
sion so great, that for the verification of it men must venture their
lives and their souls ; — I say, if this kind of proof be not sufficient to
effect all this, and sufficiently to assure such men, and competently
to affirm and strengthen such resolutions, salvation and damnation
must be by chance, or, which is worse, it must be impossible to be
well, but when it cannot choose to be otherwise ; and this I say is
not to be imagined that God will or does permit, since all these enter-
courses so much concern God's glory and our eternal interest. The
main events of heaven and hell do in some regards depend, as to us,
upon our faith, whose objects are represented with such lights from
God and right reason as are sufficient to persuade, not to demon-
strate ; they are such which leave something to us of choice and love,
and every proposition of scripture though it be as sure, yet it is not
so evident as the principles of geometry ; and the Spirit of God effects
His purposes with an influence as soft and placid as the warmth of
the sun, while a physical demonstration blows hard and high as the
north wind ; indeed a man must use rudeness if he does not quit
his garment at so loud a call, but we are more willing to part
with it when the sun gently requires us : so is a moral demonstration,
it is so humane, so persuasive, so complying with the nature and
infirmities of man, with the* actions of his life and his manner of ope-

p [Sic edd.]

154 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK T.

ration, that it seems to have been created on purpose for the needs
and uses of man in this life, for virtue and for hopes, for faith and
for charity, to make us to believe by love, and to love by believing, for
in heaven they that see and love, cannot choose but love, and see, and
comprehend ; for it is a reward and fills all their faculties, and is not
possessed by ns, but itself possesses us. In this world where we are
to do something ourselves, though all by the grace of God, that which
we do of ourselves is nothing else but to work as we ourselves can,
which indeed happens to be in propositions, as it is in the love of
God, this cannot fail us, but we may fail of it ; and so are the sen-
tences of religion infallible in themselves, but we may be deceived,
while by a fallible way we proceed to infallible notices ; for nothing-
else could endear our labour and our love, our search and our obe-
dience ; and therefore this must be sufficient and acceptable, if we do
what we can : but then this also will secure our confidence, and in
the noises of Christendom when disputing fellows say their brother
is damned for not believing them, we need not to regard any such
noises, if we proceed prudently as we can, and honestly as we ought ;
probable motives of our understanding are our sufficient conduct, and
then we have this warrant, " Brethren, if our hearts condemn us not,
then have we peace towards God 9." And God would never have
inspired His church with prudence, or made any such virtue, if the
things which were put under the conduct of it, that is, probabilities,
were not instrumental to the service of God, and to the verification
of all its just and proper productions.

§ 3. Probable arguments are like little stars, every one of which
will be useless as to our conduct and enlightening ; but when they are
tied together by order and vicinity, by the finger of God and the hand of
an angel, they make a constellation, and are not only powerful in their
influence, but like a bright angel to guide and to enlighten our way.
And although the light is not great as the light of the sun or moon,
yet mariners sail by their conduct ; and though with trepidation and
some danger, yet very regularly they enter into the haven. This heap
of probable inducements is not of power as a mathematical and phy-
sical demonstration, which is in discourse as the sun is in heaven, but
it makes a milky and a white path, visible enough to walk securely.

§ 4. And next to these tapers of effective reason, drawn from the
nature and from the events, and the accidents and the expectations
and experiences of things, stands the grandeur of a long and united
authority : the understanding thus reasoning, that it is not credible
that this thing should have escaped the wiser heads of all great per-
sonages in the world, who stood at the chairs of princes, or sat in
the ruler's chair, and should only appear to two or three bold, illi-
terate, or vicious persons, ruled by lusts, and overruled by evil
habits ; but in this we have the same security and the same confidence
that timorous persons have in the dark ; they are pleased and can see

i [1 John iii. 21.]

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 155

what is and what is not if there be a candle, but in the dark they are
less fearful if they be in company.

§ 5. This way of arguing some are pleased to call a moral demon-
stration, not that it can make a proposition clear and bright, and quit
from clouds and obscurity, as a natural demonstration can, for I may
in this case use Aristotle's saying, tovto ixkv dA^es", dAA.' ov rrar/je?,
'things of this nature may be very true, but arc not very evident;'
but it can produce the same effect, that is, it can lead into truth, not
with as much brightness, but with as much certainty and infallibility
in the event of things. Eor a man may as prosperously and certainly
arrive at his journey's end though but conducted by him that went
the way but once before him, as if he had a straight path walled in
on both sides ; so may we find truth as certainly by probabilities, as
by demonstrations : we are not so sure that we find it, but it is often-
times as surely found. And if the heap arrive at that which we call
a moral demonstration, it is as certain that no moral demonstration
can be opposed against it, as that no natural demonstration can be
brought in contradiction to a natural. For the understanding cannot
call any thing a moral demonstration, till by considering the parti-
culars on both sides, the reasonableness of one, and the unreasonable-
ness of the other, with a cold scent, and liberty of spirit, and an un-
biassed will, it hath passed the sentence for the truth ; and since in
this case all the opposition is between strength and power on one side,
and weakness and pretence on the other, it is impossible that the
opposite parts should be demonstrations or seem so to the same man.
And this appears by this also, that some propositions which are only
proved by a conjugation of probable inducements, have yet obtained
as certain and as regular events as a natural demonstration, and are
believed equally, constantly, and perpetually by all wise men, and the
understanding does regularly receive the same impression, and give
the same assent, and for ever draws forth the same conclusions when
it is not abused with differing prejudices and pre-occupations, when
its liberty and powers are not enfeebled with customs, example and
contrary breeding, while it is not bribed by interest, or hurried away
by passion.

§ 6. Of this I shall choose to give one instance, which as it is of
the greatest concernment in the world in itself, so the gay impieties
and bold wits of the world who are witty against none more than God
and God's wisdom, have made it now to be but too seasonable, and
that is, that the religion of Jesus Christ, or the christian religion is
from God ; concerning which I will not now pretend to bring in all
the particulars whereby each part of it can be verified, but by heaping
together such heads of probabilities which are or may be the cause
of an infinite persuasion, and this I had rather choose to do for these
reasons :

§ 7. 1) Because many men excellently learned have already dis-
coursed largely of the truth of Christianity, and approved by a direct

156 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

and close congression with other religious, by examination of the
contrary pretences, refutation of their arguments, answering their
objections, and have by direct force so far prevailed, that all the
reason of the world appears to stand on the christian side; and for
me to do it now, as there is no just occasion ministered by this argu-
ment, so neither can it be useful and necessary.

§ 8. 2) In that way of arguing, every man that is an adversary
can answer one argument, and some can reprove many, and none
can prevail singly to possess all the understanding, and to fill all the
corners of consideration, but in a moral demonstration that can
be supplied.

§ 9. 3) In the other way an adversary supposes himself to prevail
when he can answer the arguments singly, and the discourses in that
method are like the servants sent singly to gather fruits of the
husbandmen, they killed them as fast as they came, and a man may
kill a whole kingdom over, if the opponents come by single persons ;
but a moral demonstration is like an army which can lose single
persons and yet prevail, but yet cannot be beaten unless it be
beaten all.

§ 10. 4) The few little things that atheistical persons prate against
the holy Jesus and His most excellent religion, are infinitely out-
weighed by the multitude and variety of things to be said for it ; and
.et the others stand (as if they meet with persons that cannot answer
them) yet they are sure this greater ought to prevail, because it pos-
sesses all the corners of reason, and meets with every instance, and
complies with the manner of a man, and is fitted to the nature of
things, and complies with the will, and persuades the understanding,
and is a guard against the tricks of sophisters, and does not only
effect its purpose by direct influence, but is secured by reflection upon
itself, and does more by its indirect strength, and by a back blow,
than by its first operations ; and therefore,

§11. This instance and this way of argument may be of more use
to those persons who cannot so dispute, but they are apt to be abused
by little things, by talkings and imperfect arguings ; it may be a de-
fensative against trifling objections, and the impious pratings of the
nequam ingeniosi, ' the witty fools/ while the men are armed by love
and prudence and wise securities to stand with confidence and piety
against talkings and intrigues of danger; for by this way best,
" Wisdom is justified of all her children T."

AN INSTANCE OF MORAL DEMONSTRATION, OR A CONJUGATION OP PROBABILITIES,
PROVING THAT THE RELIGION OF JESUS CHRIST IS PROM GOD s.

§ 12. This discourse of all the disputables in the world, shall
require the fewest things to be granted ; even nothing but what was

«• [Luke vii. 35; Matt. xi. 19.] » [In Richard Hooker's "Weekly Mis-

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 157

evident, even nothing but the very subject of the question, viz., that
there was such a man as Jesus Christ, that He pretended such things
and taught such doctrines : for he that will prove these things to be
from God, must be allowed that they were from something or other.
Put this postulate I do not ask for need, but for order's sake and
art j for what the histories of that age reported as a public affair, as
one of the most eminent transactions of the world, that which made
so much noise, which caused so many changes, which occasioned so
many wars, which divided so many hearts, which altered so many
families, which procured so many deaths, which obtained so many
laws in favour, and suffered so many rescripts in the disfavour of
itself; that which was not done in a corner, but was thirty-three
years and more in acting ; which caused so many sects, and was op-
posed by so much art, and so much power that it might not grow ;
which filled the world with noise ; which effected such great changes
in the bodies of men by curing the diseased, and smiting the contu-
macious or the hypocrites ; which drew so many eyes, and filled so
many tongues, and employed so many pens, and was the care and the
question of the whole world at that time, and immediately after;
that which was consigned to public acts and records of courts, which
was in the books of friends and enemies, which came accompanied
and remarked with eclipses and stars and prodigies of heaven and
earth ; that which the Jews even in spite and against their wills con-
fessed, and which the witty adversaries intending to overthrow,
could never so much as challenge of want of truth in the matter of
fact and story ; that which they who are infinitely concerned that it
should not be believed, or more, that it had never been, do yet only
labour to make to appear not to have been divine ; — certainly, tins
thing is so certain that it was, that the defenders of it need not

cellany, No. 41, vol. i. p. 34-2, Svo. Lortd. lings of their soul. The fond obstinacy

1736, (by Dr. William Webster, so Ni- however of this noble person produced

chols' Literary Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 36, one good effect : it put the eminent divine,

and v. p. 161, 2, ed. Svo. Lond. 1812-3,) his friend, upon considering how to

this Moral Demonstration is introduced spread an antidote as wide as his poison,

with the following preface : — " I have and upon supplying those readers who

been informed that on his death-bed were not capable of pursuing the stricter

(Lord Herb[er]t of C[her]b[ur]y) was methods of reasoning, with such a series

very desirous of receiving the sacrament of moral probability, strong in them-

from the hands of an eminent divine, who selves, and many in number, as might

had the honest courage to refuse him his be an immovable basis for their future

request, unless he would recant the belief, though they might not be able to

books he had wrote in prejudice of reli- unravel every difficulty with which inge-

gion. But that was a sacrifice too great nious men can perplex this or any other

to be made by a heart so full of pride argument. How well he has succeeded

and vanity. He could not consent thus must be left to the world to judge : but

halt and thus maimed to enter into the I am not apprehensive that I need ask

kingdom of heaven ; and thus it is easier any favour in his behalf, unless it be

for some men to slay their real children, some allowance for the peculiarities of

than to destroy those offsprings of their his style, which eighty years ago perhaps

wit, which with more than motherly ten- wanted no excuse."]
derness they have nursed up as the dar-

158 OP THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

account it a kindness to have it presupposed ; for never was any story
in the world that had so many degrees of credibility, as the story of
the person, life, and death of Jesus Christ. And if He had not been
a true prophet, yet that He was in the world, and said and did such
things cannot be denied ; for even concerning Mahomet we make no
question but he was in the world, and led a great part of mankind
after him, and what was less proved we infinitely believe ; and what
all men say, and no man denies, and was notorious in itself, of this
we may make further inquiries whether it was all that which it pre-
tended, for that it did make pretences and was in the world, needs
no more probation.

§ 13. But now whether Jesus Christ was sent from God and
delivered the will of God, we are to take accounts from all the things
of the world which were on Him, or about Him, or from Him.
Consider first His person : He was foretold by all the prophets : He,
I say, (for that appears by the event, and the correspondencies of their
sayings to His person), He was described by infallible characterisms
which did fit Him, and did never fit any but Him ; for when He was
born, then was the fulness of time, and the Messias was expected at
the time when Jesus did appear, which gave occasion to many of the
godly then to wait for Him, and to hope to live till the time of His
revelation : and they did so, and with a spirit of prophecy which
their own nation did confess and honour, glorified God at the reve-
lation : and the most excellent and devout persons that were con-
spicuous for their piety did then rejoice in Him, and confess Him ;
and the expectation of Him at that time was so public and famous,
that it gave occasion to divers impostors to abuse the credulity of the
people in pretending to be the Messias ; but not only the predictions
of the time, and the perfect synchronisms did point Him out, but at
His birth a strange star appeared, which guided certain Levantine
princes and sages to the encmiry after Him ; a strange star which
had an irregular place and an irregular motion, that came by design,
and acted by counsel, the counsel of the almighty guide, it moved
from place to place, till it stood just over the house where the babe
did sleep; a star of which the heathen knew much, who knew
nothing of Him ; a star which Chalcidius * affirmed to have signified
the descent of God for the salvation of man; a star that guided the
wise Chaldees to worship Him with gifts, as the same disciple of
Plato does affirm u, and as the holy scriptures deliver. And this
star could be no secret ; it troubled all the country ; it put Herod
upon strange arts of security for His kingdom; it effected a sad
tragedy accidentally, for it occasioned the death of all the little babes
in the city and voisinage of Bethlehem. But the birth of this young
child which was thus glorified by a star, was also signified by an
angel, and was effected by the holy Spirit of God, in a manner which
was in itself supernatural : a virgin was His mother, and God was
' [In Platon. Tim. p. 219.] - [ibid.]

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 159

His Father, and His beginning was miraculous; and this matter of His
birth of a virgin was proved to an interested and jealous person, even
to Joseph the supposed father of Jesus ; it was affirmed publicly by all
His family, and by His disciples, and published in the midst of all
His enemies, who by no artifice could reprove it ; a matter so famous,
that when it was urged as an argument to prove Jesus to be the
Messias, by the force of a prophecy in Isaiah x, " A virgin shall con-
ceive a son," they who obstinately refused to admit Him, did not
deny the matter of fact, but denied that it was so meant by the
prophet, which if it were true, can only prove that Jesus was more
excellent than was foretold by the prophets, but that there was
nothing less in Him than was to be in the Messias ; it was a matter
so famous that the Arabian physicians who can affirm no such things
of their Mahomet, and yet not being able to deny it to be true of the
holy Jesus, endeavour to elevate and lessen the thing, by saying, it
is not wholly beyond the force of nature, that a virgin should con-
ceive y ; so that it was on all hands undeniable that the mother of
Jesus was a virgin, a mother without a man. This is that Jesus at
whose presence before He was born, a babe in his mother's belly also
did leap for joy, who was also a person extraordinary himself, con-
ceived in his mother's old age, after a long barrenness, signified
by an angel in the temple to his father officiating his priestly
office, who was also struck dumb for his not present believing : all
the people saw it, and all his kindred were witnesses of his restitu-
tion, and he was named by the angel, and his office declared to be
the forerunner of the holy Jesus ; and this also was foretold by one
of the old prophets ; for the whole story of this divine person is a
chain of providence and wonder, every link of which is a verification
of a prophecy, and all of it is that thing which from Adam to the
birth of Jesus was pointed at and hinted by all the prophets, whose
words in Him passed perfectly into the event. This is that Jesus
who as He was born without a father, so He was learned without a
master ; He was a man without age, a doctor in a child's garment,
disputing in the sanctuary at twelve years old. He was a sojourner
in Egypt, because the poor babe born of an indigent mother was a
formidable rival to a potent king, and this fear could not come from
the design of the infant, but must needs arise from the illustriousness
of the birth, and the prophecies of the child, and the sayings of the
learned, and the journey of the wise men, and the decrees of God ;
this journey and the return were both managed by the conduct of an
angel and a divine dream, for to the Son of God all the angels did
rejoice to minister. This blessed person made thus excellent by His
Father, and glorious by miraculous consignations, and illustrious by
the ministry of heavenly spirits, and proclaimed to Mary and to
Joseph by two angels, to the shepherds by a multitude of the heavenly
host, to the wise man by a prophecy and by a star, to the Jews by

1 [vii. 14.] y [Compare p. 72 above.]

160 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

the shepherds, to the gentiles by the three wise men, to Herod by
the doctors of the law, and to Himself perfectly known by the in-
chasing His human nature in the bosom and heart of God, and by
the fulness of the Spirit of God, was yet pleased for thirty years
together to live an humble, a laborious, a chaste and a devout, a
regular and an even, a wise and an exemplar, a pious and an obscure
life, without complaint, without sin, without design of fame or
grandeur of spirit, till the time came that the clefts of the rock were
to open, and the diamond give its lustre, and be worn in the diadems
of kings : and then this person was wholly admirable ; for He was
ushered into the world by the voice of a loud crier in the wilderness,
a person austere and wise, of a strange life, full of holiness and full
of hardness, and a great preacher of righteousness, a man believed
by all the people that he came from God, one who in his own nation
gathered disciples publicly, and (which amongst them was a great
matter) he was the doctor of a new institution, and baptized all the
country; yet this man so great, so revered, so followed, so listened
to by king and people, by doctors and by idiots, by pharisees and
sadducees, this man preached Jesus to the people, pointed out the
Lamb of God, told that He must increase, and himself from all that
fame must retire to give Him place; he received Him to baptism
after having with duty and modesty declared his own unworthiness
to give, but rather a worthiness to receive baptism from the holy
hands of Jesus ; but at the solemnity God sent down the holy Spirit
upon His holy Son, and by a voice from heaven, a voice of thunder
(and God was in that voice) declared that this was His Son, and that
He was delighted in Him. This voice from heaven was such, so
evident, so certain a conviction of what it did intend to prove, so
known and accepted as the way of divine revelation under the second
temple, that at that time every man that desired a sign honestly,
would have been satisfied with such a voice; it being the testimony
by which God made all extraordinaries to be credible to His people
from the days of Ezra to the death of the nation ; and that there
was such a voice, not only then, but divers times after, was as certain,
and made as evident as things of that nature can ordinarily be made.
For it being a matter of fact, cannot be supposed infinite, but limited
to time and place, heard by a certain number of persons, and was as
a clap of thunder upon ordinary accounts, which could be heard but
by those who were within the sphere of its own activity ; and re
ported by those to others, who are to give testimony as testimonies
are required, which are credible under the test of two or three disin-
terested, honest, and true men, and though this was done in the
presence of more, and oftener than once, yet it was a divine testimony
but at first, but is to be conveyed by the means of men ; and as God
thundered from heaven at the giving of the law, though that He did
so we have notice only from the books of Moses received from the
Jewish nation ; so He did in the days of the Baptist, and so He did

CHAP. IV.] OH THINKING CONSCIENCE. 161

to Peter, James, and John, and so He did in the presence of the
pharisees and many of the common people ; and as it is not to be
supposed that all these would join their divided interests for and
against themselves for the verification of a lie, so if they would have
done it, they could not have done it without reproof of their own
parties, who would have been glad by the discovery only to disgrace
the whole story; but if the report of honest and just men so reputed
may be questioned for matter of fact, or may not be accounted suffi-
cient to make faith when there is no pretence of men to the contrary,
besides that we can have no story transmitted to us, no records
kept, no acts of courts, no narratives of the days of old, no traditions
of our fathers ; so there could not be left in nature any usual instru-
ment whereby God could after the manner of men declare His own
will to us, but either we should never know the will of heaven upon
earth, or it must be that God must not only tell it once but always,
and not only always to some men, but always to all men ; and then
as there would be no use of history, or the honesty of men, and their
faithfulness in telling any act of God in declaration of His will, so
there would be perpetual necessity of miracles, and we could not
serve God directly with our understanding, for there would be no
such thing as faith, that is, of assent without conviction of under-
standing; and we could not please God with believing, because there
would be in it nothing of the will, nothing of love and choice ; and
that faith which is, would be like that of Thomas, to believe what we
see or hear, and God should not at all govern upon earth unless He
did continually come Himself: for thus all government, all teachers,
all apostles, all messengers would be needless, because they could not
shew to the eye what they told to the ears of men. And it might as
well be disbelieved in all courts and by all princes, that this was not
the letter of a prince, or the act of a man, or the writing of his hand ;
and so all human entercourse must cease, and all senses but the eye
be useless as to this affair, or else to the ear all voices must be
strangers but the principal, if I say, no reports shall make faith. But
it is certain, that when these voices were sent from heaven and
heard upon earth they prevailed amongst many that heard them not,
and disciples were multiplied upon such accounts, or else it must be
that none that did hear them could be believed by any of their
friends and neighbours ; for if they were, the voice was as effective
at the reflex and rebound as in the direct emission, and could prevail
with them that believed their brother or their friend, as certainly as
with them that believed their own ears and eyes.

§ 14. I need not speak of the vast numbers of miracles which He
wrought ; miracles which were not more demonstrations of His
power than of His mercy; for they had nothing of pompousness and
ostentation, but infinitely of charity and mercy, and that permanent
and lasting and often. He opened the eyes of the blind, He made
the crooked straight, He made the weak strong, He cured fevers
with the touch of His hand, and an issue of blood with the hem of

IX. M

162 OP THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

His garment, and sore eyes with the spittle of His mouth and the
clay of the earth ; He multiplied the loaves and fishes, He raised the
dead to life, a young maiden, the widow's son of Nairn, and Lazarus,
and cast out devils by the word of His mouth, which He could never
do but by the power of God. For Satan does not cast out Satan,
nor a house fight against itself, if it means to stand long ; and the
devil could not help Jesus, because the holy Jesus taught men virtue,
called them from the worshipping devils, taught them to resist the
devil, to lay aside all those abominable idolatries by which the devil
doth rule in the hearts of men : He taught men to love God, to fly
from temptations to sin, to hate and avoid all those things of which
the devil is guilty, for Christianity forbids pride, envy, malice, lying,
and yet affirms that the devil is proud, envious, malicious, and the
father of lies ; and therefore wherever Christianity prevails, the devil
is not worshipped, and therefore he that can think that a man without
the power of God could overturn the devil's principles, cross his
designs, weaken his strengths, baffle him in his policies, befool him
and turn him out of possession, and make him open his own mouth
against himself as he did often, and confess himself conquered by
Jesus and tormented, as the oracle did to Augustus Caesar '■, and the
devil to Jesus himself; he I say, that thinks a mere man can do this,
knows not the weaknesses of a man, nor the power of an angel ; but
he that thinks this could be done by compact, and by consent of the
devil, must think him to be an intelligence without understanding, a
power without force, a fool and a sot, to assist a power against him-
self, and to persecute the power he did assist, to stir up the world to
destroy the Christians, whose master and Lord he did assist to destroy
himself; and when we read that Porphyrius an heathen, a professed
enemy to Christianity, did say, 'IrjcroC ri/xcojueVoi; ouSe/xias ns Oe&v
by-jixoatas ax^eXeias ?/o-0eToa, ' that since Jesus was worshipped, the
gods could help no man,' that is, the gods which they worshipped,
the poor baffled enervated demons; he must either think that the
devils are as foolish as they are weak, or else that they did nothing
towards this declination of their power; and therefore that they
suffer it by a power higher than themselves, that is, by the power of
God in the hand of Jesus.

§ 1 5. But besides that God gave testimony from heaven concern-
ing Him, He also gave this testimony of Himself to have come from
God, because that He did God's will; for he that is a good man and
lives by the laws of God and of his nation, a life innocent and
simple, prudent and wise, holy and spotless, unreproved and unsus-
pected, he is certainly by all wise men said in a good sense to be the
son of God ; but he who does well and speaks well, and calls all men
to glorify and serve God, and serves no ends but of holiness and
charity, of wisdom of hearts and reformation of manners, this man

1 [Niceph. Hist, eccles.. i. 17; Cedren. 1647; Suid. , s. v. AXyouaros.'}
Hist, compend., p. 182, ed. fol. Par. " [Euseb. praep. evang., lib. v. cap. 1.]

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 163

carries great authority in his sayings, and ought to prevail with good
men in good things, for good ends, which is all that is here required.
But His nature was so sweet, His manners so humble, His words so
wise and composed, His comportment so grave and winning, His
answers so seasonable, His questions so deep, His reproof so severe
and charitable, His pity so great and merciful, His preachings so full
of reason and holiness, of weight and authority, His conversation so
useful and beneficent, His poverty great but His alms frequent, His
family so holy and religious, His and their employment so profitable,
His meekness so incomparable, His passions without difference, save
only where zeal or pity carried Him on to worthy and apt expres-
sions, a person that never laughed, but often wept in a sense of the
calamities of others j He loved every man and hated no man, He
gave counsel to the doubtful and instructed the ignorant, He bound
up the broken hearts and strengthened the feeble knees, He relieved
the poor and converted the sinners, He despised none that came to
Him for relief, and as for those that did not He went to them ; He
took all occasions of mercy that were offered Him, and went abroad
for more; He spent His days in preaching and healing, and His
nights in prayers and conversation with God; He was obedient to
laws and subject to princes, though He was the prince of Judaea in
right of His mother, and of all the world in right of His Father;
the people followed Him, but He made no conventions, and when
they were made, He suffered no tumults, when they would have made
Him a king He withdrew Himself, when He knew they would put
Him to death He offered Himself; He knew men's hearts, and con-
versed secretly, and gave answer to their thoughts and prevented
their questions ; He would work a miracle rather than give offence,
and yet suffer every offence rather than see God His Father dis-
honoured ; He exactly kept the law of Moses, to which He came to
put a period, and yet chose to signify His purpose only by doing
acts of mercy upon their sabbath, doing nothing which they could
call a breach of a commandment, but healing sick people, a charity
which themselves would do to beasts, and yet they were angry at
Him for doing it to their brethren. In all His life, and in all His
conversation with His nation, He was innocent as an angel of light,
and when by the greatness of His worth, and the severity of His
doctrine, and the charity of His miracles, and the noises of the
people, and His immense fame in all that part of the world, and the
multitude of His disciples, and the authority of His sermons, and
His free reproof of their hypocrisy, and His discovery of their false
doctrines and weak traditions, He had branded the reputation of the
vicious rulers of the people, and they resolved to put Him to death,
they who had the biggest malice in the world, and the weakest accu-
sations were forced to supply their want of articles against Him by
making truth to be His fault, and His office to be His crime, and
His open confession of what was asked Him to be His article of

M 2

164 OF THE rROBABLE, [BOOK I.

condemnation, and yet after all this they could not persuade the com-
petent judge to condemn Him, or to find Him guilty of any fault,
and therefore they were forced to threaten Him with Caesar's name,
against whom then they would pretend Him to be an enemy, though
in their charge they neither proved, nor indeed laid it against Him,
and yet to whatsoever they objected He made no return, but His
silence and His innocence were remarkable and evident, without
labour and reply, and needed no more argument than the sun needs
an advocate to prove that he is the brightest star in the firmament.

§ 16. Well, so it was, they crucified Hi in, and when they did
they did as much put out the eye of heaven as destroy the Son of
God; for when with an incomparable sweetness, and a patience
exemplar to all ages of sufferers, He endured affronts, examinations,
scorns, insolences of rude ungentle tradesmen, cruel whippings, inju-
rious, unjust and unreasonable usages from those whom He obliged
by all the arts of endearment and offers of the biggest kindness, at
last He went to death as to the work which God appointed Him
that He might become the world's sacrifice, and the great example of
holiness, and the instance of representing by what way the world was
to be made happy, — even by sufferings and so entering into heaven, — -
that He might (I say) become the Saviour of His enemies, and the
elder brother to His friends, and the Lord of glory, and the fountain
of its emanation. Then it was that God gave new testimonies from
heaven ; the sun was eclipsed all the while He was upon the cross,
and yet the moon was in the full; that is, he lost his light, not
because any thing in nature did invest him, but because the God of
nature (as a heathen at that very time confessed, who yet saw nothing
of this sad iniquity b) did suffer. The rocks did rend, the veil of the
temple divided of itself and opened the inclosures, and disparked the
sanctuary, and made it pervious to the gentiles' eye ; the dead arose,
and appeared in Jerusalem to their friends, the centurion and divers
of the people smote their hearts, and were by these strange indica-
tions convinced that He was the Son of God. His garments were
parted, and lots cast upon His inward coat ; they gave Him vinegar
and gall to drink, they brake not a bone of Him, but they pierced
His side with a spear, looking upon Him whom they had pierced;
according to the prophecies of Him, which were so clear and descended
to minutes and circumstances of His passion, that there was nothing
left by which they could doubt whether this were He or no who was
to come into the world : but after all this, that all might be finally
verified and no scruple left, after three days' burial, a great stone
being rolled to the face of the grave, and the stone sealed, and a
guard of soldiers placed about it, He arose from the grave, and for
forty days together conversed with His followers and disciples, and
beyond all suspicion was seen of five hundred brethren at once,
which is a number too great to give their consent and testimony to a

[See Life of Christ, vol. ii. p. GL6.]

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 165

lie, and it being so publicly and confidently affirmed at the very time
it was done, and for ever after urged by all Christians, used as the
most mighty demonstration, proclaimed, preached, talked of, even
upbraided to the gainsayers, affirmed by eye-witnesses, persuaded to
the kindred and friends and the relatives and companions of all those
five hundred persons who were eye-witnesses, it is infinitely removed
from a reasonable suspicion ; and at the end of those days was taken
up into heaven in the sight of many of them, as Elias was in the
presence of Elisha.

§ 17. Now He of whom all these things are true, must needs be
more than a mere man, and that they were true was affirmed by very
many eye-witnesses, men who were innocent, plain men, men that
had no bad ends to serve, men that looked for no preferment by the
thing in this life; men to whom their master told they were to
expect not crowns and sceptres, not praise of men or wealthy pos-
sessions, not power and ease, but a voluntary casting away care and
attendance upon secular affairs that they might attend their ministry;
poverty and prisons, trouble and vexation, persecution and labour,
whippings and banishment, bonds and death, and for a reward they
must stay till a good day came, but that was not to be at all in this
world; and when the day of restitution and recompense should come,
they should never know till it came, but upon the hope of this and
the faith of Jesus, and the word of God so taught, so consigned, they
must rely wholly and for ever. Now let it be considered, how could
matters of fact be proved better? And how could this be any thing,
but such as to rely upon matters of fact? What greater certainty
can we have of any thing that was ever clone which we saw not, or
heard not, but by the report of wise and honest persons ? Especially
since they were such whose life and breeding was so far from ambi-
tion and pompousness, that as they could not naturally and reasonably
hope for any great number of proselytes, so the fame that could be
hoped for amongst them, as it must be a matter of their own pro-
curing, and consequently uncertain, so it must needs be very incon-
siderable, not fit to outweigh the danger and the loss, nor yet at all
valuable by them whose education and pretences were against it.
These we have plentifully. But if these men are numerous and
united, it is more. Then we have more; for so many did affirm
these things which they saw and heard, that thousands of people
were convinced of the truth of them : but then if these men offer
their oath, it is yet more, but yet not so much as we have, for they
sealed those things with their blood ; they gave their life for a testi-
mony; and what reward can any man expect if he gives his life for a
lie ? Who shall make him recompense, or what can tempt him to
do it knowingly ? But after all, it is to be remembered, that as God
hates lying, so He hates incredulity; as we must not believe a lie, so
neither stop up our eyes and ears against truth ; and what we do
every minute of our lives in matters of little and of great concern-

166 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

merit, if we refuse to do in our religion, which yet is to be conducted
as other human affairs are, by human instruments and arguments of
persuasion proper to the nature of the thing, it is an obstinacy that
is as contrary to human reason as it is to divine faith.

§ 18. These things relate to the person of the holy Jesus, and
prove sufficiently that it was extraordinary, that it was divine, that
" God was with Him," that His power wrought in Him ; and there-
fore that it was His will which Jesus taught, and God signed. . But
then if nothing of all this had been, yet even the doctrine itself
proves itself divine and to come from God.

§ 19. For it is a doctrine perfective of human nature, that teaches
us to love God and to love one another, to hurt no man, and to do
good to every man, it propines to us the noblest, the highest, and
the bravest pleasures of the world : the joys of charity, the rest of
innocence, the peace of quiet spirits, the wealth of beneficence, and
forbids us only to be beasts and to be devils ; it allows all that God
and nature intended, and only restrains the excrescencies of nature,
and forbids us to take pleasure in that which is the only entertain-
ment of devils, in murders and revenges, malice and spiteful words
and actions ; it permits corporal pleasures where they can best mi-
nister to health and societies, to conservation of families and honour
of communities ; it teaches men to keep their words that themselves
may be secured in all their just interests, and to do good to others
that good may be done to them ; it forbids biting one another that
we may not be devoured by one another ; and commands obedience
to superiors, that we may not be ruined in confusions ; it combines
governments, and confirms all good laws, and makes peace, and op-
poses and prevents wars where they are not just, and where they are
not necessary. It is a religion that is life and spirit, not consisting
in ceremonies and external amusements, but in the services of the
heart, and the real fruit of lips and hands, that is, of good words and
good deeds ; it bids us to do that to God which is agreeable to His
excellencies, that is, worship Him with the best thing we have, and
make all things else minister to it ; it bids us do that to our neigh-
bour, by which he may be better : it is the perfection of the natural
law, and agreeable to our natural necessities, and promotes our na-
tural ends "and designs : it does not destroy reason, but instructs it
in very many things, and complies with it in all ; it hath in it both
heat and light, and is not more effectual than it is beauteous ; it pro-
mises every thing that we can desire, and yet promises nothing but
what it does effect ; it proclaims war against all vices, and generally
does command every virtue ; it teaches us with ease to mortify those
affections which reason durst scarce reprove, because she hath not
strength enough to conquer, and it does create in us those virtues
which reason of herself never knew, and after they are known, could
never approve sufficiently : it is a doctrine in which nothing is super-
fluous or burdensome, nor yet is there any thing wanting which can

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 1(>7

procure happiness to mankind, or by which God can be glorified :
and if wisdom, and mercy, and justice, and simplicity, and holiness,
and purity, and meekness, and contentedness, and charity, be images
of God and rays of divinity, then that doctrine in which all these
shine so gloriously, and in which nothing else is ingredient must
needs be from God ; and that all this is true in the doctrine of Jesus
needs no other probation but the reading the words.

§ 20. For that the words of Jesus are contained in the gospels,
that is, in the writings of them who were eye-witnesses and ear-wit-
nesses of the actions and sermons of Jesus, is not at all to be doubted ;
for in every sect we believe their own records of doctrine and insti-
tution ; for it is madness to suppose the Christians to pretend to be
servants of the laws- of Jesus, and yet to make a law of their own
which He made not : no man doubts but that the alcoran is the law
of Mahomet, that the Old testament contains the religion of the
Jews ; and the authority of these books is proved by all the argu-
ments of the religion, for all the arguments persuading to the religion
are intended to prove no other than is contained in those books ;
and these having been for fifteen hundred years and more received
absolutely by all christian assemblies, if any man shall offer to make
a question of their authority, he must declare his reasons, for the dis-
ciples of the religion have sufficient presumption, security, and pos-
session, till they can be reasonably disturbed ; but that now they can
never be is infinitely certain, because we have a long, immemorial,
universal tradition that these books were written in those times, by
those men whose names they bear ; they were accepted by all churches
at the very first notice, except some few of the later, which were first
received by some churches, and then consented to by all ; they were
acknowledged by the same, and by the next age for genuine, their
authority published, their words cited, appeals made to them in all
cpicstions of religion, because it was known and confessed that they
wrote nothing but that they knew, so that they were not deceived ;
and to say they would lie must be made to appear by something
extrinsical to this enquiry, and was never so much as plausibly pre-
tended by any adversaries, and it being a matter of another man's
will, must be declared by actions, or not at all. But besides the men
that wrote them were to be believed because they did miracles, they
wrote prophecies, which are verified by the event, persons were cured
at their sepulchres, a thing so famous that it was confessed even by
the enemies of the religion : and after all, that which the world ought
to rely upon, is the wisdom and the providence and the goodness of
God; all which it concerned to take care that the religion which
Himself so adorned and proved by miracles and mighty signs, should
not be lost, nor any false writings be obtruded instead of true, lest
without our fault the will of God become impossible to be obeyed.
But to return to the thing: all those excellent things which singly
did make famous so many sects of philosophers, and remarked so

1G8 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

many princes of their sects, all them united, and many more which
their eves oufxara vvKTeptbcuv dark and dim could not see, are heaped
together in this system of wisdom and holiness. Here are plain
precepts full of deepest mystery; here are the measures of holiness
and approaches to God described ; obedience and conformity, morti-
fication of the body and elevations of the spirit, abstractions from
earth, and arts of society and union with heaven, degrees of excel-
lencies, and tendencies to perfection, imitations of God, and conver-
sations with Him ; these are the heights and descents, upon the plain
grounds of natural reason, and natural religion, for there is nothing
commanded but what our reason by nature ought to choose, and yet
nothing of natural reason tausdit but what is heightened and made
more perfect by the spirit of God; and when there is any thing in
the religion, that is against flesh and blood, it is only when flesh and
blocd is against us, and against reason ; when flesh and blood either
would hinder us from great felicity, or bring us into great misery.
To conclude, it is such a law that nothing can hinder men to receive
and entertain, but a pertinacious baseness and love to vice, and none
can receive it but those who resolve to be good and excellent ; and if
the holy Jesus had come into the world with less splendour of power
and mighty demonstrations, yet even the excellency of what He
taught, makes Him alone fit to be the master of the world.

§ 21. But then let us consider what this excellent person did
effect, and with what instruments He brought so great things to pass.
He was to put a period to the rites of Moses, and the religion of the
temple, of which the Jews were zealous even unto pertinacy; to
reform the manners of all mankind ; to confound the wisdom of the
Greeks ; to break in pieces the power of the devil ; to destroy the
worship of all false Gods, to pull down their oracles, and change their
laws, and by principles wise and holy to reform the false discourses
of the world. But see what was to be taught, a Trinity in the unity
of the Godhead, rpCa ev kcu ev rpia, that is the christian arithmetic,
'three are one and one are three,' so Lucian in his Philopatrisb, or
some other derides the Christian doctrine. See their philosophy, Ex
nihilo nihil jit. No : Ex nihilo omnia, 'all things are made of no-
thing/ and a Man-God and a God-Man, the same person finite and
infinite, born in time, and yet from all eternity, the Son of God, but
yet born of a woman, and she a maid, but yet a mother ; resurrection
of the dead, reunion of soul and body ; this was part of the christian
physics or their natural philosophy. But then certainly their moral
was easy and delicious. It is so indeed, but not to flesh and blood,
whose appetites it pretends to regulate or to destroy, to restrain or
else to mortify : fasting and penance, and humility, loving our ene-
mies, restitution of injuries, and self-denial, and taking up the cross,
and losing all our goods, and giving our life for Jesus. As the
other was hard to believe, so this is as hard to do. But for whom

b [Cap. xii. tom.ix. p. 232.]

CHAP. IV.J OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 169

and under whose conduct was all this to be believed, and all this to
be done, and all this to be suffered : surely for some glorious and
mighty prince, whose splendour as far outshines the Roman empire
as the jewels of Cleopatra outshined the swaddling clothes of the babe
at Bethlehem. No, it was not so neither. For all this was for Jesus
whom His followers preached ; a poor babe born in a stable, the son
of a carpenter, cradled in a cratch0, swaddled in poor clouts ; it was for
Him whom they indeed called a God, but yet whom all the world
knew, and they themselves said, was whipped at a post, nailed to a
cross ; He fell under the malice of the Jews His countrymen, and
the power of His Roman lords, a cheap and a pitiful sacrifice without
beauty and without splendour. The design is great, but does not yet
seem possible ; but therefore let us see what instruments the holy
Jesus chose to effect these so mighty changes, to persuade so many
propositions, to endear so great sufferings, to overcome so great ene-
mies, to master so many impossibilities which this doctrine and this
law from this master were sure to meet withal.

§ 22. Here, here it is that the divinity of the power is pro-
claimed. When a man goes to war he raises as great an army as he
can to out-number his enemy, but when God fights, three hundred
men that lap like a dog are sufficient11 ; nay, one word can dissolve the
greatest army. He that means to effect any thing must have means
of his own proportionable, and if they be not, he must fail, or derive
them from the mighty. See then with what instruments the holy
Jesus sets upon this great reformation of the world. Twelve men of
obscure and poor birth, of contemptible trades and quality, without
learning, without breeding ; these men were sent into the midst of a
knowing and wise world to dispute with the most famous philosophers
of Greece, to out-wit all the learning of Athens, to out-preach all the
Roman orators, to introduce into a newly-settled empire, which would
be impatient of novelties and change, such a change as must destroy
all their temples, or remove thence all their gods : against which
change all the zeal of the world, and all the passions, and all the
seeming pretences which they could make, must needs be violently
opposed : a change that introduced new laws, and caused them to
reverse the old, to change that religion under which their fathers long
did prosper, and under which the Roman empire obtained so great a
grandeur, for a religion which in appearance was silly and humble,
meek and peaceable, not apt indeed to do harm, but exposing men to
all the harm in the world, abating their courage, blunting their
swords, teaching peace and unactiveness, and making the soldiers'
arms in a manner useless, and untying their military girdle ; a reli-
gion which contradicted their reasons of state, and erected new judi-
catories, and made the Roman courts to be silent and without causes ;
a religion that gave countenance to the poor and pitiful (but in a
time when riches were adored, and ambition esteemed the greatest

[Fr. creche; see Johnson's Diet.] d [Judg., vii. 5, 6.J

170 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

nobleness, and pleasure thought to be the chiefest good) it brought
no peculiar blessing to the rich or mighty, unless they would become
poor and humble in some real sense or other ; a religion that would
change the face of things, and would also pierce into the secrets of
the soul, and unravel all the intrigues of hearts, and reform all evil
manners, and break vile habits into gentleness and counsel : that
such a religion in such a time, preached by such mean persons,
should triumph over the philosophy of the world, and the arguments
of the subtle, and the sermons of the eloquent, and the power of
princes, and the interest of states, and the inclinations of nature, and
the blindness of zeal, and the force of custom, and the pleasures of
sin, and the busy arts of the devil, that is, against wit, and power,
and money, and religion, and wilfulness, and fame, and empire, which
are all the things in the world that can make a thing impossible ;
this I say could not be by the proper force of such instruments ; for
no man can span heaven with an infant's palm, nor govern wise
empires with diagrams. It were impudence to send a footman to
command Caesar to lay down his arms, to disband his legions, and
throw himself into Tiber, or keep a tavern next to Pompey's theatre ;
but if a sober man shall stand alone unarmed, undefended, or unpro-
vided, and shall tell that he will make the sun stand still, or remove
a mountain, or reduce Xerxes his army to the scantling of a single
troop, he that believes he will and can do this, must believe he does
it by a higher power than he can yet perceive, and so it was in the
present transaction. For that the holy Jesus made invisible powers
to do Him visible honours, that His apostles hunted the demons
from their tripods, their navels, their dens, their hollow pipes, their
temples, and their altars, that He made the oracles silent, as Lucian,
Porphyry, Celsus, and other heathens confess ; that against the order
of new things, which let them be never so profitable or good do yet
suffer reproach, and cannot prevail unless they commence in a time of
advantage and favour, yet that this should flourish like a palm by
pressure, grow glorious by opposition, thrive by persecution, and was
demonstrated by objections, argues a higher cause than the immediate
instrument. Now how this higher cause did intervene is visible and
notorious. The apostles were not learned, but the holy Jesus pro-
mised that He would send down wisdom from above, from the Father
of spirits; they had no power, but they should be invested with
power from on high ; they were ignorant and timorous, but He would
make them learned and confident, and so He did ; He promised that
in a few days He would send the Holy Ghost upon them, and He did
so ; after ten days they felt and saw glorious immission from heaven,
lights of moveable fire sitting upon their heads, and that light did
illuminate their hearts, and the mighty rushing wind inspired them
with a power of speaking divers languages, and brought to their
remembrances all that Jesus did and taught, and made them wise to
conduct souls, and bold to venture, and prudent to advise, and

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 171

powerful to do miracle?, and witty to convince gainsayers, and hugely
instructed in the scriptures, and gave them the spirit of government,
and the spirit of prophecy. This thing was so public that at the
first notice of it three thousand souls were converted on that very day,
at the very time when it was done ; for it was certainly a visible de-
monstration of an invisible power, that ignorant persons who were
never taught, should in an instant speak all the languages of the
Roman empire ; and indeed this thing was so necessary to be so, and
so certain that it was so, so public, and so evident, and so reasonable,
and so useful, that it is not easy to say whether it was the indication
of a greater power, or a greater wisdom ; and now the means was
proportionable enough to the biggest end : without learning they
could not confute the learned world, but therefore God became their
teacher; without power they could not break the devil's violence,
but therefore God gave them power ; without courage they could not
contest against all the violence of the Jews and gentiles, but there-
fore God was their strength and gave them fortitude ; without great
caution and providence they could not avoid the traps of crafty per-
secutors, but therefore God gave them caution, and made them pro-
vident ; and as Bezaleel and Aholiah received the Spirit of God, the
spirit of understanding, to enable them to work excellently in the
tabernacle, so had the apostles to make them wise for the work of
God and the ministries of the diviner tabernacle, " which God
pitched, not man." Immediately upon this, the apostles to make a
fulness of demonstration and an undeniable conviction gave the spirit
to others also, to Jews and gentiles and to the men of Samaria, and
they spake with tongues and prophesied ; then they preached to all
nations, and endured all persecutions, and cured all diseases, and
raised the dead to life, and were brought before tribunals, and con-
fessed the name of Jesus, and convinced the blasphemous Jews out
of their own prophets, and not only prevailed upon women and weak
men, but even upon the bravest and wisest. All the disciples of John
the baptist, the Nazarenes and Ebionites, Nicodeinus and Joseph of
Arimathea, Sergius the president, Dionysius an Athenian judge, and
Polycarpus, Justinus and Irenseus, Athenagoras and Origen, Tertul-
lian and Clemens of Alexandria, who could not be such fools as upon
a matter not certainly true but probably false, to unravel their former
principles, and to change their liberty for a prison, wealth for poverty,
honour for disreputation, life for death, if by such exchange they had
not been secured of truth and holiness and the will of God.

§ 23. But above all these was Saul, a bold and a witty, a zealous
and learned young man, who going with letters to persecute the
Christians of Damascus, was by a light from heaven called from his
furious march, reproved by God's angel for persecuting the cause of
Jesus, was sent to the city, baptized by a christian minister, instructed
and sent abroad, and he became the prodigy of the world for learning
and zeal, for preaching and writing, for labour and sufferance, for

172 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

government and wisdom ; he was admitted to see the holy Jesus after
the Lord was taken into heaven, he was taken up into paradise, he
conversed with angels, he saw unspeakable rays of glory, and besides
that himself said it, who had no reason to lie, who would get nothing
by it here but a conjugation of troubles, and who should get nothing
by it hereafter if it were false ; besides this I say, that he did all
those acts of zeal and obedience for the promotion of the religion
does demonstrate he had reason extraordinary for so sudden a change,
so strange a labour, so frequent and incomparable sufferings : and
therefore as he did and suffered so much upon such glorious motives,
so he spared not to publish it to all the world, he spake it to kings
and princes, he told it to the envious Jews ; he had partners of his
journey who were witnesses of the miraculous accident, and in his
publication he urged the notoriousness of the fact, as a thing not
feigned, nor private, but done at noon day under the test of compe-
tent persons, and it was a thing that proved itself, for it was effective
of a present, a great, and a permanent change.

§ 24. But now it is no new wonder but a pursuance of the same
conjugation of great and divine things, that the fame and religion of
Jesus was with so incredible a swiftness scattered over the face of the
habitable world, from one end of the earth unto the other; it filled
all Asia immediately, it passed presently to Europe, and to the furthest
Africans, and all the way it went it told nothing but a holy and an
humble story, that He who came to bring it into the world died an
ignominious death, and yet this death did not take away their courage,
but added much : for they could not fear death for that master, whom
they knew to have for their sakes suffered death, and came to life
again. But now infinite numbers of persons of all sexes, and all
ages, and all countries came in to the holy crucifix, and He that was
crucified in the reign of Tiberius was in the time of Nero, even in
Rome itself, and in Nero's family by many persons esteemed for a
God ; and it was upon public record that he was so acknowledged :
and this was by a Christian, Justin Martyrd, urged to the senate, and
to the emperors themselves, who if it had been otherwise could easily
have confuted the bold allegation of the Christian, who yet did die
for that Jesus who was so speedily reputed for a God ; the cross was
worn upon breasts, printed in the air, drawn upon foreheads, carried
on banners, put upon crowns imperial ; and yet the Christians were
sought for to punishments, and exquisite punishments sought forth
for them; their goods were confiscate, their names odious, prisons
were their houses, and so many kinds of tortures invented for them
that Domitius Ulpianus hath spent seven books in describing the
variety of tortures the poor Christian was put to at his first appearing,
and yet in despite of all this, and ten thousand other objections and
impossibilities, whatsoever was for them made the religion grow, and
whatsoever was against them made it grow ; if they had peace, the

« [Apol. i. p. 52.]

CHAP. IV.] OU THINKING CONSCIENCE. 173

religion was prosperous, if they had persecution, it was still pros-
perous : if princes favoured them the world came in because the
Christians lived holily ; if princes were incensed, the world came in
because the Christians died bravely. They sought for death with
greediness, they desired to be grinded in the teeth of lions, and with
joy they beheld the wheels and bended trees, the racks and the gib-
bets, the fires and the burning irons, which were like the chair of
Elias to them, instruments to carry them to heaven, into the bosom
of their beloved Jesus.

§ 25. Who would not acknowledge the divinity of this person,
and the excellency of this institution, that should see infants to weary
the hands of hangmen for the testimony of Jesus? and wise men
preach this doctrine for no other visible reward, but shame and death,
poverty and banishment? and hangmen converted by the blood of
martyrs springing upon their faces which their impious hands and
cords have strained through their flesh ? Who would not have con-
fessed the honour of Jesus, when he should see miracles done at the
tombs of martyrs, and devils tremble at the mention of the name of
Jesus, and the world running to the honour of the poor Nazarene,
and kings and queens kissing the feet of the poor servants of Jesus ?
Could a Jew fisherman and a publican effect all this for the son of a
poor maiden of Judsea ? Can we suppose all the world, or so great
a part of mankind can consent by chance, or suffer such changes
for nothing, or for any thing less than this ? The son of the poor
maiden was the Son of God, and the fisherman spake by a divine
spirit, and they catched the world with holiness and miracles, with
wisdom and power bigger than the strength of all the Roman legions.
And what can be added to all this, but this thing alone to prove
the divinity of Jesus? — He is a God, or at least is taught by God,
who can foretell future contingencies ; and so did the holy Jesus, and
so did His disciples.

§ 26. Our blessed Lord while He was alive foretold that after His
death His religion should flourish more than when He was alive;
He foretold persecutions to His disciples; He foretold the mission of
the Holy Ghost to be in a very few days after His ascension, which
within ten days came to pass ; He prophesied that the fact of Mary
Magdalen in anointing the head and feet of her Lord, should be
public and known as the Gospel itself, and spoken of in the same
place ; He foretold the destruction of Jerusalem and the signs of its
approach, and that it should be by war, and particularly after the
manner of prophets symbolically, named the nation should do it,
pointing out the Roman eagles; He foretold His death, and the
manner of it, and plainly beforehand published His resurrection, and
told them it should be the sign to that generation, viz., the great
argument to prove Him to be the Christ ; He prophesied that there
should arise false Christs after Him, and it came to pass to the
extreme great calamity of the nation ; and lastly, He foretold that

174 Or THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

His beloved disciple S. John should tarry upon the earth till His
coming again, that is, to His coming to judgment upon Jerusalem ;
and that His religion should be preached to the gentiles, that it
should be scattered over all the world, and be received by all nations ;
that it should stay upon the face of the earth till His last coming to
judge all the world, and that the gates of hell should not be able to
prevail against His church ; which prophecy is made good thus long,
till this day, and is as a continual argument to justify the divinity of
the author. The continuance of the religion helps to continue it, for
it proves that it came from God, who foretold that it should continue;
and therefore it must continue because it came from God, and there-
fore it came from God because it does and shall for ever continue
according to the word of the holy Jesus.

§ 27. But after our blessed Lord was entered into glory, the dis-
ciples also were prophets. Agabus foretold the dearth that was to be
in the Eoman empire in the days of Claudius Caesar, and that S. Paul
should be bound at Jerusalem ; S. Paul foretold the entering in of
heretics into Asia after his departure; and he and S. Peter and
S. Jude and generally the rest of the apostles had two great predic-
tions, which they used not only as a verification of the doctrine of
Jesus, but as a means to strengthen the hearts of the disciples who
were so broken with persecution. The one was, that there should
arise a sect of vile men who should be enemies to religion and govern-
ment, and cause a great apostacy, which happened notoriously in the
sect of the gnostics, which those three apostles and S. John noto-
riously and plainly do describe. And the other was, that although
the Jewish nation did mightily oppose the religion, it should be but
for a while, for they should be destroyed in a short time, and their
nation made extremely miserable; but for the Christians, if they
would fly from Jerusalem and go to Pella, there should not a hair of
their head perish : the verification of this prophecy the Christians
extremely longed for, and wondered it staid so long, and began to be
troubled at the delay, and suspected all was not well, when the great
proof of their religion was not verified; and while they were in
thoughts of heart concerning it, the sad catalysis did come, and
swept away eleven hundred thousand of the nation, and from
that day forward the nation was broken in pieces with intolerable
calamities ; they are scattered over the face of the earth, and are a
vagabond nation, but yet like oil in a vessel of wine, broken into
bubbles but kept in their own circles, and they shall never be an
united people till they are servants of the holy Jesus ; but shall
remain without priest or temple, without altar or sacrifice, without
city or country, without the land of promise, or the promise of a
blessing, till our Jesus is their high-priest, and the shepherd to
gather them into His fold. And this very tiling is a mighty demon-
stration against the Jews by their own prophets; for when Isaiah and
Jeremiah and Mala'chi had prophesied the rejection of the Jews and

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 175

the calling of the gentiles, and the change of the old la\r, and the
introduction of a new by the Messias, that this was He was therefore
certain, because He taught the world a new law, and presently after
the publication of this the old was abrogate, and not only went into
desuetude, but into a total abolition among all the world; and for
those of the remnant of the scattered Jews who obstinately blaspheme,
the law is become impossible to them, and they placed in such cir-
cumstances that they need not dispute concerning its obligation j for
it being external and corporal, ritual and at last made also local,
when the circumstances are impossible, the law that was wholly cere-
monial and circumstantial must needs pass away, and when they
have lost their priesthood, they cannot retain the law, as 110 man
takes care to have his beard shaved when his head is off.

§ 28. And it is a wonder to consider how the anger of God is
gone out upon that miserable people, and that so great a blindness is
fallen upon them, it being evident and notorious, that the Old testa-
ment was uothing but a shadow and umbrage of the New, that the
prophecies of that are plainly verified in this ; that all the predictions
of the Messias are most undeniably accomplished in the person of
Jesus Christ, so that they cannot with any plausibleness or colour be
turned any other way, and be applied to any other person, although
the Jews make illiterate allegations, and prodigious dreams, by which
they have fooled themselves for sixteen hundred years together, and
still hope without reason, and are confident without revelation, and
pursue a shadow while they quit the glorious body; while in the
mean time the Christian prays for his conversion, and is at rest in the
truth of Jesus, and hath certain unexpressible confidencies and in-
ternal lights, clarities of the holy Spirit of God, and loves to the holy
Jesus produced in his soul, that he will die when he cannot dispute,
and is satisfied and he knows not how, and is sure by comforts, and
comforted by the excellency of his belief, which speaks nothing but
holiness, and light and reason, and peace and satisfactions infinite ;
because he is sure that all the world can be happy if they would live
by the religion of Jesus, and that neither societies of men nor single
persons can have felicity but by this, and that therefore God who so
decrees to make men happy, hath also decreed that it shall for
ever be upon the face of the earth, till the earth itself shall be no
more. Amen.

§29. Now if against this vast heap of things any man shall but
confront the pretences of any other religion, and see how they fail
both of reason and holiness, of wonder and divinity ; how they enter
by force, and are kept up by human interests, how ignorant and
unholy, howr unlearned and pitiful are their pretences, the darknesses
of these must add great emiuency to the brightness of that. For the
Jews5 religion which came from heaven is therefore not now to be
practised, because it did come from heaven, and was to expire into
the christian, it being nothing but the image of this perfection ; and

176 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

the Jews needed no other argument but this, that God hath made
theirs impossible now to be done, for he that ties to ceremonies and
outward usages, temples and altars, sacrifices and priests, trouble-
some and expensive rites and figures of future signification, means
that there should be an abode and fixed dwelling, for these are not
to be done by an ambulatory people ; and therefore since God hath
scattered the people into atoms and crumbs of society, without temple
or priest, without sacrifice or altar, without Urim or Thimmim, with-
out prophet or vision, even communicating with them no way but by
ordinary providence, it is but too evident, that God hath nothing to
do with them in the matter of that religion, but that it is expired, and
no way obligatory to them or pleasing to Him which is become impos-
sible to be acted ; whereas the christian religion is as eternal as the
soul of a man, and can no more cease than our spirits can die, and
can worship upon mountains and caves, in fields and churches, in
peace and war, in solitude and society, in persecution and in sun-
shine, by night and by day, and be solemnized by clergy and laity in
the essential parts of it, and is the perfection of the soul, and the
highest reason of man, and the glorification of God.

§ 30. But for the heathen religions it is evidently to be seen that
they are nothing but an abuse of the natural inclination which all
men have to worship a God, whom because they know not, they
guess at in the dark ; for that they know there is and ought to be
something that hath the care and providence of their affairs. But
the body of their religion is nothing but little arts of governments,
and stratagems of princes, and devices to secure the government of
new usurpers, or to make obedience to the laws sure, by being sacred,
and to make the yoke that was not natural, pleasant by something
that is. But yet for the whole body of it who sees not that their
worshippings could not be sacred, because they were done by some-
thing that is impure ; they appeased their gods with adulteries and
impure mixtures, by such things which Cato was ashamed to see,
by gluttonous eatings of flesh, and impious drinkings, and they did
litare in humano sanguine, they sacrificed men and women and chil-
dren to their demons, as is notorious in the rites of Bacchus Omesta
amongst the Greeks e, and of Jupiter, to whom a Greek and a Greekess,
a Galatian and a Galatess were yearly offeredf ; in the answers of the
oracles to Calchas as appears in Homer and Virgil : who sees not
that crimes were warranted by the example of their immortal gods,
and that what did dishonour themselves, they sang to the honour of
their gods, whom they affirmed to be passionate and proud, jealous
and revengeful, amorous and lustful, fearful and impatient, drunken
and sleepy, weary and wounded ; that the religions were made lasting
by policy and force, by ignorance, and the force of custom, by the

e [Plutarch. Themist, cap. xiii. ; Orpli., de osu anim., ii. 55.]
xxix. 5, li. 7; Euseb. praep. evang., lib. * [Plutarch. Marcell., cap. iii. torn. ii.

iv. cap. 16 ; Pausan., vii. 21. § 1 ; Porph. p. 404 j Liv., lib. xxii. cap. 57.]

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 177

preferring an inveterate error, and loving of a quiet and prosperous
evil, by the arguments of pleasure, and the correspondencies of sen-
suality, by the fraud of oracles, and the patronage of vices, and be-
cause they feared every change as an earthquake, as supposing over-
turnings of their old error to be the eversion of their well-established
governments : and it had been ordinarily impossible that ever Chris-
tianity should have entered, if the nature and excellency of it had not
been such as to enter like rain into a fleece of wool, or the sun into a
window, without noise or violence, without emotion and disordering
the political constitution, without causing trouble to any man but
what his own ignorance or peevishness was pleased to spin out of his
own bowels, but did establish governments, secure obedience, made
the laws firm, and the persons of princes to be sacred ; it did not op-
pose force by force, nor ' strike princes for justice^;' it defended itself
against enemies by patience, and overcame them by kindness ; it was
the great instrument of God to demonstrate His power in our weak-
nesses, and to do good to mankind by the imitation of His excellent
goodness.

§ 81. Lastly, he that considers concerning the religion and person
of Mahomet; that he was a vicious person, lustful and tyrannical, that
he propounded incredible and ridiculous propositions to his disciples ;
that it entered by the sword, by blood and violence, by murder and
robbery, that it propounds sensual rewards and allures to compliance
by bribing our basest lusts ; that it conserves itself by the same means
it entered ; that it is unlearned and foolish, against reason, and the
discourses of all wise men; that it did no miracles and made false pro-
phecies : in short, that in the person that founded it, in the article it
persuades, in the manner of prevailing, in the reward it offers, it is
unholy and foolish and rude; it must needs appear to be void of all
pretence, and that no man of reason can ever be fairly persuaded by
arguments that it is the daughter of God and came down from heaven.

Since therefore there is so nothing to be said for any other re-
ligion, and so very much for Christianity, every one of whose pre-
tences can be proved as well as the things themselves do require, and
as all the world expects such things should be proved; it follows that
the holy Jesus is the Son of God, that His religion is commanded by
God, and is that way by which He will be worshipped and honoured,
and that " there is no other name under heaven by which we can be
saved, but only by the name of the Lord Jesus'1.'' He that puts his
soul upon this cannot perish ; neither can he be reproved who hath
so much reason and argument for his religion. Sit an'vma mea cum
christianis1, fI pray God my soul may be numbered amongst the
Christians.''

§ 32. This irapepyov I have here brought as an instance of moral
demonstration, not only to do honour to my dearest Lord, by speaking

« [Prov. xvii. 26.] h [Acts iv. 12.] » [See vol. iv. p. 444.]

IX. N

178 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

true and great things of His name, and endeavouring to advance and
establish his kingdom, bat to represent in order to the first intention,
that a heap of probabilities may in some cases make a sure conscience ;
for as Cicero saysj, Probablle id est quod habet in se quandam simili-
tudinem, sive idfalsum est sive verum. For probability is not in the
thing properly, for every thing is true or false in itself, and even false
things may have the face and the likeness of truth, and cozen even wise
persons. It was said of Bias in Diogenes Laertiusk, Orator summits et
vehemens, sed in bonam causam dicendi vim omnem exercuit, 'he could
speak excellently, but then he spake best when he had an ill cause/
This Lactantius calls argutam malitiam, ' a cunning and an eloquent
malice/ But then as falsehood may put on the face of truth, so may
truth also look like itself ; and indeed every truth that men preach in
religion is at least probable, that is, there is so much to be said for it,
that wise and good men may be persuaded into every truth ; and the
cause that it is only probable is by reason of our want of knowledge of
things : but if it so happen that there is much to be said for the truth,
and little or nothing against it, then it is a moral demonstration, that
is, it ought to persuade firmly, and upon it we may rest confidently.

§ 33. This only I am to admonish, that our assent in these cases
is not to be greater than the force of the premises ; and therefore the
church of Rome offering to prove all her religion as it distinguishes
from the other divisions of Christians, only by some prudential mo-
tives, or probable inducements, and yet requiring that all her disci-
ples should believe it with divine and infallible faith, as certainly as
we believe a mathematical demonstration, does unjustly require brick
where she gives no straw, and builds a tower upon a bulrush, and
confesses that her interest is stronger than her argument, and that
where by direct proof she cannot prevail, she by little arts would
affright the understanding. For to give a perfect assent to probable
inducements can neither be reasonable nor possible for considering
persons, unless these conditions be in it.

THE REQUISITES OR CONDITIONS OF A MORAL DEMONSTRATION FOR
THE ASSURING OUR CONSCIENCE.

§ 34. 1) That the thing be the most probable to us in our present
condition : for there are summities and principalities of probation pro-
portionable to the ages and capacities of men and women. A little
thing determines a weak person ; and children believe infinitely what-
soever is told to them by their parents or tutors, because they have
nothing to contest against it. For in all probable discourses there
is an allay and abatement of persuasion by the opposition of argu-
ment to argument, but they who have nothing to oppose, and have
no reason to suspect, must give themselves up "wholly to it; and then

1 [De invent., lib. i. cap. 29.] k rlib- ; cap< g, ^ ^

CHAP. IV. J OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. ]79

every thing that comes is equally the highest, because it fully and
finally must prevail. But then that which prevails in infancy seems
childish and ridiculous in our youth, and then we are concluded by
some pretences and pretty umbrages of things, which for want of ex-
periences we think very well of; and we can then do no more; that
is a demonstration to us, which must determine us, and these little
things must then do it, because something must be done, and we
must do it as wisely as we may, but no man is bound to be wiser than
he can. As the thing seems, either in its own light or in our posi-
tion, so we are to give our assent unto it.

§ 85. 2) A heap of probable inducements ought to prevail, as
being then a moral demonstration when the thing is not capable of a
natural; for then probabilities ought to prevail, when they are the
best argument we have. For if any man shall argue thus; it is
not probable that God would leave His church without sufficient
means to end controversies, and since a living infallible judge is the
most effective to this purpose, it is therefore to be presumed and
relied upon that God hath done so ; — this argument ought not to
prevail as a moral demonstration; for though there are some sem-
blances and appearances of reason in it, nihil enim est tarn increclibile
quod non dicendo fiat probabile, said Cicero in his Paradoxes1, 'there
is nothing so incredible, but something may be said for it/ and a
witty man may make it plausible, yet there are certainties against it.
For God hath said expressly, that 'every man is a liar/ and there-
fore we are commanded to 'call no man master upon earth/ and
the nature of man is weak, and his understanding trifling, and every
thing abuses him, and every man that is wise sees his own ignorance,
and he that is not wise is easily deceived, and they who have pre-
tended to be infallible have spoken pitiful things, and fallen into
strange errors, and cannot be guarded from shame without a whole
legion of artifices and distinctions, and therefore it is certain that no
man is infallible ; and where the contrary is certain, the probable pre-
tence is but a fallacy and an art of illusion.

§ 36. 3) There can be no moral demonstration against the word
of God, or divine revelation. He that should flatter himself with
thinking the pains of hell shall not be eternal, because it is not agree-
able to the goodness of God to inflict a never-ceasing pain for a
sudden and transient pleasure, and that there can be no proportion
between finite and infinite, and yet God who is the fountain of justice
will observe proportions, (or if there could be ten thousand more
little things said to persuade a sinning man into confidences of an
end of torment,) yet he would find himself deceived, for all would be
light when put into the balance against these words of our blessed
Saviour, "Where the worm never dies, and the fire never goeth
outm."

§ 37. 4) "Where there is great probability on both sides, there

1 [In prcefat. ad M. Brutum.] m [Mark ix. 41, 6. 8.]

N 2

180 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

neither of them can pretend to be a moral demonstration, or directly
to secure the conscience : for contradictions can never be demon-
strated ; and if one says true, the other is a fair pretender, but a foul
deceiver; and therefore in this case the conscience is to be secured
indirectly and collaterally by the diligence of search, the honesty of
its intention, the heartiness of its assent, the infirmity of the searcher,
and the unavoidableness of his mistake.

§ 38. 5) The certainty of a moral demonstration must rely upon
some certain rule, to which as to a centre, all the little and great pro-
babilities like the lines of a circumference must turn ; and when
there is nothing in the matter of the question, then the conscience
hath ev nzya, one great axiom to rely upon, and that is, that God is
just, and God is good, and requires no greater probation than He hath
enabled us to find.

§ 39. 6) In probable inducements, God requires only such an
assent as can be effective of our duty and obedience, such a one as
we will rely upon to real events, such as merchants have when they
venture their goods to sea upon reasonable hopes of becoming rich,
or armies fight battles in hope of victory, relying upon the strength
they have as probable to prevail ; and if any article of our religion be
so proved to us as that we will reduce it to practice, own all its con-
sequences, live according to it, and in the pursuance of it hope for
God's mercy and acceptance, it is an assent as great as the thing will
bear, and yet as much as our duty will require ; for in these cases no
man is wise but he whose ears and heart is open to hear the instruc-
tions of any man wdio is wiser and better than himself.

§ 40. 7) Rules of prudence are never to be accepted against
a rule of logic, or reason, and strict discourses. I remember that
Bellarmine going to prove purgatory from the words of our blessed
Saviour", " It shall not be forgiven him in this world, nor in the
world to come," argues thus0; If this shall not be forgiven in the
world to come, then it implies that some sins are there forgiven, and
therefore there is a purgatory ; because in heaven there are no sins,
and in hell there are none forgiven. "This," says he, "concludes
not by the rule of logicians, but it does by the rule of prudence."
Now this to all wise men must needs appear to be an egregious pre-
varication even of common sense; for if the rules of logic be true,
then it is not prudence, but imprudence that contradicts them, unless
it be prudence to tell or to believe a lie. For the use of prudence is
to draw from conjectures a safe and a wise conclusion when there are
no certain rules to guide us. But against the certain rule it is folly
that declares, not prudence: and besides that this conjecture of
Bellarmine is wholly against the design of Christ, who intended there
only to say, that the sin against the Holy Ghost should never be
pardoned; it fails also in the main enquiry, for although there are no

n [Matt. xii. 32 ; Mark iii. 29 ; Luke xii. 10.]

0 [De purgat., lib. iii. cap. 4. torn. ii. col. 709, 10.]

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 181

sins in heaven, and in hell none are forgiven, yet at the day of judg-
ment all the sins of the penitent shall be forgiven and acquitted with
a blessed sentence : but besides this, the manner of expression is such
as may with prudence be expounded, and yet to no such purpose as
he dreams. For if I should say, Aristobulus was taken away, that
neither in this life, nor after his death, his eyes might see the destruc-
tion of the temple, does it follow by the rule of prudence, therefore
some people can see in their grave, or in the state of separation with
their bodily eyes ? But as to the main enquiry, what is to be the
measure of prudence? For some confident people think themselves
very prudent, and that they say well and wisely, when others wiser
than they know they talk like fools, and because no established reason
can be contradicted by a prudent conjecture, it is certain that this
prudence of Bellarmine was a hard shift to get an argument for no-
thing, and that no prudential motives are to be valued because any
man calls them so, but because they do rely upon some sure founda-
tion, and draw obscure lines from a resolved truth. For it is not a
prudential motive, unless it can finally rest upon reason, or revelation,
or experience, or something that is not contradicted by any thing
surer than itself.

RULE III.

OF TWO OPINIONS EQJUALLY PROBABLE, UPON THE ACCOUNT OF THEIR PROPER
REASONS, ONE MAY BE SAFER THAN ANOTHER.

§ 1. That is more probable which hath fairer reasons, that is more
safe that is furthest distant from a sin : and although this be always
considerable in the matter of prudence, and in the whole conjunction
of affairs, yet it is not always a proper ingredient in the question.
The abbot of Lerins hath the patronage of some ecclesiastical prefer-
ments in the neighbourhood. He for affection prefers to one of them
an ignorant and a vicious clerk, but afterwards being troubled in con-
science enquires if he be not bound to restitution. He is answered,
no; because it is in the matter of distributive justice, which binds
not to repair that which is past, any other ways out by repentance to
God and provisions for the future ; yet he being perplexed, and un-
satisfied, does restore so much fruits to the next worthy incumbent,
as the former unworthy clerk did eat. This was the surer course, and
it procured peace to him ; but the contrary was the more probable
answer. It is safer to restore all gains of usury ; but it is more pro-
bable that a man is not obliged to it. Tn which cases the advantage
lies not on that side that is more probable, but on that which is more
safe, as in these sentences that oblige to restitution. For although
either part avoids a formal sin, yet the safer side also persuades to

182 OP TIIE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

in action that is materially good, such as restitution is ; but not to
restore, although in these cases it may be innocent, yet in no sense
can it of itself be laudable.

§ 2. To which also in these cases it may be added, that on the
safer side there is a physical, or natural and proper certainty that we
sin not : on the other, though there is a greater probability that there
is no obligation, yet at most it can make but some degrees of moral
certainty. But how far this course is to be chosen and pursued, or
how far the other is to be preferred, will afterwards be disputed

EXILE IV.

AN OPINION THAT IS SPECULATIVELY PROBABLE, IS NOT ALWAYS
PKACTICALLY THE SAME.

§ 1. In a right and sure conscience the speculative and the prac-
tical judgment are always united, as I have beforep explicated ; but
in opinions that are but probable the case is contrary. It is in spe-
culation probable, that it is lawful to baptize in the name of the Lord
Jesus ; but yet he that shall do this practically, does improbably and
unreasonably. If the opinion of the primitive Christians had been
probable that it is lawful to communicate infants, yet it were at no
hand fitting to be done in the present constitution of affairs; and it
were highly useful if men would consider this effectually ; and not
from every tolerable opinion instantly run to an unreasonable and
intolerable practice.

§ 2. For a speculation considers the nature of things abstractedly
from circumstances physically or metaphysically, and yet when it
comes to be reduced to practice, what in the head was innocent will
upon the hand become troublesome and criminal. If there were no-
thing in it but the disorder of the novelty or the disturbance of men's
minds in a matter that is but probable, it were highly enough to
reprove this folly. Every man's imperfect discourse or half reasons
are neither fit to govern the actions of others or himself. Suppose it
probable (which the Greek church believes) that the consecration of
the blessed eucharist is not made by the words of institution, but by
the prayers of the holy man that ministers, the bishop or the priest ;
yet when this is reduced to practice, and that a man shall omit
the words of institution or consecration, his practice is more to be
reproved than his opinion could be possibly allowed. Some think
churches not to be more sacred than other places ; what degree of
probability soever this can have, yet it is a huge degree of folly to
act this opinion, and to choose a barn to pray in, when a church
may be had.

§ 3. For there are in actions besides the proper ingredients of

» Chap. ji. rule 2. [p. 50.]

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 183

their intrinsieal lawfulness or consonancy to reason, a great many
outsides and adherences that are considerable beyond the speculation.
The want of this consideration hath done much evil in many ages;
and amongst us nothing hath been more usual than to dispute con-
cerning a rite or sacramental, or a constitution, whether it be neces-
sary, and whether the contrary be not lawful ; and if it be found pro-
bably so as the enquirers would have it, immediately they reduced
it to practice, and caused disorder and scandal, schism and uncha-
ritableness amongst men, wdiile they thought that christian liberty
could not be preserved in the understanding, unless they disorder all
things by a practical conclusion. Videos quosdam quid/is sua liber!, ts
lion videtur consistere, nisi per esuni carnium die Veneris in ejus pos-
sessionem venerint, Calvin i complains with reason. It is a strange
folly that men will not think they have possession of christian liberty,
unless they break all laws and all customs, as if men could not
prove things to be indifferent and not obligatory unless they cer-
tainly omit them. Christian liberty consists in the head, not in
the hand ; and when we know we are free from the bondage, we
may yet do the work ; and when our gracious Lord hath knocked
our fetters off, we may yet think it too fit to do what His stew-
ards command us in order to His services. It is free to us to eat,
or to abstain, to contain or to marry ; but he that oidy marries
because he would triumph and brag of his freedom, may get an im-
perious mistress instead of a gentle master. By the laws of christian
liberty indifferent things are permitted to my choice, and I am not
under their power ; but no christian liberty says that I am free from
the power of a man, though I be from the power of the thing ; and
although in speculation this last was sufficient to be considered, yet
when the opinion comes to be reduced to practice, the other also
ought to have been thought upon. And besides this, it is a strange
pertuess and boldness of spirit, so to trust every fancy of my own, as
to put the greatest interest upon it; so to be in love with every
opinion and trilling conceit, as to value it beyond the peace of the
church and the wiser customs of the world, or the laws and practices
of a wise and well instructed community of men. Nothing can make
recompense for a certain change but a certain truth, with apparent
usefulness in order to charity, piety, or institution.

§ 4. These instances are in the matter of religion; it may also
happen thus in the matter of justice. When Lamech perceived
something stir in a bush, it was very probable it was a wild boast ;
but when he came to reduce his opinion to practice, he shot at it and
killed a manr. And in the matter of justice there is a proper reason

1 Instit., lib. iii. [cap. 19. § 10. p. 222.] Hist, orient., lib. i. cap. 3. (p. 33. ed. 4to.

r [viz. Cain. — This legend, which Tig. 1660). It is found also with slight

seems to have been derived by later com- variations in the Jalkut of 11. Simeon

mentators from (he Ilistoria scholastica Hadarsan, circa A.D. 1310. (§ 38. p. 11.

of Peter Comestor, on Gen., rap. xxviii., ed. fol.Ven. 1566.) S.Jerome (ad Dainas.,

is traced to oriental sources by Hettinger, torn. ii. col. 561), quoted by Pererius and

184 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

for this rule : because in matters of right or wrong, possession is not
to be altered without certainty, and therefore neither can I seize upon
my goods in another man's hand, unless I be sure they are mine,
though I were not otherwise restrained by human laws ; neither may
I expose any thing to danger of which I am not certainly master.

§ 5. This also is with great caution to be observed in the matter of
chastity. Although it may be true that in many cases such or such
aspects or approximations may be lawful; that is, those things so far
as they are considered have no dissonancy from reason : yet he that
shall reduce this opinion to practice must also remember that he is to
deal with flesh and blood, which will take fire, not only from permis-
sions, but from prohibitions and restraints, and will pass instantly
from lawful to unlawful : and although this may not be a sin in con-
sideration and discourse, but is to be acquitted by the sentence of the
schools and pulpit, yet when it comes to be viewed and laid before
the judgment in the court of conscience, and as it was clothed with
circumstances, it will be found, that when it came to be practised,
other parts or senses were employed which cannot make such separa-
tions, but do something else.

§ 6. But if it be asked, to what purpose it can be that any man
should enquire of the lawfulness of such actions which whether they
be lawful or unlawful, yet may not be done? I answer, that the
enquiry is necessary for the direct avoiding a sin in the proper matter
of the instance ; for he that never enquires, sins for want of enquiry,
and despises his soul because he takes no care that it be rightly in-
formed ; but if he enquires, and be answered that the opinion is false,
or the action criminal, he finds by the answer that it was worth his
pains to ask, because by it he is taught to avoid a sin. But then,
besides the question of lawful or unlawful, there are further enquiries
to be made concerning fitting and unfitting, offensive, or complying,
safe or dangerous, abstractedlv or in relation ; for manv things which
are lawful in themselves become very bad to him that does them, and
to him that suffers them.

RULE V.

THE GREATER PROBABILITY DESTROYS THE LESS,

§ 1. That is, it is not lawful directly to choose an opinion that
seems less probable, before that which is more probable. I say,
directly; for if the less probable be more safe, it becomes acci-

Cornelius a Lapide on Gen. iv. 23, refers whose works however it is not found,

to it on Jewish authority, — (in quodam Basil (epist. cclx. torn. iii. p. 399. A.),

Hebrseo volumine scribitur), but docs not and Theodoret (quaestt. in Gen., torn. L

relate it at length. Lipomaims (eaten. p. 57.) reject it]
in Gen.), quotes it from Rabanus, in

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 185

dentally more eligible; of which I have already given account", and
shall add something afterward'. But without this accident, the de-
grees of safety are left to follow the degrees of probability. For
when the safety does not depend upon the matter, it must depend
upon the reasons of the inducement ; and because the safety must
increase consequently to the probability, it is against charity to omit
that which is safer, and to choose that which is less safe.

§ 2. For it is not in moral things as it is in natural ; where a less
sweet is still sweet, though not so sweet as that which is more : and
the flowers of trefoil are pleasant, though honey be far more plea-
sant ; and PliEedon may be wise, though he be not so wise as Plato ;
because there are degrees of intension and remission in these quali-
ties : and if we look upon two probable propositions, and consider
them naturally, they are both consonant to reason in their appa-
rencies, though in several degrees. So that if Sempronius choose a
less probable, before he hath learned what is more probable, he hath
done well and safely. But when the two probables are compared, to
reject that which is more probable is to do 1) unnaturally : 2) and
unreasonably : 3) and imprudently.

§ 3. 1) Unnaturally. — In matters proposed to the will, the will
may choose a less good, and reject the greater; and though it is
most commonly a great imperfection to do so, yet it is many times
innocent, because it is in the choice of the will to which it is pro-
pounded, and no commandment laid upon it. But in matters of
opinion and intellectual notices, where there is no liberty, there is
a necessity of following the natural proportions, that is, that the
stronger efficient upon the same suscipient should produce the more
certain and regular effect. ' To think or to opine is not free/ said
Aristotle", and yet he that chooses the less probable, omitting that
which is more, makes the determination by his will, not by his
understanding ; and therefore it is not an honest act or judgment
of conscience, but a production of the will.

§ 4. 2) It is unreasonable. — Because in all those degrees of rea-
sonableness in which the less probable is excelled by that which is
more probable, a man does wdiolly proceed without and against that
reason ; and why does he choose the less probable ? I do not ask
why he chooses the less probable opinion, that I mean which is so in
itself; for he may do that because it seems more reasonable, or he
knows nothing else : but I ask why he proceeds according to a less
probable conscience? that is, why does he choose that which he be-
lieves to be less probable ? for what reason doth he choose that for
which he hath the least reason? If there be no reason to choose
that rather than the other, then it is an unreasonable thing to do so.
If there be a reason which is not in the other, or which is not excelled

' Rule 2. of this sect. [p. 180.] u Lib. iii. de anima. [cap. 3. torn. i.

1 Chap. v. rule 4. [p. 225.] p. 427.]

L86 OP THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

or equalled by it, tliert the case is altered, and this is not the less
probable, but equally or more. But supposing it less probable, it is
a contradiction to say a man can reasonably choose it. For if he
could, there must be some greater reason in that which hath less
reason ; something there must be in it whereby it can be preferred,
or be more eligible, which is directly against the supposition and
state of the question. The unreasonableness of this we may also per-
ceive by the necessities of mankind, which are served by the more
probable, and disserved by that which is less. For thus judges are
bound for the interest of all parties, and the reasonableness of the
thing, to judge on that side where the sentence is most probable :
and the physician in prescribing medicines must not choose that
which he least confides in, and reject that which he rather trusts.
And why do all the world in their assemblies take that sentence
which is chosen by the greater part, but because that is presumed
more probable, and that which is so ought to be followed ? and why
it ought not to be so in matters of our soul is not easily to be told,
unless our conscience may be governed by will rather than by reason,
or that the interest of souls is wholly inconsiderable.

§ 5. 3) It is also imprudent. — A man that believes a less pro-
bable, is light of heart, he is incurious of his clanger, and does not
use those means in order to his great end which himself judges the
most reasonable, effective, and expedient. He does as Rehoboam
did, who rejected the wiser counsel of the seniors, and chose the less
likely sentence of the young gallants, and does against the advice of
all those rules which are prescribed us in prudent choice ; and if no
man ever advised another to choose that which is less reasonable, he
that does so does against the wisdom and the interest of all the wise
men in the world.

§ 6. 4) After all this it is not honest to do it. For in two pro-
bables only one of them is true, and which that is, he can only take
the best way of the best reason to find out ; and it is impossible he
should believe that which to him seems less likely, to be the more
likely; and therefore so far as is in him he chooses that which is
false, and voluntarily abuses his conscience, which, besides the folly
of it, is also criminal and malicious.

§ 7. This doctrine thus delivered was the opinion of the ancient
casuists, Angelus, Sylvester, Cordubensis, Cajetan, and some others;
but fiercely opposed by the later, wTho are bold and confident to say
that their opinion is the common and more received, and it relies
upon these reasons ;

§ 8. a) Because if it were unlawful to follow the less probable and
to leave the greater, it is because there is danger in so doing, and no
man ought to expose himself to a danger of sinning : but this pre-
tence is nothing; for by the consent of all sides it is lawful to follow
the more probable though it be less safe ; and therefore all danger of
sinning is not under pain of sin to be avoided.

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 187

§ 9. IB) The people are not tied to greater severity in their prac-
tices than the doctors are in their sermons and discourses, nor yet so
much ; because in those an error is an evil principle, and apt to be of
mischievous effect and dissemination, whereas an error in practice,
because it is singular and circumstantiate, is also personal and limited.
But the doctors may lawfully teach an opinion less probable if they
be moved to it by the authority of some more eminent person.

§ 10. y) It is confessed to be lawful to follow the opinion that is
more probable, but that it is lawful to leave the more probable and
to follow the less (say they) is the more common and received
opinion, and therefore also more probable ; and therefore this opi-
nion may be chosen and pursued, and then because we may follow
that opinion which is more probable, we may follow that which is
less, because it is more probable that we may.

These objections I answer :

§11. 1) That the danger of sinning is not the only reason why
we may not follow the less probable opinion ; for it is not always un-
lawful to expose ourselves to a danger of sinning, for sometimes it is
necessary that we endure a noble trial, and resist openly, and oppose
an enemy, which cannot be done without danger, but is often without
sin ; but to leave the more probable for the less is not only a danger
of sinning, but a sin directly, and beyond a danger; and if it were
not more than a mere danger, it could not be a sin. lor besides that
this hath danger, it is a most unreasonable, and a most unnatural
thing, against the designs of God, and the proper effects of reason.
But besides, this way of arguing is neither good in logic nor in con-
science. He that can answer one of my arguments, does not pre-
sently overthrow my proposition; and it is not safe to venture upon
an action because the contrary relies upon one weak leg. But then
as to the instance in this argument, I answer, he that follows the
more probable, though it be less safe, does not expose himself to any
danger at all of sinning, because though he does not follow his
greatest fears, yet he follows his greatest reason, and in that he is
sometimes safest though he perceives it not. However, there is in
this case no danger that is imputable to the man that follows the
best reason he hath. But this excuses not him who follows that
which seems to him to have in it less reason ; for, unless it be by
some other intervening accident which may alter the case, (of which
I shall afterwards give account,) the less probable opinion hath in it
a direct clanger, and therefore to choose it, is ordinarily against cha-
rity, and in some degree against conscience itself.

§ 12. 2) To the second I answer, that both doctors and the
people, though they may safely follow the less probable opinion, yet
they may never directly follow a less probable conscience : that is,
though a probable opinion is a sufficient guide of conscience, and it

1 88 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

is sufficient both for publication and for practice that it is so ; and
therefore that we are not strictly tied to make a curious search into
the two probables which excel others in the degrees of reason, lest
there should arise eternal scruples, perpetual restlessness and dissatis-
faction in the minds of men ; yet when of two probables there is an
actual persuasion that this is more, and that is less, neither may the
doctors teach, nor any man follow the less, because here it is not the
better opinion, but the better conscience that is despised. It may
happen that what I believe more probable, is indeed less ; and there-
fore it must be admitted to be safe to follow the less probable
opinion, if it happen to stand on the fairest side of conscience, that
is, that it be better thought of than it deserves ; but for the same
reason it is also certain that we must follow that which we think the
more probable opinion, whether it be so or no, because this is to be
done, not for the opinion, but for conscience sake. And whereas it
is said in the objection, that a doctor may lawfully teach an opinion
less probable, if he be moved to it by the authority of some more
eminent person, that is as much as to say, when the opinion which
intrinsically, or at least in his private judgment seems less probable,
becomes extrinsically the more probable, he may follow either, of
which in this chapter I am yet to give a more particular account;
but it no way rifles the present doctrine. Only this I add, if it were
lawful and safe to follow the less probable opinion, and reject the
greater, then in such questions which are only determined by autho-
rity, and sentences of wise men, it were lawful to choose any thing
that any one of them permits, and every probable doctor may rescind
all the laws in Christendom, and expound all the precepts of the
gospel in easy senses, and change discipline into liberty, and con-
found interests, and arm rebels against their princes, and flocks
against their shepherds and prelates, and set up altar against altar,
and mingle all things sacred and profane. Because if any one says
it is lawful, all that have a mind to do evil things may choose him
for their guide, and his opinion for their warranty.

§ 13. 3) To the third I answer, that the opinion which is more
common is not always the more probable, for it may be false and
heretical ; and if at any times it seems more probable, it is because
men understand little or nothing of it. But then if it were so, yet
this opinion which is lately taught by the modern casuists, is not the
more common, simply and absolutely ; it was once the less common,
and whether it be so now or no, it is hard to tell ; but admit it be
so, yet the community and popularity of opinion is but a degree of
extrinsical probability, and is apt to persuade only in the destitution
of other arguments, which because they are not wanting in this ques-
tion, the trick in the objection appears trifling.

CHAP. IV.] Oil THINKING CONSCIENCE. 189

ETJLE VI.

■WHEN TWO OPINIONS SEEM EQUALLY PROBABLE, THE LAST DETERMINATION' IS
TO BE MADE BY ACCIDENTS, CIRCUMSTANCES, AND COLLATERAL INDUCEMENTS.

§ 1 . In the matter of this rule it is variously disputed ; some af-
firming that the understanding must for ever remain suspended, and
the action wholly omitted, as in the case of a doubting conscience.
Others give leave to choose either part, as a man please, making the
will to determine the understanding.

§ 2. The first cannot be true, because while they both seem
equally consonant to reason, it cannot be dishonest to choose that
which to me seems reasonable ; and therefore the understanding
may choose practically. They are like two things equally good,
which alike move the will, and the choosing of the one is not a re-
fusing the other, when they cannot be both enjoyed; but like the
taking one piece of gold, and letting the other that is as good alone :
and the action is determined by its own exercise, not by an antece-
dent reason.

But neither can it be in all cases and questions that the determi-
nation can be totally omitted ; as if the question be whether this
ought to be done, or ought to be let alone, and both of them seem
equally probable ; so also if the question be whether it may be done or
may be let alone : in these cases it is certain one part must be chosen,
for the very suspending the act is not a suspending of the choice, the
not doing it is a compliance with one of the probabilities. The lazy
fellow in the apologue that told his father he lay in bed in the morn-
ing to hear labour and idleness dispute whether it were best to rise
or to lie still, though he thought their arguments equally probable,
yet he did not suspend his act, but without determining he put the
sentence of idleness in execution ; and so it must be in all questions
of general enquiry concerning lawful or unlawful, necessary or not
necessary, the equal probability cannot infer a suspension or an equal
non-compliance.

§3. But neither can the second be true ; for the will must not alone
be admitted an arbitrator in this affair; for besides that it is of dan-
gerous consequence to choose an opinion because we will, it is also
unnatural, the will being no ingredient into the actions of under-
standing. The will may cause the understanding to apply a general
proposition to a particular case, and produce a practical judgment by
that general measure without particular arguments in the question
apportioned to the proper matter, as I before discoursed35. But when
the understanding is wholly at dispute about the proper arguments

* Chap. in. rule 7. [p 147.]

190 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

of two propositions, if the will interposes, the error that happens, if
the conclusion falls on the wrong side, is without excuse, because it is
chosen : and the truth is not so safe and useful, because it came by
an incompetent instrument, by that which was indifferent to this truth
or the other. Indeed if there be no other way to determine the
question, the will must do it, because there is no avoiding it; but
if there be any other way, this must not be taken ; but ordinarily
there is.

§ 4. The third way therefore is this ; the determination may be
made by any thing that can be added to either side in genere rationia:
as the action that is prepared stands more ready for my circum-
stances : that which does me less violence, that which is more pro-
portionable to any of those events which in prudence are to me con-
siderable. It is indifferent whether Paula Eomana give her alms to
the poor of Nicopolisy, or to the poor dwelling near the monastery of
Bethlehem ; but because these dwelt nearer, and were more fitted for
her circumstances, this was enough to turn the scales and make the
determination. It is like putting on that garment that is nearest me ;
not this rather than the other, nor yet this because I will, but this
because it is here. The use of this rule is, to prevent a probable con-
science to become doubtful, and yet (as much as may be) to avoid the
interposition of the will in the practical judgments of conscience.

§ 5. This rule is to be enlarged with this addition, that if the con-
science by reason of the equal probability of two opinions so standing^
■without any determining and deciding circumstances and accidents,
cannot decree on any side neither by intrinsical nor extrinsical means,
that is, neither by proper arguments nor collateral inducements, no
action ought to follow, but the case of which the question is, if it can
be, ought to be omitted, as in the case of a doubting conscience,
which though as I shewed before, cannot happen when the question
is general of lawful or unlawful, necessary or unnecessary, yet it may
happen in particular cases, as whether this thing be lawful or that,
whether this is to be done or the other. It may happen that neither
of them ought, and in the present supposition neither of them can;
that is, if the man suffers his dispute to pass into a doubt.

§ 6. In other cases a man may safely take any course which he
finds probable, equally disputed, uncertain in itself, contrarily deter-
mined by doctors disputing with fair arguments. Tor in this case
malice is no ingredient ; and if interest be, it is therefore lawful, be-
cause it is an extrinsical motive, apt and reasonable to be considered,
and chosen, and pursued by fair means, if the interest itself have no
foulness in it.

§ 7. But of all the external motives that can have influence in the
determination of a sentence between two probabilities, a relation to
piety is the greatest. He that chooses this because it is most pious,
chooses his opinion out of consideration, and by the inducement of

3 [Cf. Hieron., epist. lxxxvi. torn. iv. part 2. col. 681. sqq.]

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 191

the love of God. That which causes more honour to God, that
which happily engages men in holy living, that which is the most
charitable, and the most useful, that is to be preferred. But this is
to be conducted with these cautions :

§ 8. 1) That the disposition to piety or charity be not made to
contest an apparent truth. It is hugely charitable to some men, if it
could be made true, to say that God is merciful to all sinners and at
all times ; and it is ten thousand pities to see a man made to despair
upon his death-bed upon the consideration of his past evil life ; but
this consideration must not therefore be pretended against the in-
dispensable plain necessity of a holy life, since it is plainly revealed,
that without the pursuing of peace with all men, and holiness, no
man shall sec God.

§ 9. 2) If both the probabilities be backed and seconded by their
proper relations to piety, to take one of them is not a competent way
to determine the probability ; but it must be wholly conducted by
the efficacy of its proper reasons, or by some appendage in which one
prevails above the other, when one opinion is valued because it is apt
to make men fear, and not to be presumptuous ; and another, because
it is apt to make men hope, and never to despair, the balance is
equal, and must be turned by neither of these. Scotus and Duran-
dus, Gabriel and Almain, Medina and some few others, taught that
the death of Christ did not make satisfaction to God for the sins of
the whole world, by the way of perfect and exact justice, but by God's
gracious acceptance of it, and stipulation for it. This opinion does
indeed advance the honour of God's mercy, but the contrary advances
the dignity of Christ's suffering; and therefore it must be disputed
and determined by some other instruments of persuasion. God the
Father is on one side, and God the Son on the other, and though
he who honours one honours both, yet he that prefers one may seem
also to disparage both.

§ 10. 3) The relation to piety, and the advantages which come to
it by the opinion must not be fantastic, and relying upon a weak
opinion and fond persuasion, but upon true reason, or real effects.
It is a common opinion among the ancients2, that Anna the mother
of the blessed virgin-mother of God had been married to three hus-
bands successively, and that the blessed virgin was the second wife
of Joseph ; they who think that the second and third marriages are
less perfect than the first, think it more pious to embrace the other
opinions, viz., that Anna was married to none but Joachim, and that
Joseph was only married to the holy virgin Mary. But because this
is to take measures of things which God hath not given us, and to
reckon purities and impurities by their own fancies, not by reason
and revelation from God, therefore this fantastic relation to piety is
not weight enough to carry the question along with it.

* [For the authorities on this subject of Petrus Sutor, de triplici connubio divas
the reader is referred to the dissertation Annae, 4to. Par. 1.523.]

1 92 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

In other cases the rule holds : and by these measures our con-
science can be supported in a storm, and be nourished and feasted
every day, viz., if we take care ;

a) That we avoid every thing that we know to be a sin, whether it
be reproached by its natural impurity and unreasonableness, or with-
out any note of turpitude it be directly restrained by a law.

/3) That we fly every appearance of evil, or likeness of sin.
1 Thess. iv. 22.

y) That we fly every occasion, or danger of sin. Matt. xxvi. 58,
69, 70, and 1 Cor. vii. 5.

8) That we avoid all society or communication with sin, or giving
countenance, and maintenance to it. By these measures and analo-
gies if we limit our cases of conscience, we cannot be abused into
danger and dishonour.

EULE VII.

IT IS NOT LAWFUL TO CHANGE OUR PRACTICAL SENTENCE ABOUT THE SAME
OBJECT, WHILE THE SAME PROBABILITY REMAINS.

§ 1.) A man may change his opinion as he sees cause, or alter the
practice upon a new emergent reason ; but when all things are equal
without and within, a change is not to be made by the man, except it
be in such cases in which no law, or vow, or duty, or the interest of
a third is concerned ; that is, unless the actions be indifferent in
themselves, or innocent in their circumstances, and so not properly
considerable in the fears of conscience, in which cases a man's liberty
is not to be prejudiced.

§ 2. This stating of the rule does intimate the proper reasons of
it, as appears in the following instances. Juan a priest of Messina
having fasted upon the vespers of a holy day, towards the middle of
the night hath a great desire to eat flesh ; he dwelling by the great
church, observed that the clocks in the neighbourhood differed half
an hour3. He watches the first clock that struck midnight, and as
soon as it had sounded, he eat his meat, because then he concluded
that the ecclesiastical fasting day was expired, and that therefore it
was then lawful by the laws of his church to eat flesh. But being to
consecrate the blessed eucharist the next morning, and obliged to a
natural fast before the celebration of the holy sacrament, he changed
his computation, and reckoned the day to begin by the later clock ;
so that the first day ended half an hour before the next day began,
and he broke his fast because the eve was past, and yet he accounted

■

■ [Bardus, discept. iv. cap. 14. p. 204.]

CHAP. IV.] Oil THINKING CONSCIENCE. 193

that he was fasting, because the holy day was not begun. This was
to cozen the law, and if it be translated to more material instances,
the evil of it will be more apparent, but in this the unreasonableness
is as visible. The like is the case of a gentleman living in the neigh-
bourhood of Romeb. Baptista Colonna happened to be in Rome on
the three and twentieth of August, which is usually the eve of
S. Bartholomew, but there it is kept on the twenty-fourth day ; he
refused to fast on the ordinary day of the vigils as he used to do,
because in Rome where he then was the custom was otherwise ; he
eat his meals, and resolved to keep it the next day, but on the mor-
row being very hungry and desirous of flesh, he changed his sen-
tence, and went out of Rome to the neighbourhood, and kept the
feast of S. Bartholomew without the eves. This is to elude the
duty, and to run away from the severity of the law, by trifling with
the letter.

§ 3. If the case be not complicated with a law, yet it is often in-
folded with the interest of a third person, and then is not to be
changed, but remains invariable. Maevius promised to Sertorius to
give him a servant0, either Ephodius or Taranta, but resolves to give
him Taranta ; immediately after the resolution Ephodius dies, and
Msevius tells his friend he is disobliged, because he hath but one,
and resolves not to part with Taranta, and it was in his liberty to
give him either, and because he will not assign his part in this, it is
wholly lost in the other; but this is unfriendly and unjust. To this
sort of instance is to be reduced a caution against fraudulency in the
matter of vows.

§ 4. Vitellescus vows to fast upon the last of February, but chang-
ing his mind, believes he may commute his fasting for alms ; he re-
solves to break his fast and to give a ducket d to the poore. But when
he had new dined, he discourses the question again, and thinks it un-
lawful to commute, and that he is bound to pay his vow in kind ; but
the fast is broken, and yet if he refuses upon this new inquest to pay
his commutation, he is a deceiver of his own soul. For in the pre-
sent case, if to commute were not lawful, yet it is certain he is not
disobliged; and therefore he is to pay his commutation, because it
was decreed in the time of a probable conscience ; and not being in
itself unlawful, though it be now supposed to be insufficient, yet it is
to be accounted for upon the stock of the first resolution of the con-
science, because the state of things is not entire ; and advantages are
not to be taken against religion from the account and stock of our
errors or delusions ; and if after this the conscience be not at rest,
it is to be quieted by other actions of repentance and amends.

b [ibid., p. 210.] 3. ]. 95. (Col. 1593 ;) and lib. xiii. tit 14.

c [il>id., p. 209. Sanchez, de decal., 1. 2. (col. 373.)]

lib. iv. cap. 13. § 24, cited by that au- * [Sic ed<L]

thor, refers to the digests, lib. xlvi. tit. e [Bard, ibid., p. 205.]

IX. O

194 OF THE PKOBABLE, [BOOK I.

Quest.

§ 5. But here also is to be enquired, whether a man may to several
persons, to serve distinct ends, in themselves lawful and honest, dis-
course of and persuade both the parts of a probability respectively ?
Titius woos Orestilla for his wife ; she being sickly, and fearful lest
she shall have no children, declines it ; he to persuade her, tells her
it is very likely she will, and that it will cure her indisposition. But
the interest of Titius is to have no children, as being already well
stored, and therefore is dissuaded by them that have power over him,
not to marry Orestilla. He to answer their importunity tells them,
it is very likely Orestilla will be barren, and upon that account he
marries her because she is sickly, and unlikely to become a mother.
The question is, whether this be lawful.

§6.1 answer, 1 ) If he be actually persuaded of that part of the
probability when he urges it, and be changed into the other when he
persuades the other, there is no question but it is as lawful to say
both as one; for they are single affirmatives or negatives, and the
time is but accidental to his persuasion ; yesterday this, and to-mor-
row its contrary, are alike, while in both or each of them his persua-
sion is hearty and sincere.

§ 7. 2) If Titius urges both parts severally and yet remains ac-
tually persuaded but of one of them, he may urge them as probable
in themselves, disputable, and of indifferent argument and induce-
ment, for so they are. But,

§ 8. 3) He must not imprint them by the efficacy of his own au-
thority and opinion, nor speak that as certain which is at most but
probable, and to him seems false ; for so to do is against ingenuity
and christian sincerity ; it is to make a lie put on the face of truth
and become a craft ; it is not honest nor noble, nor agreeing to the
spirit of a Christian, and is a direct deception on one side, and an in-
direct prosecution of a lawful end.

RULE VIII.

AN OPINION RELYING UPON VERY SLENDER PROBABILITY IS NOT TO BE FOL-
LOWED, EXCEPT IN THE CASES OP GREAT NECESSITY, OR GREAT CHARITY.

§1.1) That it is not ordinarily to be followed is therefore certain,
because it cannot be supposed but that its contradictory hath greater
probability, and either he that follows this trifle is light of belief, or
unreasonable in his choice, or his reason is to him but as eyes to an
owl or bat, half-sighted and imperfect ; and at the best, no fit motive

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. ] 95

to the will. And if it could be lawful to follow every degree of pro-
bability, it were perfectly in any man's choice to do almost what he
pleased, especially if he meets with an ill counsellor and a witty ad-
vocate. Eor at this rate all marriages may be dissolved, all vices
excused upon pretence of some little probable necessity ; and drunk-
enness will be entertained as physic, and fornication as a thing allowed
by some vicious persons whose wit is better than their manners ; and
all books of conscience shall become patrons or indices of sins, and
teach men what they pretend against, and there shall be no such thing
as checks of conscience, because few men sin without some excuse,
and it were no excuse unless it were mingled with some little proba-
bilities ; and there were in very many cases no rule for conscience
but a witty inventor of pretty little inducements, which rather than a
man shall want, his enemy will supply to hini out of his magazine
of fallacies.

§2. 2) But that there are some cases in which it is to be per-
mitted is therefore certain, because it may be necessary in some cir-
cumstances to do so, and in these cases the former impediments
cannot intervene, because the causes of necessity or great charity
occurring but seldom destroy all power or pretence of an easy decep-
tion. Anna Murrana was married to her near kinsman, Thomaso
Grillo, but supposed him not to be so nearf. It was afterwards
discovered to her that the propinquity was so great that the marriage
was null and invalid : while this trouble was upon her, there happily
comes a discreet old woman who tells her, that though it be true that
Grillo' s father was supposed to have lien with her mother, and that
herself was born of that conjunction, yet she herself being private to
the transaction did put another woman into the place of Murrana' s
mother, and that her mother was also deceived in the same manner;
and though they thought they enjoyed each other, yet they were both
cozened into more chaste embraces. Now upon this the question
arises, whether or no Murrana may safely rely upon so slight a testi-
mony as the saying of this woman, in a matter of so great difficulty
and concernment. Here the case is favourable. Murrana is passion-
ately endeared to Grillo, and besides her love hath a tender conscience,
and if her marriage be separated, dies at both ends of the evil, both
for the evil conjunction, and for the sad separation. This therefore
is to be presumed security enough for her to continue in her state.

§ 3. Like to this is that of a Avoman in Brescia. Her husband
had been contracted to a woman of Panormo, per verba de prasentis ;
she taking her pleasure upon the sea, is with her company surprised
by a Turk's man of war, and is reported, first to have been deflow-
ered, and then killed. When the sorrow for this accident had boiled
down, the gentleman marries a maid of Brescia, and lives with her

' [vid. Barduin, discept. vi. cap. 11. part. 7. § 12. p. 867 ; et § 14. p. 873.]
s [vid. Barduin, ibid. § 10. p. 856.]

o 2

196 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

some years ; after which she hears that his first spouse was not killed,
but alive and in sorrow in the isle of Malta, and therefore that her-
self lived in a state of adultery, because not she, but the woman hi
Malta was the true wife to her husband. In this agony of spirit a
mariner comes to her house and secretly tells her, that this woman
was indeed at Malta, but lately dead, and so the impediment was
removed. The question now arises, whether upon the taking away
this impediment, it be required that the persons already engaged
should contract anew ? That a new contract is necessary, is univer-
sally believed, and is almost certain (as in its proper place will be
made to appear), for the contrary opinion is affirmed but by a very
few, and relies but upon trifling motives, requiring only the consent
of- either of the parties as sufficient for renewing of the contract.
But this being but a slender probability ought not to govern her;
she must contract anew by the consent of her husband as well as by
her own act. But now the difficulty arises ; for her husband is a
vicious man, and hates her, and is weary of her, and wishes her dead ;
and if she discover the impediment of their marriage, and that it is
now taken away, and therefore requires him to recontract himself,
that the marriage, which was innocently begun, may be firm in the
progression, and legally valid, and in conscience; she hath great
reason to believe that he will take advantage of it, and refuse to join
in a new contract. In this case therefore, because it is necessary she
should some way or other be relieved, it is lawful for her to follow
that little probability of opinion which says, that the consent of one
is sufficient for the renovation of the contract. And in this case all
the former inconveniences mentioned before do cease : and this is a
case of favour, in behalf of an innocent marriage, and in favour of the
legitimation of children, and will prevent much evil to them both.
So that although this case hath but few degrees of probability from
its proper and intrinsical causes, yet by extrinsical and collateral ap-
pendages it is grown favourable, and charitable, and reasonable : it
is almost necessary, and therefore hath more than the little proba-
bilities of its own account.

§ 4. One case more happens in which a small probability may be
pursued, viz., when the understanding hath not time to consider
deeply, and handle the question on all sides; then that which first
offers itself, though but mean and weak, yet if it be not against a
strange argument at the same time presented, it may suffice to deter-
mine the action ; for in case the determination prove to be on the
wrong side, yet the ignorance is involuntary and unchosen.

These rules are concerning a conscience that is probable by intrin-
sical motives, that is, by reason, whether the reason be direct or col-
lateral. But because the conscience is also probably moved in very
many cases, by authority, which is an extrinsical motive, this is also
to be guided and conducted.

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 11)7

EULE IX.

MULTITUDE OF AUTHORS IS NOT EVER THE MOST PROBABLE INDUCEMENT, NOR
DOTH IT IN ALL CASES MAKE A SAFE AND PROBABLE CONSCIENCE.

§ 1. Following a multitude is sometimes like the grazing or run-
ning of a herd, non quo euudum est, sed quo iturb, ' not where men
ought, but where they use to go :' and therefore Justinian in compiling
of the body of the Roman laws, took that which was most reasonable,
not that which was most followed ; Setl neque ex multitudine aucto-
rnm quod melius et cequius est judicatote : cum possit unius forsan et
deterioris senteniia et multa et majores in aliqua parte superarec;
' the sentence of one, and of a meaner man may sometimes outweigh
the sayings of a multitude of greater persons/ Nam testibus se, non
testimouiis crediturum rescripsit imperator, ' sometimes one witness
is better than twenty testimonies / that is, one man, good and pious,
prudent and disinterested, can give a surer sentence than many men
more crafty and less honest. And in the Nicene council*1 when the
bishops were purposing to dissolve the priests' marriages, Paphnutius
did not follow the common vote, but gave them good reason for his
single opinion, and they all followed him. This rule is true, and to
be practised in the following cases :

§ 2. 1) When against the common opinion there is a strong, or a
very probable reason, then the common opinion is not the more pro-
bable. Because a reason is an intrinsical, proper and apportioned
motive to the conscience, but human authority, or citation of con-
senting authors is but an extrinsical, accidental and presumptive
inducement, and a mere suppletory in the destitution of reason : and
therefore Socrates saide, veritatem in disputando, non ex teste aliquo,
sed ex argumento esse ponderandam ; ' truth is to be weighed by argu-
ment, not by testimony/ and it is never otherwise but when men are
ruled by prejudice, or want reason to rule them in that particular.
Tantum opinio prajudicata poterat, ut etiam sine ratione valeret
auctoritas, said Cicero f. And this is to be extended to all sorts of
authors that are not canonical, or divine. Ileum propositum est anti-
ques legere, probare singula, retinere qua bona sunt, et a fide eccle-
sia catholica non recedere, said HieromeS; f my purpose is to read

[Sen. de vit. beat., cap. i. torn. i. p. 165 ; Socrat., H. E. i. 11 ; Sozom., H. E.

526.] i. 22.]

c L. 'Deo.' ver. ' Sed neque.' C. de e In Protag. Plat. [torn. i. p. 322.]

retell jure enucleando. [lib. i. tit. 17. t De nat. deor. [lib. i. cap. 5.]

% 1. col. 83.] g [Ad Minerv. et Alexandr., torn. iv.

a Cap. ' Niccena Synodus.' [Gratian. part. 1. col. 220.]
decret., part. 1. dist. xxxi. can. 12. col.

198 OP THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

the fathers, to try all things, to retain that only which is good, and
never to depart from the faith of the catholic church/ that is, from
the creeds, which all Christendom professes. And at another time
when himself asked leave, in discourse with S. Austin, Patiaris me
cum talibus errareh, ' suffer me to go along with such great men,
though to an error/ it would not be permitted, but reason was chosen
and the authority neglected1. And this course all men have followed
when they pleased, and knew they might and ought.

§ 3. 2) When the multitude of doctors are reducible to a single,
or an inconsiderable principle and beginning. Thus an opinion
entertained by a whole family and order of clerks, while they either
generally do follow, or think themselves bound to follow the leading
man in their own order, is to be reckoned but as a single opinion.
The millenary opinion was driven to a head in Papias ; the condemn-
ing unbaptized infants, in S. Austin, or S. Ambrose; and therefore
their numerous followers are not to be reckoned into the account.
For if they that follow consider it not, the case is evident ; if they
do, then their reasons are to be weighed, not their authority.

§ 4. 3) When it is notorious that there is, or may be a deception
in that number, by reason of some evil ingredient in the production
of the opinion ; as if it be certain that the opinion wTas taken up be-
cause it serves an interest, the same men having been on the other
side when their interest was there. That it is lawful to put heretics
or disagreeing persons to death, is generally taught by the followers
of Calvin and Beza where they do prevail : and yet no man that lives
under them hath warrant to rely upon their authority in this ques-
tion, because it is only where and when they have power, themselves
having spoken against it in the days of their minority and under
persecution. Under the same consideration it is, if there be any
other reason against the men, not relating to their manners, but to
their manner of entering or continuing in the persuasion.

§ 5. 4) But when these cautions are provided for, the multitude
of authors hath a presumptive authority, that is, when there is no
reason against the thing, nor against the men, we may presume upon
the multitude of learned men in their proper faculty, that what they
teach is good and innocent, and we may proceed to action accord-
ingly. It can never make a conscience sure, but it may be innocent,
because it is probable ; but he that relies upon authority alone is
governed by chance. Because, if the more be against him, he is
prejudiced by multitude ; if the fewer be against him, yet they may
be the wisest : and whether they be or not, yet a tooth-drawer may
sometimes speak a better reason ; and one may carry it against mul-
titudes, and neither one nor the other can justly induce a belief

h Vide ' Liberty of Prophesying,' [chap. xi. p. 280, &c. ed. 8vo. Gen.
sect. 8. [vol. v. p. 483, 4.] 16,32.]

4 Daille du Vrai usage des Peres.

CHAP. IV.] Ott THINKING CONSCIENCE. 199

unless they have considered all things ; and if I can tell who hath
done so, I am myself as well able to answer as they : for he that can
judge who speaks best reason, or who is most fit to be trusted in the
particular, must be able in himself to consider the particulars by
which that judgment is to be made ; if he can and does, he hath
reason within him, and needs not follow authority alone ; if he can-
not, then he is governed by chance, and must be in the right or in
the wrong according as it happens. Tor in many cases both sides
have many advocates and abettors, and no man can tell who hath
most, and each side says that their opinion is the most commonly
received. In Venice there is a law that any man may kill his father
if he be banished ; some affirm this also to be lawful where such a
law is in force, and they affirm this to be the common opinion.
Julius Clarusk says that it is the common opinion, that though
there be such a law, yet that it is unlawful to do it. It is commonly
affirmed that it is lawful for such a banished person to defend him-
self, and if he can in his own defence to kill the invader. It is also
a common opinion that this is as unlawful as for a condemned man
to kill his executioner, because no war can be just on both sides. It
is very commonly taught, that it is lawful by fraud, by surprise, by
treason, to slay the banditti. It is also very commonly taught that
this is absolutely unlawful. Sometimes that which was the common
opinion an age ago, is now rarely maintained but by a few persons.
It was a common opinion in Tertullian's time, that the souls departed
are in outer courts expecting the revelation of the day of the Lord1;
in the time of pope Leo, and Venerable Bede, and after, it was a com-
mon opinion that they were taken into the inner courts of heaven.
Sometimes the place diversifies the opinion. In Germany and France,
the Romanists worship the cross with a religious worship of the
lowest kind of their own distinction; but in Spain they worship it
with that which they call Aarpeia, or the highest kind ; and this
is commonly done in the several countries respectively. When this,
or any thing like this shall happen, unless by reason men be deter-
mined, they may draw lots for their opinion. But since the better
part is not always the greater, it is left to me to choose which I
will ; and it is ten to one but I call the men of my own communion
or my owm acquaintance, the best; and it is certain I cannot judge
of those with whom I do not converse.

§ 6. For these and many other concurrent causes, the proceeding
is inartificial and casual, and fit to lead the ignorant, but not the
learned : and concerning the ignorant he can so little skill to choose
his authority, that he must lie under that where he dwells, and
where his fortune hath placed him. If he goes any whither else
he hath no excuse, because he hath no sufficient inducement; and

k [Sentent, lib. v. § ' Homicidium.' num. 59. torn. ii. p. 95. ed. fol. Gen. 1739.]
i [See * Liberty of Prophesying,' vol. v. p. 484.]

200 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

where a man cannot go alone, it is best for him to sit still where
God's providence hath placed him, and follow the guides provided
by the laws of his country where he was born, or where he lives :

TlovAvirob'os fxoi, t4kvov, I^coi/ v6ov—

totaiv £<papp.6£ov, tSiv kzv Kara ^rjjj.ov 'Ik7)o.i m.

'Conform yourself to the laws of the people with whom you must
abide/

§ 7. This is the most proper way to conduct the ignorant in
their cases of 'conscience in which themselves have no skill. They
must believe one, and if they have a better way to proceed, let
them pursue it : if they have not, this is certainly safe, because
it is their best; and no man is tied to make use of better than he
hath. And if they could fall into error, yet it could not be imputed
to them with justice, while bona fide they fall into heresy, and are
honestly betrayed. This only is to be added :

§ 8. They must make it as good as they can by enquiry (ac-
cording to their circumstances, opportunities, and possibilities), and
by prayers, and by innocent and honest purposes, for these only will
secure our way, by means of God's providing. In this case there
is no irregularity, because it is the best obedience which can be
expressed by subordinate and weak understandings, and there is
in it no danger, because the piety, and the prayers of the man will
obtain God's blessing upon his innocent well-meaning soul. It
was well said of Hesiod11,

Ovtos fiev iravdpio~TOS t>s ai/Tos trdvra vo-fjcrei,
^paaad/xevos to k firtiTa Kal es re'/Vos yatv a/xeivai'
'EadAbs 8' av naKelvos bs ev e'nrSvTi TrldijTOi.
*Os 5e K€ firir clvtos voir] {x.t\t &AAov aKovaiv
'Ev Ovjxif /SaAATjra/, oS' avr' d^p^jios a.vi]p.

' He is the best and wisest man who in himself knows what he ought
to do, discerning what is best, and seeing unto the end of things.
He also is good, who obeys the sayings of wise men, that counsel
well; but he is a fool who not being able to advise or determine
himself, refuses to be conducted by others/ Here only are the evils
to be complained of.

§ 9. In some places there are a great many articles put into
their public confessions, and a great many teachers of unnecessary
propositions, and a great many idle and impertinent guides, who
multiply questions lest themselves should seem useless ; and amongst
men there are many orders, and families, and societies, all which
are desirous to advance themselves, and to get disciples and repu-
tation; and on the other side, there are very many that are idle,
and rather willing to trust others than to be troubled themselves ;
and many choose teachers for interest, and some have men's persons
in admiration because of advantage; and princes have designs of

m Clearch. [apud Athen., lib. vii. cap. 102. torn. ii. p. 691.] n [Op. et dies, 291.]

CHAP. IV.] OE THINKING CONSCIENCE. 201

state, and they would have religion minister to them, and there are
a great many ecclesiastical laws made, and some of these pass into
dogmatical propositions, and they teach for doctrines the command-
ments of men; and there are very many sects of men, and con-
fident fools, who use to over-value their trifles, and teach them
for necessary truths, and in all this uncertainty of things men
are in the dark, and religion is become an art of wrangling; and
the writers of controversies are oftentimes abused themselves, and
oftener do abuse others ; and therefore men are taught certain little
rules to grope by, and walk in seas and upon rocks. But the things
themselves are oftentimes so indifferent, and the reasons of either
side so none at all, or so inconsiderable, that it comes to pass that
the testimony of doctors is the guide that men choose (as they list)
to follow; who because they teach contrary things, cannot be fol-
lowed by their authority, and for reason, sometimes themselves have
none, sometimes their disciples have not leisure to examine them,
or judgment to discern them.

Quest.

§ 10. Here therefore is to be enquired, how shall the ignorant
and vulgar people proceed in such cases where their teachers are
divided ?

1) I answer, that in most cases it is best for them to let them
alone, and let them be divided still, and to follow them in those
things where they do agree ; but if it be in such cases where they
must declare or act on one side, let them take that which they
think to be the safest, or the most pious, the most charitable, and
the most useful ; that so by collateral considerations they may
determine that which by the anthority seems equal and undeter-
minable.

The collateral considerations are commonly these :

a) That which is more agreeable to the letter of scripture.

/3) That which does most agree with the purpose and design of it.

y) That which saints have practised

8) That which whole nations have approved.

e) That which is agreeable to common life.

C) That which is best for the public.

tj) That which is most for the glory of God, for the reputation of

His name, and agreeing with His attributes.
6) That which is more holy.

i) That which gives least confidence to sin and sinners.
k) That which is most charitable to others.
A) That which will give least offence,
/u) And (in destitution of all things else) that which is most

useful to ourselves.

202 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

All these are good considerations, and some of them intervene in
most cases, and can be considered by most men. But where nothing
of these can be interwoven in the sentence, but that the authority
of the teacher is the only thing that can be considered, the following
measures are to be added.

§ 11. 2) The authority of one man wise and good, that is, who
is generally so reputed, is a probable argument, and a sufficient
guide to ignorant persons in doubtful matters, where there is no
clear or known revelation to the contrary. When it is his best,
there is no disputing whether it be good or no ; only in this case,
he is so far to suspend his consent, till his guide hath considered,
or answered deliberately; for if his guide vomit out answers, it is
better to refuse it, till it be digested better. This hath been
highly abused in some places, and permissions have been given or
taken to do acts of vile impiety, or horrible danger, where by
interest they were persuaded, and being desirous for some pretence
to legitimate the act, or to invite their conscience to it, they have
been content with the opinion of one probable doctor. Such was
he whose testimony being required in a matter of right concerning
his college, swore to a thing as of his certain knowledge, of which
be had no certain knowledge, but a probable conjecture ; only
because he had read or been told that one doctor said it was
lawful so to do. This is to suborn a sentence and to betray a
conscience, for the sentence of one doctor is only a good or a
tolerable guide, when there is no better guide for us, and no reason
against us ; that is, it is to be used only when it is the best, but
not when it is the worst.

§ 12. 3) But if clivers men equally wise and good speak va-
riously in the question, and that the enquirer cannot be indifferent
to both, but must resolve upon one, he is first to follow his parish
priest, rather than a stranger in the article, who is equal in all
things else ; his own confessor, his own bishop, or the laws and
customs of his own country : because next to reason, comes in
place that which in order of things is next to it ; that is, the
proper advantages of the man, that is, learning and piety; and
next to them succeed the accidental advantages of the man, that
is, his authority and legal pre-eminence. There is no other reason
for these things, but that which is in the proper and natural order
of things. This is the natural method of persuasion direct and
indirect.

§ 13. 4) Where it can certainly be told that it is the more
common, there the community of the opinion hath the advantage,
and is in the same circumstances still to be preferred, because where
reason is not clear and manifest, there we are to go after it where
it is more justly to be presumed.

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 203

Ta toi KaA.' ev iroAAo?crt ko.KXiov \iyzw,

said Euripides0, ' it is good when good things are attested by many
witnesses/ cO /xev itacri 8o/cei tovto elvaC <fiaij,ev, said Aristotlep,
'that which seems so to all men, this we say is as it seems f and so
it is in proportion from some to many, from many to all.

The sum of all these things is this: a) God is to be preferred
before man. j3) Our own reason before the sayings of others.
y) Many before few. 8) A few before one. e) Our superiors, or
persons in just authority over us, before private persons, ceteris
paribus. () Our own before strangers, tj) Wise men before the
ignorant. 6) The godly and well meaning, and well reputed, before
men of indifferent or worse lives. That is, they must do as well
and wisely as they can, and no man is obliged to do better. Only
this is to be observed ;

§ 14. That in this case it is not necessary that truth should be
found, but it is highly necessary it should be searched for. It may
be it cannot be hit, but it must be aimed at. And therefore they
(who are concerned) are not to be troubled and amazed at the
variety of opinions that are in the world ; " There must be here-
sies/' that is, sects and differing opinions, " that they who are
faithful may be approved q." Now they can be approved in nothing
but what is in their power, that is, diligence to enquire, and ho-
nesty in consenting ; both which may very well be, and yet the man
be mistaken in his particular sentence, in a matter not simply ne-
cessary, not plainly revealed.

§ 15. There is but one thing more that concerns his duty, and
that is, that in all his choices he prefer the interest of peace
and of obedience ; for it ought to be a very great cause that shall
warrant his dissent from the authority which is appointed over
him. Such causes may be, but the unskilled multitude (of whom
we now treat) seldom find those causes, and seldom are able to
judge of them, and therefore this rule is certain.

§ 16. Whoever blows a trumpet, and makes a separation from
the public, they who follow his authority, and know not, or under-
stand not, a sufficient reason for the doing it, they are highly in-
excusable upon this account, because they, following the less pro-
bable authority, have no excuse for the matter of their sin; and
therefore if it happen to be schism, or rebellion, or disobedience,
or heresy in the subject matter, it is in the very form of it so
imputed to the consenting person. For though great reason may
be stronger than authority, yet no private authority is greater than
the public. But of this I shall have further occasion to discourse in
its proper place.

§ 17. Although this is the best, and therefore a sufficient advice
for the ignorant, yet for the learned and the wise there are other
considerations to be added.

° [Hippol. 610.] p Eth. Nic. x. 2. [torn. ii. p. 1172.] « [1 Cor. xi. 19.]

204* OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

1) They who are to teach others may not rely upon single
testimonies, or the slight probability of one doctor's opinion. This
is true ordinarily and regularly, because such persons are supposed
more at leisure, more instructed, better able to enquire, and to rely
finally upon such single and weak supports is to ' do the work of the
Lord negligently1/

§ 18. 2) If the opinion be probable upon the account of a more
general reception, and be the more common, and allowed by wise
and good men, they who are learned, and are to teach others, may
lawfully follow the opinion without examining the reasons for which
it is by those wise men entertained. Eor the work of learning
and enquiry is so large and of immense extension, that it is im-
possible all men should perfectly enquire of all things. But some
especially attend to one thing, some to another ; and where men
have best considered, they consider for themselves, and for others
too, and themselves are helped by those others, in the proper
matter of their consideration. A man's life is too short, and his
abilities less, and it may be his leisure is least of all, and unable so
to consider all that is fit to be believed and taught, that it will
be necessary we should help one another ; and the great teachers
and doctors in several instances may ordinarily be relied upon with-
out danger and inconvenience.

§ 19. 3) But if it happens that by circumstances and accidents
the particular question be drawn out into a new enquiry ; if a new
doubt arise, or a scandal be feared, or the division of men's minds
in the new inquest, then the reasons must be enquired into, and
the authority is not sufficient.

a) Because the authority is by the new doubt made less pro-
bable, and is part of the question, and therefore ought not to be
presumed right in its own case.

/3) Because the duty of teachers is by this accident determined
to this special enquiry, and called from their unactive rest, and
implicit belief; because the enquirers upon this new account will
be determined by nothing but by that reason that shall pretend
strongest ; and therefore they who are thus called upon, can no
other ways give answer to them that ask. It was the universal
doctrine of the church of God for many ages, even for fourteen
centuries of years, that episcopacy is of divine, or apostolical in-
stitution. It was a sufficient warranty for a parish priest to teach
that doctrine to his parishioners, because he found it taught every-
where, and questioned nowhere. But when afterwards this long
prescribing truth came to be questioned, and reasons and scriptures
pretended and offered against it, and a schism likely to be com-
menced upon it, it is not sufficient then to rely upon the bare word

' [Jer. xlviii. 10 ; iiiterpr. pseudo-Clem., epist. ii. ad Jacob., p. 189, ed. fol. Colon,
Agripp. 1563.]

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 205

of those excellent men who are able to prove it, (as it is supposed,)
but they who are to teach others must first be instructed themselves
in the particular arguments of probation; that according to the
precepts apostolical, they may " render a reason of the hope that is
in them," and may be able " both to exhort and to convince the
gainsayers s ;" who because they expressly decline the authority, and
the weight of testimony, cannot be convinced but by reason, and
the way of their own proceeding.

KULE X.

TN FOLLOWING THE AUTHORITY OP MEN, NO RULE CAN BE ANTECEDENTLY
GIVEN FOR THE CHOICE OF THE PERSONS, BUT THE CHOICE IS WHOLLY TO BE
CONDUCTED BY PRUDENCE, AND ACCORDING TO THE SUBJECT MATTER.

§ 1. Ancient writers are more venerable, modern writers are
more knowing. They might be better witnesses, but these are
better judges. Antiquity did teach the millenary opinion, and that
infants were to be communicated, that without baptism they were
damned to the flames of hell ; that angels are corporeal ; that the
souls of saints did not see God before doomsday; that sins once
pardoned did return again upon case of relapse ; that persons bap-
tized by heretics were to be re-baptized ; and they expounded scrip-
ture, in places innumerable, otherwise than they are at this day by
men of all persuasions ; and therefore no company of men will
consent that in all cases the fathers are rather to be followed than
their successors. They lived in the infancy of Christianity, and we
in the elder ages ; they practised more and knew less, we know
more and practise less; passion is for younger years, and for be-
ginning of things, wisdom is by experience, and age, and progres-
sion. They were highly to be valued, because in more imperfect
notices they had the more perfect piety : we are highly to be re-
proved, that in better discourses we have a most imperfect life,
and an unactive religion : they in their cases of conscience took
the safest part, but the moderns have chosen the most probable.
It was the opinion of the ancient divines and lawyers, that every
man is bound to make restitution of all that which he gains by play,

• [1 Pet. iii. 15; Tit.i. 9.]

206 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

by cards and dice, and all such sports as are forbidden by human
laws. The modern casuists indeed do often reprove the whole
process, and condemn the gamesters in most circumstances, but do
not believe them tied to restitution, but to penance only. The
first is the safer and the severer way, but the later hath greater
reasons, as will appear in its own place. All contracts of usury
were generally condemned in the foregoing ages of the church : of
late, not only the merchant, but the priest and the friar puts out
money to increase, and think themselves innocent : and although
commonly it happens that our ignorance and fears represent one
opinion to be safe, when the other is more reasonable ; yet because
men will be fearful, and very often are ignorant and idle in their
enquiries, there will still remain this advantage to either side, that
one is wiser, and the other in his ignorance is the more secure
because he does more than he needs. And therefore it often hap-
pens that though we call the ancient writers fathers, yet we use
them like children, and think ourselves men rather than them,
which is affirmed by some, but in effect practised by every man
when he pleases.

§ 2. But if any one shall choose the later writers, he must first
choose his interest and his side; I mean if he chooses to follow
any upon their authority or reputation without consideration of their
reasons, then he must first choose his side, for he can never choose
his side by the men, because most authors are of it themselves
bv interest. But because all probability is wholly derived from
reason, every authority hath its degree of probability according as
it can be presumed or known to rely upon reason. Now in this
both the ancients and the moderns excel each other respectively.
The ancients were nearer to the fountains apostolical, their stream
was less puddled, their thread was not fine but plain and strong,
they were troubled with fewer heresies; they were not so wittily
mistaken as we have been since ; they had better and more firm
tradition, they had passed through fewer changes, and had been
blended with fewer interests; they were united under one prince,
and consequently were not forced to bend their doctrines to the
hostile and opposite designs of fighting and crafty kings; their
questions were concerning the biggest articles of religion, and there-
fore such in which they could have more certainty and less decep-
tion ; their piety was great, their devotion high and pregnant,
their discipline regular and sincere, their lives honest, their hearts
simple, their zeal was for souls, and the blood of the martyrs
made the church irriguous, and the church was then a garden
of the fairest flowers, it did daily germinate with blessings from
heaven, and saints sprung up, and one saint could know more
of the secrets of Christ's kingdom, the mysteriousness of godly wis-
dom, than a hundred disputing sophisters ; and above all, the church
of Rouie was then holy and orthodox, humble and charitable, her au-

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 207

thority dwelt in the house of its birth, that is, in the advantages of an
excellent faith and a holy life ; to which the advantages of an acci-
dental authority being added by the imperial seat, she was made able
to do all the good she desired, and she desired all that she ought ;
and the greatness of this advantage we can best judge by feeling
those sad effects which have made Christendom to groan since the
pope became a temporal prince, and hath possessed the rights of
some kings, and hath invaded more, and pretends to all, and is be-
come the great fable, and the great comet of Christendom, useless and
supreme, high and good for nothing in respect of what he was at first,
and still might have been, if he had severely judged the interest of
Jesus Christ to have been his own.

§ 3. But then on the other side, the modern writers have con-
sidered all the arguments and reasons of the ancients ; they can more
easily add than their fathers could find out; they can retain their
perfect issues, and leave the other upon their hands ; and what wras
begun in conjecture can either be brought to knowledge, or re-
manded into the lot and portion of deceptions. Omnibus enini hie
locus feliciter se dedit, et qui prcecesserunt non praripuisse mi/ii vi-
dcutur qua did poterant, sed aperuisse ; conditio optima ultimi est,
said Seneca : ' They who went before us, have not prevented us, but
opened a door that we may enter into the recesses of truth ; he that
comes last hath the best advantage in the enquiry/ Multum egerunt
qui ante nos fuerunt, sed non per egerunt ; . . . multum adhuc restat
operis, multumque restabit, nee ulli nato post mille sacula praclude-
tur occasio aliquid adhuc adjiciendi1, 'they who went before us have
done wisely and well in their generations, but they have not done
all; much work remains behind, and he that lives a thousand ages
hence shall not complain that there are no hidden truths fit for him
to enquire after/ There are more worlds to conquer :

Multa dies variusque labor mutabilis sevi
Rettulit in melius u —

Every day brings a new light, and by hearty and wise labour we im-
prove what our fathers espied when they peeped through the crevices.
Every art, every manufacture was improved,

Venimus ad summum fortunae, pingimus alque
Psallimus, et luctamur Achivis doctius unctis*.

The Romans outdid the Greeks, even in things which they were
taught in Athens, or on their hills of sport. — But to proceed in the
comparing the ages. These later ages have more heresies, but
the former had more dangerous ; and although the primitive piety
was high and exemplary, yet the effect of that was, that in mat-

' Epist. lxiv. [torn. ii. p. 223.] " iEneid. xi. [425.] * [Hor. Epist. ii. 1. 33.]

208 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

ters of practice they were more to be followed, but not in questions
of speculation; these later ages are indeed diseased like children
that have the rickets, but their upper parts do swell, and their
heads are bigger, sagaciores in dogmate, nequiores in fide, and if they
could be abstracted from the mixtures of interest, and the engage-
ment of their party, they are in many things better able to teach
the people than the ancients : that is, they are best able to guide,
but not always safest to be followed. If all circumstances were
equal, that is, if the later ages were united, and governed, and
disinterest, there is no question but they are the best instruc-
tors ; there is certainly more certain notice of things, and better ex-
positions of scriptures now than formerly, but because he that is
to rely upon the authority of his guide, cannot choose by reasons,
he can hardly tell now where to find them upon that account.
There is more gold now than before, but it is more allayed in the
running, or so hidden in heaps of tinsel, that when men are best
pleased now-a-days they are most commonly cozened.

§ 4. If a man will take the middle ages, he may if he will, and
that is all that can be said in it ; for there can be no reason for
it, but much against it. Ego sane veteres veneror, et tantis nomi-
nibus semper assurgo ; verum inter externa Matem esse scio, omnia-
que non esse apud major es meliorav : 'I for my part do more
reverence the ancients, and use to rise up and bow my head to
such reverend names/ as Irenseus, S. Cyprian, Origen, S. Hierome,
S. Austin ; but I reckon age amongst things that are without, it
enters not into the constitution of truth ; and this I know, that
amongst these ancients, not all their sayings are the best. And on
the other side, although antiquity is a gentle prejudice, and hath
some authority, though no certainty or infallibility ; so I know that
novelty is a harder prejudice, and brings along with it no autho-
rity, but yet it is not a certain condemnation.

Quod si tarn Graecis novitas invisa fuisset

Quam est nobis, quid nunc esset vetus, aut quid haberet

Quod legeret tereretque vicissim publicus usus z.

If our fathers in religion had reiused every exposition of scripture
that was new, we should by this time have had nothing old ; but
in this case what Martial a said of friendships, we may say of truths :

Nee me, quod tibi sim novus, recuses :
Omnes hoc veteres tui fuerunt.
Tu tantum inspice qui novus paratur
An possit fieri vetus sodalis.

Refuse nothing only because it is newb. For that which pretends

r [Sen. epist. lxiv. p. 224.] gustini ; quae est ad Hieronymum ; [al.

r Horat. [epist. ii. 1. 90.] Ixxxii. torn. ii. col. 190.] et epist. ad

» [lib. i. Epigr. 54. 4.] Fortunatianum. [epist. cxlviii. coll.

b Videat lector epist. xix., Sancti Au- 496, sqq.]

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 209

to age now, was once in infancy j only see if this new thing be fit to
be entertained, and kept till it be old; that is, as the thing is in
itself, not as it is in age, so it is to be valued, and so also are the
men; for in this, as in all the other, the subject matter will help
forward to the choice of a guide.

a) The analogy of faith.

/3) The piety of a proposition.

y) The safety of it, and its immunity from sin ; these are right
measures to guess at an article, but these are more intrinsical, and
sometimes so difficult, that they cannot be made use of but by those
who can judge of reason, and less need to be conducted by autho-
rity. But for these other who are wholly to be led by the power
and sentence of their guide, besides what hath been already advised,

8) The faculty and profession of men is much to be regarded, as
that we trust divines in matters proper to their cognizance, and
lawyers in their faculty ; which advice is to be conducted by these
measures.

WHEN THE AUTHORITY OF DIVINES IS TO BE PREFERRED,
WHEN THAT OF LAWYERS.

§ 5. 1) The whole duty of a Christian consists in the laws of faith
or religion, of sobriety, and of justice ; and it is so great a work,
that it is no more than needs that all the orders of wise and
learned men should conduct and minister to it. But some por-
tions of our duty are personal, and some are relative ; some are pri-
vate, and some are public; some are limited by the laws of God
only, and some also by the laws of men; some are directed by
nature, some by use and experience ; and to some of these por-
tions contemplative men can give best assistances, and the men of
the world and business can give best help in the other necessi-
ties. Now because divines are therefore in many degrees separate
from an active life, that they may with leisure attend to the con-
duct of things spiritual, and are chosen as the ministers of mercy,
and the great reconcilers of the world, and therefore are forbidden
to intermeddle in questions of blood : and because the affairs of
the world in many instances are so entangled, so unconducing to
the affairs of the spirit, so stubborn that they are hardly to be
managed by a meek person, carried on by so much violence, that
they are not to be rescued from being injurious but by a violence
that is greater but more just ; and because the interests of men are
complicated and difficult, defended by customs, preserved in records,
secured by sentences of judges, and yet admit variety by so many
accidents, circumstances, and considerations, as will require the at-
tendance of one whole sort of men, and of all men in the world
divines are the least fit to be employed in such troubles and con-

IX. p

210 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

tracts, such violences and oppositions ; and yet tliey are so neces-
sary, that without thern the government of the world would be
infinitely disordered, it is requisite that these should be permitted
to a distinct profession. In particular matters of justice ordina-
rily and regularly lawyers are the most competent judges : in mat-
ters of religion and sobriety, the office of divines is so wholly or
principally employed, that it ought to be chosen for our guide.

§ 6. 2) In matters of justice which are to be conducted by ge-
neral rules, theology is the best conductress ; and the lawyers' skill
is but subservient and ministering. The reason for both is the
same, because all the general measures of justice are the laws of
God, and therefore cognoscible by the ministers of religiou ; but
because these general measures, like a great river into little streams,
are deduced into little rivulets and particularities by the laws and
customs, by the sentences and agreements of men, therefore they
must slip from the hands of the spiritual man to the prudent and
secular. The divine can condemn all injustice, murder, incest, in-
jurious dealing ; but whether all homicide be murder, all marriage
of kindred be incest, or taking tha# which another man possesses
be injustice, must be determined by laws, and the learned in them ;
and though divines may rule all these cases as well as any of the
long robe, yet it is by their prudence and skill in law, not by the
proper notices of theology.

§ 7. 3) But justice is like a knife, and hath a back and an edge,
and there is a letter and a spirit in all laws, and justice itself is to be
conducted with piety, and there are modalities, and measures, and
manners of doing or suffering in human entercourses ; and many
things are just which are not necessary, and there are excesses and
rigours in justice which are to be moderated, and there are evil
and entangling circumstances which make several instances to justle
one another ; and one must be served first, and another must stay its
season ; and in paying money there is an ordo ad animam, and
justice is to be done for God's sake, and at some times, and in some
circumstances for charity's sake; and the law compels to pay him
first that requires first ; but in conscience, justice is oftentimes to be
administered with other measures ; so that as prudence sometimes
must be called to counsel in the conduct of piety, so must piety
oftentimes lead in justice, and justice itself must be sanctified by
the word of God and prayer, and will then go on towards heaven,
when both robes, like paranymphs attending a virgin in the solemni-
ties of her marriage, help to lead and to adorn her.

§ 8. 4) Sometimes human laws and divine stand face to face and
oppose each other, not only in the direct sanction (which does not
often happen) but very often in the execution. Sometimes obedi-
ence to a human law will destroy charity, sometimes justice is
against piety, sometimes piety seems less consistent with religion.
The church is poor, our parents are necessitous, the fabrics of the

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 211

houses of prayer are ruinous, and we are not able to make supplies
to all these; here what is just, and what is duty, not the law but
theology will determine. I owe Sempronius a small sum of money ;
it happens that he comes to demand it when the gatherers of gabels
are present to demand an equal sum for taxes ; here I am to ask ray
confessor, not my lawyer, whether of the two must be served, since I
cannot pay both : and in this case the ministers of religion are the
guards and defensatives of her interest : concerning which for the
present, I only insert this caution ; that when religion and justice are
in contest, the ministers of religion are not always bound to give
sentence on the side of religion, but to consider which is the more
necessary, and where the present duty stands ; for sometimes it is ab-
solutely necessary to do justice, and actions of particular religion must
attend their season. But then even justice turns into religion, and
when it does so, theology must conduct her into action.

§ 9. 5) When the question concerns an interest relative to either
faculty, it is hard choosing the authority on either part, for one
judges for itself, and the other against his adversary ; that is, in effect
they are both judges in their own cause. It is notorious in the
church of Rome, where the canonists say that a canon lawyer is to be
preferred before a divine in elections to bishopricks, but you must
think the divines say that themselves are far the fitter. The canon-
ists say that predial tithes are due by divine right ; the divines say
they are only due by positive constitution. The secret of that is,
because most of the divines that write books are monks and friars,
and such which are no friends to parishes, that the pope may be al-
lowed to have power to take tithes from the parish priests, and give them
to the monasteries ; which he could not do, if by divine right they
were annexed to their proper cures. Amongst us the tables are
turned, and the lawyers take the friars' part, and the divines generally
affirm the divine right of tithes. Concerning which it is to be con-
sidered, that though the authority of either part is not of itself suf-
ficient to determine a doubting person, and where interest is apparent,
the person persuading loses much of his authority, yet the proposition
itself ought not to lose any thing. The interest appearing is no more
warrant to disbelieve the proposition, than it is to believe it. In this
case there is interest on both sides, and therefore as to that the case
is indifferent. The way to proceed is to consider the proper instru-
ments of persuasion, and because a truth is not the worse for serving
his ends that teaches it, I am to attend to his arguments without any
prejudice. But if I am not able to judge of the reasons, but must
be led by authority, the presumption lies for the divines ; I am to be-
lieve them rather than the lawyers in such questions, because there
is some religion in doing so, and a relation to God, for whose sake it
is that I choose to obey their proposition.

§ 10. 6) Where by the favour of princes or commonwealths any
matters of justice are reserved to ecclesiastical cognizance, in those

p 2

212 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

affairs the authority of divines is to be preferred before that of lawyers,
because the personal capacities of the men being equal in all things,
the divines are exercised in the same matters, and therefore are both
concerned and able, instructed and engaged, and though the lawyers
are to be supposed honest, and just, and wise, yet all that also is to
be supposed in divines, with some advantages of religion and tender-
ness which is bred in them by their perpetual conversation with the
things of God. But in all things he comes the nearest to a sure way
of being guided, who does his best and with greatest honesty of heart,
and simplicity of pious desires to be truly informed. It was well said
of Socrates, An placeant Deo quae feci, nescio ; hoc certo scio, me
sedulo hoc egisse ut placerent : ' the things which I have done, whe-
ther they please God or no, I know not ; but this I know assuredly,
that I did earnestly desire, and diligently take care that they might
please Him/

§11. If the question be concerning other divisions of men, as of
schoolmen and casuists, critics or preachers, the answer can be no
other, but that in all faculties relating to any parts of religion, as
there are very wise men, and very weak men, so there are some to be
preferred in each faculty, if we could find out who they are : but this
prelation is relative to the men, not to the faculty, if they were
rightly handled. For the several faculties are nothing but the proper
portion of matter assigned to the consideration of an order of mens
in a proper method ; but the great end is the same, only the means
of persuading the same truth is different. But in the church of
Rome they are made several trades, and have distinct principles, and
serve special and disunited ends and interests ; and therefore which of
them is to be preferred, as to the making a probable opinion, is just
to be answered, as if we should ask which is best of feathers or wool ;
they both of them have their excellencies in order to warmth, and yet
if you offer to swallow them down they will infallibly choke you.

EULE XI.

HE THAT HATH GIVEN ASSENT TO ONE PART OF A PROBABLE OPINION, MAT
LAWFULLY DEPOSE THAT CONSCIENCE AND THAT OPINION UPON CONFIDENCE
OF THE SENTENCE OF ANOTHER.

§ 1. The curate of S. Martin being sent for to do his last offices
to a dying man, finds him speechless, but yet giving signs of his
penitence, as beating his breasts, weeping and groaning, holding up

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 213

his hands, and looking pitifully, and in a penitent posture. The
curate having read it, disputed whether such a person may be ab-
solved, concerning whose repentance he can have no other testimony
but mute signs, which may be produced by other causes, and find-
ing arguments on both sides, consents to the negative as probable ;
and yet finding learned persons there who are of another opinion,
lays aside the practices of his own opinion, and in compliance with
the other, absolves the sick man. One that was present, and under-
stood the whole process, enquires whether he did well or no, as
supposing that to do against his own opinion is to do against his
conscience; and a man's own conscience is more to him than ten
watchmen that keep a city.

§ 2. In answer to this, it is to be considered there is a double
consent to a proposition, the one is direct, the other a reflex ; the
first is directly terminated upon the honesty or dishonesty of the
object, the other upon the manner of it, and modality. For instance,
the curate does not directly consent to that part of the question
which he hath chosen, as that which he will finally rely upon, but he
consents to it only as a thing that is probable. If he were fully
persuaded of the article as a thing certain, or as necessary (though
of itself it be not so) or if he thinks it is not to be altered, then
to do against his opinion were to do against his conscience, be-
cause the opinion were passed the region of speculation and inef-
fective notion, and is become a rule and immediate measure of
action. But because he believes it only probable, that is, such in
which he is not certain, but may be deceived, and may use liberty,
he may as well choose that part of the probability which derives from
the reputation and abilities of other men, as well as that which pro-
ceeds from considerations of those little intrinsic arguments which
moved his assent lightly like a breath upon the waters, or the smile
of an undiscerning infant. His own opinion is well enough con-
cerning the honesty of the object, but yet he that chooses the other
part may make an honest election ; for his own opinion reflecting
upon itself, not going beyond the stage of uncertainty and probabi-
lity does openly challenge its own right of choosing another part ;
the conscience is no ways entangled and determined, but so chooses
that it may choose again, if she sees cause for it, a cause in the par-
ticular case, which she espied not in the abstracted question.

§ 3. For he may prudently suppose that in what he is not cer-
tainly persuaded, another may be wiser and know more, and can
judge surer : and if he have reason to think so, it may be a greater
reason than that is by which himself did choose his own opinion
and part of the probability; and he may have reason to think
meanly of himself, and he may remember sad stories of his frequent
deception, and be conscious of his own unaptness to pass an honest
unbiassed sentence, and hath no reason to trust himself in matters
of proper interest or relation.

5il4 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

§ 4. This rule hath no other variety in it but that it be managed
by these cautions.

1) That the man upon whom we rely be neither ignorant nor
vicious, so far as we can judge, and so far as relates to the present
question, that is, that he be a person fit to be a guide of others.

2) That relying on others proceed not out of idleness, and im-
patience to enquire ourselves.

3) That the opinion of the other be not chosen because it better
serves my ends or humour, but upon the preceding grounds of hu-
mility and mean opinion of myself, and great opinion of the other.

4) That it be only against his own probable persuasion so known,
so considered, not against a sure conscience; that is, that it be in
such a matter, in which the assent is but imperfect, and relying
upon unsure inducements. Tor then he may as honestly trust the
other's prudence as his own weakness, the other's leisure and consi-
deration, as his own want of time and aptnesses to consider : and
since the actions of most men in the world are conducted by the wit
of others in very many things, and of all men in some things, it can-
not be imprudence to take a guide to direct the conscience in what
it is not sufficiently instructed by its own provisions.

§ 5. If the entercourse happen between the superior and the infe-
rior, the liberty of changing our part of the probability is confirmed
by a want of liberty to dissent. The subject may change his opi-
nion, because he must obey wherever it is possible that he should ;
and that is in this case : in which it is not only true that the opinion
is probable in itself, but that it and its contrary be both apprehended
as probably true, and safely practicable. JFor then there is no excuse
to the man, and the conscience of the article cannot be pretended
against the conscience of obedience ; and if it be lawful to obey, it is
necessary to obey.

Hoc amo quod possum qualibet ire viab.

Every man loves his liberty, but this liberty does engage our obedience;
we might not obey our superior if God had engaged us in the con-
trary ; but we may, when we are persuaded that the contrary opinion
is probable, that is, conformable to reason, and fit enough to guide
him that is not finally determined in his conscience to the contrary.
For if it could be otherwise, then there were nothing to be given to
authority ; for in equal probabilities, it is likely if I choose one part,
I am determined by a little thing, by a trifle, by a chance, by a hu-
mour ; and if I be weighed down by never such a trifle, yet I am
determined to the choice of one side, and it will be but an evil
portion to authority, if it cannot be permitted to outweigh a humour
and a chance, an ignorant confidence, or a vain presumption : and
although it will be hard sometimes for a man to be convinced of the
vanity of his argument, yet when his opinion is not only speculatively

b [Petron. Satyr., cap. xviii.]

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 215

but practically probable, that is, when it is considered only as pro-
bable, and the contrary altogether, or almost as well thought of, the
arguments of the present persuasion are confessed to be but little,
because they neither persuade nor abuse beyond a probability ; and
therefore in this case to out-face authority is without pretence, as
much as it is without warrant. And this is affirmed by S. Austin0 in
the case of soldiers under a king, taking pay in a cause which either
is just, or that they are not sure it is unjust. Ergo vir Justus si
forte sub rege homine etiam sacrilego militet, recte potest Mo jubente
bellare, civica pacis ordinem servans, cui quod jubetur vel non esse
contra Dei praceptmn certum est, vel uiruni sit, cerium non est.

§ 6. But if the entercourse happen between a physician and a pa-
tient, it is made to differ. For,

a) A physician may not leave a certain way and take an uncertain
in the question of life or health ; in matters of mere opinion, the
very persuasion and probability of assent is warrant enough for the
man, and the effect is innocent ; but when so great an interest is
engaged, the man becomes faster bound by the stricter ties of charity.
It was a complaint that Plinyd made of physicians in his time, Dis-
cunt periculis nostris, et experimenta per mortes agunt, medicoque
tantum hominem occidisse impunitas summa est. It is hard that a
physician should grow wiser at no cheaper rate than the deaths of
many patients. Now to do the thing directly is intolerable, but to
do that which is not our best, and which is not safe, when we have
by us that which is safe, and which we know is useful, is directly
against charity, and justice, and prudence, and the faithfulness of a
good man. But,

/3) When a physician hath no better, he may take that course
which is probable, for that is his best ; he cannot be required to
more, and he is excused, because he is required to minister. And
this is yet more certain, if the sick person shall die without physic ;
but it is a venture whether the medicament may prevail for his cure
or no. Tor then all the hazard is on the favourable side, and if it
fails, the event is no worse ; and it is charity to offer at a cure that
is uncertainly good, but is certainly not evil.

y) When the opinions are on both sides probable, he may take
that which is in any sense safer, or in any degree, or by any means
more probable, that is, for the community of the opinion, or the ad-
vantage it hath by the learning and reputation of them that hold it :
so that he may leave his own opinion which is overcome by the
greater argument, or the greater authority of another, though both
the authority be less than that winch binds, and the argument less
than that which is certain.

c Lib. xxii. contr. Faushim, cap. 75. [torn. xxiii. qu. 1. [can. 4. col. 1403.]
viii. col. 405 F.] ; et habetur cap. 'Quid d [Hist, nat., lib. xxix. cap. 8. § 3. J
culpatur.' [Gratian. Decret. part. 2. caus.]

216 OF THE PltOBABLE, [BOOK I.

EULE XII.

HE THAT ENQUIRES OF SEVERAL DOCTORS UNTIL HE FIND ONE ANSWERING AC-
CORDING TO HIS MIND, CANNOT BY THAT ENQUIRY MAKE HIS CONSCIENCE
SAFE, BUT ACCORDING TO THE SUBJECT MATTER AND OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES
HE MAY.

§ 1. Saint Paul remarks the folly of such men who heap up
teachers of their own, that is, such who preach what they desire,
and declare tilings lawful which God never made so ; and he that
hath entertained an opinion, and is in love with it, and will seek out
for a kind and an indulgent nurse for it, cannot ordinarily be the
more secure for the opinion of his guide, because the intrinsic motive
of his assent is not his guide, but his own purposes and predisposing
thoughts and resolutions ; and the getting of a learned man to say
so, is but an artifice to quiet the spirit, and make it rest in the de-
ception if it so happens to be. This determination from without
may possibly add a fantastic peace, but no moment to the honesty of
the persuasion or conscience, because the conscience was not ready
to rely upon the authority, but resolved to go somewhere else for an
authority, if here it could not be had : and therefore the conscience
could not be made probable by the authority, because the resolution
of the conscience was antecedent to it.

§ 2. This is true ordinarily and regularly, and there are usually
many appendent deceptions ; as an impatient desire to have that true
which I desire, a willingness to be deceived, a resolution to bring
our ends about, a consequent using means of being pleased and
cozened, a concealing some circumstances, and a false stating of
the question, which is an infallible sign of an evil conscience, and
a mind resolved upon the conclusion, desirous of a security, or
sleepy quietness, and incurious of truth. But yet there are some
cases in which this changing of guides and enquiries is not only in-
nocent, but an instrument of a just confidence.

§ 3. 1) When the enquirer hath very probable inducements for
his opinion, and remains really unsatisfied in the answers and ac-
counts of the first doctors.

2) When he hath an indifferency to any part that may appear
true, but it falls out that nothing does seem true to him but what
he hath already entertained.

3) When the assent to our own proposition is determined, so as
to avoid a real doubt or perplexity, but yet a scruple remains, that
is, some little degrees of confidence are wanting, which cannot be
better supplied than by an extrinsical argument, the authority of a
wise man.

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 217

4) When the enquiring person is under a weakness and tempta-
tion, and wants some to apply his own notices to him, and to make
them operative and persuasive upon his spirit; as it happens to
very many men always, and to all men sometimes.

5) When the case is favourable and apt for pity and relief, as in
the dangers of despair, then the enquirer not only may, but ought
to go till he find a person that can speak comfort to him upon
true grounds of scripture and revelation.

6) When the purpose of the enquirer is to be landed upon any
virtue, and pious state of life or design, he may receive his encou-
ragement and final determination from him whom he chooses for his
opinion sake, and conformity to his own pious intentions.

§ 4. The reason of these exceptions is this : because the matter
being just, favourable, and innocent, the man goes right, and by
being confirmed in his way, receives no detriment to his soul or his
duty ; and because they are tendencies to duty, it is to be presumed
that the enquirer intends honestly and piously ; and now since the
way is secure, and the person well intending, if the instrument of
establishing this good course were very incompetent, it might be an
imperfection in nature, but not in morality.

EULE XIII.

HE THAT IS ASKED CONCERNING A CASE THAT IS ON EITHER SIDE PROBABLE,
MAY ANSWER AGAINST HIS OWN OPINION, IF THE CONTRARY BE PROBABLE
AND MORE SAFE, OR MORE EXPEDIENT AND FAVOURABLE

§ 1. The reason is, because he that holds an opinion which him-
self believes only to be probable, knows also there is no necessity
in counselling it to another, because it is not certainly true ; and he
may rather counsel the contrary to another than follow it himself,
because himself is already determined, which the other is not, but is
indifferent.

§ 2. But why he should rather do so than counsel his own opi-
nion, there is no reason in the thing, but something relating to
the person enquiring ; as if the opinion which he maintains not,
be more agreeable with the other's circumstances and necessities.
Codrus enquires if he be tied to restitution of all the fruits of a field
which he held in a dubious title. The curate thinks it to be a pro-
bable opinion, that he is bound; but because Codrus is poor, or
apt to break the bridle of religion if it holds him too hard, he may
counsel him according to the opinion of them that affirm that he is not
bound to restitution. If he be asked what his own opinion is, he

218 OF THE PROBABLE, [BOOK I.

must not speak contrary to it ; but when the question only is asked
in order to a resolution, he may point to go that way where by his
own sentence he may be safe, and by reason of the other's necessities
he may be more advantaged. The reason of this is, because when two
opinions are equally probable, the scales are turned by piety, or
charity, or any good thing that is of collateral regard, and therefore
makes a greater degree of artificial probability, and is in such cases
sufficient for determination. For in direct reason the case is equal,
and in the indirect there is great advantage on the side of charity, or
accidental necessity, or compliance with any fair and just interest.
Christian religion is the best natured institution in the world.

§ 3. The like case it is, when the opinion of the curate is such,
that the enquirer will probably abuse it to licentiousness and evil
mistake ; for then the curate may prudently conceal his own sen-
tence, and borrow his brother's candle to light a person that is in
danger.

EULE XIV.

WHEN THE GUIDE OF SOULS IS OP A DIFFERENT OPINION FROM HIS CHARGE OR
PENITENT, HE IS NOT BOUND TO EXACT CONFORMITY TO HIS OWN OPINION
THAT IS BUT PROBABLE, BUT MAY PROCEED ACCORDING TO THE CONSCIENCE
OF THE PENITENT

§ 1. That is, supposing the opinion of the penitent to be pro-
bable, and that he did the action bona fide, and as an act commend-
able, or permitted ; he is not to be troubled with what is past,
lest that be turned into a scruple which was no sin, and lest the
curate judge unrighteous judgment, and prescribe afflictions for that
for which God shall never call him to judgment; for in this case it
is, that no man can be the judge of another man's conscience.

§ 2. But if the opinion of the penitent be certainly false, or the
parent, or protector, or the occasion of a sin, the guide of his soul
must not comply at all with it, but discover the error and the danger.
He that kills his brother because he is zealous in another opinion,
and thinks he does God good service, must not be permitted in his
erring conscience and criminal persuasion; for the matter hath
altered the case, and in the relations of duty the error is always
vincible, and therefore intolerable : and therefore Peter Lombard's
mother upon her death-bed was admonished to confess her sin in
having three children by illegal mixtures, though she was foolishly
persuaded it was no sin, because her sons did prove to be such
excellent persons, and instruments of divine glory d.

d [See vol. iv. p. 386.]

CHAP. IV.] OR THINKING CONSCIENCE. 219

EULE XV.

THE SENTENCE AND ARBITREMENT OF A PRUDENT AND GOOD MAN, THOUGH IT
BE OF ITSELF BUT PROBABLE, YET IS MORE THAN A PROBABLE WARRANTY TO
ACTIONS OTHERWISE UNDETERMINABLE.

Stent vir prudens earn definierit, is the great measure which
Aristotle e and all the moral philosophers assign to very many cases
and questions. If two cases that seem equally probable, have in
them different degrees of safety, that the safest is to be chosen is
certain ; but oftentimes the sentence and opinion of a good man is
the only rule by which we judge concerning safety. When piety
and religion are in competition for our present attendance, sometimes
piety to our parents is to be preferred, sometimes an action of reli-
gion in its own season; but what portion of our services is to be
allowed to the one and the other is sicut vir prudens definierit, ' ac-
cording as a good and a prudent man shall determine/ To bury
the dead is good, to relieve the living poor is ordinarily better; but
yet there was a time in which there was a proper season for that,
and not for this ; and our blessed Saviour commended Mary's devo-
tion and choice in so doing ; but when we also may do one or the
other, depends upon circumstances and accidents which are not im-
mediately the subject of laws, but of prudent consideration. Hu-
man laws bind the conscience of their subjects, but yet give place to
just and charitable causes; but which are competent and sufficient
is not expressly and minutely declared, but is to be defined by the
moderation and prudence of a good man. That we are to be care-
ful in the conduct of our temporal affairs, in paying of our debts, in
making provisions for our children is certain and confessed : but
besides the general measures and limits of carefulness described by
our blessed Saviour, our earnestness of prosecution, our acts of pro-
vision and labour are to be esteemed regular or irregular by the sen-
tence of a wise and a good man. The significations of love to our
children and nearest relatives, the measures of compliance with the
fashions of the world, the degrees of ornament or neglect in clothing,
intention of our actions and passions, and their degrees, the use and
necessities and pretences for omissions in good things, and generally
all the accidental appendages of action are determinable only this
way; and a probability is enough to determine us; but that this
is the way of introducing the probability is upon this reason; be-
cause next to the provision of laws, stands the man who is obedient
to laws and understands them, and next to the reason of the law,
stands the analogy and proportion of those laws ; and therefore this

0 [Ethic. Nic, lib. ii. cap. 0, torn. ii. p. 1107.]

220 OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

is the next best to the laws, it stands nearest to reason, is the best
guide that is left us, and therefore a proper measure of conscience
in the destitution of that which is most proper.

There are many other rules concerning the exercise of a probable
conscience, in the cases and questions of kings and priests, of advo-
cates and judges, in matters of sacraments and government, which
are to be referred to the place of their proper matter; but this is
also to be determined by the rules here assigned, and have no parti-
cular consideration, except what merely relates to the matter.

CHAP. V.

OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE.

EULE I.

A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE ASSENTS TO NEITHER SIDE OF THE QUESTION, AND

BRINGS NO DIRECT OBLIGATION.

§ 1. The conscience being in its proper operations positive and
practical ; when it is neither, it is not properly and directly con-
science : and because it binds to obedience by its determination
and assent, and its consequent inclining the will, when the under-
standing is not determined, nor the will inclined, there can no action
follow, but a total suspension of action is its proper consequent.

§ 2. But upon this there is only a reflex act of conscience and
understanding; for by considering that our conscience is doubtful
and indeterminable, we are obliged to suspend our action ; but then
this is the act, not of a doubtful, but of a right conscience, because
in this we are certain, and right, and determined : so that a doubt-
ful conscience is but an equivocal and improper conscience ; like an
unresolved will, or an artist with his hands bound behind him : that
is, the man hath a conscience, but it is then in chains and fetters,
and he wears a hood upon his eye, and his arm in a string, and is
only to be taught how to cut the knot, and to do some little things
of advantage or security to his intermedial state of impediment;
but a doubtful conscience can be no rule of human actions.

§ 3. But yet some collateral and indirect obligations are passed
upon the man by that state of infelicity, according to the nature of
the doubt.

CHAP. V.] OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 221

§ 4. In order to which, doubts are considered, either as relating
to the law, or as relating to matters of fact, viz., whether such a
thing be lawful or not ? or whether I did such an action or no, by
which I am bound to restitution and repentance ?

§ 5. Doubts also are negative, or positive, that is, they are still
upon us because there is no means to determine the understanding ;
as no man can ever be resolved whether the number of the stars be
even or odd ; when is the precise minute in which a man first comes
to the use of reason ; and this is called a negative doubt. The posi-
tive enters by the indifferency of the arguments, and their ecmal
weight on both sides ; as if it be doubted whether the souls departed
enjoy the beatific vision before the day of judgment ? whether the
residence on a benefice be an indispensable precept, or in what cases
it obliges not? whether ecclesiastical persons be bound by justice or
by charity to give all that they can prudently spare to the poor ?
These are positive doubts, because there are many arguments on
either side.

§ 6. The negative doubt is either metaphysical or moral, or it is
only a suspicion ; that is, these are several degrees of such a doubt,
for the determination of which there is no sufficient instrument.

§ 7. Lastly, sometimes a doubt is placed only in the understand-
ing, without any effect but the trouble of thoughts ; and then for
method's sake, and right understanding of the rules of practice, it is
called a speculative doubt. Sometimes this doubt passes on to the
conscience, and hath influence upon the action or event ; so as to be
an impediment to it, or the spoil of it, that is, so as to cause that it
shall not be done, or if it be done that it becomes a sin : and this is
called a practical doubt.

According to these distinctions the following rules are useful in
order to practice.

RULE II.

A NEGATIVE DOUBT NEITHER BINDS TO ACTION, NOB, ENQUIRY, NOR REPENT-
ANCE ; BUT IT BINDS ONLY TO CAUTION AND OBSERVANCE.

§1.1) That it ' binds not to action/ I affirm upon the same ground,
by which the same is affirmed concerning all doubting consciences.
It binds from action ; for whatsoever is done with a doubting con-
science (that is, without faith, or fulness of persuasion that it is law-
ful to do it) is a sin. S. Paul* gave us the rule, "Whatsoever is not
of faith is sin." Quod dubitas ne feceris. said Cicero e. For if we

f [Rom. xiv. 23.] e [Lege Plin., lib. i. epist. 18 ; et cf. Cic. de offic., lib. i. cap. 9.]

222 OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

do it with a doubting conscience, we do it without our rule, which
is the dictate of our conscience, and since no action is indifferent be-
tween lawful and unlawful (though between good and bad there may),
to do without our rule of lawful and permitted is to do against it,
even that which is not permitted, and therefore is unlawful. Add to
this, Secondly,

He that does not know whether it be lawful or no, does that
which he is not sure but it may be forbidden by God, and displeasing
to Him ; and to do that which I know not but may grieve my friend,
or trouble him, cannot consent with my love to him ; and therefore
every act of a doubting conscience is against charity. In the ques-
tion of lawful or unlawful, not to know it to be lawful is to enter
upon it with a mind willing to admit the unlawful ; it is all one to
be in the dark as to be without a candle or a star, and either of
them is as bad, as full of ignorance and obscurity, as if we shut our
eyes, or put the candle out. When therefore it happens that our
conscience doubts whether such an act be a sin or no, a good man
will be sure not to sin; but in that case, and while the doubt re-
mains, he can have no security, but by not doing it.

§ 2. 2) • It binds not to enquiry ;' because there is no competent
means to find out a resolution ; for that is the state of the question,
that is the definition of a negative doubt. Fabiola doubts whether
in her childhood she did never take God's name in vain; and al-
though she be bound to enquire in all the reasonable and remem-
bered parts of her life, because of them she may find some records,
and in that case the doubt is not negative ; yet of the state of child-
hood she cannot be obliged to make enquiry, because there was then
no law, no register, no court kept, no judgment, no choice; that is,
she cannot be obliged to an effect that is impossible, and to an act
that is to no purpose.

§ 3. 3) 'It binds not to repentance/ In case she fears exceed-
ingly, supposing this still to be a negative doubt, that is, such a one,
for the proper resolution of which there are no competent arguments
or instruments. Fabiola not knowing whether she did or no, and
it being impossible afterwards to find it out, Fabiola is not tied to
ask forgiveness for the blasphemies of her childhood : for no obliga-
tion can come from what is not, or cannot be, known.

§ 4. This is to be understood to be true of that sort of negative
doubt which is called metaphysical, when there is no possibility of
knowing; as it is impossible to know what little pretty phantasm
made us to smile when we hanged upon our mothers' breasts ; and
the doubt is only founded upon the possibility that the thing might
have been, though now it be impossible to find out whether it was or
no. It is possible that being a child I might laugh at scripture, or
mock an apostle ; but if this could bring an obligation to an act of
repentance, then the same obligation passes upon all men in all
actions and periods of their lives, for all things, and in all cases in

CHAP. V.] OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 223

which they do not remember all, or did not observe every circum-
stance, or did not consider every minute, or weigh every degree. For
in every thing there is a possibility that I might have done some-
thing very ill.

§ 5. But there is a negative doubt which is called morally nega-
tive ; that is, when there is no way of being readily and clearly de-
termined, but yet the doubt is founded upon some light conjecture,
and no more. I was tempted, or I had an opportunity, or an evil
thought came cross me, and I know my own infirmity; and this
according to the degrees of the conjecture can oblige us to a general
and conditional repentance ; thus, if I did amiss, God of His mercy
impute it not unto me. "1 know not, my conscience does not
accuse meh," (so S. Paul,) but " I am not hereby justified ;" " God is
greater than my conscience." By this set the words of S. John, and
they will determine the case : " If our hearts condemn us not, then
have we peace towards God' •" that is, the doubt in this matter
ought to be laid down, if our hearts do not pass sentence against us ;
but not so wholly but that we may provide against a danger not
actually felt : we ought to be peaceful, but not too confident, when
there is any probability of error and deception. The peace is war-
ranted by S. John, the wariness is exemplified by S. Paul.

§ 6. 4) ' It does bind to caution and observance/ Every thing
does so, where either there is a danger, or any is suspected, or
any is possible, or any ever was : and therefore, for this there needs
no peculiar reason, only according to the approach of the negative
doubt to any degrees of its being positive ; that is, to a probability
that it is as we doubt, the observance ought to be stricter, and the
caution more severe, which happens in that imperfect kind of imper-
fection, in suspicion, which is but the image of doubting.

§ 7. For there is yet another sort of doubting, which may be
called a privative doubt. Titius is invited to eat with one of another
communion. First he checks at it, but because he knows no reason
against it, nor indeed did ever dispute, or hear the question disputed,
whether it be lawful or no, he goes. The question is, whether he
did well or no?

§ 8. Concerning which the case is evident, that whatsoever is not
of faith is sin, that is, if it be not done with a persuasion that it is
lawful. But if a man be persuaded that he may lawfully do any
thing against which he knows no law, no commandment, no reason ;
this is not a doubting conscience, but a probable, and therefore need
not to abate the action. But if this also turn into a doubt the case
» is altered. For he that thinks he may not do it, or doubts whether
he may or no do a thing for which he hath no command, or no posi-
tive and affirmative warrant, and that it is no sufficient reason or
warrant for the doing it that he knows nothing against it, unless he
also have something for it ; this man thus persuaded or abused, may

h [1 Cor. iv. 4.] i [1 John iii. 21.]

224 OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

not proceed to action. For in this case he hath nothing for it, and
one great thing against it, even this proposition, that a thing is not
to be done in such a case, which is the case of a privative doubt.
But for the thing itself, the next rule gives an account of it.

ETJLE III.

A PRIVATIVE DOUBT CANNOT OP ITSELF HINDER A MAN FROM ACTING WHAT HE
IS MOVED TO BY AN EXTRINSIC ARGUMENT OR INDUCEMENT THAT IS IN
ITSELF PRUDENT OR INNOCENT.

§ 1 . f It cannot of itself hinder ;' that is, abstracting from the
circumstance of accidental doubting or not doubting. The reason is,
because there being no law against it by which he is actually ruled,
and no reason appearing in defiance of it, there being no intrin-*
sical dissuasive, the conscience is only left to be conducted or per-
suaded by the extrinsical.

§ 2. For all actions are left indifferent till by a superinduced law
they are restrained ; which superinduced law wants its publication,
if inculpably I have no notice of it in my conscience. But this is
to be allowed with this caution, that this entering upon actions
against which we know no reason or law, be not sudden, and violent,
and careless, like the rushing of a horse into a battle, without con-
sideration ; but that we consider according to our strength, and to
our time, whether there be any reasons for or against the act in
question, and if we find none, let us make none ; that is, let us not
by our unreasonable and impertinent doubting place a snare for our
own feet there where none is placed by the prohibition.

§ 3. If it be a matter that concerns the interest of another, let us
always be the more wary, and remember, if there be nothing against
it, there must be something for it, either in the matter, or in the
manner, either in justice or in charity, or at least by the securities of
the safer part, by which if we find no reward, yet we are sure to find
indemnity.

§ 4. This whole advice is of great use in the circumstances of the
duty that concerns the married pairs ; in which the doctors of cases
of conscience have spoken what they please, and in many things
wholly by chance or fancy ; and the holy state of marriage ought to
be rescued from many of their snares and intricacies by which they
have troubled it, as will appear when I shall speak to the rules of
that affair.

CHAP. V.] OP A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 225

RULE IV.

IN DOUBTS OF EIGHT, OR LAW, WE ABE ALWAYS BOUND TO ENQUIRE ;
BUT IN DOUBTS OF FACT NOT ALWAYS.

§ 1. The reason is, because ignorance of our duty is always a sin,
and therefore when we are in a perceived, discernible state of danger,
he that refuses to enquire after his duty, does not desire to do it.

§ 2. In matters of fact we are bound ordinarily to enquire, be-
cause we must not be ignorant of. the state of our consciences, and
what obligation there is to restitution, or repentance, which the more
particular it is, the more perfect it is. But this I say, that though
ordinarily it be true that we are obliged, yet in some cases it may
happen that it is safer to trust the event of things with a general re-
pentance, than that the conscience of some men be tempted with a
particular notice of the fact.

§ 3. 1) This happens in those that are weak-hearted, soft, and
apt to every impression in too deep a regard. A Castilian gentleman
being newly recovered from the sad effects of a melancholy spirit,
and an affrighting conscience, and being entertained by some that
waited on him with sports and innocent pastimes to divert his scaring
thoughts ; he with his company shot many arrows in a public field at
rovers-1 : at that time there was a man killed, whether by his arrows
or no, he knew not, and is forbidden to enquire : and his case had
in it reason enough to warrant the advice : the knowledge of it could
not have done him so much good, as it would have done him hurt ;
and it was better he should be permitted to a doubting than to a
despairing conscience, as in his case it was too likely to have hap-
pened. It is better to be suspected than to be seen.

§ 4. 2) This also is so to be advised, when the enquiry into the
doubt of fact may be prejudicial to a third person. A priest going
to the West Indies by misfortune wounds one of his company, whom
with much trouble and sorrow, he leaves to be cured of his hurt, but
passes on to his voyage, which he finished at a huge distance from
the place of his misfortune. The merchants come the next year that
way, and he is unwilling to enquire concerning his sick friend ; desi-
rous he was to know good of him, but infinitely fearful lest he be
dead : consulting therefore with his superior in the case, was directed
not to enquire, upon this account; because if the man were dead the
priest would be irregular, and a whole parish unprovided for, and
left without rites and sacraments, and public offices, which then and
there could not easily be supplied.

§ 5. But in matters of right or duty enquiry must be made, ever,
when the question is of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of what is to

i [See Todd's Johnson, 'rovers.']
IX. Q

226 OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

be done; because we enter upon danger, and despise our own safety,
and are careless of our duty, and not zealous for God, nor yet sub-
jects of conscience, or of the Spirit of God, if we do not well enquire
of an action we are to do, whether it be good or bad. But when the
act is done, and done with an actual persuasion that it was lawful,
the conscience of that person is not easily to be disturbed, which is
to be understood with these cautions :

§ 6. 1) When the question was probable on either side, and at
the time of acting, was chosen with its just measures and provisions ;
then although the complice or partner of the act do change his opi-
nion, and think himself bound to repent, yet he is not bound to
trouble the other. Anthony a gentleman of Parma being in love
with Maria de Rupe, being moved with great interests of his person,
and a great necessity, consummates his marriage before publication,
they both of them being persuaded that it is lawful. He afterwards
changes his opinion, thinks it a sin, and repents and begs pardon,
but being also in doubt whether he ought to tell his wife of it, was
advised to the contrary, upon this amongst many other concurrent
reasons, because what was innocently done, cannot be condemned in
that in which it was innocent : for the man himself ought to be sor-
rowful for his being deceived (if he thinks he was) but he cannot be
tied to repent of the act, which supposing his then present persuasion
was lawful, because done according to a probable conscience : and
therefore much less ought he to disturb the peace of his wdfe, whose
persuasion remains the same as at first. What was not a sin at first,
cannot in that individual act become a sin afterwards.

§ 7. 2) This is also to be understood, when the act leaves no evil
effect, or hath done no hurt to a third person ; but if it do, then my
peace is not to be bought at the expense of another's evil. No man
is to be made better or left so, by another's detriment; and there-
fore if a child were begotten in that unripe and hasty consummation,
and that child should be declared bastard, then the peace is to be
disturbed, and the enquiry on all hands to be curious and busy, be-
cause in all such cases there is something of duty for the future
concerned in it; sometimes restitution, but always repentance in
particular.

§ 8. 3) This is also true when the fact that is past is not intro-
ductive of more and new instances ; for if it was the wrong side of
the probability which was chosen, and the same kind of action is to
return often, there the conscience though heartily persuaded, must
be awakened from its security by him that believes it to be a sin that
was done, and then the interested party must enquire ; the reason of
this is, because this concerns the future, and all the world when they
enter upon action must enquire anew when they have reason to doubt
anew, and they may be called upon, and must be better informed by
them that can and are concerned. For the honour of God and the
interest of His service is in this case concerned, which in the other is

CHAP. V.] OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 227

not, when it only relates to a single and a past action, which was
then lawful, and therefore will not afterwards be imputed.

§ 9. 4) When the person interested does of himself doubt whe-
ther the past act was lawful or not, and desires to be satisfied, and
that there will be no evil effect in the alteration of his persuasion,
then it is fit he be complied with in that which he judges to be for
the interest of his soul, for this is certainly the better ; the other way
of concealing and not enquiring being only permitted in some cases,
and with so many cautions and reservations as are before expressed.

EULE V.

IN DOUBTS THE SAFER PART IS TO BE CHOSEN.

§ 1. When the conscience is doubtful, neither part can be chosen
till the doubt be laid down ; but to choose the safer part is an ex-
trinsical means instrumental to the deposition of the doubt, and
changing the conscience from doubtful to probable. This rule there-
fore does properly belong to the probable conscience : for that the
conscience is positively doubtful is but accidental to the question and
appendant to the person. For the reasons on either side make the
conscience probable, unless fear, or some other accident make the
man not able to rest on either side. For in matters of conscience
it is as hard to find a case so equally probable that a man shall find
nothing without or within to determine him, as it is to find that
which the philosophers call, temperamentum ad pondus, a constitu-
tion so equal that no part shall excel the other. For if there were
nothing in the things to distinguish them, yet in the man there is a
natural propensity which will make him love one sort of arguments
more than another. What can be more indifferent than to see two
dogs fight ? and yet no man sees their cruelty, but he wishes better
to one than to another k : and although no opinions are so very even,
yet if they were, the man hath an acquisite, or else a natural bias, or
something of contingency that will determine him : and if the con-
science remains undetermined, so that he may not, or dare not ven-
ture upon either part, it is certainly a disease, or a direct infirmity.
And because such persons can do nothing at all till their doubtful is
changed into a probable conscience, this discourse must relate to that
conscience that is probable, though in compliance with the usual ways
of speaking, I have placed it here.

§ 2. 1) The rule therefore is to be understood to be good advice,

k [Compare p. 80 above.]

228 OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

but not necessary in all cases. For when the contrary opinion is the
more probable, and this the more safe, to do this is a prudent com-
pliance, either with a timorous or with an ignorant conscience ; it is
always an effect of piety, and a strong will to good, but very often an
effect of a weak understanding; that is, such an one which is in-
clined to scruple, and dares not trust the truth of his proposition, or
God with his soul in the pursuance of it. And indeed sometimes
there is in this some little suspicion of the event of things which
must needs reflect upon the goodness of God, under whom we fancy
we cannot be so safe by pursuing that rule and guide that He hath
given us, that is, the best reason, and the fairest inducement, as we
may be by relying upon the sureness of the matter. Indeed we our-
selves are so wholly immerged in matter that we are conducted by it,
and its relations in very many things ; but we may as well rely upon
formalities and spiritual securities (if we understood them) as upon
the material ; and it is as safe to rely upon the surer side of reason
as upou the surer side of the thing. Now that which is the more
probable hath the same advantage in constituting a conscience
formally safe, as the other less probable but surer side hath for the
making the conscience safe materially.

§ 3. 2) If the conscience be probable, and so evenly weighed that
the determination on either side is difficult, then the safer side is
ordinarily to be chosen, because that helps to outweigh and determine
the scale ; that is, when reason and the proper motives of the ques-
tion are not sufficient to determine it, let auxiliaries be taken from
without, and if the conscience be not made securer by its rule, let it
be made safe by the material. It is just as the building of an house.
If the architect be not wise and knowing how to secure the fabric by
rules of art, and advantages of complication, and the contexture of
parts, let him support it with pillars great and massy; for if the
other be wanting, these will sustain the roof sure enough, but with
some rudeness in the thing, and imperfection in the whole.

§ 4. 3) If to that which is the surer side there be a great incon-
venience consequent, the avoiding of that inconvenience being laid
on the opposite even part, will outweigh the consideration of the
safety. Quintus Milo commands his servant Aufidius whom he had
taken for the teaching grammar and rhetoric to his children, that he
would learn the trade of a shoemaker. Aufidius doubts whether his
master Q. Milo hath power to command him to do that which was
no part of the employment for which he was entertained, and yet be-
cause the thing is of itself lawful and honest, he considers it is the
safest course for him to obey, for certainly in so doing he sins not ;
and thus far he is bound, and was in the right. But if to learn that
mean trade will dishonour and disable him, make him a fool and
contemptible, and ruin his hopes and his interests when he leaves the
service of Milo, the servant is not tied to follow that which is more
safe, but that which is more charitable and prudent. In dubiis juris

CHAP. V.] OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 229

tutior pars seqnenda est, el obedire teneor, si commode possim, was the
rule : because the reason abstractedly considered makes the question
safe on either side, as the determination happens ; and the avoiding
an intolerable inconvenience is as considerable as the accidental se-
curity, and in many cases more complying with charity, because in
a question in which the conscience is probable there is a great safety
without taking in the advantage of a safe matter, by the proper effi-
cacy and influence of the reason making a probable and an honest
conscience; but then when the safety is provided for fairly other
ways, and for the most part sufficiently, and the inconvenience on
the other side is not provided for ; in all such cases we must leave
that which is materially sure, for the choice of that which in its
formality is equally sure, and in its matter more charitable. A little
child came to my door for alms, of whom I was told he was run from
his mother's house and his own honest employment; but in his
wandering he was almost starved : I found that if I relieved him, he
would not return to his mother, if I did not relieve him, he would
not be able. I considered that indeed his soul's interests were more
to be regarded and secured than his body, and his sin rather to be
prevented than his sickness, and therefore not to relieve him seemed
at first the greater charity. But when I weighed against these con-
siderations, that his sin is uncertain, and future, and arbitrary, but
his need is certain, and present, and natural ; that he may choose
whether he will sin or no ; but cannot in the present case choose
whether he will perish or no ; that if he be not relieved he dies in his
sin, but many things may intervene to reform his vicious inclination ;
that the natural necessity is extreme, but that he will sin is no way
necessary, and hath in it no degrees of unavoidable necessity ; and
above all, that if he abuses my relief to evil purposes which I intended
not, it is his fault, not mine ; but the question being concerning my
duty not his, and that to relieve him is my duty and not his, and
that therefore if I do not relieve him, the sin is also mine and not
his ; and that by bidding of him to do his duty I acquit myself on
one side, but by bidding him to be warm and fed, I cannot be ac-
quitted on the other, I took that side which was at least equally sure
and certainly more charitable.

§ 5. This also happens in the matter of justice very often. It is
the surer side in many cases to restore, and is a testimony of an
honest mind, that to secure its eternal interest, will quit the temporal.
But if to restore will undo a man, and the case is indifferent, or at
least probable that he is not bound, then it is not necessary to re-
store, though to restore be the surer side ; and if the interest of a
third person, as of wife, or children, be also involved in the question,
then the enquiring person bound is not to restore ; because in the
present case there is a certain uncharitableness, and but an uncertain
justice, that is, a duty certainly omitted, for the securing of another
that is not certain.

230 OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

§ 6. 4) When the more probable is also the more safe, there is
no question but the safer is to be chosen. For so, the conscience is
made the more sure both materially and formally ; that is, by the
better reason, and the more advantageous matter, and he that does
otherwise, exposes himself to an evident danger of sinning, having
nothing to out- balance either the direct reason, or the accidental
safety.

§ 7. 5) Sometimes it happens that what is safe in one regard, is
dangerous in another, and on each side of the probability there is a
danger and a safety. Vittoria Columbina a Venetian lady was mar-
ried to five magnifico's successively; and they all being dead, and
she left very rich, young, and tempted to a sixth marriage, advises
with her confessor whether or no she may lawfully do it ? he tells
her that it is not only probable, but certain that she may; but it
were better if she kept her widowhood, and after so much sense of
mortality retire to religion. But that he may determine her case
with more certainty she tells him, she had once resolved with herself
to live a widow, but finds she shall not be free from temptation in
that state, and desires him to tell her if she may lawfully marry, not-
withstanding that resolution, which now to be something altered he
perceives by her question. He answers, that it is the surest course
to determine for chastity and abstinence, her state of widowhood
being more certainly pleasing than the other. But then she hints
her temptation, and asks if some sure course is not to be taken for
her being secured in that point too ? This arrests his thoughts upon
a new consideration, but the result is this :

§ 8. 1) When there are two securities to be provided for, one of
the thing, and the other of the person ; that of the person is first to
be provided for. It is the safer part of the question to determine on
the side of chastity, or virginity, or widowhood, but this may be the
unsafer side to the person, who if he suffers temptation is to be pro-
vided for by that answer which gives him remedy and ease.

§ 9. 2) But if it happens that there is danger on either side to
the person, that is the surer side which provides against that tempta-
tion which is strongest and most imminent, and which if it prevails
is of the worst consequence.

§ 10. 3) This is also to be understood in those cases when tem-
poral life is offered in question against the danger of a sin. Michael
Yerinus a young gentleman of Spain, by reason of his living a single
life was pressed with so great inconvenience that he fell into a lin-
gering and dangerous sickness. The physicians advise him to use
his remedy, though he be not married, and being it was in order to
his health, which was not else to be recovered, they presumed it law-
ful, or did not care whether it were or no, but however they advise
him to it. He doubts of it, and dares not be uncharitable and die
for wrant of remedy, if he might have it, and yet dares not commit
an act of uncleanliness ; but finding on either hand a sin threatening

CHAP. V.] OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 231

him, and if he flies from a lion he meets a bear, or is told that a
bear is in the way : he at last flies from the evil beast that stood
before him, and chooses that way which was evidently the safest, not
to his health, but to his salvation, not to his body, bat his soul ; and
chose rather to die, than to do that which he was certainly persuaded
to be a sin, and of the other he was not so sure.

Sola Venus potuit lento succurrere morbo,
Ne se pollueret, maluit ille mori '.

In other things, the prudence of a guide must be his only rule.
The sum is this :

§ 11. 1) If the doubt be equal and the danger equal, the doubt
must be laid aside, or there can be no action consequent : and for
the danger, if you choose one, you may choose either, for there is no
difference ; a dagger or a sword is all one to him that must die by
one.

§ 12. 2) If the doubt be unequal and the danger equal, the reso-
lution must be on that side where there is the most confidence, that
is, where the less cause of doubting is apprehended ; as if I have but
enough to give one alms, and I see two ready to perish, and I can
relieve but one ; the clanger is equal, for pasce fame morientem, si
non pavisii, occidisti, said S. Ambrose": but one is my friend, and
the other is a stranger; in this case the doubt is unequal, and I
ought to prefer my friend.

§ 13. 8) If the danger be unequal, and the doubt equal, the
resolution must be made in compliance with our safety. For there
is nothing to weigh down in the doubt, yet there is something to
weigh down in the danger, and that is sufficient.

§ 14. 4) If the doubt be unequal, and the danger unequal, there
we must take the least danger, though on the least side of the pro-
bability, because there can no degree of sin be consented to; and
therefore when by our own fault or infelicity we must be forced to
fall upon one, we must take the less, by the same reason for which
we are to refuse all that we can. Msevius Caligarius a Eoman gen-
tleman and newly converted to Christianity, observes that his friend
Agricola was pursued by his enemies unto death, and was by them
asked concerning him whether he were in his house or no. He knew
he was, but knows also that if he confesses it he shall die. He
doubts whether it be lawful to lie to save his friend's life or no, and
cannot resolve whether it be or no, but inclines rather to think it is
not lawful. But he considers if it be lawful, then he is guilty of his
friend's death, who refused to save him at an innocent charge. But
if it be not lawful, he does but tell an officious lie, so long as the
doubt remains, he must rather venture upon an uncertain sin in the
officious lie, than the uncertain but greater sin of homicide.

1 [Angel. Politian., epigr. p. 616.] cap. 21, col. 440; but see the note on the

m [So Gratian., part 1, dist. lxxxvi. passage.]

232 OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

These are trie cases in which the danger is on both sides.

§ 15. 5) But if there be danger on one side only, and a doubt on
both sides, there is no question but that side is to be chosen where
there is no danger ; unless the doubt on one side be contemptible
and inconsiderable, and the other not so.

RULE VI.

IT IS LAWFUL TOR THE CONSCIENCE TO PROCEED TO ACTION AGAINST A DOUBT

THAT IS MERELY SPECULATIVE.

§ 1. In a sure conscience the speculative and the practical are the
same in certain consequence, as I have already proved in its own
place"; but in a doubting conscience the case is differing. For
though it be ordinarily true here also that he that doubts specula-
tively does also doubt practically ; as if he doubts concerning all
usurarious contracts, whether it be lawful or no to use any, he doubts
also concerning this which himself uses, if it be usurarious. But be-
cause there may intervene a special case, and that which is true in
general may be altered in the particular, it may happen that he may
be certain and determined in the particular when he is not so in the
general ; that is, when the case is special, by privilege or exemption,
or the ceasing of the reason, or by any other special case he may
think himself acquitted, when yet the action is culpable in its whole
kind.

§ 2. But by a speculative doubt sometimes is meant not the ge-
neral, but the question abstracted from circumstances ; and in this it
sometimes happens that though the conscience doubt concerning the
question, yet it does not doubt concerning the practice. Titius is
possessed of a field on which he entered by inheritance, and wholly
without fraud and violence ; but yet upon some supervening notices
he afterwards doubts whether the field be his own by a just title";
but because he is informed by his confessor and others on whom he
does and may rely, that possession is a collateral title, and that what
he so possesses he may still dwell upon till it be certain that it is not
his own ; he rests at quiet in his mind, because possession is stronger
than his doubt, though it cannot prevail against demonstration.

§ 3. Mary of Eheims, the wife of a soldier, is told by his captain
that her husband was killed at the battle of Pavy ; after her year of
mourning was expired she marries again to a citizen of Eheims, and

n Chap. ii. rule 3. [p. 52, &c]

0 [Bardus, discept. iv. cap. 18. p. 224 ; et discept. v. cap. 4. p. 303, 4.]

CHAP. V.] OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 233

cohabits with him two yearsP; after which she is told that her first
husband escaped to Tarentum, and there lives in obscurity. Upon
this she doubts whether the citizen be really her husband or no ; yet
living with him he demands her to pay her conjugal duty, she en-
quires whether during this doubt she may or no, and is answered
affirmatively upon the same grounds : the citizen is in possession of
the marriage, and this is not to be disturbed by a doubt, but by a
certainty, especially since the doubt is but a speculative doubt, not a
practical. For it is no good argument to say, I doubt whether this
man be my husband or no, therefore if I consent to him I commit
adultery ; for the presumption lying upon the possessor, though his
title be dubious, yet his possession is not, and either of them both
are to have a portion in the effect, and therefore the certain posses-
sion in a dubious title is to be preferred before a dubious title with-
out possession, and therefore this kind of doubt ought not to hinder
the effect of the present duty. For in this case it is not true, — ' the
antecedent is doubtful, therefore so is the consequent/ For as out of
falsehood truth may come, so out of doubts may come certainty. I
see a great way off father Grimaldi moving his lips ; I suppose he
is disputing, whom yet I was told not to be alive. I argue thus, ' He
disputes, therefore he is not dead/ The consequent is certain, but
the antecedent is doubtful ; so it is in the present case. I doubt
whether this woman be and ought to be my wife, but because she is
legally so and so reputed and in possession, I do infer that there-
fore I must pay my duty to her, till it be certain that she is not my
wife. For though I doubt of the person whether or no she be my
wife, yet I am certain, or I may be certain of this, that he that ap-
proaches to her who is in possession of marriage may do it lawfully ;
he only does fornicate who approaches to her of whom I am certain
that she is not my wife. But if of this proposition also I doubt, the
doubt is practical, and I may not do it, till by some means the doubt
be resolved or laid aside. But so long as it is a question specula-
tive, the action may be determinate and lawful, and introduced upon
many accounts.

§ 4. For the fuller manifestation of which secret, because it is of
great concernment, and hath influence upon the conscience in many
great actions and entercourse of human society, it is remarkable that
we cannot argue thus, — This man is not bonce fidei possessor, a ' pos-
sessor by a just faith/ therefore he possesses it mala fide, 'by an
unjust •/ so neither does this follow, This man possesses it not with
an evil faith, therefore he possesses it with a good faith. It does
neither way follow negatively. But this consequence is good, — He is
a possessor by a good faith, therefore he does not possess it by an
evil. Or, He is a possessor by an evil faith, therefore he does not
possess it by a good j it follows either way affirmatively. The reason
of the difference is this j if it be good it cannot be bad ; and if it be

f ['year,'— A.]

234 OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

bad it cannot be good ; if it be one, it cannot be the other, but it
may happen that it may be neither good nor bad, for there is a
medium or a third between good and bad faith or honesty of posses-
sion ; and this consists in a speculative doubt, by which the possessor
doubts whether that which is in his hands be in his right, or belongs
to him or to another ; and that he who so doubts hath neither good
nor bad faith is expressed by the gloss in I. 1. C. Be acq. poss.v gl.
in I. Z.ff. Pro solut.i et gl. in I. 3. § ' Genera,' ff. Be acq. poss.T

§ 5. The consequent of which is this, that "because he who so
doubts is not bona Jidei possessor, therefore he cannot from thence
begin to prescribe or to acquire a just title, because of the rule of the
law s, Quod ab initio non valuit, progressu temporis valere non debet,
and it cannot by time get strength to walk which enters into the
world without feet ; now the doubting conscience is but a lame sup-
porter. But yet because such a conscience which only hath this
speculative doubt is not mala Jidei possessor, therefore he may law-
fully still retain the possession till the contrary be evicted.

There is this only to be added, that although prescription or other
ways of just title cannot begin with a doubting conscience, yet if it
entered with a throughly persuaded conscience, it may go on though
it be disquieted by a supervening doubt. The reason is, because it
having lawful parents of its birth and first production, cannot be
killed and destroyed by a suit at law ; it began well, and therefore had
just principles of its progression, and whatsoever hath the first ad-
vantage of just and reasonable, is always to be so presumed till the
contrary be proved ; a doubt therefore may make the man unquiet,
and tie him to enquire, but cannot interrupt the possession or the
beginning and growing title. Besides the reason, this sentence is
confirmed by the concurring testimonies of Bartolus, Imola, Sylvester,
Felinus, Balbus, and Johannes Hannibal, under their titles Be pra-
scriptionibus et usncapionibus.

§ 6. There are some accidental hardnesses to the conscience which
are innocent, and because besides the even measures of good and evil
by lawful and unlawful, there are some paths chalked out to us by
necessities, by conveniences, by presumptions, by securities, and other
indefinite aims at things which can sometimes weigh down the best
of our imperfect conjectures in some obscure cases, we may as well
walk by the light of the stars, and better too, than to walk quite in
the dark ; and not only the sun is appointed to rule the day, but
there are the moon and the stars to govern the night : plain and
easy rules make a sure conscience, but the doubtful and the dark
must be content with a less light.

§ 7. For, unlearned men are oftentimes beset with the arguments

P [Cod. Justin., lib. vii. tit. 32. 1. 1, r [ibid., tit. ii. 1. 3. col. 416.]

col. 1645, ed. fol. Par. 1576.] " [vid. digest., lib. 1. tit. 17, 'De di-

q [Digest., lib. xli. tit. 4. 1. 2. torn. iii. vers. reg. jur.,' 1. 29. Gothofred., corp.

col. 487, ed. fol. Antv. 1575.] jur. civil, col. 1854.]

CHAP. V.] OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 235

of a talking man, which they cannot answer, but create a speculative
doubt, and such as destroys all the certainty of evidence which they
had ; but if they should not stick to their own conclusion in despite
of all the objections by a certainty of adhesion, they might be dis-
turbed in every thing, and confident in nothing, and might if they
met with a heretic be fooled out of their religion, and quit the most
material parts of their belief. And even the learned have in many
articles a presumptive assent to their propositions ; and if they be
made to doubt in their understanding by the opposition of an adver-
sary, they are not instantly to change their practice, but to enquire
further. For if after every such doubting their practice must be
insecure or criminal, they may be forced to a lightness greater than
that of the Egyptian priests1: and some men can believe well, and
dispute ill, but yet their faith must not change at the argument of
every sophister. In these cases the practice is made secure by a
collateral light, and he is defended from change by reputation, and
custom, by fear of scandal, and the tie of laws, and by many other
indirect instruments of determination, which although they cannot
out-wit the contrary arguments, yet they ought to outweigh the
doubt, and guide the will, and rule the conscience in such cases.

§ 8. There is nothing but a weak man may doubt of, but if he be
well, he must not change his foot, till it be made certain to him that
he is deceived ; let him consider what he please, and determine at
leisure ; let him be swift to hear, but slow to speak, and slower yet
in declaring by his action and changed course, that his doubt hath
prevailed upon him. I knew a scholar once who was a man of a
quick apprehension, and easy to receive an objection, who when he
read the Roman doctors was very much of their opinion, and as
much against them when he read their adversaries ; but kept himself
to the religion of his country, concerning which at all times he
remembered that there were rare arguments and answers respectively,
though he could not then think upon them. There are temptations
of faith and opinion, and they are to be resisted sometimes by indi-
rect ways of proceeding, and artifices of the spirit ; and sometimes
men in sickness are afflicted with doubting and trembling consciences,
but yet are supported only with general remembrances, they consider
that there are comforts, and excellent promises, and instruments of
hope, and wise and holy sayings by which they were nursed up to
that height of strength, that they are now able to fight in the dark :
if the speculative doubting conscience should always prevail in prac-
tice, the ignorant might be abused and miserable in all things, and
the learned in most.

1 [Herod. Euterp., cap. Ixxxix.]

236 OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

EULE VII.

EVERY DICTATE AND JUDGMENT OP THE CONSCIENCE, THOUGH IT BE LITTLE
AND LESS MATERIAL, IS SUFFICIENT AND MAY BE MADE USE OF FOR THE
DEPOSITION OF A DOUBT.

§ 1. Every little reason is not sufficient to guide the will, or to
make an honest or a probable conscience, as I have proved in the
foregoing chapter"; but in a doubting conscience, that is, where
there are seemingly great reasons of either side, and the conscience
not able to determine between them, but hangs like a needle between
two loadstones, and can go to neither, because it equally inclines to
both ; there it is, that any little dictate that can come on one side
and turn the scale is to be admitted to counsel and to action : for a
doubt is a disease in conscience, like an irresolution in action, and is
therefore to be removed at any just rate, and any excuse taken rather
than have it permitted. For even to wash in Jordan may cure a
leprosy, and a glass of wine may ease the infirmities of the stomach ;
and he is too ceremonious in the matter of life and death, that stands
upon punctilios with nature, and will not be cured but by rich medi-
cines. For in a doubting conscience the immediate cure is not to
choose right, that is the remedy in an erring conscience ; but when
the disease or evil is doubting, or suspension, the remedy is deter-
mination ; and to effect this, whatsoever is sufficient may be chosen
and used.

§ 2. Every conscience that proceeds probably, proceeds honestly,
unless by a greater probability it be engaged against the less ; now
to make a conscience that is probable, yet even more probable, a
little advantage is sufficient ; which is to be understood with these
cautions :

§ 3. 1) "When the doubt is equal and the danger alike on either
side, then a smaller superfoetation of argument will do the work, that
is, cure the doubting ; for though a little argument is not alone a
ground for the action of a wise man, yet a little overplus of reason
will take off this calamity of irresolution and trepidation; it is not
enough to outweigh any danger, but it can with the portion of the
equal measures which stand on its own side, by its little weight cast
the balance.

§ 4. 2) This is not so easily to be admitted when the judgment of
the man is discernibly and perceivably little and not to be trusted,
for then the superaddition that is made by him to any part of the
doubt may be as wholly inconsiderable as the doubt itself is trouble-
some ; and though this may make the doubt to be laid aside, as it

u Rule 7. [p. 192.]

CHAP. V.] OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 237

will also determine such a man in the whole traverse of the question,
yet it is the worst remedy of the doubt, and an insufficient introduc-
tion of the probability. In this case the doubt is to be laid aside by
the advice and authority of some person fit to lead him, rather than
by the confidence of his own little superadded impertinency. For
indeed it is not good to have the sacredness of a conscience governed
by weakness and contingency.

§ 5. 3) When the doubting person is inconstant, let him not
speedily act what he lightly determines by the sudden intervening
humour; for he that changes quickly judges lightly, but fancies
strongly, and acts passionately, and repents speedily and often ;
therefore let such a man when he perceives his own infirmity stop at
the gates of action, lest the laying clown one doubt multiply many,
and he become more miserable in his remedy than in his sickness.

§ 6. In pursuance of this rule it is to be taken care of that fear be
not mistaken for doubt ; for there is oftentimes a doubt no where but
in the will, and the more slender and weak the judgment is, often-
times the fear is greater ; and sometimes they fear because they fear,
and not because they have reason : when therefore the doubt does
not rely upon such a reason as can be formed into an argument and
discourse, but is an unreasonable trouble, and an infinite nothing;
the doubt ought directly to be laid aside, for it is no way consider-
able, but only that it is a considerable trouble.

EULE VIII.

WHEN TWO PRECEPTS CONTRARY TO EACH OTnER MEET TOGETHER ABOUT THE
SAME QUESTION, THAT IS TO BE PREFERRED WHICH BINDS MOST.

§ 1. This rule we learn from the eighth council of Toledo, Ubi
periculi necessitous . . . compulerit, id debemus resolvere quod minori
nexn noscitur obligate ; quid autem ex his levins, quidve sit gravius,
pietatis acumine investigemus* . The council instances in the keep-
ing wicked oaths and promises, where though the instance be mis-
taken, and that in the matter of wicked promises the case is not
perplexed, and it is no sin to break them, but a sin to keep them ;
yet upon supposition that the conscience is doubtful whether it be
lawful to break them, and whether it be lawful to keep them, and
fears a sin on either side, the council hath given a right answer,
the evil that is least is to be chosen. Etenim dum perjurare com-
pettimw, Creatorem quidem offendimus, sed nos tantummodo macu-
lamus ; cum vero noxia promissa complemus, et Dei jussa superbe
contemnimus, et proximis impia crudelitate nocemus, et nos ipsos cru-

T Concil. Tolet. viii. Can. 2. temp. Martini P. [torn. iii. col. 959. D.]

238 OP A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

deliori mortis glaclio trncidamus : ' he that having sworn to do an
evil turn breaks his oath, offends God by putting his name to a he
and a villany, and he pollutes his own soul : but he that keeps his
oath when he hath so sworn, despises the commandments of God,
and hurts his neighbour with an impious cruelty, and destroys him-
self with a worse/ On this side therefore there being the more
and worse evils than on the other, we must decline furthest from
this. For if all evil is to be avoided, then all degrees of evil are;
and when we cannot avoid as much as we should, we must avoid
as much as we can. We must choose none directly, but when we
are forced upon some by our own infelicity or fault, it is the best
remedy for the gangrene'tliat we lose our arm or leg, and he that is
in the fatal necessity no otherwise can be permitted to choose a sin,
than he is supposed to be desirous to be cut of the stone, when upon
any terms he resolves he never will or can endure the torments of
the disease. The great reason of this rule is that which was given
by Aristotlev, h ayadov yap Ao'yw yCverai to cKclttov kcikov
-rrpos to fxelCov kclkov earl yap to ekaTTOV KaKov p.a\kov aiperov
tov fxel(ovos- to be alperov ayaObv, koI to fxakkov fxeKov, ' the less
evil in respect of the greater evil is to be accounted good j because
the less evil is rather to be chosen than the greater ; and what is in
any sense eligible is in some sense good, and that which is more eli-
gible is a greater good/

§ 2. But it seems something harder to enquire concerning this
case when it relates to others : for so it uses to be asked ;

Quest.

"Whether it be lawful to advise, to counsel, to petition, to deter-
mine, to make use of the doubt of another, or his necessity or per-
plexity, and to call upon him to do that which is a sin ? The case
is this ; Pollio an intemperate and wanton young man falls into adul-
teries and unnatural lusts; his friend Publius Asinius advises him
not so, but if he will not leave his vileness, better it is to satisfy his
lust by single fornication, and the less harmful complications :

Et quas Euphrates, et quas mihi mittit Orontes
Me capiant ; nolo futta pudica thori \

Whether or no Publius does well or no in giving this advice, is
the question. The reasons of doubting are these : because he that
advises evil is guilty of the sin which he procures ; and he that any
way consents or induces another to sin, shall be partner in the
punishment.

§ 3. To this I answer,

1) That in the whole entercourse there are to be considered the

v Ethic. Nic, lib. v. cap. 7. [torn. ii. p. 1131.]
» [Propert., lib. ii. eleg. 23. lin. 21.]

CHAP. V.] OF A. DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 239

formal sin, the material part of the action, and the degrees of the
obliquity. The formal part, or the sinfulness cannot, must not be
countenanced, or assisted at all, directly or indirectly; and in the
present case it is so far from being countenanced, that it is reduced
to as little a proportion as it can, as near to a destruction as the
present necessity or perplexity will permit, and it is out of hatred to
the obliquity or sinfulness that this lesser way is propounded. Pilate
seeing the Jews resolved to do a spite to the holy and most innocent
Jesus, propounded to them a lesser way than murdering him ; " I
will scourge Him, and let Him go." Pilate's conscience was not
perplexed, though his interest was, and therefore there was no neces-
sity for him to do either, and neither ought he to have propounded
the lesser evil, which it may be themselves did not design : indeed
if they were resolved to do one, he might have persuaded the less,
not absolutely (for nothing could have made that lawful) but com-
paratively, that is, rather that than the other, if ye will do one.

§ 4. 2) But for the material part of the action, if it be already
prepared, and the malice known and declared, it is lawful to pro-
pound a less instance of the sin without persuading to it ; which is to
be understood with these cautions :

a) That it be only with a purpose of hindering a greater.
/3) When the lesser cannot be hindered, but at least so much
must be done by way of redemption. As if Caius resolves to ravish
a matron to satisfy his lust, it is lawful to divert his lust upon a com-
mon prostitute, who sells her soul for bread ; because her. malice is
always ready and watches for an opportunity, and sins no less if she
wants opportunity which she thirsts after.

y) That it be ever without the prejudice of a third person : as if
one of the banditti intends to kill one man, and this happens to be
offered to a public and a brave man, it is not lawful to point out his
sword to the striking of a meaner person to save the other, because
though in respect of the effect it be a less evil, yet it is a direct
uncharitableness to a third, which can receive no warrant or legiti-
mation by the intention of the propounder ; for although he intends
that a less evil be done for the public, yet he intends a greater evil
to the particular.

8) That it be in a case certainly known where the malice is appa-
rent and declared, and the matter prepared : for thus we see that
God who sees the hearts of men, diverts their prepared malice upon
some special matter which serves the ends of His providence, and
verifies the prophecies of God, and so brings His designs to effect,
and a certain event by contingent or voluntary instruments. But we
may no further imitate this, than we can attain to little portions of
the knowledge of men's private and particular purposes.

§ 5. 3) But as for the degrees of the obliquity or irregularity, it is
certain, none is to be persuaded or assisted directly, but suffered in
the whole, and persuaded in the instance by way of remedy against

240 OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

the greater and more intolerable. Thus Moses permitted divorces,
that the Jews might not commit open and frequent adulteries, or kill
their wives when they grew weary of them. Thus an inconvenience
is suffered rather than a mischief shall be introduced : and some
fooleries and weak usages are suffered in some churches, rather than
by reforming them make the ignorant people think all religion is
indifferent : and if all the people of the Greek church did perceive
that any of their old customs were fit to be rescinded, they would
upon the same easiness quit their whole religion and turn Turks.
And though an error is not to be permitted in any church when it
can be peaceably amended, and when it cannot it is, as often as it
can be, peaceably to be discouraged ; yet when the necessity is great,
and the evil feared is certain and felt, and is intolerable ; it is a sad
necessity, but no man can help it, and therefore it must be as it
may, the lesser error is to be endured till it can be remedied, with a
remedy that is not worse than the disease.

Quest.

§ 6. Upon this occasion, and for the reducing the rule to practice,
and to regulate a case which now-a-days happens too frequently ; it is
not amiss to enquire concerning the necessities of women married to
adulterous and morose vile-natured husbands ; whether it be lawful
for a wife out of a desire to live with some degree of a tolerable com-
fort, to connive at her husband's stolen pleasures, and to permit him
quietly to enjoy his folly ? and what is a woman's duty, and what
were her most prudent course, and manner of deportment ?

§ 7. Some of great reputation in the church of God both of old
and later times put a speedy period to this enquiry, and absolutely
condemn it as unlawful for a man or woman to live with their hus-
band or wife respectively, if either of them be notoriously guilty of
adultery. Of this opinion was S. Hieromey, saying that a man is sub
maledictione si adulterant retineat, he is c under a curse if he retains
an adulteress in his embraces/ And S. Chrysostom2; Sicut crude-
lis est et iniquus qui castam dimittit, sic fatuus est et injustus qui
retinet meretricem ; nam patronus turpitudinis ejus est qui crimen
celat xixoris ; ' as he is cruel and unjust who puts a chaste wife from
him, so he is unjust and a fool that keeps a harlot : for he is a
patron of his wife's turpitude, who conceals his wife's adultery/
And this they prove out of Solomona ; Qui tenet adulterant stultus
est ; almost the words which S. Chrysostom uses. He is a fool that
keeps an adulteress : a<re[3r)s it is in the Greek LXX. ' He is an
ungodly man/ And of the same opinion was Bucer in the last age,

y In Matth. xix. [torn. iv. part. 1. decret., part. 1.] caus. xxxii. q. 1. cap.

col. 87.] ' Sicut,' [col. 1733.]

1 [Op. imperfect, in Matt. liom. a [ Prov. xviii. 22.]
xxxii., torn. vi. p. 135. B ; apud Gratian.

CHAP. V.] OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 211

who for his opinion brings two arguments which are not contemp-
tible. The first is taken from Deut. xxiv. 4, where God enjoins
that if a man puts away his wife, he must at no hand receive her
again, quia ipsa polluta est, she is defiled, meaning if any man else
hath lien with her: and if this be a good reason, it will conclude
stronger, that if she have committed adultery, she may not be enter-
tained, because in that case she is more polluted, and where the
reason of the commandment does intervene, there also the obligation
does go along. But the other is yet more considerable; for if God
commanded that the adulteress should be stoned to death, certainly
He much rather intended she should be turned out of doors. To
which I add this consideration, that since an adulterer is made one
flesh with the harlot with whom he mingles impure embraces, it fol-
lows that he hath dissolved the union which he had with his wife, or
she with her husband ; for he cannot be one with his wife, and one
with the harlot, and yet he be one in himself and they two, for that
is a perfect contradiction ; for that which is one with two, is not one
but two. Now for a woman to lie with a man, or a man with a
woman, between whom there is not a just and legitimate union,
seems to be an unjust and illegitimate uniting, and therefore it can-
not be lawful to lie with an adulterer who is one with an harlot.

§ 8. Before I come to the resolution of the question, I must
describe how much these arguments do prove and infer; because
though they do not prove so much as their contrivers do intend, yet
they do something towards the whole question. 1) The words of S.
Hierome infer nothing but this, that to live with a harlot is a great
calamity and a horrible curse, and it cannot indeed tend towards a
blessing, or end well, or be at all endured, if it be not intended to
purposes beyond the proper effect of that calamity. He that is
smitten with a leprosy, or he that is hanged upon a tree, is accursed ;
but if the leprosy makes a man run to God or to Christ, or the man
that dies upon a tree does confess and glorify God, and by his death
intends to do so, the leper shall be presented pure before the throne
of grace, and he that hangs upon the tree does die with Christ, and
shall reign with Him for ever. 2) And the design expressed in the
words of S. Chrysostom do verify this commentary upon the words
of S. Hierome. For S. Chrysostom charging not only infelicity (as
the other does) but folly and cruelty upon him who retains a harlot ;
gives this reason, because he is a patron of his wife's turpitude if he
conceals it; meaning it, if he conceals it out of carelessness and
positive neglect, or which is worse, out of interest, or base designs.
All wise and good men in the world condemn the fact of Cato, who
did lend his wife Martia, a virtuous and a chaste matron, to his friend
Hortensius : he that conceals his wife's crime with an unwillingness
to reform it, or a pleasure in the sin, or the fruits of it, is his wife's
betrayer and murderer ; nay, he is an adulterer to his own wife. But
these words cannot be true in all cases, for he that conceals her

IX. R

242 OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOCK I.

shame, lest the discovery should make her impudent and harden her
face, he is no patron of the sin, but a careful guardian watching lest
she should commit a worse. And this also is the meaning of the
words of Solomon; for although they are not at all in our bibles,
because they are not found in the Hebrew text, yet the words which
are found in the Greek LXX. and in the vulgar Latin, and which
were certainly in the bibles which S. Hierome and S. Chrysostom
did use, and which were the cause and original of their opinion, have
in them this sense; that as he who expels a good woman thrusts
good from his house, so he that does not thrust an evil woman
thence, an adulteress, he is a fool; meaning if he connives at her
wickedness, or unless he have something to sweeten the sufferance,
or some pious purposes to sanctify his action. But if it were abso-
lutely unlawful, then the adulteress were a person of a desperate for-
tune, irremediable and irrecoverable, uncapable of mercy or repent-
ance ; or if she were, yet her husband's charity and forgiveness might
by no means be instrumental to it ; and yet S. Paul in a case that
was extremely bad, even in the case of infidelity, Qui scis mulier an
vimm sis lucrahira, 'what knowest thou O woman whether thou
mayest gain thy husband1'?' But the arguments of Bucer being
intended directly against the lawfulness of retaining an adulteress, or
living with an adulterous husband, are to have distinct answers. For
although where a commandment is given with a reason, wherever
the same reason is, it does not always follow that there is the same
obligation, because although God is sometimes pleased to give a
reason for the precept, yet the reason did not bind without the pre-
cept, but the precept does bind without a reason, which demonstrates
that the obligation proceeds wholly from the authority of God, and
not from the reason, (as I intend to shew more largely in its proper
place,) yet besides this I say, the reason is not rightly rendered in the
usual translations: N on poterit prior maritus recipere, quia polluta
est, 'the first husband may not receive her, because she is de-
filed :' for the words in the Hebrew are DKSE.T"!^ which do not
signify ' because she is polluted/ but quia facta est polluere se,
'because she is made to defile herself/ meaning that because her
first husband had thrust her out and offered her to be humbled by
him that would, he being the cause of that pollution hath lost all
right to her, and the privilege of restitution : and then this case
refers not to a simple adultery, but to him who betrays or exposes his
wife to adultery ; and indeed such a person might not in Moses' law
receive her again : and this was the case of Cato and Socrates, who
were very free in lending their wives, as a man lends an utensil. As
for the case of lapidation, it is true, the woman if she were legally
convicted were to die; but the husband was not bound to accuse
her, he might pardon her if he pleased, and conceal the fact; he
might pardon her for his share, as Christ did the woman taken in

b [1 Cor. vii. 16. J

CHAP. V.] OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 243

adultery ; or put her away privately, as Joseph upon a mistake in-
tended to do to the blessed virgin-mother : but that it is therefore
unlawful to retain her whom his soul loves, whom he would fain
convert, whom he desires and hopes to reform, or that God did intend
the good man should not use any of his charity and kindness to any
such purpose, is not at all to be concluded by these arguments. Now
as to the last, the adulterous man is one with the harlot, but this
union is not a natural union, but a spiritual and legal, as appears by
the effect of second and third marriages ; for one person can no more
be one naturally with two or three successively, than he can be one
with many at one time ; and when the patriarchs were married to
divers women at once, they were not naturally one with them all, but
legally they were; that is, they were conjoined in holy bands, and
were to very many purposes to be reckoned but as one. AEv yap
ilaiv avijp Kal yvvi] rrj (pvatL, ttj avp.TTi>oiq, rrj kvuxrei, rrj hiaOicrei,, 7(o
/3«i), rep TpoTTO), K€yu>pi(rp.(voL he elcn t<5 cryf]\mTi nal ra api6p.(S,
said Clemens. They were one person by union of affection, they
had one bed, one purse, one interest, community of children, com-
munication of bodies, equal rights, as to the power of marriage, the
same band of duty, tied by the same mystery. Now he or she that
commits adultery breaks this union, and divides or imparts some of
the rights due to each other by an impure person, and they become
one flesh in an impure mixture. Now because he or she that first
breaks this union loses their own right by invading or giving away
another's, therefore the offending person may be put away and refused
in their petition of right, which they have lost by doing wrong. But
the adultery hath not so united the offending persons, but that the
union can, and may better be broke, and the erring party reduced to
his rule and to his right. Tor it is but a legal, and it is a spiritual
or intellectual union, which is to be done not by material but by
moral instruments, which can eternally return, and be effective when
they do. The way then being thus far made straight, I answer ;

§ 9. That it is not only lawful, but may have in it great piety and
great charity for a woman still to cohabit with an adulterous hus-
band. The lawfulness appears, in that there is no prohibition by a
divine commandment, no natural uncleanhess in it ; and this appears
as all other negative pretences can, even by evacuating the pretences
made to the contrary. Of this opinion was S. Basil, who also made
a canon for it, and commanded it to be done in his church, as ap-
pears in his epistle to Amphilochius c. The same also was the sen-
tence of S. Austin to Pollentius, in his book cle adulterinis covju-
giisd : and of pope Pelagius in his epistle to Melleus his subdeacone.
But they it seems went against the general stream, for they were not

c Epist. 1. [al. clxxxviii.] can. 9. e [lib. ii. cap. 6. torn. vi. col. 407.]

[torn. iii. p. 273, 4.] et can. 21. [epist. e [Gratian. decret, part. 2. caus.

excix. p. 293.] xxxii. quaest. 1. cap. 5. col. 173.5.]

R 2

244 OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I,

only forced to dispute it, but also to limit the question and the per-
mission. For David received his wife Micholf who had lived with
another man ; and S. Paul advises the wife to be reconciled to her
husbands; and Christ forgave the woman taken in adultery11, and
God not only is ready to forgive, but calls and invites His church to
return to His love though she hath been an adulteress, and committed
fornication against Him : but therefore so may a man, but it ought
only to be done in case the sinning person does repent : only S.
Basil is for the living still with the adulterer though he wallow in his
sin ; but does not think it fit the man should be tied to do so to his
adulterous wife. That he or she respectively may if they still live
with the sinning person, needs no other proof but this, that the inno-
cent being also the injured person may forgive the injury done to
them ; and that it may have in it great piety and great charity is
certain upon the same account upon which it can be piety and charity
to suffer injuries, to be patient, to have a long-suffering spirit, to
exhort, to entreat, to bring the sinner to repentance, to convert a
soul, to save a sinner from the evil of his way. But this is to be
practised with the following measures and cautions :

§ 10. 1) The innocent person must not be bound to do this,
because the union being dissolved, the criminal hath lost his right,
and therefore if the other use their liberty, they do no wrong ; and
although it may be good charity in many instances to do it, yet be-
cause there is no direct obligation in any, and there may be great
un charitableness to one's self as the case may happen, no one's
liberty is to be prejudiced in this particular, but they are to be ex-
horted to all instances of charity ; ever remembering that saying of
God by the prophet, "The Lord God of Israel saith He hateth
putting away1."

§ 11. 2) The innocent person may lawfully retain the criminal,
though he or she have no other end or purpose in it but the love of
the person, or the retaining of their own rights temporal, or any
other thing that is in itself honest and lawful : and the reason is,
because the fault of the one is not to prejudice the other ; and it is
misery enough to be injured in their direct relation, and not that this
injury compel them to receive another. If Titius be an adulterer,
his wife Caia hath not lost her power over his body, or her interest
in his family or fortune.

§ 12. 3) This is to last as long as there is any hopes of repent-
ance, and the repentance is to be procured and endeavoured by all
direct means, and by all the indirect means which are ministered to
the innocent person by the power and advantages which his or her
innocence gives over the guiltiness of the other : such as are, reprov-
ing his fault, denying conjugal rights, delating the person, bringing

» [2 Sam. iii. 14.] h [John viii. 11.]

s [1 Cor. vii. 11.] 1 [Mai. ii. 16.]

CHAP. V.] OP A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 245

liim or her to private shame, procuring reproof from spiritual supe-
riors, or natural relatives, and indeed any thing that can he prudent,
and by which the offender can be made better, and will not be made
worse.

§ 13. 4) If there be no hopes of repentance, yet still the innocent
person may use their own rights, not only because there may be pos-
sibilities and real consequent events when we have no hopes ; and S.
Paul's j question, Qui scis o mulier, l how knowest thou O woman
whether thou shalt gain thy husband ?' may still have place, not
only I say for this reason, but for the foregoing ; the innocent person
does not lose his or her right, and therefore may still possess what
otherwise she might quit ; and his incontinence does not oblige her
to be exposed to the danger of a itvpuxris or ' ustulation/ nor to be
reproached with the noises of divorce, nor offered to an actual poverty,
or dereliction, or to become an actual widow before death.

§ 14. 5) If the retaining the adulteress be actually scandalous,
the church in that case hath been more restrained in her permission,
and hath commanded the innocent person to put the offending wo-
man away: and therefore the fathers in the council of Eliberisk
refused to give the communion to a clergyman even at the last, if he
did not stathn projieere , instantly expel from his house his wife, whom
he knew to commit adultery : and in the council of Neo-Csesarea1 he
was to be deposed from his dignity in the same case ; the reason is
given by the council of Eliberis, Ne ab his, qui exemplum bonce con-
versationis esse debent, videantur magisteria scelerum procedere ; lest
their houses which ought to be the examples of piety and chastity,
become the precedents and warranty of uncleanness. This is nothing
else but a pursuance of the canon apostolical, requiring that bishops
and deacons should be such who rule their own houses wellm ; for if
they cannot do that, it is not easy to be supposed they can well rule
the church of God : and though a good man may have an evil wife,
and such a one whom no prudence can govern ; yet if she be an
adulteress, he can put her away, though he cannot govern her : and
indeed all such reproaches ought to be infinitely removed from the
houses of those, whose lives and whose governments ought to be ex-
emplar. Oportet suspicionem abesse a Caesaris domo. Princes and
prelates ought not to have any thing under their roof so nearly re-
lating to them, that can justly be suspected. But this is matter of
decency and fittingness, not of indispensable necessity.

§ 5. 6) The innocent person must not directly by any compli-
ance, cohabitation, or indulgence give countenance or encouragement
to the impurity or crimes of the offending relative, for nothing can
make it tolerable or lawful to promote a sin, or any ways directly to
co-operate toward it. This is a species lenocinii, a being a bawd to
the uncleanness of that person whom with our lives we ought to

j [1 Cor. vii. 16.] ■ Can. 8. [torn. i. col. 284.]

k Can. 65. [torn. i. col. 257.] m [1 Tim" iii. 4, 5.]

246 OV A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. ^BOOK I.

rescue from that damnation if we could. And therefore if the woman
finds her husband grow worse by her toleration and sufferance, she is
to go off from it by such degrees as are on this side the extreme
remedy, which I reckoned before in the third caution ; and if nothing
else hinder, it is not only excusable, but hugely charitable, and in a
very great degree commendable to be divorced. For she uses her
own power, and therefore sins not, and does it when nothing else
can prevail, and therefore she is not rash, or light and inquisitive
after new relations, and she does it that she may not patronise or
increase his sin, and therefore is charitable to his better interest.

§ 16. 7) But if his or her compliance and cohabitation does ac-
cidentally make the offending party worse, yet if it be besides the
intention, and against the purpose, and contrary to the endeavours of
the innocent ; he or she in that case is not tied to relinquish their
right and their advantages in the present possession or cohabita-
tion, a) Because concerning accidental events, against which we
labour, no man is to give account. j3) Because of this accidental
event, the offending person is the only author, and the innocent is
not to suffer for his sin. y) If the innocent person were tied to
depart, then it were at any time in the power of the adulterer or
adulteress to be divorced from the innocent, because he growing
worse by the other's being good can oblige the other to quit him of
the burden which he hates. 8) Because to depart in that case is
no remedy. Because he that is vile may grow worse by contrary
causes ; and as wicked men are made presumptuous by mercies and
hardened by judgments, and whether they be punished or not pu-
nished, from both they take occasion to persevere, so may an adul-
terer, or an adulteress, by being sweetly used, or by being harshly.
All that can be of duty and necessity in this case, is that the inno-
cent person with all prudent advice and caution do not by any direct
act encourage the crime, or connive at it when it can be helped, or
commend it when it cannot, or refuse to use any fair or any just
instrument of curing the leper ; and for the rest, let them pray ear-
nestly, frequently, humbly, and leave the event to God. It is lawful
to permit or suffer an evil which I cannot help, and by that permis-
sion retain my own rights, or prevent my own wrongs ; but it is at
no hand lawful for any interest spiritual or temporal to do an evil, or
to set it directly forward.

§ 17. Thus some commonwealths permit fornication and public
stews, to prevent the horrid consequents of the lusts of their young
men, which when they cannot cure, they seek to lessen and divert ;
and though there be in the whole many evil appendages, and a great
fault in government, and many evil and avoidable necessities intro-
duced and supposed ; yet so far as this intention is considered, if it
were not avoidable or remediable by the severity of laws, and the
wisdom of discourses, and the excellencies of religion, it were the
only charity that were left, and an after-game of conscience and reli-

CHAP. V.] OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 247

gion ; sad and fatal to those whose folly infers it, but all that is left
that can be done for God and for souls.

But yet this thing in all the circumstances is not to be done at all,
because it is a snare to many who have such necessities, who are
otherwise curable, who enter into the temptation, because it is made
ready to their hand ; and it is a high scandal to the laws and to the
religion of a country, where such vile nests of impurity are suffered ;
and the necessity is but phantastic, accidental, and inferred by evil
customs, or some secular interest, or weaker regard ; for there is no
necessity that men must either debauch matrons or be fornicators ;
let them marry, for that is the remedy which God hath appointed,
and He knows best how to satisfy and provide for all the needs of
mankind. But it is objected. The laws of Italy forbid the younger
brothers of great families to marry. That is it, which I said, men
make necessities of their own, and then find ways to satisfy them
which therefore cannot be warranted by that necessity, because that
necessity is of their own procuring, not from God, nor for Him.
For this is the case : an evil is to be cured, and a greater prevented ;
God hath appointed marriage for a remedy, the civil power forbids it
to some persons, who for want of that must fornicate, or do worse.
To prevent the worse they provide them of opportunities of doing
the less ? But what remedy is there for the less ? That is not
thought of ; for marriage is inconvenient to younger families ; but it
is very convenient for their souls, and they also would be provided
for, as being no contemptible interest. Here therefore, if they would
alter the necessities which worldly interest introduced, if they would
prefer souls before the greatness of families, heaven before a marqui-
sate in Sardinia, and would esteem it more honour to a house to have
chastity preserved rather than wealth and an entire inheritance, the
weak pretences of excuse for stews would be hissed off from the face
of all christian countries ; for if fornication be a remedy against un-
natural lusts, it is just as being poisoned is an antidote against hang-
ing, but certainly there is a better. Innocence or pardon will prevent
it with more advantage, and so will marriage do to the worse evils
of lust ; unless no health is considerable which is not effected by a
witch, and ease is to be despised if it be brought with a blessing.
But if any one can pretend that marriage will not secure the Italians
or hot Spaniards from attempting intolerable vilenesses (besides that
fornication will do less, as having in it no more of natural remedy,
and not so much by way of blessing) in this case, the wheel or the
galleys, hard labour and the mines, the rods and axes must pare off
the luxury.

This therefore is the result, as to this particular instance. In the
questions of greater or less uncleanncsscs, permissions are not to be
made by public authority, for the reasons before named : but there
may be particular necessities in single instances which will run into
present evil, for which no remedy can be provided ; and then it is

248 OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

lawful to divert the malice upon a less matter, when it cannot be
taken off entirely: for thus righteous Lotm offered his daughters to
the impure Sodomites, to redeem the strangers from the violation in-
tended them, and to hinder his citizens from breaking the laws of
nature and hospitality, which (if they were not always) yet they were
of greater obligation than the restraints of simple fornication. And
to this purpose is that of S. Chrysostom11 who to a man that is ac-
customed to swear, and cannot avoid it, advises that he should rather
swear by his head than by God. I do not, I confess, like the in-
stance, both 1) because it is in some cases worse to swear by a crea-
ture than by the Creator ; it is an honour done to Him to swear by
Him, though to do it triflingly is such an honour done to Him, as
superstition is, an honour that angers Him ; and 2) also because, he
that can pretend his swearing to be unavoidable, does say so, because
he does swear when he cannot deliberate ; and if he does not con-
sider, he can never make use of his advice to do one rather than
another ; for no man can choose that cannot consider, but as for the
prime intention of the advice, that the least evil is to be chosen, or
advised, it is without question safe and prudent.

Of the same purpose are these words of S. Austin0, Si decrevisti
Jiomicidium aid adulterium facere, adulterium committe non Jwmici-
dium: ' if thou wilt murder or commit adultery, do this, not that/
that is, rather this than that. But neither here am I pleased with
the instance, because, when any man can lawfully be diverted to a
less sin, it must be in the same kind ; because the same lust cannot
be filled with a differing object ; and if the temptation be such that
it can be taken off wholly from that scene, and changed to a differing
and desperate matter, he can as well be turned to something that is
innocent as to some other distinct vice ; that is, he may for all his
temptation. From unnatural lusts to natural, from the greater kind
to the less, from adultery to fornication, from fornication to trifling
amours and Platonic fooleries ; from murder to a blow, from a blow
to an angry word ; these are proper diminutions which are in a direct
order to the retrenching of the sin : but from murder to adultery a
man is not to be diverted, because there is not a direct lessening of
the degrees of sin, but a changing it into equal ; or if it be not, yet
the malice is more extended, if not intended, and the man is directly
tempted to be a devil upon a new score, for it must be a new malice
that must change him ; but still, the advice is in its main design safe
and innocent.

But of the same mind is S. Gregory p, affirming it to be good
advice that when of two sins one must be chosen, that the least be it,

S. Ambros. de Patriarch. Abraham, ° De adultcrin. conjug.,lib. ii. cap. 15.

lib. i. cap. 6. [torn. i. col. 300.] [torn. vi. col. 413 G.]

n Horn, xxvii. ad pop. Antiochen. * Lib. xxxii. moral., cap. 18. [al. 20.

[torn. v. fol. 161. k. ed. Lat. fol. Par. torn. i. col. 1067.1

15-16.] J

CHAP. V.] OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 249

but his proof of it is not to be suffered ; ' for so/ saith he, ' for the
avoiding fornication S. Paul permits marriage •' which saying of his
without great violence to the words and chanty to the man can never
be reconciled with the truth of scriptures, or the honour of marriage,
but as to the main advice it is well and agreeable to right reason.

§ 19. But besides the cautions already given, (§ 4.q), relating to
the material part of sin, the whole affair is to be conducted with these
provisions :

§ 20. 1) No man may use this course, by engaging in a present
lesser evil, to seek to prevent a greater that is to come : the reason
is, because this is a securing of evil, it is an assurance and a certain
gain to the interest of sin, and this certainly may outweigh the greater
degree of an uncertain evil ; and there are many acts of providence
which may intervene and prevent the future evil, which therefore
is not to be prevented by a present evil though less mischievous, be-
cause possibly it may be hindered at a cheaper rate ; and no little evil
is to be done, but when either itself or a greater is unavoidable,
which happens not (for aught we know) in the present case; for
before to-morrow the man may die, or his affections to sin may die,
or he may be sick, or scared, and to put it off as long as we can, is
one kind of diminution and lessening of the sin, which is the thing
here consulted of.

§ 21. 2) Care must be taken, that by this means no man's sin be
promoted, no man's eternal interest be lessened, no evil be done that
we could and ous;ht to forbid and hinder : and that of this we have
a moral certainty, or at least no probable cause to doubt. The reason
is, because if we put any man's soul to hazard, by procuring a less
damnation to an evil person, the evil we do is greater than our good ;
and we venture one mischief, for the venture or hopes of lessening
another. Quintus Milvius being in love with the wrife of Mursena,
and she with him, Milvius resolves to kill his wife Virginia, and run
away with the wife of Mureena, or force her from him ; he acquaints
his freed man Priscus Calvus with his purpose, but he to divert his
purpose of murder and adultery persuades his patron Milvius rather
to lie with Murcena's wife now, than to do such things of hazard and
evil voice and dishonour : and his advice was charitable and pre-
vailed ; for though the adultery was future, yet the intended murder
was present, and the evil was lessened as much as it could, and no
man prejudiced, but the life of one saved. But if he believes that
by this act Virginia will be so exasperated that she will turn adul-
teress in revenge, or kill her husband ; this is not to be advised upon
the foregoing reason. If a rich usurer refuses to give an alms to a
starved person, he may be advised rather to lend him some money
upon interest, than suffer him to die for want of bread : but if I
believe, or probably suppose or suspect that another man will be con-
firmed in the uncharitableness, and think because I advise him to this,

q [p. 239 above.]

250 OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

he does well in it, and will live and die in this opinion, then I may not
at the charge of another man's soul, do the other wicked person that
small advantage, which is less than can countervail the other evil.

§ 22. 8) He that advises the lesser evil for the avoiding of a
greater, must not advise any thing so to serve his own interest or
humour, as that he shall in any sense be delighted with the evil,
because so he becomes guilty of the other's sin, and then he cannot
do a thing lawfully, if it asperses him with guilt ; and he may not
serve another's need with his own evil joys ; and the interest of souls
is not set forward when one dies to make another less sick. But
besides this, the question here being whether it be lawful to advise a
less evil for avoiding of a greater, though it be affirmed to be so,
when it is wholly for the avoiding the greater ; yet it cannot be law-
ful to give such advice to serve my own lower ends : nothing but the
former can legitimate such an advice, and therefore this latter cannot.

§ 23. 4) No man must make use of this course himself; for
though it be lawful to divert a greater evil by advising the less to
others, yet I may not myself choose a less, that I may not choose a
greater ; for if this could be lawful, it would be in the power of any
man to sin what sin he pleased, and to threaten his conscience into a
leave ; for if he should resolve he would either kill the father, or lie
with the daughter ; be unnatural in his lusts, or loose in his enter-
tainments, he might legitimate every lesser sin for fear of the greater.
But therefore it is certain, that when he can choose either, he must
choose none, for nothing can make it lawful directly to choose any,
even the least evil. But when it so happens that the conscience is
doubtful and perplexed, and that in this sad conjunction of evil and
weak thoughts, it seems unavoidable but that one must be chosen,
we may then incline to that which hath least danger, and least mis-
chief. And this advice was given by the chancellor of Paris : Si sub
electione proponuntur duo mala, cave neutrum eligas: nam in malis
quid est eltgendum ? At vero si culpa nostra ceciderimus ut necesse
sit alterum ex peccatis fieri, minus est acceptandum ; quia jam in
comparatione deterioris, sortilur boni, secundum quid, rationemr. No
sin is to be chosen when both can be avoided, but when they cannot,
the least is to be suffered. But when this comes to be another man's
case that he will not avoid both, though he sins in choosing any, yet
he that advises him rather to take the less does not sin. He that
chooses the less, sins less, but yet sins, because he should choose
none at all ; but he that advises him to choose the less, sins not at
all, because he hinders all sin as much as he can.

§ 24. 5) He that advises a less sin for the prevention of a greater,
must see that it be directly less, and certainly so ; it must be in the
same matter and kind, and in a less degree, because he can no other
ways be certain that he hath done any good at all, and may do
a greater evil. For in degrees of sin the case is clear when the

r Gerson., tract, viii. in Magnif. num. 88. [torn. iii. col. 859. F.]

CHAP, v.] OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 251

matter or instance is the same j but if it be specifically different, or
in the whole kind, all question of degrees is infinitely uncertain, and
therefore the rule is not without danger practicable in such cases.
But of this I have already given some accounts in the fifth number
of this rule.

§ 25. But because all this discourse relies upon this main ground,
that the lesser evil in respect of the greater hath the nature of good,
and therefore is to be preferred ; or (which is all one) the avoiding of
the greater evil is directly a good, and the suffering the less evil is
better than suffering the other, yet because it is but comparatively
good, it is positively evil ; here it is to be enquired, whether this can
be lawful, or is it not a prevaricating of the apostle's rules, that " evil
is not to be done that good may come of it ?" and whether this may
be done in any case, and by what cautions it can be permitted or
made legitimate ? This enquiry hath great uses in the whole life of
men, and therefore is not unworthy a stricter search.

§ 26. And first as to the present rule, it is certain, that this per-
mission is not a doing evil that good may come of it : 1) Because no
evil is at all permitted when all can be avoided. 2) Because no man
is to act this rule in his own person, upon whom he may and ought
to have a power of persuasion and effort sufficient to cause himself to
decline all evil. 3) It is only permitted to be advised to others by
such persons who hate all sin, and have neither pleasure nor interest
in any. 4) It is not a giving leave to any sin, but a hindering as
much as can be hindered. It is not a doing any thing at all of kind-
ness to any thing but to the man. It is like that permission which
the sons of Israel gave to the remnant of the Canaanites, to live in
the land because they could not destroy them all. They killed as
many as they could, and it was not kindness but necessity that left
those few alive. And the thing was not ill expressed by Petrarch*,
Duobus aut plurlbus ex malls minus malum ellgendum esse non video,
cum minus malum hand dubie malum sit, qualiter mali lectio sit
laudanda, Itaque rectius did reor, majora mala majori studio n-
tanda, tit si vitari cuncta non possunt, minora facilius tolereniur,
non electione, sed patlentla, cequanimitate, modestia : ' of two evils
the least is not to be chosen, since that the less evil is without all
doubt an evil. Thus therefore I suppose we ought to say ; the
greater evils are with greater care to be avoided, that if all cannot be
declined, the less may be better tolerated, not by choice, but by pa-
tience/ Now though it be not lawful to do evil for a good end, yet
it is lawful to suffer evil to avoid a greater, and to make the best of
it that we can ; which was the counsel which Cicero says he received
from learned men, Non solum ex malls eligere minima oportere, sed
etlarn excerpere ex Us ipsls si quid inesset boniu.

§ 27. But to the thing itself there can be no dispute that it is

' [Rom. iii. 8.] 6. torn. ii. p. 804.]

' Lib. v. epist. rerum senilium. [epist. a Offic, lib. iii. [cap. 1.]

252 OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

highly unlawful to do evil for a good end. S. Paul's v words are
decretory and passionate in the thing : he calls it ' slander/ or
' blasphemy' that they reported it of him that he should say, ' It was
lawful to do evil that good might come of it ;' he also affirms that
though the greatness of the sins of the Jews or gentiles did magnify
the greatness of the divine mercy, yet they whose sins accidentally
thus served the glorification of God, their damnation was just.
Though this be clear and certain, yet I doubt not but all the world
does evil that good may come of it ; and though all men are of S.
Paul's opinion, yet all men do not blame themselves when they do
against it. I will therefore first represent the matters of fact, and
then consider of the allays or excuses to which men pretend in their
private accounts or public answers, and so separate the certain from
the uncertain, and establish the proper measures of the proposition.

§ 28. For first if we look in scripture, we shall find that divers
eminently holy have served God by strange violences of fact, and for
His glory have laid hold upon instruments not fit to be handled, but
such which would have cut the hands of a Christian if they had been
drawn through them. David gave order to Hushai to enrol himself
in the rebel party, and to deal falsely with Absalom, that he might
do good to David ; and indeed so do all spies, which if they were not
necessary, would not be used in all armies ; and if they be, yet they
do that which honest men would scruple at. Eliasx the prophet that
he might bring the people from idolatry, caused a sacrifice to Baal to
be made, and the idol to be invocated, which of itself was simply and
absolutely evil ; and Jehu (though a much worse man) yet pro-
claimed an assembly for Baal, and both of them did it that they
might destroy the priests of Baal, and dishonour the idol, and do
honour to God, and both did well : and for aught appears so did the
ten men of Shechem who to redeem their lives from the fury of
Ishmael discovered the secret treasures of the nationy : and amongst
the Christians some women, particularly Pelagia and her daughters,
have drowned themselves to prevent the worse evil of being defloured.
And is it not necessary in all governments that by violence peace
should be established, and by great examples of an intolerable justice
others should be made afraid. For so do all princes knowingly pro-
cure their rights by doing wrong ; for in all wars the innocent must
suffer that the guilty may be punished : and besides that all great
examples have in them something of iniquity ; it were not easy to
have discipline in private governments, or coercitive power in laws, if
in some cases some evil were not to be permitted to be done for the
curing some good. For suppose Corippus hath an obstinate ser-
vant, so perverse that like the sides of elephants his very soul grows
hard by stripes, and that Corippus knows this, yet if he have other
servants who will be corrupted by the impunity of this, he may, he
must do evil to the obstinate, and ruin his soul for the preserving

' [Rom. iii. 8.] * [1 Kings xviii. 25.] r [Jerem. xli. 8.]

CHAP. V.] OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 253

the others. And indeed if we consider how sad, how intolerable an
evil it is that a malefactor is snatched from his scene of evil and vile
actions, and hurried to hell with his sins about him ; and that for the
only reason of doing good to others, and preserving the public
interest, it will seem necessary that this interest be preserved, and
therefore that the other instrument be employed ; for it is natural
enough that as truth comes from falsehood, so should good from
evil; it is not an accidental or contingent product, but sometimes
natural and proper; and as God brings good out of evil by His
almighty power, so do good men by the nature of the thing; and
then the intermedial evil to a wise and religious person is like un-
handsome and ill-tasted physic, it is against nature in the taking
and in its operating, but for the preservation of nature in the effect
and consequent ; so are some evils against religion but useful for its
advantage. And this very similitude supplies many particulars of
the same nature. For thus we make children vain-glorious that they
may love noble things ; and who can govern prudently and wisely
that, resolves never to be angry ? and to be angry so as to do the work
of government, though it be not bigger than the measures of the
governor, yet they exceed the measures of the man. Thus for physic
it is affirmed to be lawful for a man to be drunk : and Cardinal Toletz
allows of voluntary desires of pollution when without it we cannot
have our health ; and yet to desire such pollution without such a good
purpose is certainly criminal, and if for the interest of health evil may
be clone, much more for religion and effects of holiness. But thus I
said, it must happen in public governments : the Christians that dwell
in China, Japan, and in the Indies cannot transact their affairs with
the heathens without oaths, and therefore they make them swear by
their own false gods, by the names of their idols and devils, which
only they think binding, and neither could there be any security of
faith to princes or to subjects, that is, in the public or private enter-
course without it, and yet without question as to swear by devils and
false deities is a high crime, so to require or to procure it is a great
sin, and yet it is done for necessity. The Romans would not trust
the Jews that would swear by the Temple of Jupiter :

Ecce negas, jurasque mihi per templa Tonantis,
Non credo, jura verpe per Anehialum \

No trust was given unless they swore by the God whom they feared,
and so it is in the case of others ; and what is necessary, it were very
strange if it might not be permitted. And what else can be the
meaning of dispensations, but that a thing which is otherwise unlaw-
ful is made good by its ministering to a good end ; that is, it is
lawful to do evil, to break a law, and leave is given to do so, when it
is necessary, or when it is charitable. Upon this account it is that
prescription does transfer a right, and confirms the putative and pre-

* [De instruct, sacerd.,] lib. v. cap. 13. [p. 774. ed. 8vo. Rothom., 1636.]

» [Mart. xi. 95.]

254 OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

sumed, in defiance of the legal and proper ; and this is for no other
reason but to prevent uncertainties in title, and eternal contentions,
which is a certain doing injury to the right owner, that good may be
procured, or evil prevented. When a man is in extreme necessity,
the distinctions of dominion do cease; and when David and his
soldiers were hungry, they eat the shew-bread, which God forbad to all
but the priests ; and so did the apostles to satisfy their hunger break
the sabbath by pulling and rubbing the ears of corn ; and in the
defence of a man's own life it is lawful to kill another : which is cer-
tainly a doing evil for a good end : and if it be said that this is not
a doing evil, because the end makes it not to be evil, this is a plain
confessing the question against the words of S. Paul ; for if the good
end makes that to be lawful which of itself without that end is
unlawful, then we may conclude against S. Paul, that it is good to
do evil that good may come ; that is, it is changed by the end and
by the design. And upon an equal stock of necessity it is, that all
princes think themselves excused, if by inferring a war they go to
lessen their growing neighbours ; but this is a doing wrong to pre-
vent a mischief, as the birds in Plutarch b, that beat the cuckoo for
fear that in time she should become a hawk. And this is certain in
the matters of omission, though to omit a duty be simply evil, yet
when it is necessary it is also lawful, and when it is charitable it is
lawful : thus religion yields to charity, and charity to justice, and
justice itself to necessity, and a man is not bound to pay his debts
when to do so will take from him his natural support. And it is
thus also in commissions ; who will not tell a harmless lie to save the
life of his friend, of his child, of himself, of a good and a brave man ?
and to govern children and fools by saying false tilings, no man
makes a scruple : and physicians are commended if with a witty lie
they can cozen melancholic and hypochondriacal men into a cure.
Thus the man of Athens0, who fanciedd if he should make water he
should drown the city, was cured by his physician's ingenious fiction
that the city was on fire, and desiring him to quench it with his urine,
lest water should be wanting in that great necessity, struck his fancy
luckily, and prevailed upon him to do that which no direct persuasion
could effect. Thus Hercules de Saxoniae having committed to his
charge a melancholic man, who supposing himself to be the prophet
Elias would needs fast forty days, dressed a fellow like an angel, who
pretending that he brought him meat from heaven, prevailed upon him
to receive both food and physic. This lie was charitable, and if it was

Lib. vi. apoplith. [? vit. Arat., torn. Taylor probably derived the story.]

v. p. 558.] d ['phnnsied,' edd.]

0 [' Un gentilhomme Sienois' is the e [Quoted by Burton, p. 682, possibly
original of M. Andre du Laurens, (des from recollection of an anecdote some-
maladies melancholiques, cap. vii. p. what similar in his Pantheum medicinse
140, ed. 12mo. Par. 1597,) quoted by selectum, lib. i. cap. 16. p. 97, ed. fol.
Burton, (Anatomy of melancholy, p. Franc. 160-3.]
298. ed. fol. Lond. 1660,) from whom

CHAP. V.] OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 255

not therefore innocent, then some charity can be criminal ; but if it
was innocent, it was made so wholly by the good end, which sancti-
fied the evil instrument. Thus also judges exact oaths from contra-
dicting parts, though they know that one is perjured, but yet he pro-
ceeds by such means to guess at truth, and satisfy the solemnities of
law. And when the judges themselves are corrupt, we think it fit to
give them bribes to make them do justice, who otherwise would for
bribes do injustice ; and yet we suppose we are no more to be re-
proved than they are who pay interest money to the usurers and
bankers whom yet themselves believe to sin. But bribery is a sin,
and bribery in a wrong cause is two or three ; and therefore let the
cause be what it will, it is no way tolerable but that it is for a good
end. Thus we venture into danger to serve worthy designs ; some
read heretical books to be able to confute them ; and some venture into
persecutions which they could avoid, because they would hot weaken
the hands of such who cannot avoid it ; and yet to go to danger is
not safe, and therefore against charity, and therefore a sin, and yet it
is for charity and faith even when it is against one of them. And
last of all, all men do, and they believe they may make addresses to a
tyrant for justice, and though he sits on the bench by wrong, yet we
stoop to his purple, and kiss his rods and axes when we desire to be
defended from the oppression of a lesser tyrant ; and if this be not a
doing evil that good may come of it, then it is no evil to make an-
other do an act of usurped power, or to bend to a power which de-
stroys that to which we are bound by the oath of God.

§ 29. These instances I have not brought in opposition of the
apostle's rule, or that I think any man else pretends any of these in
defiance of it, but to represent that either a great part of mankind
does it when they least think of it, or that some things which seem
evil are not so ; and that I may describe the measures of these things,
and establish the case of conscience upon its just limits and rule.

§ 30. 1) Therefore it is to be observed, that the facts of men living
under a law, are not to be measured by laws of a differing govern-
ment, and therefore if the facts of worthy men were exemplary (of which
in its proper place I am to give accounts) yet the facts of saints in the
Old testament would not be safe examples to us in the New ; and there-
fore we may not do that which Hushaif did, for he did well, that is
against nothing of the law under which he stood ; but if the simplicity
and ingenuity of our law gives us other measures, the effect will be,
that Hushai did not do evil for a good end, but did well to a good
purpose. And as to the thing itself, it is very likely that it is lawful
to abuse his credulity whose life I may lawfully take; the cautions
and limits of which permission belong not to this present enquiry.

§ 31. 2) The rules of war and the measures of public interest are
not to be estimated by private measures, and therefore because this
is unlawful in private entercourses, it must not be concluded to be

» [2 Sam. xvii.]

256 OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

evil in the public. For human affairs are so intricate and entangled,
our rules so imperfect, so many necessities supervene, and our power
is so limited, and our knowledge so little, and our provisions so short-
sighted, that those things which are in private evils may be public
goods : and therefore in tins question, the evil and the good are to
be in the same kind ; a private evil is not to be done for the procur-
ing of a private good, but for a public it may : not that evil may be
done for any thing ; but that here it is not evil, when it is measured
by the public standard. For since God is the fountain of govern-
ment, He also gives authority to all such propositions which are ne-
cessary means of its support, not to all which pretend to it, or which
are inferred by folly or ambition, but which are really such. War
cannot be made as a man corrects his child, with even degrees of
anger, and a just number of stripes, and equalities of punishment
both to the person and to the offence ; and kings are in the place of
God who strikes whole nations and towns and villages ; and war is
the rod of God in the hands of princes, but the evils which are inter-
medial to the greater purposes of a just war are such which are un-
avoidable in themselves, and besides the intentions of good kings ;
and therefore in such cases, though much evil is suffered because it
is unavoidable, yet none is done of choice, and that makes not against
the rule. For,

§ 32. 3) In many of the instances objected, the evils which are
the ways of procuring good, are not evils in morality, but in nature ;
and then it is lawful, when there is no malice in the design, to
prevent the sin, or to do a good office by a shrewd turn. Thus I
may pull my friend out of a pool by a strained arm, and save his
life by putting his arm out of joint; and this is a doing evil mate-
rially, with a pious purpose, that is without malice, and for a good
end, and that is innocent and charitable when it is unavoidable, but
it is not to be chosen, and done with delight, or evil intent, or
perfect election : to do evil to a man in this case is besides the man's
intention, it is accidental also to the whole event, it is not so much
as giving unpleasing physic, not so much as imposing cupping
glasses and using scarifications; for this is voluntary and chosen
for a good end, because the good cannot else well be procured, and
yet it is chosen upon those terms by the patient. Upon this account
a man may give his life for his friend, or wish himself dead ; and
S. Paul wished himself accursed for his brethren, and Moses desired
to be blotted out of the book of life in zeal for the people of God ;
and yet all this is a very great charity, because though a man may
not do evil, yet he may suffer evil for a good end; he may not
procure it, but he may undergo it : and after all, the doing of a
natural or physical evil may be permitted when there is no motive but
charity, for then it is in no sense forbidden; sometimes necessary and
unavoidable, but no ways evil or criminal; and if it be, it becomes
so by accident, or by the intertexture of some other ingredient.

CHAP. V.] OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 257

§ 33. 4) When the evils are subordinate or relative, the less may
be done to prevent the greater, though they be not in the same
matter; as a child may be beaten to prevent a sin, an offender
smitten to make him diligent : for these actions, though they are in
the accounts of evil things, yet have no intrinsical irregularity, but
wholly depend upon the end; but because commonly evil things
are done to evil purposes, and with irregular measures, they have an
ill name, but they can be changed when the end is made straight,
and the measures temperate. Every thing that is not intrinsically
evil, if it be directed to a good end, is good, unless it be spoiled by
some intervening accident.

§ 34. 5) Some things are evils properly and naturally, some by acci-
dent, some by our own faults, some by the faults of others. An action
may be innocent as from me, and yet a very great evil by the fault of
others. A malefactor put to death, it may be perishes eternally ; if he
does, it is his own fault, the laws are innocent when they smite him
for the good of others; and this is not a doing evil that good
may come of it; for in things not essentially and unalterably evil,
good and evil are in relations, and though the smiting some sinners
produce a very evil effect, yet it is only to be imputed to its own
cause. There is a good and an evil in many things, and God and
the devil have their share of the thing, and so have several persons,
according as they intend, and as they operate : and in this case, the
laws intend good, and do that which is good, that is, they punish a
malefactor, but of the accidental damnation, the sinner that sutlers
only is the only cause ; and therefore in this, and many like cases
of public transaction there is no evil done for a good end. Thus if
any man who is to take an oath be wicked and false, the law may
exact the oath because that is good, but the law itself may use a
false oath if the man will swear it, but then the falseness is the man's
that swears, not the law's that exacts it. For to many products
there are many concurrent causes, which are not integral, but have
each their share; and when causes are not integral, the portion of
effect is to be applied only by the intention of the agent, and the
proportion and order to the end. Indeed if the whole effect were to
be imputed entirely to every concurring agent, (as in murder every
man is principal and integral,) then in many of the fore-alleged cases,
evil were done for a good end, but then it could not be lawful so to
do, but the actions are therefore innocent to some agents, because
they do nothing of it but the good share, that which they ought to
do ; and that which spoils it comes in at another door.

§ 35. 6) Some laws of God are such that their rectitude is so
perfect, the holiness so entire, the usefulness so universal, the
instance so fitted for all cases, and the economy of it so handsome
and wise, that it never interferes with any other duty, is never com-
plicated with contradicting matter, or cross interests ; now these are
such which no case can alter, which no man may prevaricate, or if

ix. s

258 OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

they do they are such which no measure can extenuate, which no
end can sanctify : and these are either laws of general reason and
common sanction, or spiritual instances and abstracted from matter.
Thus no man may blaspheme God at any time or for any end, or in
any degree; and in these cases it was rightly said in the objections,
that if the end can change the instrument, then it is not evil to do
any tiling for a good end, because the end makes the evil to be
good. But then in other cases, where the instances are material,
tied up with the accidents of chance, made changeable by relations,
tied in several parts by several duties, filled with various capacities,
there the good and the evil are like colours of a dove's neck, differing
by several aspects and postures ; there abstractions are to be made,
and separations of part from part, of capacity from capacity; and
when every man provides concerning his share of influence into the
effect all is well, and if one fails, it may be evil is done to the whole
production, but it is not imputed to them who took care of their
own proportions. But in such kinds of actions, the limits and
measures are extrinsical and accidental, and the goodness is not
essential, natural, and original; and therefore the whole receives
variety by necessities, and by charity. For whatsoever can be neces-
sary by a necessity of God's making, that is lawful : and I may serve
any greater necessity by any thing that is less necessary, when both
necessities cannot be served. Thus David's eating the shew-bread,
and the apostles' eating corn on the sabbath, served a greater need
than could have been secured by superstitious or importune absti-
nence. In positive and temporary commands there is no obligation
but when they consist with higher duties ; Actus imperati unius
virtutis non debent prcejudicare actibus elicitis alter'ms. The proper
and natural actions of one virtue are ever to be preferred before
the instrumental acts of another; as an act of temperance must
be preferred before a posture in worshipping ; charity before fasting,
or before ceremonies : that is, the more necessary before the less.
It is more necessary to save the life of a man than to say my prayers
at any one time, and therefore I may leave my prayers in the midst,
and run to save a man from drowning. This is a thing which
cannot stay, the other can. Eor in all such precepts of affirmative
duty, there is a secret condition annexed, and they oblige not when
they cross a negative. And it is certain there could be no useful-
ness of knowing the degrees of good or evil, if it were not for prela-
tion and election of one before another : to what purpose were it that
we are told, " obedience is better than sacrifice'," but that we should
neglect one and do the other when both cannot stand together ? and
this order of degrees is the full ground of dispensations when they
can be allowed in divine commandments : but in human dispensations
there is another, even the want of foresight, the imperfection of the
laws themselves which cannot provide for all cases before-hand, as

' [ l Sam. xv. 22.]

CHAP. V.] OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 259

God's laws can ; and therefore to dispense with a subject in a human
law is not a doing evil for a good end; for to break a human law
is not intrinsically an evil though no express leave be given, as the
case may happen : but when leave is given, as it is in dispensations,
then there is no evil at all. And something like this is that other
case of prescriptions, which does indeed transfer a right from a right
owner, as it may happen, but this is a doing good and not evil, for it
is a preferring a certain possession before an uncertain right; or it is
a doing a greater good, that is a prelation of a title which hath more
evidence and public advantage than the other. Besides, it is done
by public consent, in which, because every particular is included,
there is no evil done, but much is prevented.

§ 86. 7) In actions the material part is to be distinguished from
the formality, the work from the affection. That may be wholly in-
different, when this may be wholly criminal. He that drinks till he
vomits, by the physician's advice, gives none of his affection to the
pleasure of any thing forbidden, he takes it as he takes a potion o«
pills, which may have the same effect with drink. But when the
material part cannot be clone without the sense of pleasure which is
forbidden, then the end cannot sanctify it : and therefore although to
drink much for physic may be lawful, yet pollution may not be de-
sired for health, because that cannot be done or suffered without an
unlawful pleasure; and so also will drinking for health become vici-
ous, if in the acting of the material part any part of our affections be
stolen away, and the pleasure of the excess be delighted in.

§ 37. 8) He that makes use of the matter of a sin already pre-
pared to which he gives no consent, and which he cannot help, does
not do evil for a good end. Thus the prophet called on the priests
of Baal to do what they used to do, that they might never do so
again. He was no way the cause of a sin, but of its circumstances
and adjuncts, that it be done here and now, and this is not against
the apostle's rule ; time and place are no sins, and make none unless
frequency be added to the time, and holiness to a place, and then
they may add degrees or new instances to the sin ; but when neither
of these is procured or injured respectively, it is lawful to glorify
God by using the prepared sin to good purposes. When a judge is
ready to receive money upon any terms, out of this evil we may
bring good, and cause him to do a good thing rather than a bad;
he does neither well, but that is his own fault ; but to give money is
a thing indifferent, and to give it for that end which is good, makes
it better : and bribery is a word of an ill sound when it means an evil
thing, but when it means well we may find a better word for it, or
mean well by this : though concerning the particular it is not amongst
men esteemed certain that it is lawful to give money to a judge : Sed
si dedi, says Ulpian, id secundum me in bona causa judex pronun-
ciaret, est quidem relatum condictioni locum esse: sed hie qitoque
crimen contra/tit. Judicem enim comuiijjere videtur : et non itajyri-

s 2

260 OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

dem imperator noster constituit litem eum perdere. Whether it be
lawful or no is to be enquired in another place ; but as to the present
enquiry, if it be lawful, I have accounted for it already ; if it be not,
it is not to be done, no not for justice sake. For in this case we no
way consent to the evil, but endeavour to bring good out of that evil
which is already in being. Thus we run to a tyrant power for justice,
he will govern whether we will or no, the sin will be acted and con-
tinued upon his own account; but when the evil matter is thus made
ready, we may reap as much good by it as we can bring out of it :
and in this sense is that true and applicable to the present which is
urged in the objection, that as truth may come from falsehood, so
may evil from good ; when an ill-gotten power is apt either to justice
or injustice, we may draw justice from it, and then we do good
without co-operating to the evil : that is, we only do determine an
indifferent agent to the better part. The manner of getting the
power is wholly extrinsical to the ministration of it : that is wholly
the fault of the usurper, but this which is our own act is wholly
innocent. If Nero sets Rome on fire, I do no hurt if I warm by
the heat, and walk by the light of it ; but if I laugh at the flames,
or give a fagot to it, I am guilty. And thus the Christians use the
heathens' oaths for their own security ; the oath is good, and so far
it is desired ; that the oath is by a false god is the heathens' fault ;
this is effected by these, but the other is only desired by them. This
therefore is not a doing evil for a good end ; it is a desiring of good,
and a using the evil matter which is of another's procuring.

§ 38. 9) There are some actions criminal and forbidden in certain
states only, as to kill a man is a sin, a private man may not do it;
but the same man when he comes to be a public magistrate may do
it. A private man also may not do it when he is in the relation and
protection of civil society, because in that, the laws are his guards,
and the public judges are his defensatives ; but if a man sets on me
by violence, and so puts himself into a state of war, lie, by going
from the limits of civil society, takes off the restraint which that
society put upon me, and I am returned to the liberties of nature;
and there is by all laws a power given a man to defend himself, by
laws, if he can, and if he cannot, then by himself and the means of
nature ; and therefore to kill him that would kill me, is not to do
evil for a good end, for the thing is permitted, and therefore not in-
trinsically evil, and whatsoever is not so may be accidentally good.

§ 39. 10) Some of the instances are such which are disallowed by
most men ; so to tell a lie for a good end is unlawful, upon supposi-
tion that a lie is intrinsically evil; concerning which the account
must be reserved for its own place : for the present, it is certainly
unlawful to lie for any end, if that supposition be true ; but if lying
be only forbidden for its uncharitableness or injustice, that is, for its
effects, then when the end is good the instrument is tolerable. By
these measures all the instances objected can be measured and secured,

CHAP. V.] OF A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE. 261

and by these the rule itself must be conducted. What cannot be
excused upon one of these, is wholly to be reproved as being a direct
prevaricating the apostle's rule.

§ 40. The sum is this : whatsoever is forbidden by the law under
which we stand, and being weighed by its own measures is found
evil; that is, in a matter certainly forbidden, not for any outward
and accidental reason, but for its natural or essential contrariety to
reason and the law of God, that may not be done or procured for
any end whatsoever. For every such thing is intrinsically and essen-
tially evil, it is evil without change or variety, without condition or
circumstance, and therefore cannot be made good by any such thing.
What is evil in some circumstances may be good in others, and what
is condemned for a bad effect, by a good one may be hallowed, but if
it be bad of itself, it can never be good, till there come a cause as
great to change its nature as to make it : the cruelty of a man's
habit or his choice can be turned, but a viper will for ever have
a venom in his tooth.

§ 41. But this rule is also to be extended to cases that are dupli-
cate, and relate to two persons. As if two persons affirm or promise
contraries; the first upon a presumptive power and authority over
the other, and this other upon firm resolution, and by an entire power
over him or herself; though I am bound to hinder his promise from
passing into fallacy and deception as much as I can, yet I must rather
secure my own. The reason is, because he who had no power over
me, could not promise but with a tacit condition ; and though he
were guilty of temerity and an interpretative breach of promise, yet if
the other fails, he is directly and properly guilty. This is still more
evident if a father promises his daughter to Titius before witnesses,
presuming that his daughter who is a widow will yet be ruled by
him, though she be at her own dispose; but his daughter hath
solemnly sworn and contracted herself to Sempronius. The daughter
must be more careful not to break her oath and contract than by
verifying her father's promise keep him from a lie ; and this was the
case of Acontius and Cydippe in Ovidg,

Promisit pater hanc, haec adjuravit amanti :

Ille homines hsec est testificata deam.
Hie metuit mendax, timet haec perjura vocari,

Num dubites hie sit major an ille metus.

This case may be varied by accidents intervening, as if the daughter
be under her father's power, she hath none of her own to contract or
swear; but in an equal power and circumstances, the greater care
must be to avoid the greater crime.

§ 42. These cautions are all which I think necessary for the con-
ducting of a doubting conscience (that is, a conscience undeter-
mined) in its danger and infirmity : but concerning the matter of

* [Heroicl., xx. 159.]

262 OF THE SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

doubts, that is indeed, all cases of conscience, they are to be handled
under their proper matter. Concerning interpretation of doubts to
the better part, obedience to superiors in a doubtful matter, favour-
able and easy interpretation of laws for the deposition of a doubt,
though I was tempted to have given accounts in this place, yet I
have chosen to refer them to their own places, where by the method
and rules of art they ought to stand, and where the reader will ex-
pect them. But concerning the cure of a doubting conscience, this
is all that I am to add to the foregoing rules :

§ 43. A doubtful conscience is no guide of human actions, but a
disease, and is to be cured by prayer and prudent advices, and the
proper instruments of resolution and reasonable determinations ; but
for those things which are called doubts, and the resolution of which
is the best way to cure the infirmity of conscience, they must be de-
rived from their several heads and categories. Eor these discourses
or advices of conscience in general, are intended but as directions
how to take our physic, and what order to observe in, diebus cus-
todice ; but the determining of the several doubts is like preparing
and administering the medicines which consist of very many ingre-
dients.

CHAP. VI.

OF THE SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE.

EULE I.

A SCRUPLE IS A GREAT TROUBLE OF MIND PROCEEDING PROM A LITTLE MOTIVE,
AND A GREAT INDISPOSITION, BY WHICH THE CONSCIENCE THOUGH SUFFI-
CIENTLY DETERMINED BY PROPER ARGUMENTS DARES NOT PROCEED TO AC-
TION, OR IF IT DO, IT CANNOT REST.

§ 1. Qui nimis emungit elicit sanguinem, said Solomon h; 'too
violent blowing draws blood from the nose/ that is, an enquiry
after determination, and searching into little corners, and measuring
actions by atoms, and unnatural measures, and being over righteous,
is the way not to govern, but to disorder our conscience.

§ 2. That it is a great trouble, is a daily experiment and a sad sight :
some persons dare not eat for fear of gluttony, they fear that they
shall sleep too much, and that keeps them waking, and troubles their
heads more, and then their scruples increase. If they be single per-
sons, they fear that every temptation is a Trvpaicns, that ( burning*
which the apostle so carefully would have us to avoid, and then that
it is better to marry than to suffer it ; and if they think to marry,
they dare not for fear they be accounted neglecters of the glory of

h [Prov. xxx. 33.]

CHAP. VI.] OF THE SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE. 263

God which they think is better promoted by not ' touching a woman.'
"When they are married they are afraid to do their duty, for fear it be
secretly an indulgence to the flesh, and be to be suspected of car-
nality, and yet they dare not omit it, for fear they should be unjust,
and yet they fear that the very fearing it to be unclean should be a
sin, and suspect that if they do not fear so, it is too great a sign they
adhere to nature more than to the spirit. They repent when they
have not sinned, and accuse themselves without form or matter ; their
virtues make them tremble, and in their innocence they are afraid ;
they at no hand would sin, and know not on which hand to avoid it :
and if they venture in, as the flying Persians over the river Strymon',
the ice will not bear them, or they cannot stand for slipping, and
think every step a danger, and every progression a crime, and believe
themselves drowned when they are yet ashore.

§ 3. Scruple sometimes signifies all manner of vexation of the
mind; so Cicero pro Sexto Roscio* uses it, Hunc mihi scrupvlum ex
anhno evelle, qui me dies noctesque stimulai ac pungit, 'take this
scruple out of my mind which pricks and goads me night and day/
So also in S. Hierome's bible, 1 Begum xxv., Non erit tibi in singul-
tum et scrnpulum cordis quod effuderis sanguinem innoxium, ' it shall
not be to thee a cause of grief and scruple of heart that thou hast
shed innocent blood.' But in the present discourse it hath a more
limited signification, and according to the use of divines and canon-
ists, means an unquietness and restlessness of mind in things done
or to be done, after the doubts of conscience are determined and
ended. Intolerabilem periurbationem Senecak calls it, a fear of doing
every thing that is innocent, and an aptness to do every thing that
can be suggested :

nuda ac tremebunda cruentis

Erepet genibus, si Candida jusserit Io'.

Scruple is a little stone in the foot, if you set it upon the ground
it hurts you, if you hold it up you cannot go forward ; it is a trouble
where the trouble is over, a doubt when doubts are resolved ; it is a
little party behind a hedge when the main army is broken and the
field cleared, and when the conscience is instructed in its way, and
girt for action, a light trifling reason, or an absurd fear hinders it
from beginning the journey, or proceeding in the way, or resting at
the journey's end.

§ 4. Very often it hath no reason at all for its inducement, but
proceeds from indisposition of body, pusillanimity, melancholy, a
troubled head, sleepless nights, the society of the timorous ; from soli-
tariness, ignorance, or unseasoned imprudent notices of things, indi-
gested learning, strong fancy and weak judgment ; from any thing
that may abuse the reason into irresolution and restlessness. It is

1 [iEsch. Pcrs. 507.] ' [vid. cap. ii.]

k [De benef., lib. vii. cap. 2. toin. i. p. 833.] ' [Juv. vi. 525.]

264 OF THE SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

indeed a direct walking in the dark, where we see nothing to affright
us, but we fancy many things, and the phantasms produced in the
lower regions of fancy, and nursed by folly, and borne upon the arms
of fear do trouble us.

§ 5. But if reason be its parent, then it is born in the twilight,
and the mother is so little that the daughter is a fly with a short
head and a long sting, enough to trouble a wise man, but not enough
to satisfy the appetite of a little bird. The reason of a scruple is
ever as obscure as the light of a glow-worm, not fit to govern any
action, and yet is suffered to stand in the midst of all its enemies,
and like the flies of Egypt vex and trouble the whole army.

§ 6. This disease is most frequent in women, and monastic persons,
in the sickly and timorous, and is often procured by excess in reli-
gious exercises, in austerities and disciplines, indiscreet fastings and
pernoctations in prayer, multitude of human laws, variety of opinions,
the impertinent talk and writings of men that are busily idle : the
enemy of mankind by the weaknesses of the body and understanding
enervating the strengths of the spirit, and making religion strike
itself upon the face by the palsies and weak tremblings of its own
fingers.

§ 7. William of Oseney was a devout man, and read two or three
books of religion and devotion very often, and being pleased with the
entertainment of his time, resolved to spend so many hours every day
in reading them, as he had read over those books several times ; that
is, three hours every day. In a short time he had read over the
books three times more, and began to think that his resolution might
be expounded to signify in a current sense, and that it was to be ex-
tended to the future times of his reading, and that now he was to
spend six hours every day in reading those books, because he had
now read them over six times. He presently considered that in half
so long time more by the proportion of this scruple he must be tied
to twelve hours every day, and therefore that this scruple was unrea-
sonable ; that he intended no such thing when he made his resolu-
tion, and therefore that he could not be tied : he knew that a resolu-
tion does not bind a man's self in things whose reason does vary, and
where our liberty is entire, and where no interest of a third person is
concerned. He was sure that this scruple would make that sense of the
resolution be impossible at last, and all the way vexatious and into-
lerable ; he had no leisure to actuate this sense of the words, and by
higher obligations he was faster tied to other duties : he remembered
also that now the profit of those good books was received already and
grew less, and now became changed into a trouble and an inconveni-
ence, and he was sure he could employ his time better ; and yet after
all this heap of prudent and religious considerations, his thoughts
revolved in a restless circle, and made him fear he knew not what.
He was sure he was not obliged, and yet durst not trust it ; he knew
his rule, and had light enough to walk by it, but was as fearful to

CHAP. VI.] OP THE SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE. 265

walk in the day as children are in the night. Well, being weary of
his trouble, he tells his story, receives advice to proceed according to
the sense of his reason, not to the murmurs of his scruple ; he applies
himself accordingly. But then he enters into new fears ; for he rests
in this, that he is not obliged to multiply his readings, but begins to
think that he must do some equal good thing in commutation of the
duty, for though that particular instance become intolerable and im-
possible, yet he tied himself to perforin that which he believed to be
a good thing, and though he was deceived in the particular, yet he
was right in the general, and therefore that for the particular he must
make an exchange. He does so ; but as he is doing it, he starts, and
begins to think that every commutation being intended for ease, is in
some sense or other a lessening of his duty, a diminution of his spiri-
tual interest, and a note of infirmity; and then also fears, that in
judging concerning the matter of his commutation he shall be remiss
and partial. Now he considers that he ought to consult with his
superiors; and as he is going to do so, he begins to think that his
superior did once chide him for his scruple, and that now much more
he will do it, and therefore will rather seek to abolish the opinion of
obligation than change it into another burden ; and since he knows
this before-hand, he fears lest it shall be expounded to be in him an
artifice to get himself eased or chidden out of his duty, and cozened
from his obligation. "What shall the man do? He dares not trust
himself ; and if he goes to another, he thinks that this will the more
condemn him ; he suspects himself, but this other renders him justly
to be suspected by himself and others too. Well, he goes to God
and prays Him to direct him ; but then he considers that God's graces
are given to us working together with God's spirit, and he fears the
work will not be done for him because he fails in his own part of
cooperating; and concerning this he thinks he hath no scruple, but
certain causes of fear. After a great tumbling of thoughts and sor-
rows he begins to believe that this scrupulousness of conscience is a
temptation, and a punishment of his sins, and then he heaps up all
that ever he did, and all that he did not, and all that he might have
done, and seeking for remedy grows infinitely worse, till God at last
pitying the innocence and trouble of the man made the evil to sink
down with its own weight, and like a sorrow that breaks the sleep,
at last growing big, loads the spirits, and bringing back the sleep
that it had driven away, cures itself by the greatness of its own afflic-
tion. In this case, the religion is not so great as the affliction.

§ 8. But because a scruple is a fear, or a light reason against a
stronger and a sufficiently determined understanding, it can bring no
other work to the conscience, but that it get itself eased of the trou-
ble, which is to be done by the following rules.

266 OF THE SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

ETJLE II.

A CONSCIENCE SUFFICIENTLY INSTRUCTED BY ITS PROPER ARGUMENTS OF PER-
SUASION, MAY "WITHOUT SIN PROCEED TO ACTION AGAINST THE SCRUPLE
AND ITS "WEAKER ARGUINGS OR STRONGER TREMBLINGS.

§ 1. This is the best remedy that is in nature and reason. S. Ber-
nard preached rarely well, and was applauded, but the devil offering
to hirn the temptation of vain-glory, he in his resisting it, began to
think that he had better leave off to preach than begin to be proud ;
but instantly the holy Spirit of God discovered to him the deception
and the devil's artifice, who would at any rate have him leave off to
preach ; and he answered, I neither began for thee, nor for thee will
I leave off. This is a right course in the matter of scruple : proceed
to action ; and as the reason or the fear in the scruple was not in-
ducement enough to begin, so neither to leave off.

§ 2. Against a doubting conscience a man may not work, but
against a scrupulous he may. For a scrupulous conscience does not
take away the proper determination of the understanding ; but it is
like a woman handling of a frog or a chicken, which all their friends
tell them can do them no hurt, and they are convinced in reason
that they cannot, they believe it and know it, and yet when they
take the little creature into their hands they shriek, and sometimes
hold fast and find their fears confuted, and sometimes they let go,
and find their reason useless.

§ 3. Valerius of Hippo being used always to fast till high noon
of festivals, falls into an illness of stomach, and is advised to eat
something in the morning k ; all the reason of the world that is con-
siderable and pressing, tells him he may do it lawfully, but because
he hath not been used to it, and good people in health do not do it,
he is fearful to do that which others do not, that need it not ; this
is a slight ground, and with it perfectly may stand his practical
determination of conscience that it is lawful for him ; which final
determination, because it is the next and immediate rule of actions,
cannot be impeded by that which suffers this persuasion still to re-
main, because the doing only against such a persuasion can only be
a sin, for that only is the transgression of the immediate law ; to do
conformably to such determination is to do it with faith ; and if the
scruple can lessen it, yet it only makes the man the weaker, but
cannot destroy the assent.

§ 4. Add to this, that since scruples do sometimes make men
mad, do detriment to our health, make religion a burden, introduce
a weariness of spirit and tediousness, it cannot be a sin to stop all
this evil, and directly to throw away the scruple and proceed to con-
trary actions.

k [Vid. Bardum, discept. vii. cap. 4. § 5. p. 894.]

CHAP. VI.] OF THE SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE. 267

§ 5. But this is to be understood only when the scruple is such
that it leaves the conscience practically determined. Yor if the
scruple prevails upon his weakness so far as to rifle the better
reasons, the conscience loses its rule and its security, and the scruple
passes into a doubt, and the law into a consultation, and the judg-
ment into opinion, and the conscience into an undiscerning, unde-
termined faculty.

§ 6. Hither is to be reduced the case of a perplexed conscience;
that is, when men think that which part soever of the contradiction
they choose, they sin ; for though that be impossible to wise men,
yet all men are not wise ; and if it were impossible in the thing, yet
it is certainly possible upon the distempers of some men : and be-
cause a man hath contrary reasonings and divided principles with-
in, as our blessed Lord had a natural desire not to die, and yet a
reasonable and a holy spiritual desire to submit to His Father's will,
and if He please, to die ; so hath every man desires to please an
appetite, or secure an interest of secular designs, and a reason to
serve the interest of his spirit in spiritual designs. But although in
our blessed Lord the appetites of nature were innocent and obedient
and the spirit always got a clear victory, and the flesh resisted not,
yet in us it is not so ; and sometimes spiritual complications do
disturb the question, and make the temporal end seem religious or
pious ; and the contrary pretence is pious too, and yet a duty will be
omitted which way soever be chosen, or a sin committed as is sup-
posed ; here the case seems hard. It is certain that there is no such
case in the world, that it is necessary for a man to sin which part
soever he takes, and unless it be his own fault he cannot think so ;
but some men are wild in their reasonings, and err in circles, and
cannot untie the knots themselves have knit. Some are weary, and
many are involved, and more are foolish ; and it is as possible for a
man to be a fool in one proposition as in another, and therefore his
error may be this, that which part soever he chooses he shall sin ;
what is to be done here is the question ?

§ 7. The case is this : Pratinus a Eoman soldier turns Christian,
and having taken his military sacrament before, and still continuing
the employment, he is commanded to put to death certain criminals,
which he undertakes, because he is bound to it by his oath. Going
to the execution he finds they were condemned for being Christians ;
then he starts, remembering his sacrament or oath on one side, and
his faith on the other ; that is, his religion on both ; by which he is
bound neither to be perjured, nor to kill his brethren : the question
is not how he might expedite his doubt, and secure his conscience by
choosing the surer part, but what" he is to do, this perplexity re-
maining, that is, he not being able to lay aside either part of the
doubt ; for his question is not whether of the two he shall do, but is
persuaded that to do either is a high crime.

§ 8. 1) Concerning this, it is evident, that if the cases be equal,

268 OP THE SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

and the event not to be distinguished by him in the greatness of its
consequent or malice of it, it is indifferent to him which he chooses ;
and therefore there can be no rule given which he must take,
unless he could be convinced of one that it is lawful, and the other
unlawful; but in his case that not being to be done, he ought to
know that in this case he sins not if he takes either, because all sin
is with liberty and choice, at least with complacency ; but his error
is an infelicity and no sin, if he neither chooses it nor delights in it,
which in the present case he is supposed not to do.

§ 9. £) But if in the event of the actions and parts of choice
there be a real or apprehended difference, he is bound to choose that
part which he believes to be the less sin; this being a justification
of his will, the best that can be in the present case; but if he
chooses that which is of worse event, he hath nothing to excuse it.

EULE III.

HE THAT IS TROUBLED WITH SCRUPLES, OUGHT TO RELY UPON THE
JUDGMENT OF A PRUDENT GUIDE.

§ 1. The reason is, because his own understanding is troubled
and restless, and yet his reason determined ; and therefore he can
but use the best way of cure, which in his particular is to follow an
understanding that is equally determined as is his own, and yet not
so diseased.

§ 2. Add to this, that God hath appointed spiritual persons,
guides of souls, whose office is to direct and comfort, to give peace
and conduct, to refresh the weary and to strengthen the weak, to
confirm the strong and instruct the doubtful ; and therefore to use
their advice is that proper remedy which God hath appointed. And
it hath also in it this advantage, that there is in it humility of under-
standing, a not relying on our own wisdom, which by way of blessing
and disposition will obtain of God that we be directed. Conside
bonos prudentesque viros, et acquiesce eis1, was an old advice, and
derived from Solomon"1 and Tobit"; 'Lean not on thy own under-
standing, but ask counsel of all that are wise, and despise not any
counsel that is profitable/

1 Antonin. in summa, part 1. tit. iii. cap. 10. [§ 10. s. p. ed. fol. Argent. 1496.]
>» [Prov. iii. 5.] n [jv. 18.]

CHAP. VI.] OF THE SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE. 2G9

EULE IV.

WHEN A DOUBT IS RESOLVED IN THE ENTRANCE OF AN ACTION, WE MUST JUDGE
OF OUR ACTION AFTERWARDS Br THE SAME MEASURES AS BEFORE ; FOR HE
THAT CHANGES HIS MEASURES, TURNS HIS DOUBT INTO A SCRUPLE.

§ 1. The reason of the rule is this, that which is sufficient for
satisfaction before is sufficient for peace afterwards. A Christian in
the diocese of Salamis being faint in his stomach before the reception
of the holy sacrament, disputes whether he may take a cordial or a
glass of wine. Upon enquiry he is told that to receive the holy
sacrament virgine saliva0, fasting, is a custom of the church later
than the times of the apostles, as appears by the Corinthian usages
mentioned by S. Paul ; that it having no authority but custom, no
sanction but a pious fancy, and a little proportion and analogy of
reverence, it ought to yield to the elicit acts of charity. Upon this
account he being satisfied, drinks a little, is well, and communicates
with health, and joy, and holiness. But afterwards reflecting upon
what he had done, he begins to fear he had not done well ; that he
had done against the customs of the church, that it was at least
infirmity in him, and upon what account with God that should be,
which in his own most gentle sentence was at least infirmity, he knew
not; and twenty other little things he thought of, which signified
nothing, but did something, they meant no good, but did great
evil : and finding himself got into a net, he calls for help, but is told
that he must get out of it by the same way that he came in, and that
which was the sufficient cause of his doing the action, was sufficient
also for the justification of it, and let him confront the reasons which
introduced the action against these flies and little pretensions which
disturb his mind, and he shall find that he hath reason to be
ashamed of debauching and prostituting his understanding to sucli
trifles and images of argument : for let a man look to his grounds
when he begins to act, and when he hath acted, let him remember
that he did his duty, and give God thanks. Tor if any just cause
appear for which he ought to reprove his former determination ; that
just cause can have no influence upon what is past, if the first pro-
ceeding was probable, and reasonable, and disinterest. He knows
something which he did not know before ; and for the time to come
is to walk by this newly kindled taper, but if he in the first instance
walked by all the light he had, he is not tied to walk it over again : for
as God will not of a child exact the prudence and cautions of a man,
but in every age expects a duty answerable to the abilities of it; so
it is in all the stages of our reason, and growing understanding.
According to what we have, and not according to what we have not,
we shall give accounts. This is intended to prove that if we pro-

[Tertull. de jejun., cap. vi. p. 546.]

270 OP THE SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

ceed probably, we are not tied to sorrow and repentance, though
afterwards we find a greater reason to the contrary; but this con-
cludes more in the present question of scruple, in which the greater
probability goes before, and the less comes after.

But the rule is to be managed with these cautions :

§ 2. 1) Take heed that in the beginning we do not mistake our
desires to have it done for a sufficient warrant that it may. For if
we enter in at a wrong door, or at the windows, we must go back,
and cannot own that entrance which was like a thief, or that action
which was done with more craft than prudence.

§ 3. 2) Be not too easy in the arguments of probation. For
although in actions concerning our eternal interest, God expects no
more of us but that we should walk by the measures of a man ; yet
we do not perform our duty if we act by the measures of a child or a
fool. If we could do no better, the action might be more reprovable
than the man ; but if we could consider better and wiser than when
we reflect afterwards upon what we did before, and find a fault or a
sin, a negligence, or an avoidable error in the principle, we cannot
from thence bring rest and confidence to our consciences.

§ 4. 3) Separate your question as much as you can from interest,
that your determination and enquiry be pure ; and if more arguments
occur afterwards than did in the first enquiry, remember that it was
well enough at first, if it was probable enough ; and for the rest,
pray to God to accept you, if you did well and wisely, and to pardon
you in what was done amiss, or negligently, or imperfectly.

BULE V.

A SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE IS TO BE CURED BY REMEDIES PROPER TO THE
DISEASE, AND REMEDIES PROPER TO THE MAN.

§ 1. That is, there are some advices which are directly intended
for the lessening the scruple, and some others which take away the
scruple by curing the man, and taking off his distemperature. Those
which are directly intended against the scruple, besides the rules be-
fore described, are these :

REMEDIES AGAINST THE SCRUPLE.

§ 2. 1) Let the afflicted and disquiet man often meditate of the
infinite goodness of God, and how His justice is equity, and His
judgments are in mercy ; that He judges us by what we heartily
endeavour, but does not put our infelicities into our accounts of sins.

§ 3. 2) Let him be instructed that all laws divine and human

CHAP. VI.] OF THE SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE. 271

are desirous of sweet and merciful interpretations, and that of them-
selves they love to yield to necessity and to charity; and that
severity and exactness of measures is not only contrary to the good-
ness, but to the justice of God, who therefore will pity us because we
are made of dust, and are a lump of folly and unavoidable infirmities;
and by the same justice by which God is eternally angry with the
fallen angels, by the same justice He is not finally angry with man
for his first follies, and pities all his unavoidable evils.

§ 4. 3) Let it be remembered that charity is the fulfilling of the
law, and by the degrees of it a man tends to perfection, and not by
forms and tittles of the letter, and apices of the handwriting of ordi-
nancesP. And that if he loves God and does his best, and con-
cerning the doing his best make the same judgments real and
material, that he does of the other actions of his life, he certainly
does all that can belong to him, and all that which can be wise and
safe. He that acts according to the reason of a man, ought to have
the confidences of a man, for no other confidence can be reasonable.
That is charity that we do carefully and wisely, and follow the best
we can.

§ 5. 4) Let it be considered that to incline to the scruple, and
neglect the stronger reason that stands against it, is to take the
worse end, it is to do that which must seem worse ; and then it may
be remembered, that if the man is afraid and troubled with the trifle,
with the scruple, when he hath stronger reason to secure him, if he
yields to the scruple and neglects the stronger reason, the neglect of
that will run upon him like a torrent and a whirlwind, and the
scruple or the bulrush will not support his building.

§ 6. 5) Since the very design of the evangelical covenant is, that
our duty be demanded, and our sins accounted for, according to the
measures of a man, and not by the proportions of an angel; and
that all our infirmities and ignorances, and unavoidable prejudices
are taken into account, beside the infinite remissions on God's part,
it will follow that by this goodness of God and a moral diligence,
and a good heart we are secured, but we can never be secured by
our own measures. For let us weigh never so exactly, we may miss
somei grains or scruples, but to snatch greedily at the little over-
running dust of the balance, and to throw aw-ay the massive ingots
that sunk the scales down, is the greatest folly in the world.

§7.6) The lines of duty are set down so clear and legible, are
so agreeable to reason, so demonstrable upon their proper principles,
are so easy and plain, that we need not run into corners and sneak-
ing bye-lanes to find it out : if by little undiscerned minutes we were
to stand or fall, though now there are but few that shall be saved,
yet but a few of those few should escape eternal death. The counsels
of God are not like the oracles of Apollo, double in their sense,
intricate in their expression, secret in their meaning, deceitful in

«" ['of handwriting or ordinances,' — C, D.] m [' some' deest, — C, D.J

272 OP THE SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

their measures, and otherwise in the event than they could be in
their expectation. But the word of God in the lines of duty is open
as the face of heaven, bright as the moon, healthful as the sun's
influence; and this is certainly true, that when a thing becomes
obscure, though it may oblige us to a prudent search, yet it binds us
not under a guilt, but only so far as it is or may be plainly under-
stood.

§ 8. But in the case of a scrupulous conscience, it is not the
thing so much that troubles the mind, as the indisposition of the
part, the man hath a vicious tenderness ; it is melancholy and fear,
and as every1 accident can trouble the miserable, so every fancy can
affright the timorous; the chiefest remedies therefore must be by
applications to the man, to cure his distemper, and then the scruple
will work no more than its own activity will enable it, and that is
but little and inconsiderable.

ADVICES TO THE SCRUPULOUS MAN.

§ 9. 1) The case of the scrupulous man is so full of variety, or
uncertainty rather, that it is as easy to govern chance, and to give
rules to contingency as to him. In all other cases there is a measure
and a limit, and therefore a remedy can be proportioned to it j but
in this, fear is the disease, and that alone is infinite ; and as it com-
mences oftentimes without cause, so it proceeds without limit. Eor
by what reason it entered in, by the same it may grow; that is,
without any cause at all it may increase for ever. But for the
remedy, this is considerable, that the worse it is, the better it may
be remedied, if we could consider. For when fear is grown so big
that it is unreasonable, the cure is ready and plain, that it must be
laid aside because it is intolerable, and it may because it is unrea-
sonable. When it comes from a just cause, that just cause is usually
the limit of it : but when it is vast and infinite it hath no cause but
weakness, and it appears enough in the instances ; for the scrupulous
man fears concerning those things -where he ought to be most con-
fident; he fears that God is angry with him for not doing his duty,
and yet he does whatsoever he can learn to be his duty. This is a
complication of evils, as melancholy is of diseases. The scrupulous
man is timorous, and sad, and uneasy, and he knows not why. As
the melancholy man muses long, and to no purpose, he thinks much,
but thinks of nothing; so the scrupulous man fears exceedingly, but
he knows not what nor why. It is a religious melancholy, and
when it appears to be a disease and a temptation, there needs no
more argument against its entertainment : we must rudely throw
it away.

§ 10.. 2) He that is vexed with scruples must fly to God by
prayer and fasting, that this lunacy and spirit of illusion which

' [' very,'— A.]

CHAP. VI.] OF THE SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE. 273

sometimes 'throws him into the fire, and sometimes into the water0'
may be ejected, and the Spirit of God and the Spirit of wisdom may
come in substitution, according to the promise so often recorded in
the holy scriptures p.

§ 11. 3) Let the scrupulous man change the tremblings of his
spirit to a more considerable object, and be sure if he fears little
things, let him fear great things greatly ; every known sin let him be
sure to avoid, little or great, for by this purity he shall see God, and
the things of God, peace and truth ; and the honesty of his heart
will bear him out from the mischief, if not quit from the trouble of
the scruple : at no hand let it be endured that he should think this
disease or vicious tenderness in spirit is able to excuse him from his
duty in greater things. Some scruple at an innocent ceremony, and
against all conviction and armies of reason will be troubled and will
not understand; this is very bad, but it is worse that he should
think himself the more godly man for being thus troubled and
diseased, and that upon this account he shall fall out with govern-
ment and despise it; this man nurses his scruple till it proves his
death, and instead of curing a bile^, dies with a cancer, and is like a
man that hath strained his foot and keeps his bed for ease, but by
lying there long falls into a lipothymy, and that bears him to his
grave.

§ 12. 4) Let the scrupulous man avoid all excess in mortifica-
tions and corporal austerities, because these are apt to trouble the
body, and consequently to disorder the mind, and by the prevailing
fond persuasions of the world they usually produce great opinions of
sanctity and ignorant confidences of God's favour, and by spending
the religion of the man in exterior significations make him apt to
take his measures from imperfect notices, and then his religion shall
be scruple and impertinency, full of trouble, but good and profitable
for little or nothing. Admiratione digna sunt, saith Cardan r, qua per
jejnnium hoc moclo contingunt ; somnia, super stitio, contempt us tor-
mentor um, mortis desiderium, . . obstinata opinio, . . insania : . .
jejunium naturaliter praparat ad hac omnia : ' it is wonderful to
consider what strange products there are of fasting; dreams, super-
stition, contempt of torments, desire of death, obstinacy in opinion,
and madness : to all these, fasting does naturally prepare us :' and
concerning S. Hilarion it is reported by S. Hierome, Ita aUenuatus
fuit jejnnio et vigiliis, in tantum exeso corpore ut ossibus vix harebat :
wide node infantum vagitus, balatus pecorum, mugitus bourn, voces
et ludibria damionum s, fyc, ' that he was so lean and dried with
fasting and watching, that his flesh did scarce cleave to his bone :
then his desires and capacity of sleep went away, and for want of

0 [Matt. xvii. 15.] 40. torn. iii. p. 150.]

P [Luke xi. 13 ; James i. 5.] s [vid. vit. S. Hilar., torn, iv part. 2.

q [See vol. viii. p. 336.] col. 76.]

r De rerum varietate, lib. viii. [cap.

IX. T

274 OF THE SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

sleep he must needs grow light-headed, and then the illusions of the
devil were prepared and certain to prevail ; then his brains crowed,
and he heard in the desert children crying, sheep bleating, bulls
lowing, and rattling of chains, and all the fantastic noises raised by
the devil/ Much to the same purpose is by S. Athanasius ' reported
of S. Anthonv. It was this excess that made S. Hierome so scru-
pulous in reading of TuHy' s orations " ; it was not an angel, but his
own dreams that whipped him for making and reading good Latin
and good sense. After long fasting it Avas that S. Gulslach of
Crowald x fought with the devil, and such irregular austerities have
been in all ages of superstition the great instrument of Satan by
which his illusions became oracles, and religion was changed into
superstition, and the fear of God into timorousness, and enquiry into
scruple.

§ 13. 5) Let the scrupulous man interest himself in as few ques-
tions of intricate dispute and minute disquisition as he can ; they
that answer fewest do commonly trouble themselves with most.
Curious questions may puzzle every man, but they can profit no man,
they are a certain disturbance, they are rebels in the kingdom of the
inner man, they are just the same things in speculation which scru-
ples are in practice, and therefore because notice properly tends and
directs to action, the increase of them will multiply these. Avoid
them therefore, for not these, but things practical are the hinges of
immortality ; but the other break the peace of the superior faculties,
they trouble the understanding and afflict the conscience, and profit
or instruct no man.

§ 14. 6) He that would cure his scrupulousness must take care
that his religion be as near as he can to the measures and usages of
common life. When S. Anthony? was troubled with a scrupulous con-
science, which so amazed him, that he thought it was impossible ever for
him to arrive at heaven, an angel came to him in the likeness of a her-
mit, or rather a hermit spake to him like an angel and said, Nunc pau-
lulum laborando manibus, mine genibus flexis orando, delude corpus
rejiciendo, post quiescendo, et rursus iterum operando, Antoni, sicfac
tu et salvus eris : ' sometimes labour with thy hands, then fall on thy
knees and pray, then refresh thy body, then sometimes rest, and then
labour again; and so thou shalt be saved/ Let us take care that
our religion be like our life, not done like pictures, taken when
we are dressed curiously, but looking as the actions of our life are
dressed, that is, so as things can be constantly done, that is, that it
be dressed with the usual circumstances, imitating the examples, and

* [Vit. Anton., torn. i. p. 798, sqq.] ? [Ephrasm. Syr., apophth. patr., cap.

u [Hieron., epist. xviii. torn. iv. part. i. (p. 504. ed. Voss. fol. Col. Agr. 1603);

2. col. 42, 3.] Ruffin., vitt. patr., lib. iii. cap. 105. (e

x [S. Guthlac of Croyland; see his Pelag., vii. 1), apud Rosweyd., p. 516:

life in Surius, and the Acta Sanctorum, cf. pseud- August, ad fratr. in erem.,

on April 11.] serm. xvii., torn. vi. append, col. 321 G.]

CHAP. VI.] OP THE SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE. 275

following the usages of the best and the most prudent persons of his
communion; striving in nothing to be singular, not doing violence
to any thing of nature, unless it be an instrument or a temptation to
a vice. For some men mortify their natures rather than their vicious
inclinations or their evil habits, and so make religion to be a burden,
a snare, and an enemy. For in scrupulous, that is, in melancholy
persons, nature is to be cherished in every thing where there is no
danger, that is, where she is not petulant and troublesome. Such
men have more need of something to repair their house, than to
lessen it.

§ 15. 7) Let the scrupulous man take care that he make no vows
of any lasting employment. For the disease that is already within,
and this new matter from without, will certainly make new cases of
conscience, and new fears and scruples upon the manner, and degrees,
and circumstances of performance. Therefore whatever good thing
they intend, let them do it when they can, when it is pleasant, when
it is convenient, and always reserve their liberty. For besides that
to do otherwise must needs multiply scruples, it is also more pleas-
ing to God that we make our services to be every day chosen, than
after one general choice of them, to have the particulars done and
hated.

§ 16. 8) But that I may sum up many particulars in one. The
scrupulous man must avoid those companies, and those employments,
and those books from whence the clouds arise, especially the books
of ineffective and fantastic notion, such as are legends of saints, ridi-
culously and weakly invented, furnished out for ideas, not for actions
of common life, with dreams and false propositions ; for the scrupu-
lous and fearful will easily be troubled, if they find themselves fall
short of those fine images of virtue which some men describe, that
they might make a fine picture, but like nobody. Such also are the
books of mystical theology, which have in them the most high, the
most troublesome, and the most mysterious nothings in the world,
and little better than the effluxes of a religious madness.

§ 17. 9) Let the scrupulous man endeavour to reduce his body
into a fair temper, and enkindle in his mind a great love and high
opinions of God and God's mercy, and by proper arts produce joy in
God, and rejoicings in the spirit; let him pursue the purgative way1
of religion, fight against and extirpate all vicious habits and evil cus-
toms, do the actions of virtue frequently and constantly, but without
noise and outcries, without affectation and singularity : that religion
is best which is incorporated with the actions and common traverses
of our life; and as there will be some foolish actions, so there will be
matter for repentance ; let this humble us, but not amaze us and
distract us.

§ 18. 10) Let all persons who are or use to be thus troubled with

1 [See vol. ii. p. 137.]
r ')

276 OF THE SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE. [BOOK I.

flies and impertinencies of reason and conscience, be carefully and
wisely instructed in those practical propositions which are the general
lines of life, which are the axioms of christian philosophy, which like
the rules of law have great influence in many virtues, and have great
effect towards perfection. For the more severe the rules are, the
more apt they are to be the matter of scruple when they are not
understood in their just measures. Such as are, It is the part of a good
mind to acknowledge a fault where there is none ; Not to go for-
ward is to go backward ; He that loves danger shall perish in danger ;
Hold that which is certain, and let go that which is uncertain. There
are many more, of which I am to give accounts in the next book,
and from thence the scrupulous may derive assistances.

Concerning the matter of scruples, I on purpose decline the consi-
dering of it here, because either every thing or nothing of it is to be
handled. A scruple may arise in the doing of every duty, in the
remembrance of every action; and to stop one gap, when the evil
may enter in at five hundred, I did suppose not to be worth my
labour. I therefore reserve every thing to its own place, being con-
tent here to give the measures and rules of conscience in its several
kinds and differing affections, that is, in all its proper capacities
which can relate to action.

THE END OF THE FIRST BOOK.

DVCTOR DUBITdNTIUM.

OB,

THE RULE OF CONSCIENCE.

THE SECOND BOOK.

OF THE LAWS DIVINE a AND ALL COLLATERAL
OBLIGATIONS.

[' The laws divine and liuman,'— A.J

CHAP. I.
OF THE LAW OF NATURE IN GENERAL.

EULE I.

THE LAW OF NATURE IS THE UNIVERSAL LAW OP THE WORLD, OR THE LAW OP
MANKIND, CONCERNING COMMON NECESSITIES TO WHICH WE ARE INCLINED
BY NATURE, INVITED BY CONSENT, PROMPTED BY REASON, BUT IS BOUND UPON
US ONLY BY THE COMMANDS OP GOD.

§ 1. "EoTO) (TOl TTp6 O^ClA/jlCoy yi.V(0<TK€LV Ti l'6[AOS (j)V(TlKOS, KCU TL

ra r?js 8et;repco<reaK, said the apostolical constitution3: f be careful
to understand what is the law natural, and what is superinduced upon
it.' The counsel, abating the authority and reverence of them that
said it, is of great reasonableness. For all men talk of the law of
nature, and all agree that there is such a material law which some
way or other is of the highest obligation ; but because there are no
digests or tables of this law, men have not only differed about the
number of them, and the instances themselves, but about the manner
of drawing them forth, and making the observation : whereas if the
law of nature were such a thing as it is supposed generally, these dif-
ferences would be as strange and impossible as that men should dis-
agree about what is black, or what is yellow, or that they should dis-
pute concerning rules to signify when they desire, or when they hope,
or when they love. The purpose of the present intendment will not
suffer me to make large disputes about it, but to observe all that is
to be drawn from it in order to conscience and its obligation.

THE LAW OF NATURE —

§ 2. Jus natures and lex natura, are usually confounded bv divines
aud lawyers, but to very ill purposes, and to the confusion and indis-
tinction of all the notices of them. The right of nature, or jus

° Constat, apost., lib. i. cap. 6. [p. 207. Seidell's treatise De jure naturali et gen-
For tlie materials of the two first chapters tium juxta disciplinam Ebraorum.]
of the second book Taylor used largely

280 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

natures is no law, and the law of nature is no natural rightb. The
right of nature is a perfect and universal liberty to do whatsoever can
secure me or please me. For the appetites that are prime, original,
and natural, do design us towards their satisfaction, and were a con-
tinual torment, and in vain, if they were not in order to their rest,
contentedness, and perfection. Whatsoever we naturally desire, na-
turally we are permitted to. For natures are equal, and the capa-
cities are the same, and the desires alike ; and it were a contradiction
to say that naturally we are restrained from any thing to which we
naturally tend. Therefore to save my own life, I can kill another,
or twenty, or a hundred, or take from his hands to please myself, if •
it happens in my circumstances and power ; and so for eating, and
drinking, and pleasures. If I can desire, I may possess or enjoy it ;
this is the right of nature. Jus naturae, by jus or right understand-
ing not a collated or legal right, positive or determined, but a nega-
tive right, that is, such a right as every man hath without a law, and
such as that by which the stones in the streets are mine or yours ;
by a right that is negative, because they are nullius in bonis, they
are appropriate to no man, and may be mine ; that is, I may take
them up and carry them to my bed of turf, where the natural, wild,
or untutored man does sit. But this is not the law of nature, nor
passes any obligation at all.

§ 3. And indeed nature herself makes not a law :

Nee natura potest justo secernere iniquumc

and this opinion Carneades did express, but rudely, and was for it
noted by Lactantiusd. He said there was no law of nature. But the
Christians who for many ages have followed the school of Aristotle,
have been tender in suffering such expressions, and have been great
promoters of Aristotle's doctrine concerning the to (pvatKov, the
natural law. But indeed Aristotle0 himself in this was various and
indetermined. For in his Ethics he affirms that some think the
natural law to be to pkv (f>vo-ei aKivrjTov koX navTayov tijv avTi]v
e'xei hvvap.Lv, coenrep to irvp nal evdabe nal iv Ylepaais /caiei, ' un-
alterable, and of the same force every where, as fire burns here and
in Persia :' and yet he himself makes it mutable, and that it is not
the same among all nations; for so he in his Rhetorics saysf, eo-u
yap b pavTevovTaC tl iravTes (pvaret, kolvov oIkgliov nal abiKov, Kav
I p.r]bep,[a Koivutvia mpos a\kri\ovs f], /xrjSe o-vv6r\Krj, that some ' do
divine' (not demonstrate) 'that some things are just or unjust by
nature, without any covenant or society ,' intimating, that without a
'covenant or contract tacit or explicit, there can be no law : and if

Valla, Elegant. Lat., lib. iv. cap. 48. p. 1134. The reader will perceive that

[p. 139.] Taylor failed to distinguish the difference

[Hor. Sat., i. 3. 113.] in design and point of view between the

d [Inst. Div., lib. v. cap. 15. torn. i. p. Ethics and Rhetoric of Aristotle.]

397.] f Lib. i. cap. 13. [torn. ii. p. 1373.1 et

e Eth. Nic, lib. v. cap. 10. [t m. ii. cap. 15. [p. 1376.]

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 281

it depends upon contract, it must be variable as necessity and con-;
tingency together; and so lie affirms e, that there is nothing so na-l
turally just but it is variable; and although the right hand is in
most men the strongest, yet in some the left hand is. Aiavep.rjTi.Kdv
hiKaiov t(ov Koivoiv atl kclt avakoyiav icrrl ti\v €.ipr\p.£vriv , ' distri-
butive justice is by proportion/ and therefore it is variable; and in
general he affirms of all justice, to hi bUatov avdXoyov, 'justice is in
proportion and relation/

§ 4. For justice is akXoTpiov aya96vh, that is, irpos erepov, a re-
lative excellency, and therefore must suppose society, and a paction
or covenant. For a man cannot be unjust to himself or to his own
goods which are absolutely in his power; ovk £<tt\v ahiKia npds
avrbv1, and therefore justice, I mean that universal virtue that con-
tains all else within it,

yEv 5e 5iKaiO(Twr) av\\i]$5riv iracr' aperr) '(Ttlv k

is a virtue that hath its being from something superinduced upon
nature. Justice is natural, as all virtues are, that is, reasonable and
perfective of our nature, and introductive of well-being. But nature
alone hath not enjoined it originally, any more than matrimonial
chastity was a natural law, which could not be at all before Eve was
created, and yet our nature was perfect before. Justum nihil est
non constitute/, lege, ' nothing is just or unjust of itself, until some
law of God or man does supervene / and the sceptics generally, and
amongst the dogmatics Aristippus said, that nothing is just by na-
ture, but only vopao kcu tdei, ' by law and custom ;' which in what
sense it is to be admitted, I shall explicate in the following periods.

IS THE UNIVERSAL LAW OF THE WORLD, —

6 Koivbs vop-os, so Aristotle1 calls it, ' the law of mankind/ Commune
omnium hominum jus, so Justinian m ; which is not to be understood
of all men in all things absolutely, but especially of all wise or civil
nations that communicate with each other. Lucretius" restrains it
to neighbours,

Tunc et amicitiam coeperuntjungere habentes
Finitima inter se nee lasdere, nee violare.

But many nations have thought, and some think so still, that they
may hurt stranger people, the possessors of far distant countries, bar-
barous and savage people. The Romans who were the wisest of all
nations did so.

si quis sinus abditus ultra,

Si qua foret tell us quae fulvum initteret aurum
Hostis erat0

e Ethic. Nic., lib. v. cap. 7. [p. 1131.] m L. ix. ff. de jure etjustitia [Digest.,

h [Eth. Nic, lib. v. cap. 10. p. 1134.] lib. i. tit. 1. col. 3.]

' Ethic, lib. v. cap. 10. [p. 1134.] » [lib. v. 1018.]

k [Theogn. 147, apud eund. p. 1129.] ° TPetron.] Arbiter, [sat. cxix. 4.]

1 Rhetor., I. i. c. 15. [torn. ii. p. 1375.]

282 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

All people whom they called barbarous, or whom they found rich,
were their enemies.

§ 5. But there are some laws of nature which belong to all abso-
lutely to whom any notice of the true God and of good manners is
arrived ; particularly those which belong to common religion. But
in the laws of justice, the law of nature is more restrained, because it
does not only, like the laws of religion, suppose some communica-
tions of command from God, but some entercourse with man ; and
therefore are obligatory or extended, in proportion to the proximity
and communication. But the law taken in its integrity, or accord-
ing to its formal reason, is the law of all mankind ; for all men in all
things are bound to it.

— CONCERNING SOME COMMON NECESSITIES —

This describes the matter and body of natural laws : for there is
nothing by which the laws are denominated natural more than by
this, that they are provisions made for the natural necessities of man-
kind ; such are, to do as we would be done to : to perform covenants ■
to secure messengers of peace and arbitrators : to be thankful to our
benefactors, and the like : without these a man cannot receive any
good, nor be safe from evil.

§ 6. By this relation, and interchanging reason, it is therefore
necessary that these laws should be distinguished from all others,
because these and their like proceed from the same principle, are
restrained by the same penalties, written in the same tables, have the
same necessity, and do suppose something superadded to our nature ;
and therefore that these and their like are natural, and the others are
not, must be by relation to the subject matter.

§ 7. For in these cases and the like, when that which is profitable
is made just, then that which is natural is made a law ; that is, when
the law tends to the same end whither nature tends, when the faculty
or appetite is provided for by obedience to a law, then the law is
called natural. For since all good and just laws are profitable, they
are laws civil or religious or natural., according as they serve the end
of the commonwealth, or of the religion, or of nature. This is evi-
dent in the code of the Mosaic law, where all laws being established
by God under the same prince, could have no difference but by their
subject matter ; and when they did lie in one body, to separate one
from the other by proper appellatives was not easy, but by their
manner of doing benefit, and their material relations.

§ 8. — TO WHICH WE ARE INCLINED BY NATURE,

That which is usually called the law of nature is of itself nothing
else but convenientia cum natura rationali, ' a consonancy to natural
reason and being/ Some in drawing the tables of the natural law,

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 283

estimate those only to be natural laws which are concerning appe-
tites and actions common to man and beast. Jus naturale est quod
natura omnia animalia clocuit, said Ulpian0, ' that is the law of
nature which is by nature taught not only to men, but even to
beasts/ for they also are under her power ;

magnis agitant sub legibus asvum P.

The same definition is also given by Aquinas5, and many lawyers
after Justinian, and almost all divines after Aquinas ; but Laurentius
Vallar will at no hand endure it, Nam jus naturale dicere quod natura
omnia animalia docuit, ridiculum ; ' it is ridiculous to alftrm that to
be the law of nature which nature teaches to all living creatures ;'
such as are, conjunction of sexes for conservation of the kind, nursing
and educating children, abstinence from some certain mixtures and
copulations, abhorring the conjunction of some very near persons.
Concerning which it is therefore certain, that though the matter of
these laws is hugely agreeable to nature, and some of them are after-
wards made into laws, and for their matter sake and early sanction
are justly called natural (as I have otherwhere discoursed8), yet they
are made laws in nature only dispositive, that is, by nature they are
made candidates of laws, they are prepared by nature, but completed
by God in other ways than by our nature and creation.

§ 9. The reason is, because that which is natural is one, but these
laws admit variety ; and amongst wise nations in several cases have
and have not obligation. The religious, and the priests, and wise
men l among the Persians did not account themselves bound by all
these, as I shall discourse in the following numbers ; and yet they
were then to be reckoned amongst the wisest men in the world,
because of their great empire and government, which, by reason of
their great necessities and communications with mankind, cannot be
done without its proportion of wisdom. But if nature did make
these into a law, that is, if it comes by creation, and from thence
also the penalty and coercion is derived (for without these there is
no law), then it were impossible the wise Persians should think it
commendable to do that which others called abominable, since in all
those things in which they do a thing which they call unlawful, they
as other men felt an equal sharpness and pungency of conscience.

§ 10. But that I may speak closer to the particular, that a thing
is common to men and beasts is no indication of a law of nature,
but only of a common necessity, instinct, or inclination respectively.
Por they do it without a law, and therefore so may we, unless some-
thing else besides nature makes it a law to us ; for nature or natural
desire in them and us is the same, but this desire is in them where

0 L. i. ff. de justitia et jure. [Digest., r Elegant Lat., lib. iv. cap. 48. [p.

lib. i. tit 1. col. 1.] 139.]

p [Virg. Georg., iv. 154.] 8 See ' Great Exemplar,' [preface

■) 1. 2*. q. xeiv. art. 2. [torn. xi. fol. throughout.]

204.] ' [i. e. txayol, see Herod. Clio, 140.]

284 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK IT.

a law cannot be, and therefore in us also it may be without a law.
Beasts do all that they can do, and can love, and are no more
capable of law than of reason ; and if they have instincts and incli-
nations, it is no otherwise than their appetites to meat, concerning
which nature hath determined all, but without proper obligation :
and all those discourses concerning the abstinence of beasts, their
gratitude, their hospitality, their fidelity, their chastity and marriages,
are just like the discourses of those that would make them reason-
able. More certain and true is that which was said of old,

'Ixdvffi ixlv Kal dripal, Kal oltcvdis TrtTt7)vois
''Eadilv ctAArjAous, eTrel ov SIktj ecrrlv Iv avrots'

' Fishes and birds and beasts eat one another, because they have no
justice or laws amongst them/ said Hesiodu; and the like is in
Homer v,

'Cls oiiK ioTi Xeowi Kal avSpdaiu opKia mara

and therefore although it is a good popular argument which is used
against unnatural conjunctions which is in the Greek epigram x,

AtpKto twv a\6yoii> fault/ yevos, ^ yap iictlvuv
OiiScj/ arifid^et 64(T/J.ta av£uyir)s, k.t.A.

Abstain from such impurities, for the very beasts preserve their
natural customs and conjunctions inviolate ; yet this is an infinitely
uncertain and fallacious way of estimating any particular laws of
nature, because it may as well be said to be against the law of nature
to be drunk, as to be incestuous, upon this account, because cows
will drink no more than to quench their thirst : and although in the
law of Moses, beasts were put to death if they were instrumental in
bestiality or murder, yet this was in pcenam dominiy, or a matter of
dominion over beasts; and the word poena or punishment was
improper and no otherwise to be understood than that of Suidas2
in his story of Nicon ; whose statue when an envious person had
whipped, to disgrace his memory, because in the Greek games he
had won fourteen hundred crowns, the statue fell upon his head and
crushed him to death, rod Se ol ircuhes €7T€^eo-av cpovov eil rfj
eiKovi' Kai ol ®a<noL KaraTTOvrovariv olvtt]v, Kara vo\i.ov tov ApaKovros
'AdrjvaCov : ' his sons accused the statue as guilty of murder, and the
Thasians threw it into the sea; for so was the law of Draco the
Athenian/ vTiepopi&iv (povtvovra Kal ra atyvya, ' to banish every
thing that killed a man/ though it were wood, stones, or hatchets,
as you may see in Demosthenes a. These things were tragical detes-
tations and emblematical prosecutions of the crime; but the men
were wiser than to believe it really a punishment to inanimate things.
The same is true of beasts in their proportion, whose cruelty, savage-

u [Opera et dies, 275.] * [Sub. voc. NixuV al. Theagenes

» [Iliad., x. 261.] Thasius, Paiisan., lib. vi. cap. 11.]

" [Agath., in anthol , torn. iv. p. 3.] a Orat. contr. Aristocratem. [Orat.

* [Maimon. Moreh Nevochim, pait. xxiii. § 89. torn. v. p. 720.]
iii. cap. 40.]

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 285

ness, or violent revenges is not nanta, but olovel /ca/aa, as Origen b
calls it, it is like pravity or wickedness.

§11. This thing is so much the more considerable, because it is
of use against the pretences and scruples of some persons in things
where they ought to be confident. S. Hierome0 says that beasts
when they are impregnated abstain from coition till the production
of their young, and that this they do by the law of nature ; now
upon this account to impose a law upon mankind to do so too, is
weak and dangerous. But yet not only he, but Origen d, S. Am-
brose e, and Sedulius f, do argue to the same purpose upon that very
ground ; most weakly and dangerously exposing married persons to
the greater dangers of fornication, and depriving them of all the
endearments of society, not considering that those creatures, and
those men whose custom was otherwise, or laws different, had vagam
libidinem, or the evil remedy of polygamy. Beasts indeed are so
ordered by nature, but without a law ; as there is no law for lions to
eat flesh, or oxen grass, but yet naturally they do it. A beast may
be cruel or lustful, or monstrous and prodigious in the satisfaction
of his appetites ; but not injurious, or the breaker of any sanction,
or laws of justice. There may be damnum sine injuria facientis
datum, says the law s, and it is instanced in beasts. Neque enim
potest animal injuriam fecisse diei, quod sensu caret, ' a beast that
hath no sense, (that is, no reason), no sense or perception of lawful
or unlawful, cannot be said to do an injury/ and therefore is not
capable of punishment, because he is incapable of a law. So Justin
Martyr h, or whoever is the author of the questions and answers
placed in his works, To Ztti c^avAoVrjrt 7rpa£ecos biaftdXAeiv rtov
akoyoov ras <pv<reis, ovk Hcttiv evkoyov, ' it is unreasonable to exact
of beasts the obliquity of their actions,' because they have no rea-
son; it is therefore as unreasonable to make the law of nature to
be something common to them and us.

§ 12. If it be replied, that the lawyers and philosophers mean
only that these material instances which are common to them and us
are the particulars of the law of nature, and though they be not a
law to them, yet the same things which they do naturally, are natural
to us, and a law besides, that is, the natural law : besides that this is
not usually said by them, we are then never the nearer to know what
is the law of nature by this description of it, for all things which
they and we do are not pretended to be laws ; as eating and sleep-
ing; and therefore by what measure any other thing should be a
law to us because they and we do it, is not signified by this defini-

b Contr. Celsum. [vid. lib. iv. torn. i. torn. i. col. 1281 B.]

p. 564.] f in Ephes., cap. v. [torn. v. part. 1.

c Contr. Jovin., lib. L [torn. iv. part p. 507 D. Magn. bibl. vet. patr.]

2. col. 192: in Ephes. torn. iv. l.col. 390.] S L. i. ff. ' Si quadrupes,' § 3. [Di-

d Horn. v. sup. 19. Genes, [torn. ii. gest , lib. ix. tit. 1. col. 257.]

P- 75 C] t [Qujest. ad orthod., cxxviii. p. 496

e Comm. sup. Luc. i. lib. 1. [§ 44. D.]

286 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

tion, or any explication of it. Let us then try the other measures
which are usual.

— INVITED BY CONSENT,

§ 13. The consent of nations, that is, public fame amongst all or
the wisest nations, is a great signification of decency or undecency,
and a probable indication of the law of nature.

$71/xri 8' ovtis irafx-Kav airSWvrai, H\vTiva ttoWoI

It is not a vain noise when many nations join their voices in the
attestation or detestation of an action; and it looks as if it were
derived from some common principle, which seems either to be
nature or contract; and then, as in the first case they are reasonable,
so in the second they are directly obligatory. Quod apucl multos
unum invenitur, non est erratttm seel traditum, said Tertullian k : like
that of Heraclitus, to. koivt) (fxuvoneva ttio-to., if it seems so to the
communities of mankind, it is genuine, and natural, and without
illusion.

§ 14. Now this is true up to many degrees of probability ; and
yet it is rather an index of a permission of nature than of a natural
obligation ; it tells us rather what we may do, than what we must,
it being more probable that all nations will not consent to an unna-
tural thing, that is, will not do violence to nature, than that what-
soever they commonly act should be a necessary law, and the mea-
sures of nature, or the indication of her sanctions; and yet it is
still more probable that the consent of nations is more fit to be
used as a corroborative to a persuasion or a kind of actions, than as
the prime motive or introduction. KpaTtarov Trdvras avOpuirovs
(fjaiveaOai avvoixoXoyovvras tois pi]6r\(ro}xh'ois, said Aristotle1; and
argumentum est veritatis aliquid omnibus videri, said Seneca m ; ' it is
a great strengthening and a powerful prevailing argument to have
all men consent to our opinions and proposition/ But it is in many
moral instances as it is in the universal opinion which all mankind
hath concerning jewels, where they consent no man knows how or
why. And no man can give a rational account why so great value
should be set upon a diamond, but because it looks prettily and is
lasting : and so there are in nature decencies and lasting proportions
in moral instances between the conscience and the action ; but yet
as there is no proper and effective usefulness in diamonds towards
the life of man, so neither is there in many instances in which the
consent of mankind is very general. And therefore this is very far
short of a law, and is no certain token of a permissive right of
nature, much less of a law or obligation. Tor,

1 [Hesiod. opera et dies, 761.] ii. p. 1216.]

k De praescript. [cap. 28. p. 212 A.] m [Epist., cxvii. torn. ii. p. 577.]

1 [Ethic. Eudem., lib. i. cap. 6. torn.

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 287

§ 15. 1) Whole empires have been established and united by
violence, and have laws given to thein, and they received them in
pursuance of the conqueror's interest, and their educations have been
formed accordingly. Ninus formed the Assyrian monarchy, and his
son was flattered into the reputation of a god, and all the nations
under that sceptre consented to the worship of Belus; and all the
nations with whom these men conversed, imitated the manners of the
princeps populus, and in their banquets the most modest of their
women used to strip themselves stark naked, and it was counted no
undecency, but she was rude and uncivil that did not.

§ 16. 2) There are some nations so wholly barbarous and brutish
in their manners, that from their consent we can gather nothing but
thorns and wild briars : they are the words of Porphyry n, e£ 3>v ov
TTpo(Ti]K€L tovs evyvu>p.ovas T7/? av9pMTTLvr]s Kara\f/€vb€crdaL (pvo-eus,
1 from whom we must not learn to belie and abuse the fair inclina-
tions and sentences of human nature/ And therefore if we go to
account by the consent of nations, we must thrust out all wild,
savage, barbarous, and untaught people, vop.ip.ov IQvikov Zcttlv, ov^l
to f3ap[3aptoo'es' to yap tov eOvovs ovop.a vop.iK<Zs elpT]p.evov yevcov
o-vXki)iTTiK6v Zo-tl vop.ois vTTOK€t.pL<=va>v, said Michael Psellus ° : ' we
must into the account of the law of nations take them only who are
subject to laws/ the well mannered people only, but then this also
will be an infinite uncertainty. For,

§ 17. 3) All nations to the Greeks were barbarous; to the Ro-
mans also all nations but the Greeks and themselves : and to the
Jews all were heathens, which to them signified the same thing or
worse.

§ 18. 4) And then which are those nations whom we shall call
moraiiores, wise and well mannered people, for this will depend
upon our own customs ; if they be like our customs, our laws, and
manners of living ; then we approve them, else we condemn them.

§ 19. 5) But then let us remember also that civility and fair
customs were but in a narrow circle, till the Greeks and Eomans
beat the world into better manners. Aristotle p says, that in his
time in the kingdoms of Pontus, which were very near to Greece,
divers nations were eaters of man's flesh, such as were the Achseans
and Heniochans, and divers amongst the Mediterraneans were worse
than they.

§ 20. 6) The greatest part of the world were undiscovered till
this last age, and amongst them the jus gentium was to sacrifice
one another to demons; for all the old navigations were by mari-
time towns, and the inlands either were left alone in their own
wilder manners, or it is not known what civilities they had. So
that the jus gentium must needs have been an uncertain thing, vari-

n [De esu animal., lib. iv. cap. 21. p. Par. 1632.]
375.] p Lib. viii. Polit. cap. 4. [torn. ii. p.

° In Synopsi LL. [lin. 84, ed. 8vo. 1338.]

288 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

able and by chance, growing by accidents, and introduced by violence,
and therefore could not be the measure of the law of nature.

§ 21. 7) Add to these that the several nations of the world had
customs of their own, which commencing upon uncertain principles,
have been derived to their posterity, and retained with a religious
fancy ; becoming natural and proportionable to their fancies and their
fears, and they would rather die than do an act of violence to them,
and believed it to be the greatest impiety in the world to break them.
Herodotusp tells a full instance of this in a trial made by Darius to
the Indians and Greeks. He asked the Greeks what they would take
to do as the Indians did who eat their dead parents and friends, and
accounted it the most honourable burial ; they answered, they would
not do it at any price. And when he asked the Indians upon what
conditions they would be induced to burn the bodies of their fathers,
and not to eat them, they desired him not to speak to them of any
such horrid impiety as to burn their fathers' carcasses, and to deny to
them the honour of a natural burial in the bowels of their dear chil-
dren. "Edos baifXMv q* ' custom is the genius/ or spirit of a man's
actions, and introduces a nature, a facility, a delight, and religion
itself. Kal yap to ddi<T\xzvov axnrep TrecpvKos "jot] yCyverat' 6p.oi.ov
yap tl to edos Tj] 0wcref eyyvs yap to Trokkdias to> aei, eari b r\
p.ev (pvo-is tov ad, to 5e tOos tov 7roA.AaKt?r- 'custom is as nature,
and that to which we are accustomed is like that which we were born.
For that which is often is next to that which is always ; it is nature
which is always, that is custom which is frequent.' It is possible that
nature in many things should be altered, and it is very difficult that
custom should in any thing ; we have seen and heard it in a great
instance in a few ages last past. For when some of the reformed
doctors by their private authority did twice attempt it, and the church
of Rome did twelve times publicly endeavour it, to get the Greeks to
forsake the customs of their churches, and to reform themselves by
their copy, they were all repulsed ; and if the Greek prelates should
take the people off from their old customs, besides that the great Turk
would do them a mischief for complying with the western Christians
his enemies, the people themselves would indanger all their religion
and turn Turks, if they once did learn that their old customs were
not necessary religion : and therefore they chose to stick secure in
their religion though allayed with some errors, than for the purchase
of a less necessary truth endanger the whole religion by taking the
people off from their jura gentis, the customs of their nation.

§ 22. 8) Some nations do refuse to admit of some of those laws
which others call the laws of nature, and such which indeed were
given to all the nations of the world.

Non feed era legum

Ulla colunt, placidas aut iura tenentia mentes9.

p In Thalia, [cap. xxxviii.] ii. p. 1370.]

q [See vol. vii. p. 281.] » Val. Flaec. [iv. 102.]

* Arist. Rhetor., lib. i. cap. 11. [torn.

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL.

and excepting the care of children, to which by natural likeness and
endearments we love to be obliged, and so less stand in need to be
tied to it by a law, excepting this I say, to which beasts also do as
well as we, some wise persons have observed that in all things else
we are at liberty, that is, naturally tied to no law.

Els yap Tis i(n\ Koivbs avOpdnrots v6fj.os
Kai 8eo?ai rovro So^av, a>s cracpcis \4y<o,
Bripaiu re vacri reKva riKTOvfftv (pi\e?u'
ra 8' &\\a x^P^ XP^M6^' bAA^Awj/ v6poist.

But the instances will make greater indication of this than any man's
affirmative. The Idumseans are thieves and murderers, and will not
believe that they do amiss. The manner of their nation is to live
very much upon robbery, and plundering merchants : and in Homer's
time there was a nation of pirates ; ovk abo£6v no -rrapa roi? itakaiols
to \rja-reveiv, dAA' hho^ov, said the scholiast upon Homer's Odgsses r.u
They thought it no disparagement to steal, but an honourable and a
glorious thing; and it is worse now, and hath been growing so ever
since Nimrod's time. Men account it lawful to kill and steal, if they
do it by nations, by companies, and armies, and navies: and Cato had
reason to complainx, Fares privatorum furtorum in nervo afqae in
compedibus cetatem agunt, fares publici in auro atque in purpura ;
and particularly A. GeHius? tells of the Egyptians that they allow of
thefts ; and the wiser Lacedaemonians, a sober and a severe people,
taught their young men to steal without covetousness, so they pre-
tended, not to enrich themselves, but to encourage them to fight the
better by plundering well. Pomponius Mela2 tells of the Augilse, a
nation in Africa, whose custom it was that every bride should be
prostitute to all comers the first night, and she who had entertained
most, was most honoured : and Solinusa tells of the Garamantici
that they know no marriages, and therefore children only own their
mothers, for they can hardly guess at their fathers ; and indeed the
old world did do such vile things, contracted such base customs, so
delighted in wickedness, that as they highly provoked God to anger,
so they left it impossible to judge of the laws of nature by the con-
sent of nations. Propertiusb complains severely of this popular im-
piety.

Sed postquam tellus scelere est imbuta nefando,
Justitiamque omnes cupida de mente fugarunt,
Perfudere manus fraterno sanguine fratres,
Destitit extinctos natus lugere parentes,
Optavit genitor primaevi funera nati,
Liber ut innuptse potiretur flore novercae :
Ignaro mater substernens se impia nato,
Impia non verita est divos scelerare penates,

1 Eurip. Dcty. [apud Stob. Floril., ' [Ibid., § 16, 7.]
lxxxiii. 17.] * Lib. i. cap. 8. [§ 8.]

u [vid. schol. in Odyss., y. 71, S. p. » Polyhist [cap. xliii.]

86. ed. Buttmann. 8vo. Berol. 1821.] b [Leg. CatulL] Epithal. Pelei et The-

» Aul. Gell., lib. xi. cap. 18. [§ 18.] tidos. [Carm. lxiv. 398.]

IX. U

290 OF THE LAW OP NATURE [BOOK II.

Omnia fanda, nefanda malo permista furore
Justificam nobis mentem avertere deorutn.

'The whole earth grew so impure and degenerous, that they drave
justice from them as their enemy; brothers washed their hands in
their brothers' blood ; the sous mourned not at their fathers' funeral ;
and the father wished the death of his eldest son, that he might lie
with his son's wife ; the mothers would steal secretly into the embraces
of their sons ; and they feared not to break the laws of hospitality,
or custom, or nature, or of societies.' Now from hence it will be
impossible to derive our customs, and so to suppose them to be laws
of nature, which are openly destructive of justice. And upon this
Inst instance it appears that the saying of Polybiusb will be of no use
to us in this question ; 8ei 8£ o-Kcmtiv iv rots Kara (f>vcnv e^ovai [j.ak-
kov to (pvcreL kclI fxTj kv tch9 hietyOapixzvois, ' that for the laws of
nature we must seek amongst them that live according to nature, not
amongst them whose natures are depraved by custom ;' since as An-
dronicus of Rhodes was wont to say, ' He lies not that says honey is
sweet, though a sick man refuses it as bitter and unpleasant ;' so is
the law of nature perfect and immutable in those nations who are
endued with a sound mind and a sober judgment. This indeed is
true, but how this can be reduced to practice, will be found inex-
plicable, and the tiling itself impossible : since the Lacedaemonians,
the wisest and severest amongst all commonwealths, permitted such
natural injustices, and would breed children upon their own wives by
strangers that they might have a good and a handsome breed.

§ 23. 9) Some tyrants have made laws to serve their lusts, or their
necessities, and these tilings have come into customs, and laws of
nations, and sometimes have been suppressed, or spent in desuetude.
It was the case of Seleucusc, who in the necessity of his son Antio-
chus gave him his own wife, and made it a law for the future, which
thing either was instantly disgraced and rejected, or else S. Paul had
not heard, or had not taken notice of; for he thought it such a for-
nication as was not so much as named amongst the gentiles that one
should have his father's wife : indeed it was not named inter corcla-
tiores, or those with whom he had conversed ; but in Syria and in
the Pontic kingdom before his time, it had been named and practised
and passed into a law ; and yet that kingdom consisted of two and
twenty nations of distinct languages. There was another instance
like it spoken of by Cicero d, that a woman married her daughter's
husband, which exactly was the same undecency and incestuous ap-
proach ; Nubit genero socrus, mittis auspicibus, nullis auctoribus,
funestis ominibus : o mulieris scelns incredibile et prater hanc wnam
in omni vita inauditum. Something like S. Paul's rJTis ovbe ovo^a-
Ctrai, but yet sometimes it was done, and not only before his time,
but long after this monition also, as it was in the case of Antoninus

b [Lege Aristot. pol., lib. i. cap. 5. c Appian. de Bell. Syr. [capp.lix. — lxi.]

torn. ii. p 12-54.] d Orat. pro Cluent. [capp. v., vi.]

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 291

Caracalla : Matrem duxit uxorem ; ad parricidium junxlt incestum ;
so Spartianus*5. Now concerning these things, how can any man
from hence take an estimate of. the law of nature? for this cannot be
of the law of nature which hath in it so unreasonable and unnatural
complications ; and yet by what rule shall we judge of nature's law,
since the wisest persons, even Socrates and Cato, did such things
which they thought fit, and we call unreasonable, for they gave
their wives to their friends, as a man lends his beast for his neigh-
bour's use.

§ 24. 10) There are some nations so used to a rude unmannerly
pride and fierceness, that all civility seems softness and effeminacy.
To this purpose is that which Tacitusf reports of the son of Phraates
the Parthian, who being bred up with Tiberius and efformed into the
Roman civilities, was by the prince his friend sent to the kingdom of
Parthia; but in the young gentleman Vonons there were presently
observed easiness of access, a fair civil deportment and affability,
obvia comitas : but these virtues being unknown to the Parthians
were nova vitia ; and because they were unknown to their ancestors,
perhide odium pravis et honestis, the good and the bad amongst them
did equally detest them.

§ 25. 11) Some nations have left their good customs and taken
up bad, and have changed their natural reason into unnatural follies,
and the basest sins have been very general ; and when God warned
the Jews to take heed of the manners of their neighbour nations, He
enumerates vile lusts which were the national customs for which God
affirms that He ejected them from their habitations.

§ 26. 12) Lastly, there is no consent among nations in their
customs, nor ever was until a higher principle made a law and tied
it on with penalties; such as were conquest, necessity, contract, re-
putation, decrees of princes, or the laws of God, or of a religion.
~N6p,os Kal hLKrj avci> Kal Kara) tyiperai biacnrcop.eva Kal cmapaa-ao-
p.evah, and neither nation with nation, nor man with man, nor a man
with himself does long agree.

§ 27. Indeed there are some propositions which all the world
agrees upon, such as are, the immortality of the soul, and that there
is a God. Tavra 6 "EWrjv Aeyet, Kal 6 [idpfiapos Ae'yet, Kal 6 rjirei-
pcoT7]s, Kal 6 OakaTTios, Kal 6 o-ocpos, Kal 6 ao-cxpos1, 'the Greek and
the barbarian, the epirot and the maritime, the wise and the unwise
agree in the belief and profession of a God :' but when these things
come to manners and customs, they differ infinitely; and as they
anciently chose several gods, so they did not agree in the manner
of worshipping their gods ; some they worshipped by praises, and
some by railing, some by giving sacrifice, some by throwing stones J;

« [In vit. Caracal]., cap. x.] part. i. p. 316.]

[Anna!., lib. ii. cap. 2.] * [ibid., p. 317.]

' [' Vonones,'— Tacit., loc. cit.] J [Mercury,— see vol. viii. p. 158.]

h Maxim. Tyr. [dissert, xvii. § 4.

u 2

292 OF THE LAW OP NATURE [BOOK II.

and so it was in otlicr things. Some were observant of their parents,
and some knocked them on the head with clubs when they came to a
certain age, as is to be seen in iElianj and even in the taking care
and educating their children, in which nature seems most to have
made a law, and signified it with the consent of nations, yet even in
this also there was variety, and no universal law naturally established.
For some nursed their children, and some did not ; sometimes they
were left to their mothers without any provision made by their
fathers ; sometimes the fathers took them from their mothers, but
however, yet this cannot be properly derived from a jus gentium, for
if it be a right or a law at all, it is a lex singulorum, it belongs to
single persons and to families, and is common to man and beast, and
hath a necessity in nature, as it is necessary to eat or sleep, and is
as necessary to families as the other are to single persons, but where
there is a necessity, there needs no law, and cannot properly be any.

§ 28. From all which I conclude that the jus gentium, the law of
nations, is no indication of the law of nature j neither indeed is there
any jus gentium collectively at all, but only the distinct laws of several
nations k ; and therefore it is to be taken disfributively ; for they are
united only by contract, or imitation, by fear, or neighbourhood, or
necessity, or any other accident which I have mentioned. And in
those things in which they have agreed tacitly, or expressly, they
have no obligation but what they bring upon themselves, as penalties,
forfeitures, oblocmies, and the like; which they as easily shake off
when they have power, and when it is for their profit ; and we see it
in those who have killed heralds or ministers of peace and of reli-
gion, which we say commonly is against the law of nations ; that is,
it is against the custom of them, because to do so is to no purpose, a
spleenish ineffective malice ; and therefore although of no usefulness,
and consequently seldom done, yet it hath been sometimes, and no
punishment follows, and therefore it is no law.

§ 29. Now that this opinion may not wholly seem new, I find
something of it affirmed by Constantinus Harmenopulus1, kdvinos
8e vojaos €(ttIv <£tivl tOvos €v, rj eOvr] ^pcoyrat riva' c the law of nations
is that which one or more nations use ;' and he instances in not
marrying their nearest kindred, amongst the Greeks and Saurce (Sar-
matcs I suppose m), or else to marry them as the Persians use. But
this only, where it happens that nations do consent in great pro-
portions, it confirms our assent to the law, and publishes its being
natural, in case that of itself it be so.

PROMPTED BY REASON.

§ 30. Cicero" defines the law of nature to be, Vera ratio natures
congruens, diffusa in omnes, constans, sempiterna ; ' that right reason
which is consonant to nature, which is in every one always and the

k See the preface to the ' Great Exem- Gen. 1587.]
plar,' n. 22, 3. [vol. ii. pp. 19, 20.] m [So Mercer ad loc]

1 Lib. i. tit. 1. Prochir. [p. 18, ed. 4to. » Lib. de Repub. [iii. cap. 17.]

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 293

same/ that is the law of nature. So he, and from him Lactantius" ;
bat that is not exactly true, itight reason is the instrument of using
the law of nature, and is that by which together with the conscience
(which is also reason) we are determined to a choice and prosecution
of it ourselves, or to a willingness of obeying the obliging power.
Tovs detovs vofxovs viwfie^eTcu Aoyttr/xo?, kclI SiKacrrt/? aypvirvos yivt-
Tar 'reason entertains the divine laws (of nature), and so is made
a most vigilant judge/ said Hierocles0. This is that which distin-
guishes us from beasts, and makes us capable of laws.

Separat hsec nos

A grege mutorum, atque ideo venerabile soli
Sortiti ingenium, divinorumque capaces,
Atque exercendis capiendisque artibus apti,
Sensum a ccelesti demissum traximus arcep.

But reason is not the law, or its measure ; neither can any man be
sure that any thing is a law of nature, because it seems to him hugely
reasonable, neither if it be so indeed, is it therefore a law. For it is
very reasonable that every man should choose his own wife, because
his interest is the greatest : that every man should suffer as much
evil as he does : that a man be not punished for evils that he cannot
help : that every man should suffer for his own fault, and no man for
the fault of another ; and yet these are not laws in all places where
they are reasonable. Pythagoras in Laertiusq said that which was
very reasonable : Plants manmetm non noceudum, veluti neque ani-
mali quod non noceat Jiominibus : ' a man may not hurt a gentle and a
sweet plant, much less, a harmless and a profitable beast/ Truly, it
is unreasonable a man should, but if he does, he breaks no law by the
mere doing such an action. For reason can demonstrate, and it can
persuade and invite, but not compel any thing but assent, not obedi-
ence, and therefore it is no law.

§ 31. But besides this, reason is such a box of quicksilver that it
abides no where ; it dwells in no settled mansion ; it is like a dove's
neck, or a changeable taffata ; it looks to me otherwise than to you
who do not stand in the same light that I do ; and if we enquire
after the law of nature by the rules of our reason, we shall be un-
certain as the discourses of the people, or the dreams of disturbed
fancies. For some having (as Lucian1" calls it) weighed reasons in a
pair of scales thought them so even, that they concluded no truth to
be in the reasonings of men ; or if there be, they knew not on which
side it stood, and then it is as if it were not at all ; these were the
sceptics: and when Varros reckoned two hundred and eighty-eight
opinions concerning the chiefest good or end of mankind, that were
entertained by the wisest and the most learned part of mankind, it is

n [Inst, div., lib. vi. cap. 8. torn. i. r [Vit. auct., cap. xxvii. torn. iii. p.

p. 451.] 125.]

° [In Pythag. carm. aur., p. 154.] • [S. Aug. de civ. Dei, lib. xix. cap. 2.

p Juven., Sat. [xv. 142.] torn. vii. col. 543 B.]
« [lib. viii. cap. 19. § 23.]

294< OP THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

not likely that these wise men should any more agree about the intri-
cate ways and turnings that lead thither, when they so little could
agree about the journey's end, which all agreed could have in it no
variety, but must be one, and ought to stand fair in the eyes of all
men, and to invite the industry of all mankind to the pursuit of it.

§ 32. And it is certain, that the basest of things have been by
some men thought so reasonable, that they really chose it, and pro-
pounded it to others. And this is the less wonder, when we consider
that in defiance of all the consenting reasons and faith of all the
nations of the world, some few single persons, wittier than folly, but
not so wise as reason or religion, should say that there is no God :
such were Diagoras Milesius8, Theodoras Cyrenaicus, Protagoras, and
it is thought, Lucian also : but they that think so, must also con-
sequently believe that nothing is dishonest that they can do in private,
or with impunity. Some have believed that there is nothing in itself
just, but what is profitable : so did Carneades (whom I before noted
out of Lactantius), and so did Aristippus.

§ 33. Now here it is not sufficient to say, that in this inquest after
the law of nature by the proportions of reason, we must exclude all
unreasonable, brutish, and monstrous persons. For first the question
will return, who those are which are unreasonable, and we are not to
reject the opinion upon pretence it is unreasonable, unless we first
know some certain measures of reason ; now we cannot take our
measures of reason from nature, or if we do we cannot take the
measures of nature from reason ; that is, if we call men unreasonable
because they speak unnatural things, then it must be certain that
what is natural or unnatural is known some other way than by the
proportions of reason ; for the reason being misliked for its dispro-
portion to nature, the laws of nature must be foreknown, and there-
fore are not to be proved by that which comes after : besides this (I
say) the wisest of men in their profession, and such as were no fools
in their persons, so far as can appear by all their other discourses,
have believed the worst of crimes to be innocent, and to have in them
no natural dishonesty. Theodoras allowed of sacrilege, and so do
thousands who at this day call themselves Christians : Plato allowed
adultery, and community of wives ; so did Socrates and Cato. Zeno
and Chrysippus approved of incest, and so did the Persians : so that
we may well say as Socrates to Phsedon*, 'When we hear the name of
silver or iron, all men that speak the same language understand the
same thing : but when we speak of good and evil, we are distracted
into various apprehensions and differ from each other and from our-
selves :' we say as Pilate said of truth, ' What is truth V we cannot
tell what is true, and what is good and what is evil ; and every man
makes his own opinions to be laws of nature, if his persuasion be
strong and violent. Tertullianu complained that the old philosophers

9 [Lege 'Melius.'] p. 146.]

1 [Lege ' Phstdrus,' cap. ci. torn. i. ■ Lib. de anima, cap. ii. [p. 265. B.]

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 295

did so, Leges n-atura oplnlones suasfaeit (p/ulosophia). And yet it
is without all peradventure that all laws which are commonly called
natural are most reasonable, they are perfective of nature, unitive of
societies, necessary to common life, and therefore most agreeable to
reason. But if you make an avakvcris of these, and reckoned back-
ward, you cannot wisely and demonstratively reckon from reason, or
consent, or natural inclinations, up to natural laws.

But the last clause of the rule finishes this whole question,

— BOUND UPON US BY THE COMMAND OF GOD.

§ 34. For when God made man a free agent, He by nature gave
him power to do all he could desire : and all that is jus naturale, a
natural right or power : and it needs no instances ; for it is every
thing he could desire in eating and drinking and pleasures and rule
and possession : but the law was superinduced upon this. Eight is
liberty, but law is a fetter. Nature is free to every thing which it
naturally desires ; to eXevdepov to fxrjbevos vTrrjuoov, akka npaTTtiv
a-nXcas to. boKovvra airy, said Dio Chrysostomusv : ' that's the right
of nature, to be free, to be subject to no law, to do absolutely what-
soever pleases us/ This is <£uo-ikt) evy^epeia (as the law calls it)
o~vyyjjipov<ra -nparreiv a fSovktrai' ' a natural liberty permitting us
to do what we list/ Llbertatl proprlum est sic vivere ut veils, said
Cicero, de offic. lib. i.w It is not liberty unless you live as you please j
but servitude is not by nature, therefore liberty is, I. 5. I). Be statu
homlnum* : Instlt. Be jure personarum, § ' et liberias?.' For where
nature hath an appetite, and a proper tendency, it cannot deny to
itself satisfaction ; whatsoever therefore is a law and a restraint to it,
must needs be superinduced upon it : which nature herself cannot be
supposed to be willing to do, and nothing had power to do but God
only who is the Lord of nature.

— — — ■ — — Kpoviwv

'AvdpibiroitTi 8' e8co/c€ Siktju % iroWhv apiary] ».

• It was God that gave justice to mankind : He made justice by His
sanction/ This was expressly the sentence of Cicero a speaking of
the law of nature : Est recta et a numine deorum tracta ratio, imperans
honesta, et prohibens contrarla : and again b,Lex vera atque prlnceps
apta ad jubendum et ad mtandum ratio est recta summl Joins. The
law of nature is a transcript of the wisdom and will of God written
in the tables of our minds, not an evprjp,a /3lov kcu yj>ovov, a product
of experience, but written with the finger of God, first in the tables
of our hearts. But those tables we, like Moses, brake with letting
them fall out of our hands, upon occasion of the evil manners of the
world : but God wrought them again for us, as He did for Moses by

r [Orat. xiv. torn. i. p. 437.] * [Hesiod., opera et dies, 274.]

" [cap. 29.] » Philipp. xi. 12.]

* [Digest., lib. i. tit. 5. col. 13.] " [De leg., lib. ii. cap. 4.]
i [lib. i. tit. 3. col. 22.]

296 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

His spirit, in all the ages of the world, more or less, by arts of in-
struction and secret insinuation, by all the ways proportioned to a
reasonable. nature; till from an inclination it came to a firm persua-
sion, and so to a law : God, in this, ruling in our hearts something
after the manner by which He reigns in heaven, even by significations
of what is fit, by inspirations and congenite notices, by natural neces-
sities : but this thing was yet no law till God also had signified it to
men, after the manner of men, that is, by discourse and human com-
munications, by something that taught them and obliged them.

§ 35. The sense of this is, that religion is the first and greatest
bond of laws ; and necessity is the next ; for though many times it
prevails more than religion, yet it is not always incumbent, and that
which is necessary to society, is inconvenient in some cases, and when
power comes in, and need goes out, there is nothing which can make
or continue the law : and it were impossible that all the world should
acknowledge any lawgiver but God ; for nothing else could be greater
than all mankind, nor be trusted in all cases, nor feared but He alone.
And therefore the heathen princes when they gave their laws, gave
them in the name of a deity. So Nuraa, Lycurgus, and others ; which
was not a design to scare fools and credulous people, but in some in-
stances (excepting only that they named a false god) was a real truth ;
that is, in all those things which commanded natural justice, honesty
and decencies : for these were really the laws of the true God.

§ 36. For the law of nature is nothing but the law of God given
to mankind for the conservation of his nature and the promotion of
his perfective end : . a law of which a man sees a reason and feels a
necessity. God is the lawgiver, practical reason or conscience is the
record ; but revelation and express declaring it was the first publica-
tion and emission of it, and till then it had not all the solemnities of
law, though it was passed in the court, and decreed and recorded.

§ 37. And this is the perfect meaning of those words of S. Paul,
" but for the law I had not known sinc •" that is, although by natural
reason and the customs of the world I had or might have reasons to
dislike many actions ; yet till the law declared it I could not call any
thing a sin, and if S. Paul could not, neither could the gentiles : their
nature was alike, and S. Paul had advantage in education, and yet his
nature could not instruct him in the names and differences of good
and evil ; therefore neither could the gentiles know it merely by
nature. But yet a man may become a law unto himself: so S. Paul
observes of the gentilesd, who "not having a law do by nature the
things contained in the law, and so become a law unto themselves."
So does every man who believes any thing to be necessary, though it
be not so ; yet ' he becomes a law to himself/ because by his con-
science and persuasion he makes to himself a law or obligation : much
more might the gentiles do so, in whose nature the aptnesses to justice
and disposition to laws were concreated with their understandings.

c [Rom. vii. 7.] d [Rom. ii. 14.]

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 297

Well might they 'become a law unto themselves' in these natural
instances; for if opinion can make a law to ourselves in an unlawful
matter, much more may it do so in a matter that is so agreeable to
our nature, so fitting, so useful, so prepared to become a law, that
it wants only the life of authority, sanction and publication : but
though the gentiles became a law unto themselves by this means,
yet their natural reason was not yet framed into a law, till God's au-
thority, either by His express declaration, or by the conscience of the
man, that is, directly or indirectly did intervene ; testimonium red-
delTte conscientia, so S. Paul, 'their conscience bearing witness/ for
either God published these laws by express declaration and voices, or
ejse by imprinting upon the conscience such fears and opinions that
passed upon the man the reverence and obligation of laws. In both
these there was variety, though in the latter there was amongst the
better sort of men a more regular and universal influence and effect :
and although it is very probable that all the measures of justice and
natural laws of honesty were expressly published to the patriarchs of
the great families of the world, yet when some of the posterity lost
their tradition, these laws were maintained by more imperfect rela-
tions, and kept up by fears and secret opinions which the Spirit of
God, who is never wanting to men in things necessary, was pleased
in His love to mankind to put into the hearts of men, that men might
be governed by instruments which would not fail.

Thus S. Hieromee affirms that Pharaoh knew his sins by the law
of nature: and of this it was that Tertullianf affirmed, Ante legem
Moysi scriptam [in tabulis lapideis, legem fuisse contendo non scrip-
tarn^ quce naturaliler intelligebatur et a patribus custodiebatur ; nam
unde Noe Justus inventus est si non ilium naturalis legis justitia prce-
cedebat ? unde Abraham amicus Dei deputaitis, si non de aquitate et
justitia legis naturalis ? by this the fathers lived, by this Noah was
'found just/ and Abraham 'the friend of God:' for this though not
written in tables of stone, yet it was written in the tables of their
hearts ; that is, it was by God so imprinted in their consciences that
they were by it sufficiently instructed how to walk and please God ;
and this is that which was said by Antigonusg in Sophocles'1, and
which Apollonius did use against the edict of Nero1.

Ou yap Tt fxoi Zevs l\v 6 niipv^as rd.Se,

Oll8' 7] ^WOIKOS TUIV KCLTCO QewV SlKTJ,

oj rovtrtV ev avdpwTroHTiv lipicrav v6f/.ovs.
ovSe aQevetv too-ovtov wofxriv rd era
Kr)pvy/j.ad' ciaV &ypavra icaa<pa\rj 8ewi>
v6/j.i/j.a SuvaaOat Bvr)Tbv ovQ' virepHpa.fj.etv.
oxi yap Tt vvv ye Kaxdes a\\' aei nore
jj7 ravra, KovSels olSev e'£ o-xox, '(pdvrj.

* This is a thing which neither heaven nor hell hath taught by any

• Ad Algas., epist cli. [torn. iv. part. i. h [Antig., 450.]

col. 201.] » [Philostr. vit. Apollon., lib. iv. cap.

f Advers. Judaeos, cap. ii. [p. 181 D.] 12. fin.]
8 [Lege 'Antigone.']

298 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

new or express sanction, for God hath given us other laws. But never
did I think that thy commands could ever prevail so, that it could be
possible that thou being a mortal man should prevaricate the unwritten
and potent laws of God : for these laws are not of to-day or yesterday,
but they are eternal, and their principle is secret, and from within/

§ 39. And therefore Philo says5, the law of nature is a law vii a6a-
vdrov (frvcreoos kv dOavarti) biavotq TvircoOels, ' engraven in an im-
mortal understanding by an immortal nature/ In this whole affair,
God is as the sun, and the conscience as the eye : or else God or
some angel from Him being the intellectus agens did inform our
reason, supplying the place of natural faculties and being a con-
tinual monitor (as the Jews generally believe, and some Christians,
especially about three or four ages since): which Adam de Mariscok
was wont to call f Helias his crow/ something flying from heaven with
provisions for our needs. And the Gloss and Gulielmus Parisiensis1,
and before them Maimonides, from whom I suppose they had it,
affirm this to be the meaning of David in the fourth psalm m, "Offer
the sacrifice of righteousness ;" it follows Quis monstrabit, ' who will
shew us any good?' who will tell us what is justice, and declare the
measures of good and evil ? He answers, Signatum est super nos lu-
men vultus tui Domine, ' Thou hast consigned the light of Thy coun-
tenance upon us/ ut scilicet, as it is in another psalm", in lumine tuo
videamus lumen, ' that in Thy light we may see light/

§ 40. The effect of all which is this only, that God is our lawgiver,
and hath made our hearts to be the tables of the laws of nature, that
they might always be there under our eye, legible and clear. It is
not a law for being placed there ; but God first made or decreed it
to be a law, and then placed it there for use and promulgation : and
although very many men and nations had no entercourse with God
i as a lawgiver but what they have by the means of their conscience,
that is, they never heard God speak, had no prophets, no revelation,
and have forgot the tradition of their fathers ; yet when God by ways
undiscernible hath written a proposition there, and that the man does
believe any thing to be good or evil, it is true that God is his law-
giver, because He only is Lord of his conscience : but it is also true
that ' he becomes a law unto himself •/ that is, he becomes obliged to
God by the act of his own conscience ; and however it be that his
conscience be wrought upon, though by a fancy or a fear, a sad sight
or a casual discourse, if it works the conscience into the notice and
obedience of a natural law, the meaner the instrument is the greater
is the efficacy of the principal agent. The putting it into the con-
science is a sufficient promulgation of the law, however that be done ;
but nature alone never does it. The express voice of God, tradition,

J ['Liber quisquis virtuti studet,' torn. nat. et gent., lib. i. cap. 9.]

ii. p. 452, ed. Mangey.] ' [De leg., cap. xxviii. p. 97.]

k [Apud Roger. Bacon., in lib. MS. m [Cf. Selden., ibid.]

de scientiarum utilitate, — Selden. de jur. n [Ps. xxxvi. 9.]

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 299

prophets, contract, providence, education, and all sorts of influence
from God, and entercourse with man, have their portion in this effect.
And when wise men say, This is naturally understood ; it must mean
thus, Naturally men find it reasonable, but not naturally to be a law ;
naturally they consent to it, but not naturally find it out; or, naturally
we may be instructed but not naturally bound: but when God changes
science into conscience, then He makes that which is reasonable to
become a law.

§ 41 . But first or last, this way or another, it became a law only
by the authority and proper sanction of God ; God is the author of
our nature and made a law fit for it, and sent the principles of that
law together with it : not that whatsoever is in nature or reason is
therefore a law because it is reasonable or because it is natural ; but
that God took so much of prime reason as would make us good and
happy, and established it into a law; which became and was called
the law of nature both because 1) these laws are in materia naturali,
that is, concerning the good which refers to the prime necessities of
nature ; and also because 2) beiug divine in respect of the author,
the principles of this law are natural in respect of the time of their in-
stitution being together with our nature : though they were drawn out
by God severally in several periods of the world, who made them laws
actually by His command, which in nature are so only by disposition.
~ § 42. This latter reason is given by Alphonsus a Castro0 and by
Wesenbech p : the former is insinuated by Mynsinger °- defining the
law of nature to be quod natura, atque adeo Deus ipse omnes homines
in creatione, prima qaadam pracepta et formulas lionestatis docuit.
But the latter of them I say is true only of such as are the prime
laws or rather rules of nature, and the general measures of virtue and
vice. But as for the particular laws of nature (which only are pro-
perly to be called laws) we are to look for no other system or col-
lective body of them, but the express declared laws of God which
concern morality, that is, all that are given to all mankind without
relation to any one period : such is the moral law of the Jews, and
such is the religion of the Christians; that less perfect, this more per-
fect and entire ; for these in their several proportions are such which
are generally for all mankind ; and upon this account it is affirmed
by Gratianr, jus naturale esse quod in lege et evangelio continetur,
' the law of nature is that which is contained in the law and the
gospel' : which saying he had from Isidore8.

§ 43. It is necessary that this be rightly understood, because it
establishes many certainties in the matter of conscience, and eases us
of the trouble of finding out a particular system of natural laws, the
enquiry after which hath caused many disputes in the world, and pro-

° [De potest, leg. poenal., lib. i. cap. 2. ed. fol. Bas. 1584.]
col. 1524, 5.] ' Dist. i. in princ. [col. 1..]

p [In Digest, lib. i. tit. i. § 15. p. 11. s [vid, etymol., lib. v. cap. 3. torn. iii.

ed. 4to. Amst. 16G5.] p. 192.]

«i [In institt. Justin., lib. i. tit. ii. p. 8.

300 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

duced no certainty. It is all €vpr]p.a k.cu bupov 6eovt, vopios nal Ao-
yos, 6p66s Ao'yos, Atos 0€(Tp.6su, as the Platonists call it, vop.os vov bia-
vop.r]v, ' the word of God is the law, a right rule or sentence, and divine
law, a law that is the distribution of the mind of God / and under
this come all the precepts of Christianity : which was well summed
up by him who gave this account of the religion, and the religious
that are of it, saying they are homines conspirantes in communem nti-
lltatem ; and that they mutually make and give avpifioXa irepl tov /at)
abiKelv, eis to fxj] fikaiTTeLv a\\i]\ovs juri8e /3Ad/7rreo-0ai'w , ( symbols and
sacraments to each other, that none shall do or receive injury •! ' men
conspiring for the good of others :' or as the Roman soldier was toldx,
' they are men whose profession is to do hurt to no man, and to do
good to every man :' and this is the integral design of the law of
nature so far as it can relate to human entercourse.

§ 44. No'/xo? kcu Ao'yos* so Christ is called by S. Peter and the
Greek fathers y, he is the 'word of the Father/ and 'the law/ and it
is remarkable, this word or law of the Father was the instrument of
teaching mankind in all periods of the world. He taught the law of
nature to all men, and renewed it, and made several manifestations
and manners, and at last appeared in the form of a man, and made a
perfect body of it to last as long as our nature lasts, and as long as
this world and His kingdom abides. When God spake to Adam, to
the patriarchs, to the prophets, still He spake by Christ, who was the
angel of the Old testament, and the mediator of the New. He is
therefore verbum Patris; by Him He signified His laws and righte-
ous commandments, and the law was given h xtpcrl fj-ea-Lrov7-, ' in the
hands/ that is, by the ministry, fof the Mediator, who is one, that
is, Jesus Christ/ and this Tertulliana affirms, — Christus semper egit
in Dei Patris nomine ; ipse ab initio conversatus est, et cougressus
mtm patriarchis et prophetis : and again b, Christus ad colloquia sem-
per descendit, ab Adam usque ad palriarchas et prophetas, in visions,
in somnio, in speculo, in cenigmate, ord'inem suum prastmens ab initio
semper: . . . et Deus in terris cum hominibus conversari, non alius
potuit quam sermo qui caro erat futurus ; ' Christ in all ages spake to
men in the person of His Father, being from the beginning the Word
of the Father, which was to be incarnate.' The same also is to be
read in Justin Martyr0 against Tryphon the Jew : ' Christ therefore
was the preacher of this righteousness, and at last revealed all His
Father's will, which should never receive any further addition, diminu-
tion or alteration/ The novella constitutiones, the enlargements and
explications made by our blessed Lord, together with the repetition

' [Demosth.,orat. xxv. tom.ii. p. 809.] pp. 27, 8; ad Scap., cap. i. p. 69.]

11 [Dio Chrys., orat. lxxx. t. ii. p. 438. ] y [Clem. Alex, strom., lib. i. cap. 29. p.

v [Procl. in theol. Platon., lib. v. cap. 427, lib. ii. cap. 15. p. 465, excerpt.

9. p. 263. ed. fol. Hamb. 1618.] prophet, cap. 58. p. 1004.]

w [Epicur., apud Diog. Laert., lib. x. z [vid. Gal. iii. 19.]

§ 150.] * Adv. Marc, 1. ii. [c. xxvii. p. 395 D.]

1 [Cf. Just. Mart, ad Diognet, cap. v. b Adv. Praxeam. [cap. xvi. p. 509 D.]

p. 236; Tertull. apol., capp. xxxi., xxxii. c [cap. lxvii. p. 164.]

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 301

of the old, that is, the christian law, is the perfect code and digest of
the natural law. For they all rely upon the fundamental relations be-
tween God and us, and the natural entercourse between man and man,
and the original necessities and perfective appetites of our own nature.

§ 45. But here it will be necessary to clear that great objection
which will be pretended against this doctrine. For since christian
religion is new in respect of nature, and superinduced some things
upon nature, and rescinded some of her rights, and restrained her
liberty, it will seem impossible that christian religion should be a
collected body of the laws of nature ; because the law of nature is
prime and eternal, which christian religion seems not to be. Now
to this I answer, first,

§ 46. That it is evident that all that which any men call the laws
of nature is actually contained in the books of the New testament.
S. Austin, Hugo de S. Victore, and Alexander, say the law of nature
hath but these two precepts, 1) do as you will be done to ; and 2)
do not that which you would not have done to yourself. Isidore
reckons into the laws of nature, 1) conjunction of male and female,
2) education, and 3) succession of children, 4) common possessions,
and 5) common liberty, and 6) acquisition of things in air, earth,
and sea, 7) restoring the thing that is intrusted, 8) repelling force
by force. These are rights of nature, and natural states or actions,
but not laws. There are some laws concerning these things, but
they also are in the New testament. Cicerod reckoned, 1) religion,
2) piety, 3) thankfulness, 4) vindication of injuries, 5) observance
of superiors, 6) to speak truth. The lawyers reckon otherwise : the
laws of nature are these, 1) to worship God, 2) to live honestly, 3)
to obey superiors, kings, parents, &c, 4) to hurt no man, 5) to give
every one their own, 6) common use of things as far as it may be,
and where it may not, then 7) dominion, and 8) propriety enter, 9)
to take away evil doers from among men. And if we observe but
the precepts of nature (for they had no other light which we know
of) which are reckoned by Hesiod, Pythagoras, Theognis, Phocylides,
Epictetus, Cato, Publianus, and Seneca, we shall find that they
reckon many minute counsels which are derived from natural prin-
ciples, but yet stand far off from the fountain : and some which they
derive from the rights of nature, not from her laws, but indeed are
directly contrary.

Semper tibi proximus esto.

So Catoe, and

Qui simulat verbis, nee corde est fidus amicus ;
Tu quoque fee simules, sic ars deluditur artef.

And that of Cicero8, vindicationem esse honestam, 'revenge is justice/
By their own reason men took their aim at the precepts and laws of
nature, but their reason being imperfect and abused it was not likely

<i [De invent., lib. ii. capp. 22, 53.] ' [distich, xxv.]

• [Moralia, distich, xl.] g [ubi supra..]

302 OP THE LA.W OF NATURE [BOOK II.

they could be exact : none but the wisdom of the Father could do it
perfectly. Thus they can never agree in their enumeration of the
natural laws : but it is certain that so many of these as are laws, and
bound upon us by God, are set down in the scriptures of the New
testament ; for it is not a law of nature unless God have commanded
it to us in or by or with nature and natural reason. Now it is certain
that Christ told us all His Father's will, and the apostles taught all
that to the church tfhich Christ taught to them ; and therefore what
is not in their doctrine is not in nature's law, that is, it is no part of
the law of God : and if it be certain that he that lives according to
the law of Christ does please God and do all his duty, then it follows
that either there is no such thing as that which we call the law of
nature, and no obligation from thence, and no measures of good and
evil there ; or if there be, it is also part of the christian man's duty,
and expressed and taught by the master and Lord of the Christians.
All that is essentially good is there ; all that by which the world can
be made happy is there ; all that which concerns every man's duty
is there; all the instruments of felicity, and the conveyance of our
great hopes is there; and what other potentiality there can be in the
law of nature than what I have reckoned now, I neither have been
taught by any man else, neither can I myself imagine or understand.
Here are the general propositions which are the form, and make the
honesty and the justice of all the particular laws of nature ; and what
is not there provided for by special provision, or by general reason
and analogy, is wholly permitted to human laws and contracts, or to
liberty and indifferency, that is, where the laws of nature cease, there
the rights of nature return.

§ 47. But secondly, to the objection I answer, that it will be but
weakness to think that all the instances of the law of nature must
be as prime as nature herself : for they neither are so prime nor so
lasting, but are alterable by God and by men, and may be made
more, or fewer, or other.

§ 48. This may seem new, and indeed is unusual in the manner
of speaking; but the case is evident and empirically certain. For
when God commanded Abraham to kill his son, the Israelites to rob
the Egyptians and to run away with their goods, He gave them a
commandment to break an instance of the natural law : and He made
it necessary that Cain should marry with his sister ; and all those
laws of nature which did suppose liberty and indistinction of posses-
sions are wholly altered when dominions, and servitude, and propriety,
came into the world ; and the laws of nature which are in peace are
not obligatory to other persons in the time of war.

§ 49. For the laws of nature are in many instances relative to
certain states, and therefore in their instances and particulars are as
alterable as the states themselves ; but the reasons indeed on which
they do rely (supposing the same or equal circumstances and the matter

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 303

unchanged) are eternal and unalterable as the constitution of nature.
But therefore it was unwarily said of the learned Hugo Grotius, and
of divers others before him, that 'God cannot change the law of
nature/ For as S. Paulb said of the priesthood; that "it being
changed, there must of necessity be a change also of the law," so it
is in the law of nature ; the matter of it being changed, there must
of necessity also be a change in the law : for although the essential
reason may be the same in changed instances, yet that hinders not but
the law may justly be affirmed to be alterable ; just as the law was
under the several priesthoods, in both which the obligation is the
same, and so is the relation to God, and the natural religion. Thus
when rivers are common it is lawful for any man to fish, and unlaw-
ful for my neighbour to forbid me ; but when rivers are inclosed and
made proper, it is unlawful for me to fish, and lawful for the pro-
prietary to forbid me ; before the inclosure it was just to do that
tiling, which afterwards is unjust, and this is as much a change of a
particular law as can be imagined. If it be meant, that while the
propriety remains, or the state, the law introduced upon that state is
unalterable ; then there is no more said of the law of nature than of
any positive law of God, or the wise law of any prince, which are not
to be altered as long as the same case and the same necessity remains ;
and it would be to no purpose to affirm so of the law of nature, for
the sense of it would be, that while things remain as God established
them they are unalterable. But if God can disannul the obligation
by taking away the matter of the law, or the necessity or the reason-
ableness, or the obligation (and all this He can do one way or other),
it is not safe nor true to say God cannot alter the law of nature.
He changed the matter in suffering liberty to pass into servitude ; He
made necessity in one instance, I mean, in the matter of incest in the
case of Cain, and afterwards took it away : He took away the reason-
ableness of the sanction by changing the case in the subduction or
mutation of the matter, and He took off the obligation in the case of
Abraham, and of the Israelites robbing their neighbours.

§ 50. And therefore the christian laws superinducing some excel-
lencies and perfections upon human nature, and laying restraint upon
the first natural laws, that is, upon such which before this last period
of the world were laws of nature, is no hard thing to be understood :
God in it used but His own right. And I suppose it will be found
to be unreasonable to expound the precepts of the religion by the
former measures of nature while she was less perfect, less instructed :
but this rather, the former instances of the natural law are passed
into the christian precepts, and the natural instance is changed, and
the lawT altered in its material part, the formality of it remaining upon
the supposition of a greater reason. Thus to repel force by force is
a right of nature, and afterwards it was passed into a law that men
might do it ; that is, God expressly gave them leave : and although

b [Heb. vii. 12.]

304 OF THE LAW OP NATURL [BOOK II.

it be not properly a law which neither forbids nor commands but
only gives a leave, yet when God hadc forbidden men to do violence,
and to establish this law the rather, gave leave to any man that could,
to punish his unjust enemy that attempted to do him mischief, it
may be called a law in the lesser sense, that is, a decree of the court
of heaven by which this became lawful. Though this was passed
into a law in the manner now explicated, yet it was with some re-
straints ; which yet were not so great but they left a great liberty
which was sufficient security against violence. The restraint which
God superinduced upon this right of nature was but moderamen
inctdpatcB tulela, it left men defended sufficiently against injuries,
though it permitted us to be tried in some lesser instances and un-
avoidable accidents. But now although Christianity hath proceeded
in the first method of God, and restrained it yet more, and forbids us
to strike him that strikes us, we are not to force this precept into a
sense consisting with the former liberty, which we call the law of
nature, but was at first only a right of nature or a permissive law,
but not obligatory, and afterwards suffered some restraints : for that
which suffered some, may suffer more ; and as the right of nature
was for its being restrained recompensed, in the provisions of laws,
and by the hands of justice, taking it from the private into the public
hand, so may this right of nature when it is wholly taken from us be
recompensed by God's taking the iKbUr^cns, or the power of avenging
our quarrels, into His hands.

§ 51. This right of nature being now almost wholly taken from
us, part of it is taken up to God, and part of it is deposited in the
hands of the civil power, but we have none of it; only by Christ's
laws and graces our nature is more perfect, and morality is set for-
ward, and justice and all our rights are secured ; but yet the law is
changed. The like may be said in divers other instances, as I shall
discourse in their several places : here it is sufficient to have given
the first hint of it, and demonstrated the certainty and reasonableness
of it, which (as appears by the instances) although it be especially
and frequently true in the jus naturm or the permissive law of nature,
and in those not only God but men also may make an alteration ; yet
even in those laws which are directly obligatory, the power of God
who made them cannot be denied to be equal in the alteration. And
indeed He that can annul nature, can also at least alter her laws,
which are consequent to nature and intended only for her preservation.

§ 52. The case seems to be the same with eating and drinking,
which God hath made necessary for our life, as justice is to socie-
ties : but as He can take away the necessity from this person at
this time to eat, and can supply it otherwise ; so He can also con-
serve human society in the mutation of cases and extraordinary con-
tingencies, as well as in the ordinary effects of justice. Indeed God
cannot do an unjust thing, because whatsoever He wills or does is

c ['hath,'— C, D.]

CHAP. 1.] IN GENERAL. 305

therefore just because He wills and does it : but His will being the
measure of justice, and His providence the disposer of all those events
and states of things to which the instances of justice can relate; when
He wills an extraordinary case and hath changed the term of the re-
lation, then He hath made that instance which before was unjust, now
to become just; and so hath not changed justice into unjustice, but
the denomination of the whole action concerning which the law was
made is altered from unjust to just, or on the contrary.

§ 53. It is not to be supposed that the whole law of nature can
be altered as long as our nature is the same, any more than the
fashion of our garments can be generally altered as long as our body
is of this shape : and therefore it is not to be thought that he that
makes a doublet shall ever make three sleeves unless a man have
three arms, or a glove with six fingers for him that hath but five,
but many particular laws of nature suffer variety and alteration, ac-
cording to the changes that are in our nature and in our necessities,
or by any measure of man or men which God shall superinduce.

Duo cum idem faciunt, saepe ut possis dicere,
Hoc licet impune facere huic, illi non licet ;
Non quo dissimilis res est, sed quo is qui facitd.

The rule of nature is always the same, yet one may do what another
may not, and sometimes that is lawful which at another is criminal ;
not because the measure is changeable, but the thing measured suffers
variety. So that in effect the sense and extent of truth in this ques-
tion is this ; that although as long as this world lasts and men in it,
the law of nature cannot be abrogated, because it is that law which
is framed proportionable to man's nature ; yet it may be derogated,
that is, lessened or enlarged in instances, changed in the integrity of
many of its particulars, made relative to several states and new neces-
sities ; and this is that which in true speaking does affirm that the
laws of nature may be changed. For although there are some pro-
positions and decrees so general, that they are in their nature appli-
cable to all variety of things, and therefore cannot be changed ; yet
they are rather the foundation of laws than laws themselves : because
a law must be mixed with a material part, it must be a direction of
actions, and a bond upon persons, which does suppose many things
that can be changed ; and therefore although the propositions upon
which the reasonableness and justice of the law does depend, serves
to the contrary instances by analogy and common influence, yet
the law being material does not, and therefore is alterable. But of
this I shall give a fuller account in the ninth and tenth rules of
this chapter. For the present, I observe,

§ 54. The want of considering this hath made difficulty in this
question and errors in many. Every natural proposition is not a law ;
but those antecedent propositions, by the proportions of which laws
stand or fall, are the measures of laws. Thev are rules, not laws :

' [Terent. Adelphi, v. 3. 827.]
IX. X

306 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

and indeed the rules of nature are eternal and unalterable ; that is,
all those natural and reasonable propositions which are dictates of
prime reason, and abstract from all persons and all states and all re-
lations : such as are, God is to be honoured : justice is to be done :
contracts are to be affirmed : reason is to be obeyed : good is to be
followed, evil to be eschewed; these are the common measures of
all laws, and all actions : but these are made laws when they are
prescribed to persons, and applied to matter ; and when they are,
because that matter can have variety, the law also can, though the
rule cannot.

§ 55. That we are to restore all that was intrusted to us, is a
natural law derived from the rule of doing justice ; but this may be
derogated and prejudiced without sin. For prescription transfers the
possession and disobliges the fiduciary from restitution.

§ 56. By the law of nature relying upon the rule of performing
contracts, clandestine marriages are valid and firm ; but yet some
churches, particularly the church of Rome in the council of Trent,
hath pronounced some marriages void which by the rule of nature,
and afterwards by a law were rate and legal ; particularly clandestine
marriages, and marriages not clandestine by the ingress of one of the
parties into religion, as is to be seen in the eighth sessione.

§ 57. By the law of nature a testimony under two or three wit-
nesses may stand, but in the case of the accusation of a cardinal
deacon in Rome they require the concurrence of seven and twenty,
of a cardinal priest sixty-four, of a cardinal bishop seventy and two,
and in England one shall serve the turn, if it be for the king. In
codicils the civil law requires five witnesses ; in testaments there must
be seven : when a controversy is concerning the eminency and prela-
tion of excellent persons, fifteen are demanded. But if these things
may be prejudiced by men, much more may they be altered by God.
But this extends itself a little further : for in some of these instances,
that which is a law of nature becomes so inconvenient as to do much
evil, and then it is to be estimated by a new rule ; and therefore the
whole law is changed when it comes to have a new measure, and the
analogy of a new reason.

§ 58. Upon the account of these premises it follows, that it is but
a weak distinction to affirm some things to be forbidden by God be-
cause they are unlawful, and some to be unlawful because they are
forbidden. For this last part of the distinction takes in all that is
unlawful in the world, and therefore the other is a dead member and
may be lopped off. So Ochamf affirms against the more common
sentence of the schools (as his manner is), Nuttus est actus malus nisi
quatenus a Deo prohibitus est, et qui non possit fieri bonus si a Deo
pracijoiatur, et e converso : ' every thing is good or bad according as
it is commanded or forbidden by God, and no otherwise ; for nothing

e [Sess. xxiv. cap. 1. col. 150, et can. 6. col. 148.]
1 2. q. xix. ad 3 et 4. [In 2 sent. fol. Lngd. 1495.]

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 307

is unlawful antecedently to God's commandment/ Sin is a trans-
gression of some law, and this law must be made by a superior, and
there is no superior but who depends on God, and therefore His law
is its measure. There are some things good which God hath not
commanded ; but then they are such which lie hath commanded by
counsels, or analogies and proportions. But whatsoever is a sin, is
so therefore because it is forbidden, and without such a prohibition,
although it might be unreasonable, yet it cannot be criminal or un-
just. Since therefore all measures of good and evil in the enter-
courses of men wholly rely upon the law of God, and are consequent
to His will, although it can never be that we can have leave to be
unjust or unchaste, that is, to do against a law in being with all its
circumstances, yet the law may be so changed that the whole action
which was forbidden may become permitted and innocent, and that
which was permitted may become criminal. I instance in the abe\(po-
jut^ta, or the conjunction of the nearest kindred, which once was
lawful and ever since is become criminal.

§ 59. The purpose of this discourse is this, that we look no further
for tables of the law of nature, but take in only those precepts which
bind us Christians under Christ our lawgiver who hath revealed to us
all His Father's will. All the laws of Christ concerning moral actions
are the laws of nature : and all the laws of nature which any wise
nation ever reckoned either are taken away by God, or else are com-
manded by Christ : so that Christianity is a perfect system of all the
laws of nature, and of all the wrill of God, that is, of all the obliga-
tory will, of all the commandments. In those things where Chris-
tianity hath not interposed, we are left to our natural liberty, or a
jus permissivum, a permission, except where we have restrained our-
selves by contract or dedition.

EXILE II.

THE LAW OF NATURE IS THE FOUNDATION OF ALL LAWS AND THE MEASURE OF

THEIR OBLIGATION.

§ 1. 1\)R all good laws and all justice hath the same reasonable-
ness, the same rules and measures; and are therefore good because
they are profitable, and are therefore just because they are measured
by the common analogies and proportions, and are therefore ne-
cessary because they are bound upon us by God mediately or imme-
diately. And therefore Cicero defined virtue to be perfecta et ad
summum perducta natural; or habitus animi natura modo ration I
consentaneush ; 'the perfection of nature or a habit of mind agreeing

* [De legg., lib. i. cap. 8.] h [De invent., lib. ii. cap. 53.]

x 2

308 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

to natural reason.' But more expressly and full in his third book
De legibus1: Lex est justorum injustorumque distinctio, ad illam an-
tiquissimam et rerum omnium principem expressa naturam, ad quam
leges hominum dirigunlur, qua supplicio improbos ajficiunt, defendunt
ac tuentar bonos : ' a law is the distinction of good and bad, of just
and unjust, expressed or fitted to nature, which is the fruit and the
prince of all, and to which human laws are directed for the punish-
ment of evil doers, and the defence of the good.'' And it is evident
in all the moral precepts of Christianity : all which are so agreeable
to a man's felicity and state of tilings to which a man is designed
both here and hereafter, that a man cannot be happy without them ;
and therefore they all rely upon some prime natural reason, which
reason although possibly some or all of it was discovered to us by
revelation and the wise proper discourses of the religion, and was not
generally known to men before Christ, yet the reasons are nothing
but consonancies to our state and being, introductive of felicity, per-
fective of our nature, wise and prudent and noble, and such which
abstracting from the rewards hereafter are infinitely eligible, and to
be preferred for temporal regards before their contraries.

§ 2. Add to this, they are such which some few the wisest of the
heathens did teach by natural reason, for aught we know. And there
is a proportion of this truth also in all the wise laws of common-
wealths : the reasons of which are nothing but the proportions of
nature, and the prime propositions of justice, common utility and
natural necessity. And therefore supposing that every civil consti-
tution supplies the material parts or the instance, every civil law is
nothing but a particular of the natural law in respect of its formality,
reasonableness and obligation. And all laws of manners are laws of
nature : for there can be but one justice, and the same honesty and
common utility in the world ; and as a particular reason is contained
in the universal, so is the particular profit in the public. Saluti
civium prospexit qua intelligebat contineri suam, said Torquatus in
Cicero, and so it is in laws. In the observation of the laws of nature
the good of every society and every private person is comprised : and
there is no other difference in it, but that in every civil constitution
there is something superadded, not to the reasonableness or justice,
but it is invested with a body of action and circumstances. Jus civile
est quod neque in totum a nakirali vel gentium recedit, nee per omnia
ei servit ; itaque cum allquid addimus vel detra/iimusjuri communi,
jtcs proprium, id est, civile effichnus ; said Justinian k : 'the civil law
neither does wholly recede from the law of nature and nations, neither
does it wholly serve it : for when any thing is added or detracted from
the natural law it becomes the civil :' and another, leges positiva re-
petunt jus nalura, quum leges sive pactiones qua sunt jura attingunt
utilitatem et scopum natura ; ' the positive laws of a commonwealth

1 [lib. ii. cap. 5.] k Lib. vi. fl". de justit. et jure. [Digest., lib. i. tit. 1. col. 2.]

CHAP. I.] IX GENERAL. 309

repeat tlie law of nature, when laws and covenants do promote the
profit and the design of nature/

§ 3. But from hence it follows that the law of nature is the only
rule and measure of all laws, and superinduced laws of God and man
are but instances of obedience in those general precepts of nature :
and since the law of Christianity contains in it all the law of nature,
and is now the only law that can oblige us primarily, and others in
virtue of it; it is the prime and adequate rule and measure of con-
science, and the explication of all its precepts will be a full institution
of the conscience; to which purpose that saying of Laelius in Cicero1
is very pertinent, Tiros bonos appellandos esse putamus qui asse-
qiumtur quantum homines possunt naturam optimam recte vivendi
ducem ; ' nature is the best guide and measure of living well ; and
they who exactly observe her measures as far as men can, are to be
called good men/

EULE III.

THE FIRST AND GREATEST BAND OP THE LAW OF NATURE IS FEAR OF

PUNISHMENT.

I have already spoken of this as it is the act and effect of con-
science ; here I am to speak of it more abstractedly, and as itself hath
effect upon human actions ; there as it is the minister of the judge,
here as it is the sanction of the law.

§ 1. Omne malum aid timore aut pudore natura stiff udit, said Ter-
tullian™ ; 'fear and shame are the waiters and handmaids of every sin
which nature hath provided for it/ And indeed fear is the band of
all laws : for although there is a pravity in the nature of injustice
which natural reason hates, proceeding partly from the deficiency from
the perfective end of nature and societies, which is injustice ; partly
from the consequent obloquy and disreputation which all wise men
and all talking people put upon it (for they that do it themselves
speak ill of it in others) ; yet this is but a little. This is a part of
the punishment of the breach of the natural law, but not strong
enough to make a firm obligation. Now in all laws there must be
some penalty annexed, the fear of which may be able to restrain men
from doing against the law ; which cannot be unless the evil be greater
than the benefit or pleasure of the prevarication can be : and there-
fore it is that God establishing this law hath appointed a court with-
in us, a severe judge who will not spare, a wise discerner who will not

1 De amicit. [cap. v.] m Apolog., cap. i. [p. 2 C]

310 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

be deceived, an exact remembrancer which never forgets any thing
that can do the greatest mischiefs, a just witness who will not be
suborned, and is conscious and privy to all that which he is to judge ;
and the same also is the executioner of the delinquent and sinning
people.

§ 2. The stings of conscience and fear of the divine vengeance, is
this evil which naturally restrains us : it is the greatest restraint, be-
cause it is the greatest of evils ; and it is unavoidable, and it is natural.
I will not add it is lawful to abstain from evil for fear of punishment,
but it is necessary, and it is natural, and that is more ; and this is it
which Epicurus11 taught, ova aAAo> tlvI rfjs ahiidas b&v aireCpyeiv, rj
0o'/3&) KoAao-ewv which although Plutarch0 seems angry at, was well
enough spoken by him ; meaning that it is a fear not of temporal dis-
covery and civil punishment, which is only appointed to restrain evil
actions, but a fear of those evils whose apprehension God hath made
necessary and congenite with the nature of man ; fear of God's displea-
sure, and the destruction of our nature and felicities relying upon that
natural love of ourselves and desire of our own preservation, without
which a man cannot be supposed sufficiently provided with principles
of necessary being and providence.

§ 3. There is another kind of fear of punishment, that is, a fear of
those auxiliary punishments which princes and republics have super-
added to the breakers of natural laws, which is in some men who are
despisers of all the evils which are threatened hereafter. Such as was
that of ThrasymachusP in Plato; Nihil esse melius quam facer e in-
juriam neque poenas dare, nihil pejus quam pali nee posse ulcisci ;
medio autem modo se habere justitiam,, cum quis nee facit nee patitur,
quod ut fiat, esse optabile ; sed nempe imbecillibus quorum proinde
interest pacisci ant servare pacta, non autem valentioribus, qui si viri
fuerint ac sapuerint, nullatenus pactum de injuria non inferenda ac-
cipiendave sint inituri : ' nothing is better than to do injury without
punishment, nothing worse than to suffer mischief and to be able to
do none again ; in the midst of these is justice, which neither does
injury, nor receives any, which is much to be desired; but by whom?
by none but by weak people ; for the stronger, if they be valiant and
wise, will never enter into covenants concerning not doing or receiv-
ing injury/ According to this doctrine, there should be nothing of
itself just or unjust, and if there were, it were not to be regarded, but
so long as justice were profitable, and injustice troublesome and dan-
gerous. And therefore strong men or crafty might in many cases
be exempt from contracts and from doing justice, and would neither
do right, nor take wrong.

§ 4. Against this it is that all wise men in the world do speak.
Vos autem nisi ad popular es auras inanesque rumor es recta facere

" [Apud Plutarch., ' Non posse sua- ° [ibid.]

viter vivi secundum Epicurum,' torn. x. p De repub. [lib. ii. torn. vi. p. 333.]

p. 542.]

CHAP. I.] IN GKNERAL. 311

nescitis ; et relicla conscientice, virtutisque prastantia de alienis pra-
mia sermunculis postulatis, said Boetiusq, in indignation against all
those who took accounts of themselves by public noises, not by the
testimonies of a just conscience, that is, who fear man but do not
fear God. And to do good out of fear of punishment (in this sense)
is to do good no longer than I am observed, and no longer than I am
constrained : from both which because very many men are very often
freed, and all men sometimes, there would be no habit, no will, no
love of justice in the world : that is, there would be no virtue of jus-
tice, but single actions as it could happen. This would introduce
horrid tyrannies, while princes and generals having power in their
hands might do all things as they pleased, and have no measure but
their own private : and all men's conditions under them would be
always precarious and arbitrary, and most commonly intolerable.
And therefore this fear is the characterism of evil persons.

Oderunt peccare mali formidine pcenae'.

and against such civil laws are made : justis lex non est posita, saith
S. Paul8, ' the law is not made for the righteous, but for the wicked/
If the sons of Israel had continued pious as Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob were, the law should not have been given to them as it was
upon mount Sinai ; but the necessities of men brought a law upon
them, and that law a punishment, while good men -noiovaiv iKovuiois
a ttolovctlv (XKovTcs oi XoiiTol bio. tov vofxov, as Xenocrates in Laer-
tius* said of the philosophers; they do it

Sponte sua, veterisque Dei se more tenentes" :

for the love of God ; by choice and delight in the actions of virtue
they do excellent things, plusque ibi boni mores valent quam alibi
bona leges, as Tacitus x said of the old Germans, 'good manners
prevailed more than good laws/ Thus did the patriarchs, and there-
fore they need not a law. Vetustissimi mortalium nulla aclhuc mala
libidine, sine probro, scelere, eoqiie sine poena et coercitionibus age-
bant : neqne pramiis opus erat, cum honesta suopte ingenio peteren-
tnr : et ubi nihil contra morem cuperent, nihil per metum vetabantury:
our forefathers desired nothing against honesty and justice, and there-
fore were not forbidden any thing by the instrument of fear.

§ 5. But therefore the civil and positive law is not made for all
those men who have other restraints ; that is, for good men who are
moved by better principles ; but because these things that are better
are despised by the vicious and the tyrants, oppressors and the im-
pudent, the civil power hath taken a sword to transfix the criminal
and to kill the crime. And therefore Epicurus in Stobseus2 said not
amiss, ' Laws were made for wise men, not for fear they should do ill,
but lest they should suffer evil from the unjust/

q Deconsol.philosoph.flib.ii. pros. 7.] u [^Mieid. vii. 204.]

' [vid. Horat., epist. i. 16. 52.] " [German., cap. xix.]

• [1 Tim. i. 9.] y Tac. Annal., iii. [26.]

'[ Lege Plut.de virt. moral., t.vi. p. 75,3.] 2 [Floril., xliii. 139.]

312 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

§ 6. And yet even the wise and the good men have a fear in them
which is an instrument of justice and religion ; but it is a fear of
God, not of the secular judge ; it is a fear that is natural, a fear pro-
duced from the congenite notices of things ; and the fear of doing a
base thing; a fear to be a fool, and an evil person.

Mi natura dedit leges a sanguine ductas,
Ne possein melior judicis esse metu.

said Cornelia in Propertius*. A good man will abstain from all un-
righteous things, though he be sure that no man should hear or see
any thing of it : that is, though there were no laws, and superinduced
punishments in republics : and all this upon the account of such a
fear which a good man ought to have ; fear of being a base person
or doing vile things.

imposito tenerse custode puellse

Nil agis: ingenio quaeque tuenda suo.
Si qua metu dempto casta est, ea denique casta est ;

Quas quia non liceat non facit, ilia facitb.

That chastity is the noblest which is not constrained by spies and
severity, by laws and jealousy ; when the mind is secretly restrained,
then the virtue is secured. Cicero c puts a case to Torquatus, Si te
amicus tuus moriens rogaverit tit Imreditatem redd as sua filia, nee
tisquam id scripserit, ut scripsit Fadivs, nee cuiquam dixerit, quid
fades ? Aruncanus dies and leaves his inheritance to his daughter
Posthumia, and intrusts his friend Torquatus with it, but privately,
without witness, without consignation of tables : will Torquatus who
is a feoffee in private trust restore this to the child when she shall
be capable : yes, Torquatus will, and Epicurus will, and yet Cicero
had scarce a good word for him, whom he hath fondly disgraced
during all ages of the world, weakly and unjustly. But the account
he gives of it is pertinent to the rule : Nonne intelligis eo majorem,
vim esse natura, quod ipsi vos qui omnia ad vestrum eommodum, et
ut ipsi dicitis ad volnptatem referatis, tamen ea faciatis e quibus ap-
pareat, non voluptatem vos, sed officium sequi, plusque rectam natu-
ram quam rationem pravam valere : ' nature is more prevalent than
interest ; and sober men though they pretend to do things for their
real advantage and pleasure, yet follow their duty rather than either
pleasure or profit, and right nature rather than evil principles.

§ 7. The reason of this is, because nature carries fear and reve-
rence in the retinue of all her laws, and the evils which are consequent
to the breach of natural laws are really and by wise men so under-
stood to be greater mischiefs than the want of profit, or the missing
of pleasure, or the feeling the rods and axes of the prince. If there
were no more in a crime than the disorder of nature, the very un-
naturalness itself were a very great matter. S. P>asild said well, Ad

" [Eleg. iv. 11, 47.] * Reg. fusior., interr. ii. [torn. ii. p.

* Ovid. Eleg. [in. 4. L] 336.]

[De fin., lib. ii. cap. 18.]

CHAJ\ I.] IN GENERAL. 313

omnia qu/e descripta a nobis, a Deo prrrcepta sunt, consequenda, na-
turales ab ipso facilitates accepimus. God hath given to virtues
natural organs, or bodily instruments ; as to mercy He appointed
bowels, eyes for pity, hands for relief; and the proper employment
of these is so perfective of a man's condition (according to their pro-
portion) that not to employ them according to the purpose of na-
ture is a disease, a natural trouble ; just as it is to trumpet with our
mouth, which was intended for eating and drinking and gentler
breathings. It is punishment enough to do an unnatural and a base
action, it puts our soul and its faculties from their centre, and the
ways of perfection. And this is fully observed by Seneca e : Male de
nobis actum erat quod multa scelera legem et Judicem effugiunt, et
scripta supplicia ; nisi ilia naturalia et gravia de prtesentibus sol-
verent, et in locum patientim timor cederet : ' mankind were in an ill
state of provisions, if those wickednesses which escape the law and
the judge, did not suffer the more grievous inflictions of natural pun-
ishment, and fear came into the place of patience.' Still, fear is the
bridle ; but it is an honest fear, a fear of God and of natural disorders
and inconvenience. Ovk. iv avixjioXaioLs tioKitlkols ovh\ iv cnrayo-
peva-ei vo/jlov, aAA.' e£ Ibioirpayias kclI rfjs 7rpo9 tov Oeov aydirris fj
biKaioavvi), as Clemens of Alexandriaf calls it ; a righteousness not
produced by laws and the sword, fear and interest, but from the love of
God, and something that is within. There is a fear, but it is such
a fear as still leaves the love to virtue, and secures it in privacies and
enjoins the habit and constant practice of it : a fear that is compli-
cated with a natural love of our own preservation, and is constant,
and measured by God, and in the natural limit cannot be extrava-
gant ; a fear that acknowledges God's omniscience, and His omni-
presence, and His eternal justice : and this was the sense of that of
Sophocles6,

Tlphs ravra KpvwTf firjSfV, oSs 6 Travff bpwv
Kai iravt' olkovcdv ttclvt' avairrvcrffei xpSvos'

* do nothing basely and secietly ; for time's father sees and hears all
things, and time will discover it,' and truth shall be the daughter of
time, and that which is done in secret shall be spoken upon the tops
of houses. So both the Christian and the heathen are conjoined in
the several expressions of the same great truth. This fear is depo-
sited in conscience, and is begotten and kept by this proposition, —
That God is a rewarder of all men according to their works.

Consequent to this is the love of virtue.

e [Epist. xcvii. torn. ii. p. 481.] lib. vi. cap. 2. p. 742 ; Stob. erlo<r phys.,

1 [Strom., lib. vi. cap. 15. p. 803.] lib. i. cap. 9. § 17, torn. i. p. 230 ; Aul.

* [Hippon., apud Clem. Alex, strom., Gell , lib. xii. cap. 11.]

314 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

EXILE IV.

THE SECOND BA.NB OP VIRTUE IS LOVE, AND ITS PROPER AND CONSEQUENT

DELICIOUSNESS.

§ 1. This is not wholly natural, but in much of it is empirical,
evprnxa xpovov kcu (3lov proceeding from the grace of God, and the
experience of the deliciousness and rewards of virtue, and the excel-
lency of a greater hope which does entertain our spirits in the outer
courts of pleasant expectations : on ex (piXocrocpLas tovto airy nepi-
ykyove, to avtirtTaKToos Troie'iv a rives 8ta rbv ditb tu>v vojjloov </)o/3oi>
ttoiovctl, as both Aristotle and Xenocrates* did speak : ' it is the effect
of philosophy and religion, of virtuous and severe institutions to do
that for love and without constraint, which fools, and vicious, and
weak persons do for fear of laws/

§ 2. Now this, I say, is not natural; that is, although it be
agreeable to nature, yet not primarily introduced by it; without a
tutor, because nature forbids injustice, but does not command justice,
but secondarily and by accident, and upon supposition of other con-
tingencies. To do injustice is always a sin, but not to do a justice is
not always. For a man may depose the person of a judge, or a
trustee, or a delegate ; but they who habitually do justice, find the
rewards of reputation, and the ease of being freed from the torments
of an evil conscience which is a delicacy, like the being eased of the
horrid gripes of the colic ; and so insensibly grow in love with justice,
that they think they love justice for justice' sake.

Ipsa sui merces erat et sine vindice prreda.

§ 8. 1) Concerning which it is fit we consider a little, lest it
become the occasion of scruples and nice opinions. Antigonus
Sochseus an old Jew was famed for saying, Be not servants who serve
their lord that they may receive a reward from him ; but be such who
serve him without consideration of wages, or recompenses, and let
the fear of God be upon you. Baithus and Sadoc his disciples, from
whom the sect of the Sadducees did spring, not well understanding
him, took occasion from hence to deny the resurrection and rewards
after this life. And indeed such sayings as these are easily abused ;
and when some men speak great things, and others believe as much
of it as they understand, but understand it not all, they make sects
and divide their schools, and ignorance and faction keep the doors
and sit in the chairs sometimes. It is impossible a man should do
great things, or suffer nobly without consideration of a reward ; and
since much of virtue consists in suffering evil things, virtue of herself
is not a beatitude, but the way to one. He does tilings like a fool

1 [Diog. Laert., lib. v. cap. 1. § 11.]

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 315

who does it for no end, and if he docs not choose a good end he is
worse ; and virtue herself would in many instances be unreasonable
if for no material consideration we should undertake her drudgery :
and therefore S. Austin said well, Sublatis aternis pramiis et pcenis
veritm slatumm a partibus Epicuri. Sensual pleasures were highly
eligible, and not virtuous sufferings, ' if in this life only we had hopeV
But if it be accounted the top of virtue to love virtue for virtue's
sake, and without intuition of the reward ; many times good men
observing that themselves are encouraged by all God's promises to
obedience and patience, and that in martyrdom there is no natural or
sensitive pleasure, and that it cannot be loved for itself, but wholly
for its reward, will find themselves put into fear where no fear is, and
that a nequam kumilitas, an unworthy opinion of their duty, shall af-
fright their peace and holy confidence. Peregrinus the philosopher
in A. Gellius1 expressed this love of virtue for itself thus ; etiamsi
Dii atque homines igiwraturiforent, to do good though ' neither God
nor men should know of it : but as this is impossible in faet, so it is
in speculation ; for there were no such tiling as virtue, if it were not
relative and directed to God or man. But yet the thing which they
mean is very good. Good men love virtue for virtue's sake, that is,
they act it and love it, they do it with so habitual and confirmed
elections and complacency that many times they have no actual in-
tuition to the reward : they forget this, they are so taken with that ;
like a man that chooses a wife upon many considerations, as portion,
family, hopes, and beauty ; yet when he hath conversed long with her,
and finds her amiable and fruitful, obedient and wise, he forgets all
other considerations, and loves her person for her own perfections,
but will not quit all his other interests. The difference is best un-
derstood by variety of motions. Some motions cannot be continued
unless some agent or other do continually urge them, but they are
violent and unnatural ; others are perfective and loved, and they will
continue and increase by their own principle if they be not hindered.
This is the love of virtue, that is fear, or it may be hope ; save that
hope is a thing between both, and- is compounded of both, and is
more commendable than fear. But to love virtue for itself is no-
thing else but to love it directly and plainly ; he that loves it only
for the reward, and is not by the reward brought to love the things
loves not this at all, but loves something else : but he that loves it at
all, sees good in it, because he finds good by it, and therefore loves
itself now, whatever was the first incentive ; and the wooden arch
may be taken away when that of marble is concentred.

§ 4. 2) Vir fortis et Justus . . in summa voluptate est, et periculo
suo fruitur : ' when a good man lays before him the price and re-
demption of his mortality, the liberty of his country, the safety of his
friends, he is hugely pleased and delights in, and enjoys his danger/
But if he feels not this pleasure, yet without trembling and uncer-

k [1 Cor. xv. 19.] ' [lib. xii. car.. 11-1

81() OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

tainty he will dare to A\e, facer e recte pieque cont-entns; and if you
tell him this reputation which he gets of his citizens will die almost
as soon as he shall die; he answers, 'all those things are without the
nature and consideration of my work :' ego ipsum contemplor, hoc
esse honestum scio, ' I look upon the work itself and find it honest/
and that's enough ; meaning secretly, that though these outward re-
wards were pared off, yet there are secret pleasures which will follow
and stick close to virtue, as the shadow does to the body, and this
good men must consider, because they feel it, and that is part of the
reward.

§ 5. 3) They are pleased with the virtue itself, and their soul is
as much delighted with it, and as naturally as the eye with beauteous
colours, or the throat with unctuous juices, or the tongue with moist
sweetnesses. For God hath made virtue proportionable to all the
noble ends and worthy desires of mankind, and the proper instru-
ment of his felicity ; and all its beauties, and all its works, and all its
effects, and all that for which it can be loved is part of the reward :
and therefore to say a man can love virtue for virtue's sake and with-
out consideration of the reward, is to say, a man can love virtue with-
out any reason and inducement, without any argument to move his
affections.

§6.4) Tor there can be but two causes of am ability in the world,
perfection and usefulness, that is, beauty and profit ; that in the thing
itself, this as it relates to me. Now he that says a man may love
virtue for its own sake without consideration of the reward, says no
more than that a man may love a flower which he never hopes to
smell of; that is, he may admire and commend it, and love to look
on it ; and just so he may do to virtue. But if he desires either, it
is because it is profitable or useful to him, and hath something that
will delight him ; it cannot else possibly be desired.

§ 7. Now to love virtue in the first sense is rather praise than
love ; an act of understanding rather than of the will ; and its object
is properly the perfections of the flower or the virtue respectively : but
when it comes to be desired, that is, loved with a relation to myself,
it hath for its object other perfections, those things that please and
that delight me ; and that is nothing but part of the reward, or all
of it.

§ 8. The question being thus explicated, it follows, that to love
virtue for virtue's sake is so far from being the honour of a good
and perfect man, that it is the character of an evil man, if it goes no
further. For it amounts to nothing but this, that the understanding
is convinced of the lawfulness of it,

video meliora proboque m; —

it is that which S. Paul" calls a f delighting in the law after the inner
man.' But it is a relative, material, practical love of virtue that

'" [Ovid, metatn., vii. 20.] n [Rom. vii. 22.]

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 317

makes a good man j and the proper inducement of that is also rela-
tive, material and practical.

Est profecto Deus qui quas nos gerimus
Auditquc et videt. Bene mereuti bene profuerit,
Male merenti par erit ; —

said the comedian0 : ' God hath so endeared justice and virtue to us,
that He hearing and seeing all things, gives good things to them that
do good things ; but He will be even with the evil man/

§ 9. 5) Lastly, to love virtue for virtue's sake is to love it without
consideration of human rewards, praise of men, honours, riches, rest,
power, and the like, which indeed are the hinges of most men's
actions.

Cura quid expediat, prior est quam quid sit honestum,

Et cum fortuna statque caditque fides :
Nee facile invenies multis in millibus uuuiu

Virtutem pretium qui putet esse sui.
Ipse decor, recte facti si praemia desint,

Non movet, et gratis pcenitet esse probum ;
Nil nisi quod prodest caruin estp ; —

Now he that is a good man and loves virtue virtuously, does not love
it principally for these secular regards, but without such low expecta-
tions, and without apprehension of the angry sentence of the laws ;
but this does not exclude the intuition of the divine reward from
having an influence into the most perfect love of virtue ; for this is
intrinsical to the sauction and nature of the law, the other is extrin-
sical and accidental. The first is such a reward as is the perfection
of the work, for glory is the perfection of grace ; and he that serves
God for hope of glory, loves goodness for goodness' sake ; for he pur-
sues the interest of goodness that he may be tilled with goodness, he
serves God here that he may serve Him hereafter, he does it well that
he may do it better, a little while that he may do it over again for
ever and ever. Nothing else can be a loving virtue for virtue's sake ;
this is the greatest perfection and the most reasonable and practicable
sense of doing it. And if the rewards of virtue were not the great
practical inducement of good men's love to goodness, all the promises
of the gospel were to no purpose in relation to the faith of good men,
and therefore the greatest and the best part of faith itself would be
useless : for there is no purpose or end of faith of the promises, but
to enable our obedience by the credibility and expectation of such pro-
mises to do our duty.

§ 10. Now that even good men, even the best men, even all men
have an habitual regard to it, besides that it is impossible to be other-
wise (for he that ploughs does plough in hope), and will easily be
understood to be so by thern who know the causes and nature of
things ; it appears also in the instance of as good a man as any story
reports of, even Moses, who f despised to be called the son of Pha-
raoh's daughter, because he had an eye to the recompense of re-

0 Plant, captiv. [ii. 2. G3.] " [Ovid. Epist. ex Ponto, ii. 3. 9.]

318 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

ward*! :' and by the instance of all those brave persons whom S. Paul
enumerates in the eleventh chapter of the Hebrews ; who ' all died in
faith, not having received the promises'/ but they looked for better,
even such as were to come : and beyond all this, our blessed Lord
himself ' despised shame and endured the cross8/ but it was 'for
the glory that was set before Him.' For it is the first and the
greatest article of the gentiles' creed, ' every one that comes to God
must believe that God is, and that He is a rewarder of them that
diligently seek Him.

§ 11. The sum is this ; although in nature herself, and in the con-
science relating to her, there is a court punitive and a fear of God, yet
the expectation of reward is rather put into us than born with us, and
revealed rather than natural ; and therefore the expectation of good
is the second band of natural laws, but extrinsical and adventitious,
communicated to us by revelation and by grace.

EULE V.

THE IMPERFECTION OF SOME PROVISIONS IN CIVIL LAWS ARE SUPPLIED BY THE
NATURAL OBLIGATION REMAINING UPON PERSONS CIVILLY INCAPABLE.

§ 1. When laws make provision of cases km to irXda-rov, in as
many things as they can foresee or feel, and yet some things will
emerge which cannot be foreseen, and some contrary reasons will
arise ; many times there is no care taken for some things and some
persons by any constitutions of man. Here nature as the common
parent of all justice and necessary obligations, takes the case into her
protection.

This happens in many cases :

§ 2. 1) Human laws give measures of things and persons which
fit most men without a sensible error, but some it does not. Young
persons are at a certain age declared capable of making profitable con-
tracts ; at another age of making contracts that are hazardous, and
they must stand to them, though they be mischievous : at one age
they may marry, at another they may contract a debt, at another
they may make a testament, at another they may be punished with
capital inflictions. But in some persons the malice is earlier and the
wit more pregnant, and the sense of their advantages brisk enough :
and therefore the contracts which they can make, and the actions
which they do, and the part which they choose is really made, or
done, or chosen ; but they not bound to stand to it by the civil

" [Heb. xi. 24, G.] r [v. 39.] s [Heb. xii. 2.]

CHAP. I.] IN GBNBEAL. 319

law : and yet if they can choose they are naturally obliged. Both of
them are necessary; the civil law cannot provide but by common
measures,

Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum'.

All their rules are made by as common a measure as they can, and
they are the best rules that have the fewest exceptions : the best car-
penters make the fewest chips, but some there must be. But then it
is necessary that nature should provide by single provisions in all the
single exceptions ; for it is necessary it should be done, and she only
can do it. She can do it because nature hath provided an instructed,
a judging, and a discerning conscience ; and the person that contracts
or receives a benefit can bind himself to man as soon as he can bind
himself to God, because the laws of God bind all our contracts with
men. That is, plainly thus ; God's laws provide not only for general
cases but also for particular circumstances ; and of every thing God
and God's vicegerent, conscience, can take accounts ; and therefore
this abundance supplies the other's defect; the perfection of God
makes up the breaches of the imperfection of man. Which rule is
to be understood both of things and persons : for all our duty is only
an obedience to God, and every one that can hope or fear is bound
to this obedience ; therefore there can be no gap here : God hath in
every thing shut up every person that can use reason, by some instru-
ment or other. And therefore Cicero" said well, Si regnante Tar-
cjvinio nulla erat Roma scripta lex de stupris, idcirco non contra
illam legem sempitemam Sextus Tarquinius vim Lucretia Tricipitini
j'dice attulit : erat enim ratio profecta a rerum natura, et ad rede
faciendum impellens, et a delicto avocans : there was no civil consti-
tution against rapes, but Tarquin ought not to have done it; for
there was an eternal law against it. For right reason proceeding from
nature drives us on to good and calls us off from evil : that is, he
could not but know it was ill, and against reason, and against every
thing by which he ought to be governed ; and even to the heathen
God was not wanting, but bound these laws upon them by reason,
and inclination, and necessity, and fame, and example, and contract,
and hope, and fear, and by secret ways which we know not of. He
made some inclinations and some reason to become laws, that man-
kind might not live like .beasts and birds of prey : in all cases, and in
nil times, and to all persons He became a lord and a lawgiver some
way or other.

§ 3. Young persons of twelve or fourteen years old can be saved
or damned, they can love or hate, they can understand yea and nay,
they can do a good turn or a shrewd, they can lead a blind man
right or wrong, they can bear true or false witness : and although
the civil laws out of care lest their easiness be abused by crafty
people, make them secure from it by nulling the contract, that the

1 [Hor.at., sat. i. 1. 107.] u Lib. ii. de legg. [cap. 4.]

320 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

deceiving person may not reap the harvest of his fraud ; yet there are
very many cases in which the minor receives advantage, or at least no
wrong, and though it was tit he should be secured, it was not fit he
should be enabled to do a mischief to another, ut levamen his, aliis
sit onus, as S. Paulx in a like case; 'that they be eased and others
burdened/ Eor although the other contractor be sufficiently warned
to take heed of the minor, yet there may be need in it, or charity,
friendship or confidence ; all or any of which if they might be de-
ceived the minor would suffer often, but the other contractor but
once. Therefore as the civil law secures them from harm, so the
law of nature binds them to do none, but to stand to such contracts
in which they have advantage or equality, and in which they were
not abused. The time when they come to be obliged is the time
when they come to the use of reason, when they understand their
duty, when a prudent man judges them lit to be contracted with,
when they can use fraud to others, when they can consider whether
they be bound or no : these are the best marks and signatures of the
time, and declare the obligation in all cases where there is no de-
ception evident.

§ 4. 2) Sometimes both parties can contract; but because they,
doing it without witnesses, may recede from it, either consentingly or
against the will of one of them, the positive constitution of man in-
tending to provide against this inconvenience hath cut the civil tie in
pieces and refuses to verify the contract, besides that it cannot legally
be proved. In this case nature relieves the oppressed party, and sup-
plies the easiness of the civil band, and strains that hard which the
others let loose. And this happens in clandestine contracts, against
which in the matter of marriage all christian countries have made
severe edicts : but in case they be done, in some places they are pro-
nounced valid, in some places declared null. Where they are nulled,
nature is defeated in making provisions, and the parties are warranted
to do a mischief. For if Mauritius and Cluviena contract marriage,
and Mauritius repent his bargain, where shall Cluviena be relieved :
the law of the church forbids it, and will punish her for doing it n
she complains. The civil law takes no notice of it, for it cannot be
legally proved : and the law of nature is barred out, if it be declared
null ; and then there is nothing left to hold him. It is the case of
the church of Rome, who in the eighth session of the council of
Trent y declares all clandestine contracts to be null, and their mixtures
to be fornication and uncleanness. But they have overacted their
zeal against a temporal inconvenience, and burn their house to roast
an egg ; they destroy a law of nature by a law of the church, against
the former practices, counsels and resolutions, even of their own
church. Eor if those contracts are in themselves naturally valid and
not forbidden by God, then they cannot rescind them : if they be not
naturally valid, since they were always positively forbidden, why were

* [2 Cor. viiL 13.] y [Sess. xxiv. cap. 1. torn. x. coll. 150 A.]

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 321

they esteemed valid for so many ages2 : for till that council they were
so/but rinding that the former prohibitions were not strong enough,
they took this course to break them all in pieces ; and out of desire
to prevent an accidental evil, they made it more ready to be done.
For it was before but feared lest they should recede; but yet if they
did, they were esteemed adulterers if they married again : and they
themselves knew when they were precontracted ; and therefore stood
convicted and pinched in their own consciences so long as the old
laws remained, and men did not receive warrants to break the most
sacred bands in the world ; but by this nullifying the contract, they
have not only leave to go off, but are commanded ; and if they be
weary of this, they may contract with another, and there is nothing
to hinder them, if nature does not. This nullity therefore is a vehe-
ment remedy that destroys the patient, besides that it is against the
law of nature. The laws may forbid it to be done, but if it be, they
cannot rescind it ; because the civil constitution is less than the na-
tural, and convenience is less than conscience, and man is infinitely
less than God.

§ 5. 3) Some pretend to do a greater good, and to do it break a
contract justly made; and if the civil constitution allows it, the law
of nature reclaims and relieves the injured person. This was the
case of the pharisees, who denied to relieve their parents out of zeal
to fill the treasure of the temple, and thought that their voluntary re-
ligion excused from their natural duty. The church of Rome gives
leave to either of the persons who are married solemnly and con-
tracted rightly, to recede from their vow and enter into religion, and
declares the marriage separate and broken. Here nature calls upon
the obliged party, and ought to prevail above any other pretence, it
being first in possession and faster in obligation; and if it be na-
turally an evil to break a lawful contract made without fraud, and
which is in our power to keep, then it ought not to be done for any
good in the world.

§ 6. 4) Hither also are to be reduced obligations by unsolemn sti-
pulations, by command of parents, by intermination of curses, by
mere delict amongst persons against whom lies no civil action, as of
servants to their lords, sons to their fathers : concerning which proper
accounts are to be given in their own places. Here only they are to
be noted in the general observation of cases in which the law of
nature hath made an obligation, when the civil power could not, or
would not, or did against it.

§ 7. But it is proper to discuss a difficult question which enter-
venes upon this rule. The case is this : by the law of nature every man

' Navarrus, Enchirid. [cap. xxii. § destina etiam post concilium rata ma-

69. pp. 505, 6. ed. 8vo. Antv. 1581.] nere, sicut et ante. Consuluerunt sc. famae

Et congregatio cardinalium quos talis et concilii, non propria?, qui rem tarn cer-

tani putidi pudebat decreti, directe negant tarn, verba tain plana negare palam non

rem factam aut dictam, et sponsalia clan- erubuerunt.

IX. Y

322 THE LAW 01? NATURE [BOOK II.

hath power to make a testament of his own goods ; but the civil law
requires conditions of every testator that the testament shall be rati-
fied by so many witnesses, or else it shall be invalid : Sempronius
dying leaves Caius his heir, and gives but a small portion to his son
Porcius, but declares this by an unsolemn testament. The like may
happen in all donations and actions to which any solemnities of law
are required.

Quest.

§ 8. The question is, whether the estate be due to Caius by the
law of nature, or is not Porcius the son to be relieved by the civil
constitution which makes the unsolemn testament to be invalid : to
this it is commonly answered,

1) That to make a testament is not a law of nature, but a right
only, which as a man may himself relinquish, so may the public laws
restrain for the public good ; for there being so many frauds in pre-
tended testaments it is necessary that provisions should be made to
prevent the infinite evils that may happen. Now whatsoever is ne-
cessary is also just, if the necessity be public, real, and unavoidable
by other means ; and if it be just, the public power hath sufficient
authority to restrain any man's right for every man's good.

§ 9. 2) Every sentence of the judge in a clear case that binds in
law does also bind in conscience ; but if the judge of civil actions
did know that Sempronius really did appoint the stranger Caius his
heir, yet by the law he were bound to declare for the son Porcius,
and that the real unsolemn will of Sempronius were to be accounted
nothing. So that although the law were made to prevent fraud, yet
even when there is no fraud, and the judge knows there is none, yet
the unsolemn testament is to be declared invalid by the law ; which
law because it is just, and for a just cause, and by a competent au-
thority, must bind in conscience by the force of the words of S.Paula,
"Let every soul be subject to the higher powers." And therefore if
the law be good and the judge just in giving the inheritance from
Caius to Porcius, certainly Caius must needs be unjust if he de-
tains it.

§ 10. 3) And this very thing is consented to in the canons of the
church, which are usually framed, and ever to be presumed, ubi con-
trarium non constat, to be more agreeable to the measures of con-
science ; and yet in the canon law, a testament framed and signed in
the presence of two witnesses is not good, unless the parish priest be
present; and that no man can lawfully detain a legacy upon the war-
rant of such a will.

§ 11. 4) For since every act of man consists of the potestative and
elective faculties, if either will be wanting or power, the act is in-
valid. It is not therefore enough though the will be manifest and
confessed ; for if the man have no power, his will is ineffective.

* [Rom. xiii. 1.]

CHAP.

I.] IN GENERAL. 323

§ 12. But this opinion, though relying upon fair probabilities and
great authority, is not to be assented to as it lies, but with great
caution and provisions. For a right of nature cannot be taken away
by a civil power, entirely and habitually, but only quoad exercitium
actus: 'the exercise of the act' of that right may indeed be impeded
for great reasons and to prevent great evils ; since therefore the power
of making testaments is a natural right, and is wholly suspended in
its act to prevent frauds in unsolemn testaments, where the case is
evident and no fraud at all, although the civil law is still valid because
it being established upon a general cause, though it fails in a parti-
cular it does not fail in the general, and therefore still is rate and
firm ; yet because it does fail in the particular where that is known,
there is a port open for chancery, for considerations of piety and re-
ligion. And therefore although in the case put, Porcius who is the
natural heir of Sempronius, is to take the advantage of the civil law
against Caius ; yet if Sempronius had made an unsolemn testament
in behalf of his natural heir, that ought to have stood in the court of
conscience. My reason is, because in the law of nature Porcius the
son hath as much natural right to inherit, as Sempronius the father
hath to make a testament ; and therefore although an unsolemn tes-
tament shall not be sufficient to interrupt a natural succession, be-
cause the rights of nature on either hand are equal, yet the civil
power can restrain his right when there is nothing complicated with
it ; for his own consent is involved in the public constitution, and he
may consent to the diminution of his own right when no duty is
infringed, that is, in those things where only his own rights are
concerned.

§ 13. When therefore any thing of the law of nature is twisted with
the right of nature, there is an obligation past which the civil consti-
tution cannot annul. As if Sempronius command his son in an un-
solemn testament, in private and without witnesses, to give such a
legacy to Titius his nephew ; although Titius cannot challenge it by
virtue of that testament, yet the son is bound to pay it by the law of
nature : for civil constitutions have effect upon a mere right, but
none against a duty of nature ; and therefore although the testament
of Sempronius shall not pass into legal, external, judicial warranty,
yet it binds the son, and is valid as to him by the law of nature and
conscience. And this was rarely well affirmed by Plinyb, Hoc si jus
aspicias, irritum ; si defuncti voluntatem, ratum et firmum est : mihi
autem defuncti voluntas (rereor quam in partem jurisconsulti quod
sum dicturus accipiant) antiquior jure est : ' if we regard the civil law
such testaments are invalid ; yet if we regard the will of the testator
it is firm : but though I know not how the lawyers will take it, yet
to me the will of the dead is to be preferred before the law :' and
more fully yet to Antonianus0, Tit quidem pro cetera fun diligentia ad-
mones me, codicillos Attiliani, qui me ex parte instituit lucredem, pro-

b Ad Calvisium, lib. v. [epist. 7.] * [Lege 'Airman us.' lib. ii. ["epist. 16.]

y 2

324 OP THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II-

non scriptis habendos, quia non sint con.Jirm.ati testamento ; quod jus
ne milii quidem ignotum est, cum sit lis etiam notum qui nihil aliud
sciunt. Sed ego propriam quandam legem mihi dixi, ut defunctorum
voluntates, etiam si jure dejicerent, quasi perfectas tuerer. Constat
enirn codicillos istos Attiliani manu scriptos : licet ergo non sint con-
firmati testamento, a me tamen ut conjirmati obseroabuntur : i every
one that knows any thing knows that in law unsolemn testaments
are invalid, but I have another law of my own; if I know it was
really the will of the dead, I will verify it though it want the solem-
nity of law :' and this also was affirmed by Innocentiusd, saying, elec-
tionem qua juri natura consent it, licet non serventur juris solenni-
tates, tenere. Cap. ' Quod sicut,' De electione.

§ 14. And there is great reason and great piety in this sense of
the question ; for when a duty is any ways concerned, there is some-
thing owing to God which no human power can or ought to preju-
dice. Tor it is in testaments where any duty of any one is engaged
as it is in contracts of marriage, to which every one that can choose is
capable of being naturally obliged : now the relative of the obligation
cannot in human courts claim either the advantage of an unsolemn
testament, or unsolemn and clandestine contract, yet the relative who
is obliged to duty cannot be so quitted ; and therefore the father can
oblige a son in duty to perform an unsolemn testament, and every
contracted person is bound to perform privately what the other cannot
challenge publicly : and this is not obscurely intimated by the law,
L. 'Hoc consultissima,' C.de testam.e Ex imperfecto autem testamento
voluntatem tenere defuncti habeatur non volumus, nisi inter solos li-
beros a parentibus utriusque sexus ; viz. nisi liberi in sola divideuda
hcereditate voluntatem habeant patris, saith the gloss.

§ 15. And for the confirmation of all this, it is remarkable that
they who affirm an unsolemn testament to be utterly invalid, and that
the law of nature is no remedy in this case, yet affirm that it is of
force in the matter of piety ; as in donations to churches, the poor,
and pious uses ; as appears in Imola, Ananus, Antonius Eubeus, Co-
varruvias and others : which concession of theirs could not be reason-
able or consistent with their opinion, but that it is made so by the
foregoing considerations; which certainly are the best medium to
reconcile duty and prudence, the laws natural and civil, the right of
a man with the government of a commonwealth, and to state the
question between the two parties who earnestly dispute it to contrary
purposes.

§ 16. Tor although the question is probably disputed on both
sides, yet there are on either hand instances in which the solemnity
of the law does and does not oblige respectively : which shews that
the probability is on either hand right and true ; and the thing as it
lies in the middle hath nothing certain or resolved, but is true or

d [? Greg. ix. decret., lib. i. tit. 6. cap. 28. col. 143.]
n:'' vi. tit. 23. 1. 21. col. 512. J

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 325

false as it partakes of differing reasons. Now the reason of the whole
is, because the solemnity of law is wholly to be regarded where there
is not a bigger obligation; where God hath not bound, and man hath
bound, man is to be obeyed : but where God hath bound directly,
there God is to be obeyed whatever be pretended by men : but if God
hath only bound indirectly and collaterally, as if it be a case favour-
able and pious, there the solemnity of law which is against it, is not
to prevail ; but yet is to prevail in the behalf and prosecution of it.

§ 17. 1) Thus if a pupil makes a contract in his minority to his
ruin, or signal detriment, he is to be relieved by the advantage of the
civil law which makes his contract invalid, because the person is de-
clared incompetent; and he may lawfully take his remedy, and is not
bound by the law of nature to verify it, because he being less na-
turally capable to contract, the other is by the law of nature bound
not to do him injury, and take unequal advantages when every man
hath equal right : and therefore if he does prevaricate the natural law
of justice which is equality, he also may lose the privilege which the
other's action passed unto him ; for the civil law declaring that minors
shall not be prejudiced, makes up that justice or equality which nature
intends. For the minor with his less portion of understanding, and
the defensative and retreat given him by the civil law, is made equal
to the contractor who is perfect in his natural capacity. Equality
must be done and had, and this is one way of inferring it.

§ 18. 2) Another way is, if the minor receives advantage by the
bargain; then there is equality; for the want of his natural capacity
is supplied by the advantageous matter, and therefore such contracts
are valid though the one of the contractors be legally incapable. But,

§ 19. 3) If the bargain give some advantage on either side, the
minor must not take the advantage offered him by the civil law to
himself, unless he allow to the other his share of advantage in the
bargain : for otherwise there is inequality. But,

§ 20. 4) Neither one nor the other is to be done, nor the contract
to be rescinded, if the person was naturally capable, that is, unless it
be apparent by the consciousness of his own weakness, or the iniquity
and folly of the contract, that he was less in nature than the other ;
and therefore in this case the civil law rescinding the contract of the
minor does declare that he is incapable naturally as well as civilly :
and the civil constitution does no way interfere with the natural, but
ministers to it, making the natural instance even with the natural
reason ; for this being always alike, from the first to the last, the
instance growing from imperfection to perfection must in the pro-
gression be defended and supplied, and be fitted to the other.

§ 21. But in general, the rule is true which Panormitan affirms
in prosecution of what I have now disputed Qua ndo jus civile illi-
quid disponit contra jus naturce, standum est juri natures : and in
particular to this very instance of unsolemn testaments pope Alex-
ander the third being asked whether according to the custom thai was

326 OP THE LAW OP NATURE [BOOK II.

in the diocese of Ostia a will could be valid which was not attested
by seven or five witnesses at least, gave an answer, cap. ' Cum esses'
Be testam. f, — Tales leges a divina lege et sanctorum patrum institutes
et a generali ecclesice consuetudine esse alienas ; et ideo standum esse
contra Mas jurl naturali, secundum quod in ore dttorum auttrium stat
omne verbum. Which words of his I only admit so far as they are
agreeable to the former measures and limitation. For that a word is
true under the test of two or three witnesses is not a prohibitive law
or command of nature ; but it was urged by our B. Saviour to the
Jews as a thing admitted in their law, and it is agreeable to the law
of nature ; but yet not so, but that a greater caution may be in some
cases introduced by the civil constitution, as I affirmed above6 : viz.
when the innocent and equal state of nature to which such simplicity
or small duplicate of testimonies were sufficient, becomes changed by
frauds and artifices of evil men, or new necessities are introduced
which nature did not foresee and therefore did not provide for, but
God hath provided for them by other means, even by a power given
to the civil magistrate.

§ 22. Lastly, to make up the measures and cautions of this dis-
course complete, it is to be added, that when the civil laws annul an
unsolemn contract or testament, it is meant, that such are to be
declared null when they come into judgment; not that the action
or translation of any dominion, inheritance, or legacy, is ipso facto
void : and therefore he that is possessed of any such is not tied to
make voluntary restitution, or to reveal the nullity of the donation,
but to depart from it, when he is required by law : for he hath the
advantage of a natural right or power in the donor, and that being
first must stand till it be rescinded by a competent power; for the
whole question being but probable on either side, the possessor or
the donee hath the advantage till a stronger than he comes and takes
away that in which he trusted.

RULE VI.

SINS AGAINST THE LAWS OF NATURE ABE GREATER OR LESS, NOT BY THAT PRO-
PORTION, BUT BY THE GREATNESS OF THE MATTER, AND THE EVIL CONSE-
QUENT, OR THE MALICE OF THE SINNER.

§ 1. This rule is intended to remedy a great error that is in the
world and prevails very much to the abuse of men's persuasions in
many cases of conscience, viz. that all sins which are unnatural are
the worst ; and to be a sin against nature is the highest aggravation

' [Greg. ix. Decret., lib. iii. tit. 21. <s Rule i. § 51. [p. 304.]

cap. 10. col. 1089.]

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. ,'327

of it in the world : which if it were true in thesi, yet because when
it comes to be reduced to practice it is wrapped up in uncertain notices
it ought to be more warily handled. For when men have first laid
huge loads of declamations upon all natural rights and natural wrongs,
and then endeavoured to draw forth a collective body of natural laws,
and they have done it by chance or as they please, they have put it
within their own powers to make what things they list as execrable as
murder or blasphemy ; without any other reason, but that they have
called them unnatural sins.

Concerning which these things are considerable :
§ 2. 1) All sins against nature are no more the most detestable
than all sins against God, because if the kind of sins, or the general
reason or object of its irregularity, were all that were considerable in
this, nothing could be the aggravation of a sin more than this that it
were against God. Now because all sins are against God, and yet
amongst them there is difference, the greatness of this appellative is
not the only thing that is considerable. But this is, that as all sins
are against God, so all are against nature, some way or other ; and
the reason that concludes against every sin is that reason that is com-
mon to all wise men, and therefore it must be also natural ; I do not
mean, taught us without the help of revelation or institution, but
such as all men when they are taught find to be really, and in the
nature of things so constituted, to be reasonable.

§ 3. All voluntary pollutions are sins against nature, because they
are satisfactions of lust in wavs otherwise than nature intended ; but
they are not all of them worse than adultery or fornication. Eor al-
though all such pollutions are besides nature's provisions and order,
yet some of them are more single evils than fornication ; which al-
though it be against nature too because it dishonours the body, yet it
is by name forbidden in the commandment, which some of the others
are not, but come in by consequence and attendance : and fornication
includes the crime of two, which the other does not always ; and it
is acted with more vile circumstances and follies, and loss of time,
and other foul appendages. It is said to be against nature to ap-
proach a woman during her natural separations : but if it be a sin
(which I shall consider in its due place), yet it is of the smallest con-
secmence and malignity ; so that for a sin to be against nature, does
only denote its material part, or the body of it, but does not always
superinfuse a venom and special malignity or greatness of crime into
it, above other sins; but it is according as the instance is. Every
sin against the duty we owe to our parents is unnatural ; but they
have their heightenings and diminutions from other accounts, and in
this they have variety. And it is observable that there were some
laws made concerning some of these and the like instances in the
judicial law of Moses, but none in the moral ; and therefore that the
irregularity in some of these cases though it hath met with a foul ap-

•328 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

pellative, yet is to be estimated by more certain proportions than such
casual appellations.

§ 4. 2) The breach of a commandment is a surer rule to judge of
sins than the doing against a natural reason. For there are many
things which are unreasonable which are not unlawful, and some
things which are in some circumstances reasonable, but yet in the
law forbidden and irregular ; such are all those things which are per-
mitted for the hardness of our hearts. So was polygamy to the pa-
triarchs and to the Jews. So is the breach of laws by an universal
deficiency of the people ; which though it be infinitely unlawful, yet
for the unreasonableness in punishing all, it becomes permitted to as.
Therefore to estimate the goodness or badness of an action by its
being reasonable or unreasonable is infinitely fallacious, unless we
take in other measures. It is unreasonable that a man should marry
when he is fourscore years old, but it is not unlawful. It is unreason-
able for an old man to marry a young maiden, but I find no sin in
it. Nothing is more against nature than to marry June and Decem-
ber ; and it is unnatural to make productions by the mixture of an
horse and an ass, and yet it is done without scruple. But in these
and the like cases, the commandment and nothing else is the measure
of right and wrong.

§ 5. 3) When the measure of the commandment is observed, the
degree of the sin is not to be derived from the greatness nor smallness
of its unreasonableness in its own nature, nor yet by its contradicting
a prime or a secondary reason.

The reason of the first is, because there are no degrees of reason
in the nature of things. Reason is an indivisible thing, simple as the
understanding ; and it only receives increase by numbers, or by com-
plication with matter and relations. It is as unreasonable to think a
thought against God, as to kill a man. It is as unreasonable and
unnatural to speak against experience, as against a necessary propo-
sition ; against a truth in mathematics, as against a truth in scrip-
ture ; and in the proper natural reason of things there can be no dif-
ference in degrees, for a truth increases not, neither can it decrease.

The reason of the second is, because that a reason is prime or
secondary, is accidental to the case of conscience or to the efficacy of
its persuasion. Eor before contracts were made or dominions dis-
tinguished, it was a prime truth that such things as every one seized
on were his own by the priority of title. It was a secondary truth,
that every one was to be permitted to his right for which he hath
contracted, and which is in his possession. Now these reasons are
prime or consequent according to the state of things to which they
are fitted, but the reason from thence receives no increment, nor the
fact any alteration.

§ 6. But this is also true whether the reason be known to us with
or without a teacher. For the highest truths of God are such as are
communicated by revelation; and it is all one whether God teaches

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. .$•>!>

us by nature or by grace, by discourse or by experience. There is
this only difference, that in such truths which are taught, some men
can have an excuse because all are not alike instructed in them ; but
in those things which are born with us, or are consented to as soon
as spoken, it cannot be supposed but all men (that are not fools)
know them ; and therefore they can have no pretence of ignorance
in such cases. So that sins against prime or secondary truths,
against truths original or consequent truths born or taught, do not
differ in the nature of the things, but may cause an accidental dif-
ference in the person, and may take from him the excuse of igno-
rance, and so make the man more sinful, but not the action in itself
and in its own nature worse.

EULE VII.

ACTIONS WHICH ARE FORBIDDEN BY THE LAW OF NATURE, EITHER FOR DEFECT
OF POWER, OR FOR THE INCAPACITY OF THE MATTER, ARE NOT ONLY UNLAW-
FUL BUT ALSO VOID.

§ 1. This is true in contracts, and acts of donation, in vows and
dedition, and all rely upon the same reason. He that cannot give,
and he that cannot be given, cannot contract or be contracted with.
Titiua intends to marry Cornelia's servant, because he desires to have
children, and to live comfortably with the wife of his youth. He
does so, and in their first access he finds her whom he thought to be
a woman, to be an eunuch, and therefore not a person capable of
making such a contract; she did ill in contracting, but she hath
clone nothing at all besides that ill, for the contract is void by the
incapacity of the person.

§ 2. Upon this account the lawyers amongst the causes of the
nullities of marriage reckon error persona, the mistake of the person ;
though certainly this is not to be extended beyond the mere incapa-
cities of nature, if we speak of natural nullities. Thus if I contract
with Millenia whom I suppose to be a lady, and she proves to be a
servant, or of mean extraction ; though if she did deceive me she did
ill in it, yet if she could naturally verify that contract, that is, do all
the offices of a wife, the contract is not naturally void : whether it be
void upon a civil account is not here to be enquired, but by the law
of nature it is void only if by nature it cannot be consummate. For
by a civil inconvenience or mistake the contracts of nature cannot be
naturally invalid ; because that is after nature and of another con-
sideration, and of a different matter. For that a man's wife should

330 OP THE LAW OP NATURE [BOOK II.

be rich, or free, is no more of the necessity of the contract of mar-
riage than it is that she should be good natured, or healthful : with
this only difference, that if a man contracts upon certain conditions,
the contract is void if the conditions be not verified ; and for those
things which are present and actual he can contract, but not for what
is future, contingent, and potential. A man may contract with a
maiden to take her for his wife if she be free, or if she have such a
portion ; but not upon condition that she shall be healthful for seven
years. Because whatever condition can be stipulated for must be
actual before consummation of the marriage, afterwards it is for better
or worse ; the want of any such condition is not so great an evil to
the man as it is to the woman to be left after she is dishonoured.
So that if it be a thing which can be contracted for, and be actually
contracted for, in the destitution of the condition the contract is void.
But if there be no such express stipulation made, there is nothing
can be made a nullity by nature, but that which is a natural incapa-
city : and therefore if a gentleman contracts with a slave whom he
thinks to be a free woman, with a bastard whom he thinks to be legi-
timate, with a beggar whom he thinks to be a great heiress, the con-
tract is naturally valid, because there is in it all the natural capacity ;
if she be a woman, if she can be a wife, and can be his, there is no
more required to a verification of the contract in the law of nature.
By the way, I desire it be observed that to separate or disannul a
contract is not the same thing with declaring it to be null of itself or
from the beginning. The reason why I insert this here is lest the
explication of the rule seem infirm upon the account of other in-
stances : for if a man marries a woman whom he took for a maid, and
she proves not to be so, by the mosaic law she was to be separated
by death or divorce : but this is not a nullity ; but a divorce may be
for that cause which was in being before the marriage as well as for
the same reason after.

§ 3. The other natural cause of invalidity is when the contract is
made by him who had no power naturally to make it. This happens
in case of precontracts. Spurius Fescennius woos a Greek virgin,
and obtaining her consent contracts himself to her, and promises to
marry her within a certain limited time. But before the expiration
of that time Publius Niger dies, and leaves his widow young and rich
and noble; which advantages Fescennius observing, grows in love
with them, and in a short time quits his pretty Greek, and marries
the rich Roman lady : but being troubled in conscience about the
fact enquires what he hath done, and what he ought to do ; and he
was answered thus, — If he was married to the Greek, he must return
to her if she will receive him, and quit his new lady ; because he was
not a person capable to contract with her, being married to another :
a dead man may as well marry as that an husband can marry to
another, and quit that which had possessed all his former power.
For in all moral actions there must be a substantial, potestative prin-

UHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 331

ciple that must have a proportioned power to the effect ; a thing
cannot be done without a cause and principle in morality, any more
than in nature. If a woman goes about to consecrate the holy sacra-
ment, it is \etP a.Kvpose, it is an 'ineffective hand/ she sins for at-
tempting it, and cannot do it afterwards : and it were wiser and truer
if men would think the same thing of their giving baptism, unless
they will confess that to baptize children is a mere natural and secular
action to which natural powers are sufficient ; or that women have
received spiritual powers to do it ; and that whether a priest or a
woman does it is no difference, but matter of order only. If an effect
be spiritual, the agent must be so too ; if the effect be gracious and
precarious*, so must the active cause. Thus it is in contracts, and
donations, which cannot be done without the power of him that does
it ; but he who hath already given away his power, hath none to act
withal : he cannot do one action twice.

§ 4. But this is to be understood oidy after the actual cession of
the power and active principle ; not after promises but after posses-
sion. Therefore if Fescennius was only contracted or promised for
the future, though he sinned grievously in afterwards contracting with
the other, yet it is valid. For a promise takes not away our domin-
ion in a thing, but obliges us to use it in a certain manner. Bartolus
appoints his coseng Aucharanus to be his proctor at a synod, and pro-
mises that he will not revoke the deputation, but afterwards does;
he is a breaker of promise, but the revocation is good. So it is in
testaments, and so in promises ; for if after promise we have no right
in the thing which we have promised, then we have no power to per-
form it ; but if we have a right, then the after act is valid, because it
hath a natural potestative cause : but if the power be past from us,
as if Fescennius were married to the Greek, he had not himself to
give ; for as he in the comedy said of servants,

Tov ffwfJLaros yap ovk e<y rbv Kvpiov
KpaTetv 6 Sai/j.cov, a\\a rhv eWTj/xeVoc11"

' the man hath not power over his own body, but the master hath ;'
so hath the wife over the husband, and therefore he hath nothing now
to give, and if he does, he does nothing ; the man loses his honesty,
but the wife does not lose her right. But of the instance I am to
speak in its own place : here only I am to consider the general rule
and its reason.

e [See vol. v. pp. 62, 113.] 8 [See vol. iv. p. 306, and vii. 3.]

f [See vol. iv. p. 589.] h [Aristoph. Plut., 6.]

332 OP THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

RULE VIII.

WHEN AN ACT IS FORBIDDEN BY THE LAW OF NATURE FOB THE TURPITUDE AND
UNDECENCY THAT IT HATH IN THE MATTER OF THE ACTION, THE ACT IS
ALSO VOID WHEN THE TURPITUDE REMAINS OR HATH A PERPETUAL CAUSE.

§ 1. He that contracts a marriage with his father's wife, or any
marriage in which every illicit act is a new sin, hath not only binned
in making the contract, but the marriage is void by the law of nature ;
and the reason is, because no man can bind himself to sin ; so that
here also there is a defect of power : no man can bind himself against
God, and the law of nature, whose prime rule is to do good and to
eschew evil, cannot verify an act which prevaricates her greatest prin-
ciple. Nature cannot give leave to sin against nature, it were a con-
tradiction ; for then the same thing should be according to nature
and not according : and this is expressly affirmed in the law, Quod
leges fieri prolnbent, si perpetuam causa m servaturttm est, cessat obli-
gatio ; ut si sororem suam nupturam sibi aliquis stipnleturx, c He
that promises to marry his sister is not bound to verify it,' and if he
have done it he is bound to quit her ; because every act of conjunction
with her is incestuous, and a state of sin cannot be consented to, nor
verified by nature who is an essential enemy to it.

§ £. This is to be understood only in things forbidden by the law
of nature, the eternal law of God, or His positive temporary law ; but
is not true in things forbidden only by men : the reason of them both
is, because no man hath power to contract against a divine law ; but
if he have contracted against a human law, his contract is established
by a divine law, and is greater than the human, where the divine does
not intervene by some collateral interest. The law of the church of
Home forbids some persons to contract marriage; and yet if they
do the contract is valid, because the persons being naturally or by
divine law capable of contracting, they only sinned who entered
against law or leave ; but they sinned then only, for the after actions
being no sins, cannot be invalidated.

§ 3. And yet if the contract be made against a divine law, it is
not invalid, unless the divine law have a perpetual influence upon the
state, or renewed actions. If a Jew did buy and sell upon the sab-
bath he sinned against a divine law, but his contract is valid. He
that contracts with a woman of fornications and lies with her for a
price, hath sinned in so doing, but is bound to pay her the price of
her lust, because nothing here is against the divine law but the forni-
cation ; but the contract being extrinsical to the nature of the sin,
is not made null by that sin, but that which is intrinsically evil is for
ever so, and therefore must be broken in pieces.

1 L. ' Si stipulor,' De verb, oblig. [Digest., lib. xlv. tit. 1. § 35. col. 1-528.]

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 333

§ 4. In all other cases, whatsoever is forbidden by the law of
nature is a sin if it be done, but it is valid and effective to all pur-
poses of that law. It is against the law of nature to take a great
price for a trifle, but if it be contracted for it must be paid. If a
thief makes me promise to pay him twenty pounds the next day,
though he sinned against a natural law in doing me that violence,
and exacting of me that promise, yet the stipulation must stand.

The sum is this : — Wherever there is power, and will, and in the
permanent effect consonancy to the prime measures of nature, there
the actions are valid though they entered at the wrong door.

But he that wants power, let his will be never so strong, it effects
nothing without : it is just like the king that commanded the waves
of the sea not to come to the foot of his chair ; they came for all his
will to the contrary.

He that wants will, wants also an integral part of the constitution
of the act, and does nothing.

But when he hath a natural and legal power, and an effective will,
yet if the whole state or the after actions dwell in sin, it cannot be
permitted by nature, but must be turned out of doors.

RULE IX.

THE LAW OF NATURE CAN BE DISPENSED WITH BY THE DIVINE POWERk

§ 1. I am willing publicly to acknowledge that I was always, since
I understood it, a very great enemy to all those questions of the
school which enquire into the power of God : as whether by God's
absolute power a body can be in two places ; whether God can give
leave to a man to sin ; and very many there are of them to as little
purpose. But yet here I am willing to speak in the like manner of
expression, because the consequent and effect of it goes not to a direct
enquiry concerning the divine power ; for it intends to remonstrate
that because God does actually dispense in His own law, this prime
law of God, or the law of nature, is nothing else but the express and
declared will of God in matters proportionable to right reason and the
nature of man.

§ 2. But in order to the present enquiry, it is to be observed that
God's dispensation is otherwise than man's dispensation. 1) God is the
supreme lawgiver, and hath immediate power and influence over laws,
and can cancel these, and impose those, new or old as He please. By
this power it is that He can relax to particular persons their personal
obligation, quoad hie, et nunc, et sic : and if He does, the law still re-

" Vi.l. reg. i. § 43, 44, &c. [p. 299, sqq.J

334 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

niaining in its force and power to other persons and in other cases,
this is properly dispensation. 2) God is the supreme Lord, and can
transfer dominions and take away kingdoms, and give them to whom
He please; and when He makes such changes, if He commands any one
to be His minister in such translations, He does legitimate all those
violences by which those changes are to be effected : and this also is ,
a dispensation, but improperly. 3) God also is the supreme judge,
and can punish and exauthorate whom He please, and substitute
others in their room ; and when He does so by command and express
declaration of His will, then also He dispenses in those obligations of
justice, or obedience, or duty respectively, by which the successor, or
substitute, or minister was hindered from doing that which before
the command was a sin, but now is none : and this also is another
manner of dispensation. Some doctors of the law are resolved to
call nothing dispensation but the first of these, and the other under
another name shall signify the same thing; but say they, he only
dispenses who does take off the obligation directly, by his legislative
power, without using his judicative and potestative ; he who does it
as an act of direct jurisdiction, not as a lord, or a judge, but as a
lawgiver. Now, say they, God does never as a lawgiver cancel or
abrogate any law of nature, but as a lord He transfers rights, and as
a judge He may use what instruments He please in executing His
sentence ; and so by subtracting or changing the matter of the laws
of nature, He changes the whole action.

To these things I make this reply.

§ 3. 1) That this is doing the same thing under another manner
of speaking ; for when it is enquired whether the law of nature is dis-
pensable, the meaning is, whether or no that which is forbidden by
the law of nature may in certain cases be done without sin : but we
mean not to enquire whether or no this change of actions from un-
lawful to lawful be that which the lawyers in their words of art and
as they define it call dispensation ; for in matters of conscience, it is
pedantry to dispute concerning the forms and terms of art, which
men to make their nothings seem learning dress up into order and
methods, like the dressings and paintings of people that have no
beauty of their own : but here the enquiry is and ought to be more
material in order to practice and cases of conscience. For if I may
be permitted to do that which by the law of nature I am not per-
mitted, then I am dispensed with in the law of nature, that is, a leave
is given to me to do what otherwise I might not.

§ 4. 2) That the doing of this by any of the forenamed instru-
ments or ways is a dispensation and so really to be called, appears in
the instances of all laws. For if it be pretended that the pope can
dispense in the matter of vows, or a prince in the matter of marriages,
which are rate and firm by the law of nature ; he cannot do it by direct
jurisdiction or by annulling the law which is greater than either king

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 335

or bishop : for wnen a dispensation is given in these instances, it is
not given but when there is cause, and when there is cause the mnlter
is changed, and though the law remains, yet in a changed matter the
obligation is taken off; and this is that which all the world calls dis-
pensation : and so it is in the present question ; when God changes
the matter or the case is pitiable, or some greater end of God is to
be served, that is, when there is cause, God dispenses, that is, takes
off the obligation. Here only is the difference,

§ 5. 3) In divine dispensations God makes the cause; for His
laws are so wise, so prudent, so fitted for all needs and persons and
all cases, that there is no defaillance or new arising case which God
did not foresee : but because He hath ends of providence, of justice,
of goodness or power to serve, He often introduces new causes of
things, and then He gives leave to men to finish His designs by in-
struments which without such leave would be unlawful. But ' in
human dispensations the cause is prepared beforehand, not by the
lawgiver, but by accident and unavoidable defect : for without cause
dispensations are not to be granted, but in both the dispensation is
not without the changing of the matter, that is, without altering the
case. God does not give leave to any man to break a natural law,
as long as he keeps that natural law in its own force and reason : and
neither does a prince or bishop give leave to any subject to break any
of his laws when there is no need ; for the first would be a contra-
diction, and the second a plain ruin of his power, and a contempt to
his laws. Therefore in the sum of affairs it is all one ; and because
actions generally forbidden by the law of nature may by God be com-
manded to be done, and then are made lawful by a temporary com-
mand, which He made unlawful by nature or first sanction ; that is a
direct dispensing with single persons in the law of nature. And to
say it is not a dispensation, because God does not do it by an act of
simple jurisdiction, but by the intertexture of His dominative and
judicial power, is nothing but to say that God having made a law
agreeable to reason, will not do against that reason which Himself
made, till He introduces a higher, or another. For while all things
remain as was foreseen or intended in the law, both divine and human
laws are indispensable, that is, neither God in His providence, nor
men in the administration of justice and government do at all relax
their law. If it be said, a king can do it by absolute power, though
it be unjust; I confess this God cannot do, because He can do no
wrong : but if God does it, His very doing it makes it just ; and this
a king cannot do. But if the question be of matter of power, ab-
stracting from considerations of just or unjust, there is no peradven-
ture but God can do in His own law as much as any prince can do
in his. When the matter is changed, the divine law is as changeable
as the human, with this only difference, that to change the matter of
a divine natural law, is like the changing of the order of nature ;
sometimes it is done by miracle, and so is the law also changed, bv

336 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

extraordinary dispensation ; but this although it can happen as often
as God please, yet it does happen but seldom as a miracle : but in
human laws it can and does often happen, and therefore they are to
be dispensed with frequently ; and sometimes the case can so wholly
alter, and the face of things be so entirely new, and the incon-
venience so intolerable, that the whole law must pass away into de-
suetude and nullity ; which can never happen in the divine natural
law, because the reason of it is as eternal as nature herself, and can
only be interrupted by rare contingencies of God's procuring, as
the order of nature is by miracle; but will revert, because nature
will return into her own channel, and her laws into their proper
obligation.

§ 6. 4) But now to the matter of fact that God hath dispensed not
only by subtraction or alteration of the matter, but by direct juris-
diction, that is, as He is a judge, and a lord, and a lawgiver, even in
all the ways in which dispensations can be made, appears in several
instances.

§ 7. a) That the marriage of one man and one woman is by the
law of nature, appears by the institution of marriage, and by Christ's
revocation of it to the first sanction. It was so from the beginning,
and if any thing be a law of nature, that is one by the consent of all
men : and yet Moses permitted divorces, and God and Moses His
servant permitted polygamy when there was no necessity, no change
of the matter or of case, but only that men had a mind to it. For
if the conjunction of male and female was established in singulari
conjugio at the first, when there might be a greater necessity of mul-
tiplying wives for the peopling the world, then as the world grew
more populous the necessity could less be pretended ; therefore this
must be an act of pure jurisdiction : the causes of exception or dis-
pensation grew less when the dispensation was more frequent, and
therefore it was only a direct act of jurisdiction. Though I confess
that to distinguish dominion from jurisdiction, and the power of a
judge from that of a lawgiver, I mean when both are supreme, and
the power of a lord from them both, is a distinction without seal
difference : for as He is our Lord He gives us laws and judges us by
those laws, and therefore nothing is material in this enquiry, but
whether the action can pass from unlawful to lawful ; though because
the lawyers and other schools of learning use to speak their shib-
boleth, I thought it not amiss to endeavour to be understood by them
in their own way. So again, that brother and sister should not marry
is supposed to be a law of nature : but yet God dispensed with it in
the case of Cain and his sister ; and this He did as a Lord or as a
lawgiver, He made it necessary to be so, and yet it was not necessary
He should make it so, for He could have created twenty men and
twenty women as well as one. But that which is incest in others
was not so in him ; but there was no signal act of dominion or of
judicature in this, but it was the act of a free agent, and done because

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 337

God would do so : whether this be jurisdiction or dominion, let who
can determine.

§ 8. /3) But in some things God did dispense by changing the
matter, using that which men are pleased to call the right of domi-
nion1. Thus God did dispense with Abraham in the matter of the
sixth commandment ; God commanded him to kill his son, and he
obeyed, that is, resolved to do it, and willed that which in others
would be wilful murder. Now God was Lord of Isaac's life, and
might take it away himself, and therefore it was just : but when He
gave Abraham command to do it, He did not do it but by dispensing
with him in that commandment. It is true that God by His domi-
nion made the cause for the dispensation, but yet it was a direct dis-
pensation; and it is just as if God should by His dominion resolve
to take away the lives of the men in a whole nation, and should give
leave to all mankind to kill all that people as fast as they could meet
them, or when they had a mind to it. And this was the case of the
sons of Israel, who had leave to kill the Canaanites and their neigh-
bours. God dispensed with them in the matter of the sixth and
eighth commandments ; for it is not enough to say, that God as Lord
of lives and fortunes, had devested them of their rights, and per-
mitted them to others; for that is not enough, that God as Lord
hath taken away the lives and liberties and possessions of any man, or
community of men, for that act of dominion is not enough to warrant
any man to execute the divine decree. Nay though God hath decreed
and declared it concerning a crime that it shall be capital, yet a man
must have more than this to make it lawful to put that man to death.
He must be a minister of the divine jurisdiction; he must have a
power intrusted to him from God, and a commission to execute the
divine sentence ; and from hence it follows undeniably, that since the
delegate power is a delegate jurisdiction, and without this a man may
not put a capital offender to death ; that therefore the supreme power
from whence the delegation is commissionated is also a power of juris-
diction ; and therefore if the words of their own art are true, this leave
given to do that which without that leave were a sin against the law
of nature, is properly and truly a dispensation.

§ 9. y) The third way of dispensing is by applying the power of a
judge to a certain person or community, and by way of punishment to
take from him what cannot be taken from him but by a superior
power, or by the supreme. Thus we are commanded by the law of
nature to give nourishment and to make provisions for our children ;
but if children prove rebellious and unnatural, God can command
us to neglect that duty, and to expose them to the contingencies of
fortune. It is by the law of nature commanded to us to love and
honour our parents, to be loving and kind to our children ; but if
parents inticed their children to idolatry m, their children might lay

1 [Compare vol. vii. p. 274.]

m [Compare Deut. xiii. 6. " If thy brother . . . entice thee," &c.]

IX. Z

838 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

their hands upon them and stone them to death. It is a command
and a prime rule of the law of nature that we should do as we would
be done to; but even in this original rule and great sanction God
did dispense with the Israelites, for they might not exact upon one
another by usury, but to strangers they might ; what they hated to
have done to themselves they were willing and expressly permitted to
do to others. In these and the like cases, although an act of do-
minion or judgment might intervene, yet that's not enough to war-
rant the irregular action ; there must be an act of jurisdiction besides,
that is, if God commands it or by express declaration warrants it,
then it may be done. Thus God as a judge and being angry with
David intended to punish him by suffering his concubines to be hum-
bled by his son in the face of all Israel, but though he did it justly,
yet because Absalom had no command or warrant to do what God
threatened he was criminal. But Jeroboam and Jehu had commis-
sions for what they did, though of itself it was otherwise violent,
unjust, rebellious and unnatural, and therefore did need the same
authority to legitimate it, by which it became unlawful. God often
punishes a prince by the rebellion of his subjects11 ; God is just in
doing it, but He hates the instruments, and will punish them with a
fearful destruction unless they do repent : in this case nothing can
warrant the subjects to strike, but an express command of God.

§ 10. Thus I conceive the thing itself is clear and certain; but
for the extension of this, the case is yet in question, and it is much
disputed amongst them that admit this rule in any sense, how many
laws of nature can be dispensed with : for if all, then the consequents
will be intolerable ; if not all, by what are they separated, since they
all seem to be established by the bands of eternal reason. Some say
that the precepts of the second table are dispensable, but not the
first ; but that is uncertain, or rather certainly false : for if God did
please He might be worshipped by the interposition of an image ; or
if he essentially should hate that, as indeed in very many periods of
the world He hath severely forbidden it ; yet the second command-
ment and the fourth have suffered alteration and in some parts of
them are extinguished. Others say that the negative precepts are
indispensable, but not the affirmative : but this is not true, not only
because every negative is complicated with an affirmative, and every
affirmative hath a negative in the arms of it ; but because all the pre-
cepts of the second table, the first only excepted, are negative ; and
yet God can dispense with all of them as I have already proved.

§ 11. But though it be hard to tell how far this dispensation and
economy can reach, and to what particulars it can extend, because
God's ways are unsearchable, and His power not to be understood by
us ; yet since our blessed Saviour hath made up a perfect system of
the natural law, and hath obtained to Himself an everlasting king-

" [See vol. iv. p. 268.]

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. :',;>>)

dom, so that His law must last as long as the world lasts, and by it
God will govern mankind for ever : by the eternal reasonableness
and proportions of this law we can tell what is indispensable and
what not ; and the measure by which alone we can guess at it is this,
every matter from whence the ratio dehiti, or cause of the obligation
can be taken is dispensable. Now because God is supreme over all
His creatures, and can change all their affairs, and can also choose
the manner of His own worship, therefore in these things He can
dispense.

§ 12. But in that essential duty which His creatures owe to Him
the case is different ; for though God can exact more or fewer in-
stances of affirmative duty, these or others, yet there cannot be an
alteration of the main relation; and of the intrinsic duty, and the
entercourse of the soul with God in the matter of the principal affec-
tions there can be no dispensation. It is eternally and indispensably
necessary that we love God : and it were a contradiction that either
God should command us to hate Him, or that we could obey Him
if He did. For obedience is love ; and therefore if we obeyed God
commanding us to hate Him, we should love Him in hating Him,
and obey Him by our disobedience.

§ 13. Now if it be enquired to what purposes of conscience all
this enquiry can minister ; the answer to the enquiry will reduce it to
practice, for the proper corollaries of this determination of the ques-
tion are these,

§ 14. a) That our duty to God is supreme ; it is only due to Him,
it cannot be lessened, and ought not upon any pretence to be ex-
tinguished ,• because His will is the only measure of our obedience, and
whatsoever is in nature is so wholly0 for God and for God's service,
that it ought to bend, and decline from its own inclination to all the
compliances in the world which can please God. Our reason, our
nature, our affections, our interest, our piety, our religion are and
ought to be God's subjects perfectly ; and that which they desire, and
that which we do, hath in it no good, no worthiness, but what it de-
rives from the divine law and will.

§ 15. /3) That in the sanction of the divine laws the reason obliges
more than the letter : for since the change of the reason is the ground
of all mutation and dispensation in laws, it is certain that the reason
and the authority, that in the thing, this in God, are the soul and the
spirit of the law ; and though this must not be used so as to neglect
the law when we fancy a reason, yet when the letter and the reason
are in opposition, this is to be preferred before that. If the reason
ceases it is not enough of warrant to neglect the law, unless a con-
trary reason arises, and that God cannot be served by obedience in
that instance ; but when the case is not only otherwise but contrary
to what it was before, let the design of God be so observed as that

0 [holy, A.]

z 2

340 OF THE LA.W OF NATURE [BOOK II.

the letter be obeyed in that analogy and proportion. It is a natural
law that we should not deceive our neighbour, because his interest
and right is equal to any man's else ; but if God have commanded
me to kill him, and I cannot by force get him into my hand, I may
deceive him whom God hath commanded me to kill, if without such
a snare I cannot obey the command of God. But this is but seldom
practicable, because the reasons in all natural laws are so fixed and
twisted with the accidents of every man's life, that they cannot alter
but by miracle, or by an express command of God ; and therefore we
must in the use of this rule wholly attend upon the express voice of
God.

§ 16. y) It hence also will follow, that if an angel from heaven,
or any prophet, or dreamer of dreams, any teacher and pretendedly
illuminate person shall teach or persuade to any act against any
natural law, that is, against any thing which is so reasonable and
necessary that it is bound upon our natures by the Spirit of God, and
the light of our reason, he is not to be heard : for until God changes
His own establishments, and turns the order of things into new
methods and dispositions, the natural obligations are sacred and
inviolable.

§ 17. 8) From the former discourses it will follow, that the holy
scriptures of the New testament are the light of our eyes, and the
entire guide of our consciences in all our great lines of duty ; because
there our blessed Lord hath perfectly registered all the natural and
essential obligations of men to God and to one another : and that in
these things no man can or ought to be prejudiced ; in these things
no man is to have a fear, but to act with confidence and diligence ;
and that concerning the event of these things no man is to have any
jealousies, because since all the precepts of Christ are perfective of
our nature, they are instruments of all that felicity of which we can
be capable, and by these we shall receive all the good we can hope
for : and that, since God hath by His holy Son declared this will of
His to be lasting, and never more to be changed by any succeeding
law-giver, we must rest here, and know that no power less than God
can change any thing of this, and that by this law we shall stand or
fall in the eternal scrutiny.

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 341

RULE X.

THE LAW OF NATURE CANNOT BE DISPENSED WITH BY ANY HUMAN POWER.

§ 1. The reason is, 1) because nature and her laws have both the
same author, and are relative to each other ; and these as necessary
to the support and improvement of human nature, as nourishment to
the support of human bodies : and as no man can create new appe-
tites, or make hay or stones to be our nourishment, so neither can he
make that our nature should be maintained in its well-being without
these laws. 2) The laws of nature being bound upon us by the law
of God, cannot be dispensed withal, unless by a power equal or the
same, or superior to that which made the sanction : but that cannot
be at all ; therefore neither can they be dispensed with at all, unless
it be by God himself. 3) Natural laws are all the dictates of natural
reason, and he that dispenses with the law must have power to alter
the reason ; which because it can never be done but by superinducing
something upon nature greater than her own natural need, and none
can do this but God, therefore none but He can dispense.

§ 2. But because wise men have publicly said it, per jus gentium
et civile aliquid detrahitur de jure naturalip, ' by the law of nations
and the civil laws something may be diminished from the law of
nature •' it is to be considered what truth they could signify by those
words : for unless by some instances of case they had seen it lawful,
it is not to be supposed it could have been by so wise persons made
sacred. But the following measures are its limit.

§ 3. 1) Whatsoever is forbidden by the natural law cannot be
permitted by the civil ; because where the highest power hath inter-
posed, there the inferior and subordinate hath no authority : for all
it hath being from the superior, it cannot be supposed it can preju-
dice that from whence it hath all its being ; for if it could be other-
wise, then either the inferior must be above the supreme, or the
supreme must submit itself to what is under it.

§ 4. 2) Whatsoever is commanded by the law of nature cannot be
forbidden by the civil law ; for God who is here the law-giver is to
be heard, and He sets up no authority against Himself, nor gives
any man leave to disobey Him. These rely upon the same reasons,
and are described above.

§5.3) That which the law of nature hath permitted, and no more,
may be made up into a civil law, or it may be forbidden, according
to that rule in the law, Quod licitum est ex superveniente causa mu-
tator, 'that which is only lawful by a supervening cause may be

p L. Manumissiones,[ Digest., lib. i. tit. autem,' Instit. de jure natur. gentium
l.§ 4. col. 2.] et 1. Jus civile, ff. Dejusti- et civili. [lib. i. tit. 2. col. 21.]
tia et jure. [§ 6. col. 2.] et in sect. 'Jus

342 OF THE LAW OP NATUKE [BOOK II.

changed :' for rights are before laws in time and nature ; and are
only such licences as are left when there are no laws. Commands
and prohibitions of nature not being the matter of civil laws, unless
it be by way of corroboration, there can no laws be made in a na-
tural matter unless there be restraints or continued permissions of
their first rights. For that which in morality we call indifferent, in
nature we call a right : that is, something that is permitted me to do
or to use as I see cause for, is a thing upon which no restraint is
made ; that is, there is no law concerning it : but therefore the civil
law may restrain it, because the liberty and its use may do mischief,
and there is no law hinders it to be disposed by men. For if I may
by my private power or interest use any of it or deny myself the use
of it, much more may the civil power do it. I might not do it my-
self, if any law of God had forbidden me ; but if no law of God hath
forbidden, what can hinder but that the civil power may order it ?
such are natural liberty, community, powers of revenge, of taking any
thing, of killing any man that injures me.

§ 6. 4) That which is confirmed by the law of nature, may by the
civil power be altered and dispensed with : which happens in two
cases.

a) When the obligation supposes a foregoing act of the will, and
is arbitrary in one of the terms of relation. Titius owes a thousand
pounds to Caius, and by the essential or natural laws of justice is
bound to pay him ; but because this supposes a private right in Caius,
upon whom there is no restraint but he may use it or let it alone,
therefore Caius being at his liberty may refuse to use his power of
demanding the money of Titius, and forgive it him ; and if he do,
Titius, although bound by the natural law to pay him, is by the
private power of Caius dispensed with. Because in obligations as in
arguments, if there be one leg that can fail, the conclusion is infirm :
if one part can be loosed, the continuity of the whole is dissolved.

/3) The other case is like this : when the obligation is upon a con-
dition, if the condition of itself fails or be annulled by any just power
or interest, the obligation which was introduced by the law of nature
can be rescinded or dispensed with : for nature binds and looses ac-
cording to the capacity of the things. It passes a temporal band
upon temporal reasons and necessities, and an eternal band upon that
whose reason can never fail, and where the necessity is indetermin-
able. And if a natural law could bind longer than that reason lasts
for which it did bind, then a natural law could be unreasonable,
which is a contradiction. But then if the law does not bind in this
case beyond the condition, then it is but improperly to be called a
dispensation when it is relaxed : but it is usual to call it so, and it is
well enough ; for it means this great direction to conscience, that
though the law of God be eternal, yet its obligation may cease in the
foregoing cases. For even judges are said to dispense by interpret-
ing the law, and applying that interpretation to particulars.

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 343

§ 7. 5) The civil law can extrinsically change the natural law;
for things may be altered or cease by au intrinsic or by an extrinsic
cause. A father ceases to be a father when he dies, and he ceases to
be a father if all his children die ; this alteration is by an extrinsical
cause, but to all eil'ects and purposes it is the same as to the present
case. Now although nature cannot die, as species do not perish ; yet
nature may change, as individuals may die : that is, if the matter of
the law be subtracted, or so changed that it is to be governed with
another portion of reason, then the law also must cease as to that
particular. For as in the body of man there is great variety of acci-
dents and mutability of matter, but all that variety is governed by the
various flexures of the same reason, which remains unchanged in all
the complications and twistings about the accidents, and is the same
though working otherwise; so it is in the laws of nature, whose
reason and obligation remains unchanged, even when it is made to
comply with changing instances : but then it cannot but be said to
change, even as eternity itself hath successive parts by its coexistence
with variety of times. Trebonianus swears to pay homage and ac-
knowledgment for his villa of Hamola, and the royalties of Panizza,
to his landlord Calander and to his heirs for ever : by the laws of
nature he is now obliged, but if Calander and his heirs be dead, or
the land and possessions be aliened, or swallowed up by an earth-
cmake, or drowned in the sea, the law of nature cannot bind him to
that which is not, the matter of the obligation is subtracted, and
therefore he is disobliged.

§ 8. The sum is this : 1) when natural and prime laws are in prime
and natural instances whose matter is unchangeable, there the law
of nature cannot be prejudiced by any but by the Lord of nature : and
the reason of this is no other but the necessity and constitution of
nature. God hath made it so, and it is so to be served, so to be pro-
vided for ; and the law is a portion of the eternal law, an image of
the divine wisdom, as the soul is the image of the divine nature.
But when the natural laws are in a matter that can be prejudiced,
and do presuppose contract, cession, condition, particular states, or
any act of will, whose cause is not perpetual, the law binds by the
condition of the matter ; and the eternal law goes from its own matter
as the immortal soul does from the body. Thus we say that God's
gifts are without repentance, and His love never fails, and His pro-
mises are for ever ; and yet God does take away His gifts, and does
repent of His loving- kindnesses, and takes away His love, and will
not give what He had promised : but it is not because He changes
in Himself, but the correlative of His actions and promises are
changed.

§ 9. So that now upon this account the whole question and practice
about the pope's power in dispensing in the natural law will appear
to be a horrible folly without any pretence of reason, and the thing
by its chiefest patrons seems not at all to be understood. For since

344 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

the rules of nature are unalterable and eternal, the laws being framed
upon those rules complicated with matter, and persons, and events,
is also external, excepting only where the matter is or can be changed.
Now if the matter be in prime instances, as the conjunction of sexes,
relation of parents and children, &c, the law is the same for ever;
only this, if the matter by a miracle or extraordinary act of God be
changed, by the same power the law is to be changed : but as we say
rivers and seas run for ever, and yet Jordan was opened, and so was
the Red sea, and the perpetual course of the sun and moon was once
stopped, but it reverted when the extraordinary case was past ; so it
is in the law of nature, which in the prime instances and natural
matter is as unalterable as the course of the sun and seas.

But 2) Sometimes the matter changes alone, or is changed to our
hand, as in conditional contracts ; and in this case the law ceases, and
the obligation goes off as to that particular.

But 3) Sometimes the matter is changeable by the will of the in-
terested persons, and by none else but themselves, and they who have
over them the power which themselves have ; such as God, and under
Him, the supreme human power, their own princes. Now to apply
this to the question of the pope's power in giving dispensations, I con-
sider that, First,

To establish his power upon any words of scripture, is to pretend
that his power of dispensing is an act of jurisdiction and direct autho-
rity, that is, that he hath commission to do it with or without reason
or cause founded in the thing itself, but only because he will ; and he
that does so, says he can do more than (as many of the most learned
Roman doctors say) God can do : for He dispenses in the law of
nature in no case but when He changes the matter, in the prime or
second instances of nature respectively, which when the pope can do
he also may pretend to a commission of being lord of nature. But it
is certain that for this there are no words of scripture. But secondly,
if this power of dispensing be such as supposes the matter already
changed, that is, that there is a just cause, which is of itself sufficient,
but is not so to him who is concerned, till it be competently declared,
then all the dispute will be reduced to this, whether he be the most
probable doctor : for to expound when a natural obligation ceases, is
not an act of power but of wisdom ; and that the pope is the wisest
man, or the only wise man, it is also certain that there are no words
of scripture to affirm it. But besides this in cases of this nature, there
needs no dispensation, for the law ceases of itself; as in contracts
made upon condition, when the condition is not performed. In human
laws where the subject is bound more by the authority than the matter
of laws, the law may still be obligatory after the ceasing of the rea-
son or matter of the law ; and so there may be need of dispensation :
but we speak here of laws bound on us by God and nature, in which
the very ceasing of the matter of itself dispenses with the law. But
thirdly, if it be yet more than this, and that in a changeable matter,

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 345

I mean in things that are not prime instances of nature and of lasting
necessity, but in human contracts, promises, laws and vows, which
depend upon the pleasure and choice of men, but yet are corroborated
by the law of nature, he pretends to a power of altering the case so
to make way for dispensation ; then the pretence reaches to this, that
the pope must be lord of actions and fortunes, and the wills of others
and the contracts of men ; that is, in effect, that no contract shall be
valid unless he please ; and no man shall choose for himself, or if he
does he needs not stand to it ; and no man can have a right trans-
ferred to him by a contract, but it can be rescinded against the will
of the interested person : and if he can have any such power to do
thus much mischief, then justice will be the most contingent thing
in the world ; and the question will not be a question of theology,
but of empire, and temporal regard : and therefore for this no words
of scripture can be pretended, because no words of scripture of the
New testament ever did transfer an empire or temporal power to a
spiritual person for a spiritual reason : so that this will be a question
of war, not of peace and religion. To which I add this by way of
provision, that although supreme princes have in some cases power
to rescind contracts of their subjects, and parents of their children ;
yet this is only in their own circuits, done by mutual consent, in case
of public necessity or utility, of which by reason and the laws they
are made competent judges; which the pope also may have in his
temporal dominions as well as any other prince : but this is not dis-
pensation, but the annulling of contracts or promises ; it makes them
not to be at all, not to cease after they have a being, which is the
nature of dispensation, of which we now enquire. But the matter
of this question and the particular instance as it relates to the bishop
of Rome is of another consideration.

§ 10. 6) The civil law can add to the law of nature, not only new
obligations by affixing temporal penalties, but by requiring new circum-
stances to corroborate and consummate an action : not that the civil
law of a prince or republic can annul any thing which nature hath
confirmed, but it can hinder it from passing into a civil and public
warranty. Thus a clandestine contract is valid by the law of nature,
and in the court of conscience there are witnesses and judges and exe-
cutioners and laws and penalties to exact the performance of it : but
when the civil or ecclesiastic law hath commanded that in all con-
tracts of marriage there should be witnesses, it must mean that the
contract shall not be acknowledged for legitimate unless there be ;
and therefore that the contract must be solemnly published before it
be civilly firm. No civil power can so enjoin witnesses as that if the
contract be made without witnesses it shall not be obligatory in con-
science ; for this obligation is before the civil law, and is bound by
that power by which the civil power hath a being. But the civil
power which cannot annul the act of nature and conscience, can
superinduce something upon it. It cannot make the contractors to

346 OF THE LAW OF NATURE [BOOK II.

go back from what they have done, but to proceed to something more,
that what was firm in the inward may be confirmed in the outward
court. By our laws the clandestine contract is civilly null before
publication ; but in our religion we believe it obligatory in conscience,
and that it must come into publication. But by the laws of Home
the whole contract is nullified, and the persons disobliged, and the
marriage after consummation is dissolved. This is against the law of
nature, but the other is a provision for it by additional security, that
is, a taking care that the contracts of nature may not be denied. For
the confirmation of a natural contract nothing is necessary but a
natural capacity not hindered by the Lord of nature. Whatsoever
therefore is superinduced upon nature cannot disannul that to which
all things competently necessary are ingredient ; a condition brought
in by a less power cannot invalidate that which before that condition
was valid : but as civil powers derive their authority from natural
laws and reason, so to these they must minister, and they may do it
by addition and superfetation ; but they may not violate them by
irritation.

EULE XI.

THAT THE OBLIGATION TO A NATURAL LAW DOES CEASE IN ANY PARTICULAR,
IS NOT TO BE PRESUMED BY EVERY ONE, BUT IS TO BE DECLARED BY THE
PUBLIC VOICE

§ 1. This depends upon the foregoing discourses and is consequent
to them. For the several dispensations in the law of nature being
wrought by the change of their subject matter, the rule can never be
changed, because that is eternal and is abstract from matter ; but the
law may be dispensed with, because that is twisted with matter which
is not eternal. But then, because the several matters of laws can be
changed by several powers respectively, that power which alters the
matter, and consequently dispenses with the law, must by some evi-
dence or other make the change apparent. If God by His power
alters the case, and dispenses in the law, He also is to declare it;
because He must do more, for He must give expressly a leave to do
proportionable actions : He having bound us to the law of nature,
leaves us so till He tells us otherwise : and the same also is -the case
if the matter be changed by man ; for by the law of nature we being
bound to obey laws and perform contracts, must remain so bound till
he that holds' the other end of the string lets it go or tells us it is

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 347

untied; because he hath an interest in it, which must not depend
upon the reason of another, but upon that which is common to both.
For although we all agree that every rule of nature is unalterable,
and every law is to be observed, yet in every thing where a change
can be pretended, every man's reason is equal ; and therefore is not
to be made use of in relation to others. For we all agree that theft
is evil, but whether this action or this detention be theft, men's
reasons oftentimes cannot agree ; and since every man's reason hath
the same power and the same privilege, no man's single reason
can determine, because there is no reason why yours more than
mine. But therefore it is that there must be some common reason
to declare the case, and the man to be at liberty, and the law to
be loose.

§ 2. This hath no other variety in it but this, that although the
public voice must declare concerning those instances that concern
that matter of laws natural which is in her keeping, as God is to do
in those in which only He hath immediate power ; yet every private
man can declare the obligation of a natural law to be loose when he
holds one end of the string. If by a natural law Caius be tied to do
me an act of kindness and justice, it is my right; and as long as I
will demand it, I hold the band of the natural law in my hand : but
if I let it go, and will quit my right, the obligation is off, because the
matter is substracted. The reason of all is the same. No man is a
good judge in his own case where there is the interest of another
twisted with it : and it is unequal that my reason should govern my
neighbour's interest, or that his should govern mine ; this would be
an equal mischief, and therefore something indifferent to both must
turn the balance, that there may be equal justice and equal provision.
But if a man will quit his right there is no wrrong done. He can
sufficiently declare his own will and acts1 of kindness, and then the
law that combines with the matter takes the same lot.

EULE XII.

THE EXACTNESS OF NATURAL LAWS IS CAPABLE OP INTERPRETATION, AND MAY
BE ALLAYED BY EQUITY, AND PIETY, AND NECESSITY.

§ 1. "Whatsoever can be dispensed withal, is either dispensed
with by an absolute power of jurisdiction, or for some cause in the

1 [' and the acts,' C, D.]

348 OP THE LAW OP NATURE [BOOK II.

nature of the thing : and if the laws of nature can cease to oblige
without reason, but by the will and the command of the supreme, oi
God himself, much more may the same will and power do it when
there is also a reason ; and if there be a reason to take off the ob-
ligation wholly in some particulars, then much rather may there be
a cause to take off some part of the exactness upon a proportionable
cause. If it may be dispensed with, it may also be interpreted by
equity ; for this is less than that in the same kind. Every man is
bound to restore his neighbour's goods when they are demanded ; but
if he calls for his sword to kill a man withal, there is equity in this
case, and I am not guilty of the breach of the natural law if I refuse
to deliver him the sword when he is so violent and passionate. To
pay debts is a natural law ; but if a rich man calls for a sum of
money which is his due, and I by paying him to-day shall be undone,
and he by staying till next week shall not be undone, I do not break
the law of nature if I detain the money a little longer and offer him
satisfaction for the wrong, if he have received any. I promised my
brother to see him upon the ides of March ; in my journey to him I
broke my leg : now though I by the natural law am bound to per-
form promises, and it is possible that for all my broken leg, I might
get to him by the time, yet there is equity in it and piety that I for-
bear to go with so great an inconvenience. Surgam ad sponsalia quia
promisi, quamvis non concoxerim, sed non si febricitavero : . . subest,
inquam, tacita exceptio, si potero, si debebo : said Seneca"1. There is
an equity and a reasonableness in all these things. Ejjice ut idem
status sit cum exigitur, qui fuit cum promitterem : if the case be
when I am to perform as it was when I promised, then I am bound
pro rata portione : that is,

§ 2. 1) If it become impossible, I am wholly disobliged.

§ 3. 2) If it become accidently unlawful, I am dispensed with.

4. 3) If it become intolerably inconvenient, lam in equity to be
relieved. For in these cases it is no breach of promise, but I am
just if I desire to do it, and in the degree in which I am disabled, in
the same I am to be pitied. Destituere levitas non erit, si aliqtiid
intervenerit novi ; . . eadem mild omnia pr casta, et idem sumn : ' it is
not levity when I am the same, but my powers and possibilities are
changed or lessened/

But this is to be understood and practised with these limita-
tions :

§ 5. 1) Not every change of case can excuse or lessen or alter
the obligation, but such a change as makes the person pitiable, or
the thing more vexatious to the doer than it could be of advantage
to the other.

m De benef., lib. iv. [cap. 39. torn. i. p. 742.] n [ibid.]

CHAP. I.] IN GENERAL. 349

§ G. 2) If the cause does not continue, the first equity does not
disannul the obligation, but defers it only, and it returns when the
cause ceases.

§ 7. 3) The obliged person as he is not wholly disobliged for the
time, so neither for the thing itself ; for if it be matter of interest,
though without violation of nature's law it may be deferred, and does
not bind the man to a guilt, yet it does to a new duty, the duty of
giving satisfaction to him who suffered injury ; for since in the law
of nature all men's rights are equal, it is unnatural and unjust that
to one there should be remission and ease and to the other a burden.
For no man is to be better by the hurt and injury of another.

§ 8. 4) If the cause be less, or if it be more, it ought not to be
done unless an interpretative leave be justly or reasonably presumed.
In a great matter every man is presumed so charitable as to be willing
to comply with his brother's need or sad accident : but if it be less,
then the interpretative leave must be presumed upon the stock of
friendship or experience, or something upon which wise men usually
rely. Only in this case, the presumption ought to be less confident,
and more wary.

§ 9. This rule is to be understood principally in matters of justice
and relative entercourses ; for in matters of religion and sobriety the
case is different, because in natural religion and natural measures of
sobriety which are founded in prima natura, in the very consti-
tution of man's soul and body, in the first laws of God, and the
original economy of the body, the matter is almost as unalterable
as the rule.

CHAP. II.
OF THE LAW OF NATUKE, OR OF ALL MANKIND,

AS IT IS COMMANDED, DIGESTED, AND PERFECTED.
BY OUR SUPREME LAWGIVER

JESUS CHRIST.

VIZ.

OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE.

EULE I.

WHEN THE LAW OF JESUS CHRIST WAS ESTABLISHED, THE OLD TESTAMENT, OR
THE LAW OF MOSES, DID NO LONGER OBLIGE THE CONSCIENCE.

§ 1. The doctors of the Jews0 say that at the command of a pro-
phet, that is, of one that works miracles, it is lawful to break any
commandment, that only excepted which is concerning the worship
of one God. Thus at the command of Joshua the children of Israel
brake the precept of the sabbath at Jericho p, and Samuel q and Eliasr
offered sacrifice in places otherwise than the law appointed, and the
priests in the temple did kill beasts and laboured upon the sabbath,
and yet were blameless : and Circumcisio pellit sabbatum, was their
own proverb s, on the sabbath they circumcised their infants; and
the prophet Jeremy was author to the Jews in secunda domo, that is,
after they were taken captive, that they should change their compu-
tation by months, and not begin with Nisan.

§ 2. For God being the supreme lawgiver hath power over His
own laws, as being a creator He hath over His own creation ; He
that gave being can take it away, and the law may be changed though
God cannot. For God is immutable in His attributes, but His works
have variety, and can change every day ; as light and darkness suc-

0 Talmud, tit de Synedrio. [Martini Ugolin. thesaur. antiq. sacr., torn, xiv

' Pugio fidei,' part. iii. dist. 3. cap. 12. § 7.] col. 576 j It. Akiba, in tract, talmud. de

p [Josh, vi.] sabbato, per Sebast. Schmidt, cap. xix.

* [1 Sam. vii. 17; xiii. 8.] p. 47. ed. 4to. Lips. 1670; Mischna, tit.

r [ 1 Kings xviii. 19.] de sabbato, cap. 19. torn. ii. p. 62. ed. fol.

» [R. Eliezer, in Mechiltha, apud Amst. 1698—1703.]

CHAP. II.] OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, &C. 351

ceed each other, and summer and winter, and health and sickness,
and life and death, and perfect and imperfect; and He that com-
manded all men not to kill, might give a commandment to Abraham
that he should kill his son, and when He had established the law of
Moses, it was in His power, without any imputation or shadow of
change, to give the world a newT law, and a better.

§ 3. To this purpose our blessed Lord was indued with power
from on high to give a new law, for He was a great prophet, and did
many and mighty miracles, and advanced the spiritual worship of the
only true God ; and brought men from childish and imperfect usages,
to the natural, spiritual, manly, and perfective manner of worshipping
God : and therefore it was necessary that a change should be made :
for in Moses' law the rites were troublesome and imperfect, charge-
able and useless, not able to wash away sins, nor to perfect the spirits
of the saints ; it exhibited nothing substantial, but by shadows pointed
at the substance to be revealed afterwards ; it was fitted to the weak-
ness of imperfect people, and in some very great instances was ex-
ceeded by the lives and piety of some excellent persons, as Moses and
David, who by humility, meekness, forgiveness, and charity, did acts of
piety beyond the precepts of the law ; and many did not divorce their
wives, and yet by their law all were permitted to do it : for it might
be said of Moses as by the lawgiver of whom Origen* speaks, who
being asked if he had given to his citizens the best laws, he answered,
on ov tovs KaOaira£ kclWCo-tovs, aAA.' 3>v i]hvvaTO tov$ KaXXiarovs'
' not absolutely the best, but the best he could/ considering the inca-
pacity and averseness of his citizens : so did Moses, he gave a better
law than ever was before, and the best which that people and the state
of things could then bear ; but it was but for a time, and the very
nature of the law required a better to succeed it, and therefore He
that came and gave a better was not to be rejected, because He dis-
annulled the wrorse : et be ovtol p.\v Trpos tov Kara (pvcnv Xeyojievov
fxiaov (3[ov acpopwvTts kgu a irpoaioivT av /cat ol iroXkol, ots ra €ktos
cos ra ayaOa rj Ka/ca, kcu to, tov o-cojuaro? cWcurra)? v~neikr)iTTaL, vo\xo-
Oerovcn, tC tIs av tov tovtcov irapacpepaiv vop.ov avarpi-nti (3loV ' if
other lawgivers/ saith Porphyry11, f regarding that middle kind of life
which is said to be according to nature, and to those things of which
men are capable, who esteem things good or evil by proportions of
the body, have given laws symbolical, yet what hurt does he that
brings in better?'

§ 4. 1) Eor first, it is certain, God himself did permit some
things in Moses' law which Himself had no pleasure in : I instance in
the matter of divorces, of which God by the prophet" said, " I hate
putting away."

§ 5. 2) The promises of Moses' law, in which the whole obedience
was established, and for which it was exacted, were wholly temporal

« Adv. Cels., lib. iii. [torn. i. p. 499.] p. 45.]

° Lib. i. de non esu anim. [cap. 28. * [Mai. ii. 16.]

352 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

and related to this life ; and when the prophets and holy men of the
nation began to speak openly of resurrection from the dead, and a
life to come, it was an open proclamation of the imperfection and
change of that law, by which nothing of that was promised and
nothing at all spoken of, by which mankind should by obeying God
arrive to that felicity which all wise men did suppose God did design
to him.

§ 6. 3) Although good things for this life were promised by the
law of Moses, yet toward the end and expiration of it the nation suf-
fered a new dispensation of things ; and the godly men were often
persecuted, and the whole nation continually baffled and subdued by
him that would ; by the Assyrians and Chaldseans, by the Persians
and by Antiochus, by the Syrians and the Romans, and therefore it
was necessary they should expect some better covenant which should
be verified in the letter, and make recompence for the calamities which
their best men here did suffer.

§ 7. 4) The laws of Moses were such which were not of things
naturally and originally good, but which did relate to time and place
and person, but it was a law without which many ages of the world
did live, and after it was established it did only bind that people ; for
neither did Moses persuade his father-in-law Jethro to receive that
law, neither did the prophet Jonas persuade it to the Ninevites, nor
the prophets ever reprove the not observing it, in the Assyrians, or
Egyptians, the Idumeans and Moabites, the Tyrians and Sidonians,
or any of their neighbours, whose vices they oftentimes reproved
severely ; and the best men of the first and second world, Abel and
Enoch, Noah and Melchizedec, Sem and Job, Abraham and Isaac,
Jacob and Joseph, knew nothing of it, and yet were dear to God.
But if the law had consisted of essential prime and natural rectitudes,
it had been always and every where ; and if it consist not of such, it
is not fit to be lasting, but itself calls for a change when all the body
and digest of laws, excepting some few that were before that law and
shall be for ever, either were experiments of their obedience, or sig-
nifications of some moral duty implied in the external ritual, or com-
pliances with a present necessity, and to draw them far from imitation
of the vile customs of the nations, or were types and shadows of some-
thing to come thereafter.

§ 8. 5) The law of Moses was a covenant of works, and stipulated
for exact obedience, which because no man could perform, and yet for
great crimes committed under Moses' law there was there no promise
of pardon, no solemnity or perfect means of expiation, by the nature
of things and the necessity of the world and the goodness of God a
change was to be expected.

§ 9. 6) That their law and covenant should be changed was fore-
told by the prophets, particularly by the prophet Jeremiah y, " I will
make a new covenant with you in those days, and in your minds will

" [Jer. xxxi. 31, &c. ; Psalm 1., li., xl.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 353

I write it :" and when God had often expressed His dislike of sacri-
fices, in which yet the greatest part of the legal service was esta-
blished, God does also declare what that is which He desires instead of
it ; even no other than the christian law, " that we should give to
every one their due, and walk humbly with God2;" that they should
obey Him, " and give Him the sacrifice of a contrite and a broken
heart :" and if this be not a sufficient indication of the will of God
for the abolition of the mosaic law, then let this be added which was
prophesied by Daniel a, "The Messias shall cause the sacrifice and the
oblation to cease."

§ 10. 7) It was prophesied13 that in the days of the Messias the
gentiles also should be the people of God : but therefore they were
to be governed by a new law, for Moses'' law was given to one people,
had in it rites of difference and separation of themselves from all the
world, and related to solemnities which could not be performed but
in a certain place, and a definite succession and family ; which things
being the wall of partition and separation because Christ hath taken
away or confounded in an inseparable mixture and confusion, God
hath proclaimed to the Jews that Moses' law is not that instance of
obedience in which He will be any longer glorified.

§ 11. From these premises the pretence of the Jews for the eter-
nity of Moses' law will be easily answered. For whereas they say that
God called it ' an everlasting covenant/ it is certain that even
amongst the Jews, the word ' everlasting' did not always signify ' in-
finitely,' but to a certain definite period. For the law relating to the
land of their possession, in which God promised to them an everlast-
ing inheritance ; as their possession of the land is everlasting, so is the
covenant, and they expired together : for all the demonstrations of
the Spirit of God, all the miracles of Christ and His apostles, all the
sermons of the gospel, all the arguments which were taken from their
own books could not persuade them to relinquish Moses' law and ad-
here to Christ : and therefore when all things else did fail, God was
pleased to give them a demonstration which should not fail ; He
made it impossible for them to keep Moses' law, for He broke their
law and their nation in pieces. But as to the word ' everlasting,' and
' eternal,' it was usual with them to signify but to the end of a life,
or of a family, and therefore much rather of a nation. The band of
marriage is eternal, but it dies with either of the relatives ; and the
oath of allegiance is for ever, but that for ever is as mortal as the
prince. Thus also in Moses' lawc, 'The servant whose ear was
bored should serve for ever/ that was but till the year of jubilee;
and Hannah carried up her son to the temple when he was weaned
that he might abide there for everd. Thus the priesthood of Phine-

■ [Isa. i., Jer. vii., Micah vL] i. 11.]

* [chap. ix. 27.] c [Exod. xxi. 6.]

b [Jui-. xxiiL, Isa. xliii., Malach. [1 Sam. i. 22.]

ix. a a

354- OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

has was said to be for ever, but God who said that he " and his pos-
terity should walk before the Lord for evere," did put a period unto
it in Eli. But besides this, it is observable that the law and cove-
nant of Moses according to the manner of speaking of that and other
nations is used to distinguish it from the more temporary commands
which God gave to persons and to families, and to the nation itself
in the wilderness, which were to expire as it were with the business
of the day, but this was to be for ever, even as long as they enjoyed a
being in the land of their covenant : for thus we distinguish the laws
of peace from the orders of war ; those are perpetual, to distinguish
from the temporality of these.

§ 12. These arguments are relative to the Jews, and are intended
to prove the abrogation of Moses' law against them. But to Chris-
tians, I shall allege the words and reasons of the New testament, so
far as the thing itself relates to conscience. For not only the Jews
of old, but divers christian bishops of Jerusalem, fifteen in immediate
succession, did plough with an ox and an ass, and were circum-
cised^ the converted Pharisees, the Ebionitesg, the Cerinthians and
the Nazarseih still did believe that Moses' law did oblige the con-
science : and amongst us there are or have been a great many Old
testament divines, whose doctrine and manner of talk, and arguments,
and practices have too much squinted toward Moses.

§ 13. But against all such practices or pretences I produce the
decree of the apostles at Jerusalem in the question of circumcision,
the abrogation of which disannuls the whole law ; " for I Paul say
unto you, if ye be circumcised ye are debtors to keep the whole law :"
therefore by a parity of reason, we are not debtors to keep the law,
when that great sacrament and sanction of the law is annulled. To
this purpose are those frequent discourses of the holy scriptures of
the New testament : " the law and the prophets were until John1,
since that time the kingdom of God is preached :" where the two
terms of the law and the gospel are expressly described, John the
baptist being the common term between them both, so that " now we
are not under the law, but under grace5 ;" " we are dead to the lawk,"
and that band being separate, we are married to a new husband, even
to Christ, " who is also our high-priest, after the order of Melchi-
zedec, not after the order of Aaron ; but then the priesthood being
changed there is made of necessity a change also of the law1;" for
this was not to last but till Christ's coming, " for the law was given
but till the seed should come :" till then ' we were under the law as

6 [1 Sam. ii. 30.] [p. 125 sqq.] hseres. lxvi. [p. 693 sqq.]

' ['Ek TrepiTonrjs, — Euseb. H. E. iv. 5.] Damasc, verb. ' Nazaraei.' [De hseres.,

8 Iren., lib. i. cap. 26. [p. 105.] Hie- cap. xxix. torn. L p. 82 D.] August.

ron. ad Augustin., epist. lxxxix. [al. haeres. viii. et ix. [torn. viii. col. 7.]

lxxiv. torn. iv. part. 2. col. 623.] Euseb. ' [Luke xvL 16.]

hist, eccles., lib. iii. [cap. 27.] j [Rom. vi. 14.]

h Epiphan., hasres. xviii. [p. 38 sqq.] k [Rom. ^ii. 4.]

hseres. xxviii. [p. 110, — 6.] hseres. xxx. [Heb. vii. 11, 12.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 355

under a school-master"1/ but ' when faith came, we are no longer
under this psedagogy :' it was but * until the time appointed of the
Father/ and to this purpose S. Paul spends a great part of the epis-
tles to the Romans and Galatians. For one of the great benefits
which we receive by the coming of Christ is that we are now treated
with by a covenant of faith, that is, of grace and pardon, of repent-
ance and sincere endeavours ; the covenant of Moses being a prosecu-
tion of the covenant of works, can no longer oblige, and therefore
neither can the law ; for the law and the covenant were the constitu-
tive parts of that whole entercourse, they were the whole relation, and
this is that which S. John saidn, "The law came by Moses, but grace
arid truth came by Jesus Christ :" and ever since He was made our
Lord and our king He is our lawgiver and we are His subjects, till
the day of judgment, in which " He shall give up the kingdom to
His Father."

§ 14. But the greatest difficulty is behind ; for not all Moses' law
is disannulled, for some is enjoined by Christ, and some is of eternal
obligation ; and such the decalogue seems to be : the next enquiry
therefore is, what part of Moses' law is annulled by Christ. To this
I answer by parts.

RULE II.

THE CEREMONIAL LAW OF MOSES IS WHOLLY VOID.

§ 1. For this is that hand writing of ordinances which Christ
nailed to His cross, and concerning this we have an express command
recorded by the apostle0, " Let no man judge you in meat or in drink,
or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath
days :" and concerning the difference of meats not only their own
doctors say, the precept of Moses is not obligatory any where but in
Palestine, but they have forgot the meaning of the names of some of
them, or at least dispute it, which is not likely they would so
strangely have lost, if the obligation also had not been removed.
But as to us the case is confessed : for all the arguments before al-
leged proceed of this part of the mosaic law, if of any, this being
chiefly made up of umbrages, figures, and imperfect services, relative
to place and time, to families and separate persons, such which every
change of government could hinder, and which in the conflict and
concussion with other laws did ever give place, even in that time
when they were otherwise obligatory, which ' could not cleanse the

m Gal. iii. [19-25.] ' [i. 17.] ° [Coloss. ii. 10.]

A»2

356 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

conscience, nor take away sins;' but were a burden made to teach
something else, like letters written upon little cubes, or given as ap-
pellatives to slaves that the children who were waited on by them
might learn the alphabet1" ; but else they were a trouble to no real
perfective purpose of our spirits.

Quest.

§ 2. I know but of one difficulty which this thing can meet with,
and that is made by the scrupulous enquiries of some tender or
curious persons, who suppose the difference of meats not to be so
wholly taken away, but that still under the laws of the gospel we are
bound to abstain from blood and from things strangled ; pretending
for this scruple the canon of the apostles at Jerusalem11, which en-
joins this abstinence, and reckons it amongst the ra avajKaia, things
necessary : and this was for a long time used and observed strictly
by the Christians ; of which we have testimony from that law of Leo
the emperor1", where having forbidden the use of blood stuffed in the
entrails of beasts, he affirms that in the old law and in the gospel it
was always esteemed impious to eat it. And this was not only for
the present, and for compliance with the Jews, that by the obser-
vance of some common rites the gentile converts might unite with
the believing Jews into one common church : but they supposed
something of natural reason and decency to be in it ; and the obliga-
tion to be eternal, as being a part of that law which God gave to
Adam, or at least to Noah after the flood ; for they who use to eat
or drink blood are apt to degenerate into ferity and cruelty and easi-
ness of revenge ; and if Origen's fancy had been true, it had been
very material, for he supposed that the devils were fed with blood :
but however, certain it is that the church did for divers ages most re-
ligiously abstain from blood, and it was the great argument by which
the primitive Christians did confute the calumnies of the heathens im-
puting to them the drinking of human blood ; they could not be sup-
posed to do that, who so religiously abstained from the blood of beasts,
as we find it argued in Tertullians, Miuutius1, and Eusebiusu, who also
tells of Biblisx that she rather would die than eat blood in a pudding;
and in the canons commonly called apostolical y it is forbidden to a
clergyman to eat blood, under pain of deposition, to a layman under
excommunication ; which law was mentioned and supposed obliga-
tory in the second canon of the council of Gangra2, and long after by
the canon of the council in Trulloa, by the council of Worms under

p [Philostr. in vit. Herod. Attic, cap. y Can. Ixiii. [al. lv. Coteler. patr.

x.] apost., torn. i. p. 450.] Vide etiam Cle-

•> Acts xv. [20.] ment. Alex., Psedag. lib. iii. cap. 3. [p.

r Novel, lviii. [p. 114. ed. 8vo. Par. 267.] Niceph. [hist, eccles., lib. iv. cap.

15(J0.] 17.] et idem videre est apud Lucianum

8 In Apol. cap. ix. [p. 10 A.] in Peregr. [cap. xvi. torn. viii. p. 273.]

* In Octavio. [cap. xxx.] * [Concil., torn. i. col. 533 D.]

u Eccles. hist., lib. v. c. 1. [p. 203.] * [Sive Quinisext., can. lxxvii. torn.

* [al. ' Biblias.'] iii. col. 1685.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 357

Ludovicus Pius, cap. lxv.h, by Pope Zechary in his epistle to Boni-
face0 ; and from hence the penitential books had warrant enough to
impose canonical penances upon them that did taste this forbidden
dish : and that they did so is known and confessed.

§ 3. But to the question and enquiry, I answer, 1) That the absti-
nence from blood is not a law of nature or of eternal rectitude ; as
appears, first in that it was not at all imposed upon the old world, but
for a special reason given to the posterity of Noah to be as a bar to
the ferity and inhuman blood-thirstiness of which the old giants were
guilty, and possibly others might afterwards. For the Jews reckon
but six precepts given to Adam and his posterity after the falld. The
first against strange worship. The second of the worshipping the
true God. The third of the administration of justice. The fourth
of disclosing nakedness, or a prohibition of uncleanness. The fifth
against shedding blood. The sixth against theft : and indeed here
are the heads of all natural laws ; but because the old world grew
cruel to beasts, and the giants were degenerated into a perfect ferity,
and lived on blood, therefore it pleased God to superadd this to Noah,
that they should not eat blood ; that is, that they should not eat the
flesh of beasts that were alive, that is, flesh with the blood : and it
is not to be despised that the drinking of blood is not forbidden, but
the eating only ; meaning that the blood was not the main intention
of the prohibition, but living flesh, that is, flesh so long as the blood
runs from it : ' flesh with the life thereof/ that is, 'with the bloode/
so run the words of the commandment; and therefore the doctors of
the Jews expressed it by the not tearing a member of any live crea-
ture, which precept was the mounds of cruelty, God so restraining
them from cruelty even to beasts, lest they might learn to practise it
upon men. Por God sometimes places some laws for defensatives to
others, and by removing men afar off from impiety He secures their
more essential duty. 2) But even this very precept is by all the
world taught to yield to necessity and to charity, and cruelty to beasts
is innocent when it is charity to men : and therefore though we do
not eat them, yet we cut living pigeons in halves and apply them to
the feet of men in fevers f, and we rip the bellies of sheep, of horses,
of oxen, to put into them the side of a paralytic ; and although to
rude people and ignorant such acts of security were useful, yet to
Christians it is a disparagement to their most excellent institution,
and the powers and prevalences of God's spirit, to think they are not
upon better accounts secured in their essential duty. The Jews were
defended from idolatry by a prohibition even of making and having
images, but he is but a weak Christian who cannot see pictures with-
out danger of giving them worship. 3) The secret is explicated by

j; [torn. v. col. 746 A.] e [Gen. ix. 4.]

[Epist. i. cap. 3. concill., torn. iii. ' [Compare Evelyn's life of Mrs. Go-

coL 1882.] dolphin, p. 148. ed. 8vo. Lond. 1848;

d [See Selden, de jur. nat. et gent., Pcpys' Diary, vol. ii. p. 224. cd. iii. 8vo.

lib. i. cap. 10.] Lond. 1848, 9.]

358 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

God in the place where He made the law : it was first, a direct de-
sign to introduce mercy into the world, by taking care even of beasts ;
and secondly, it was an outer guard against the crime of homicide :
and Irenseus, Tertullian, S. Cyprian, and S. Ambrose expound the
meaning of the whole affair to be nothing else but a prohibition of
homicide; for as God would have men be gentle to beasts e, so if
beasts did kill a man, it should be exacted of themh : neither the
man's dominion over the beast could warrant his cruelty over them,
nor the want of reason in beasts bring immunity if they killed a man,
and the consequent and purpose of both these is expressed, ver. 6,
" whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed ;" and
all this put together is a demonstration how dear lives are to God :
even the life of beasts is in one sense sacred ; for even then when
they were given to man for food, yet the life was not, they must first
be dead before they might be eaten, but therefore the life of man was
sacred in all senses, and should be required of man and beast. But
that God doth even take care for oxen in the matter of life, appears
in this prohibition, " flesh with the Life thereof ye shall not eat ;" that
is, you shall not devour the flesh even while it is alive, for the blood
is the life thereof; that is, when the blood is gone you may eat, till
then it is presumed to be alive. Now there can be no other meaning
of the reason, for if blood were here directly prohibited to be taken
and drunk or eaten, this reason could not have concluded it, 'be-
cause it is the life, therefore you may not eat it/ being no better an
argument than this ; ' you may not eat the heart of a beast, for it is
the life thereof;' but the other meaning is proper, ' ye shall not eat
flesh with the blood which is the life thereof/ that is, so long as the
blood runs, so long ye must not eat ; for so long it is alive, and a
beast may be killed but not devoured alive. So that the prohibition
of blood is not direct in the precept, but accidental; blood is for-
bidden as it is the sign of life and the vehiculum of the spirits, the
instruments of life1 ; and so long as it runs, so long the life abides
ordinarily ; and therefore Zonaras in his notes upon the council of
Gangra^ expounds the word at^a or blood supposed in that canon as
unlawful to be eaten or drunk, by ef k-ninqheva-eats tyoixevov ml 7rrjy-
vvfxevov, blood diligently or fast running or following the wound k, and
thick ; that is, as I suppose, blood digested, to distinguish it from
serum sanguinis, or the watery blood that is seen in beasts after they
have bled, that they might not have scruple in minutes and little
superstitions : yjaph k-niT-qhtvTov cujuaros, ' without active blood/
so Balsamo ' : and it is not impertinent to the main enquiry that it
be observed that the Jews use ' life' instead of ' blood/ and so does
the vulgar Latin, that we might the easier understand the meaning

B [ver. 4.] j [Apud Bevereg. synodic, torn. i.

* [ver. 5.] p. 418 A.]

Vide S. Aug. contra adversarium k [' de industria decoctum,' interpr.

legis et prophetarum. [lib. ii. cap. 6. Gentian. Hervet]

torn. viii. col. 592.] ' [ibid., p. 417 F.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 359

to be of ' life/ or ' living blood/ But then this is nothing to eating
the blood when the beast is certainly dead, and therefore it is observ-
able that they who did make a scruple of eating blood did not all of
them make a scruple of eating things strangled in which the blood
remained; and therefore in some copies of the apostolical decree
mentioned Acts xv. the word itviktov or 'strangled' is left out, and
S. Austin"1 observes that in his time in Africa the Christians did not
severely abstain from things strangled. For if the case were the same
between blood running and blood settled and dead, then the reason
of the commandment were nothing or not intelligible ; and besides
it would breed eternal scruples, since in the very killing of beasts
there will some blood remain, and in the neck pieces and some veins
every body hath observed some blood remaining even after the effu-
sion by the knife. 4) This could not be a law of nature, because not
mentioned by Christ in all His law, which I have already proved to
be a perfect digest of the natural law : only that sense of it which I
have now given is involved in a law of nature, and consequently en-
joined by Christ, viz. under the precepts of mercy, according to that
saying of the wise man", ' a good man will be merciful to his beast :'
and the Athenians put a boy to death because he took delight to
prick out the eyes of birds and so let them fly for his pastime, as
supposing that he who exercised his cruelty upon birds being a boy
would in time destroy men too. 5) Upon the account of this inter-
pretation we are to distinguish the material part from the formal ;
the blood as it is such a substance from the blood as it is alive : just
as the elbu>\66vTa are to be differenced ; for to eat the meat when it
is sold in the shambles is a thing indifferent, said S. Paul0, though
it was offered to idols ; but this very meat might not be eaten in the
temples, nor any where under that formality, as S. Paul there dis-
courses ; and therefore what the apostles in their letter to the churches
call €lho)\69vTav, S. James in the decision of the question calls aki-
ayr\\xaTa tcZv dbcokcov, ' pollutions of idols/ that is, all communica-
tions in their idolatrous portions and services ; and so it is for blood,
abstain from life-blood, or blood that runs while the beast is dying,
that is, devour not the flesh while the beast is alive, be not cruel and
unmerciful to your beast : but if blood be taken in its own materiality
when the beast is dead, it may be eaten as other things, without scruple ;
they being both in the same sense as in the same obligation :

aTfia 5e /ut) <pay4tiv, ti8aiAo8vTaii> 5' cbre'xecrflai i.

There is a letter and a spirit in both of them. 6) One thing only I
shall add to make this appear to have been relative, temporal, and cere-
monial ; and that is, that when God was pleased to continue the com-
mand to the sons of Israel in Moses' law, He changed the reason, only

m [Contr. Faust. Manich., lib. xxxii. ° [1 Cor. x. 25.]

cap. 13. torn. viii. col. 457.] p [Acts xv. 20.]

D [Prov. xii. 10.] •■ Phocyl. [?]

360 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

reciting the old reason for which it was imposed to the posterity of
Noah, and superadding a new one as relating to themselves : " For
the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon
the altar to make an atonement for your souls ; for it is the blood
that maketh an atonement for the soulr." So that to the blood there
was superadded a new sacredness and religion, it was typical of the
great sacrifice upon the cross, the blood of which was a holy thing,
and it was also instrumental to their sacrifices and solemnities of their
present religion : and therefore this ritual is to cease after that the
great sacrifice is offered, and the great effusion of blood is past. But
as they had a new reason, so also had they a new injunction, and
they were interdicted the eating of any thing strangled : which they
taking to be a pursuance of the precept given to Noah, were the more
zealous of it ; and lest their zeal might be offended, the first Chris-
tians in their societies thought fit to abstain from it. But this ever
had a less obligation than the former, and neither of them had in
their letter any natural obligation; but the latter was introduced
wholly upon the levitical account, and therefore did cease with it.
7) After this so plain and certain commentary upon this precept I
shall the less need to make use of those other true observations made
by other learned persons ; as that this canon was made for a tempo-
rary compliance of the gentile proselytes with the Jewish converts;
that this was not a command to abstain from blood, or strangled, but
a declaration only that they were not obliged to circumcision, but
they already having observed the other things, it was declared they
need go no further ; that whereas these things were said to be neces-
sary, kiiavayKes, the meaning of the word is not absolute but relative ;
for it is 671-' avdyK-qs *x€iV> ' t° nave a thing under some necessary
condition/ and so it happened to them to whom the apostles wrote ;
for they were gentile proselytes before they were Christians, and so
were tied to observe the seven precepts of Noah before the Jews
would converse with them, and therefore that this did not concern
the gentiles after they were an entire church; for although it did
while the separation lasted, and that there were two bishops in some
great churches, as in Rome and Ephesus, yet when the church was
of gentiles only, or conversed not with Jews, this could not relate to
them. That blood should be forbidden in the formality of meat is
infinitely against the analogy of the gospel ; the decretory and dog-
matical words of Christ8 being, 'that nothing which enters into the
mouth defiles a man :* and the words of S. Paul are permissive and
preceptive, " whatsoever is sold in the shambles, eat, asking no ques-
tion for conscience sake : for meat commendeth us not to God ; for
neither if we eat are we the better, neither if we eat not are we the
worse* :° and " the kingdom of God cousisteth not in meat and drink,
but in righteousness, and peace, and joy in the holy Ghost u." The

' [Levit. xvii. 11.] * [1 Cor. x. 25.]

• [Matt. xv. 11.] » [Rom. xiv. 17.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT KULE OF CONSCIENCE. 361

result is this, that blood as it is a meat cannot be supposed here to
be directly forbidden as naturally unlawful, or essentially evil, or of
a proper turpitude : but if the apostles had forbidden the very eating
of blood as meat, it must be supposed to be a temporary and relative
command which might expire by the ceasing of the reason, and did
expire by desuetude; but since it was not so, but a permitting the
gentile proselytes and encouraging them for present reasons to abstain
from running or life-blood in the sense above explicated, according
to the sense of the Jewish doctors and their disciples, it no way can
oblige Christians to abstain from blood when it is dead, and altered,
and not relative to that evil which was intended to be forbidden by
God to Noah, and was afterwards continued to the Jews. I end this
with the words of Tertullian*, Claves macelli tibi tradidit, permit-
tens esui omnia ad constituendam idolotliytorum exceptionem: fGod
hath given to us the keys of the shambles, only He hath forbidden
the pollution of idols : in all other things you have your liberty of
eating/

§ 4. 1) I am only now to give an account of the ancient churches,
why so pertinaciously and so long they refused to eat boiled blood,
or any thing of that nature : but for that it is the less wonder when
we consider that they found it enjoined by all the churches where the
Jews were mingled, and the necessity lasted in some places till the
apostles were dead, and the churches were persecuted : and then men
used to be zealous in little things, and curious observers of letters ;
and when the succeeding ages had found the precedents of martyrs
zealous in that instance, it is no wonder if they thought the article
sufficiently recommended to them. 2) But if we list to observe that
the Pythagorean philosophers were then very busy and interested in
the persuasions of men and sects, and Pythagoras and Plato and
Socrates had great names amongst the leading Christians, it is no
wonder if in the percolation something of the relish should remain,
especially having a warrant so plausible to persuade, and so easy to
mistake as this decretal of the apostles, and the example of the
ancients living in that time which the heathens called the golden

age.

Nam vetus ilia oetas

non polluit ora cruore ;

Single life, and abstinence from certain meats, and refusing of blood,
and severity of discipline, and days of abstinence were sometimes
persuaded, sometimes promoted, sometimes urged, sometimes made
more necessary, by the Montanists, the Essenes, the Manichees, the
Novatians, the Encratites, the Pythagoreans, and the very heathen
themselves ; when because they would pretend severity it became fit
that the Christians should not be or seem inferior to them in self-
denial, discipline, and austerities. But I shall make no more con-
jectures in this matter, since if the church at that time did enjoin it,

* De jejuniis. [cap. xv. p. 563 A.] * Ovid, metam., HI), xv. [96.]

362 OP THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

the canon was to be obeyed, and it may be in some places it was
practised upon that stock; upon any other just ground it could not,
as I have already proved. Only this, it cannot be denied but in the
western church where this decree and the consequent custom was
quickly worn out, though it lasted longer even to this day in the
Greek church, and Balsamo2 inveighs against the Latins for their
carelessness in this article, yet there were some intervals in which by
chance this decree did prevail ; but it was when the bishops of Eome
were so ignorant that they could not distinguish the Old testament
from the New, but in some particulars did judaize. I instance in pope
Zecharya before mentioned, who in his decretal to Boniface the arch-
bishop of Mentz is very curious to warn him to forbid all Christians
with whom he had to do, they should abstain from some certain sorts
of birds, as jack-daws, crows, and storks, but especially that Chris-
tians should eat no hares, nor beavers, nor wild horses : and the
council of Wormsb determined something to the like purpose, not
much wiser ; but what was decreed then was long before reproved
by S. Austin0, affirming that if any Christian made a scruple of
eating strangled birds in whom the blood remained, he was derided
by the rest : and that this thing which was useful in the infancy of
the church should be obtruded upon her in her strength, is as if we
should persuade strong men to live upon milk because their tender
mothers gave it them as the best nourishment of their infancy.

§ 5. This thing being cleared I know no other difficulty concern-
ing the choice of meats in particular, or the retention of the cere-
monial law in general, or in any of its instances, but what will more
properly be handled under other titles.

EITLE III.

THE JUDICIAL LAW OF MOSES IS ANNULLED OR ABROGATED, AND RETAINS NO
OBLIGING POWER EITHER IN WHOLE OR IN PART OVER ANY CHRISTIAN
PRINCE, COMMONWEALTH, OR PERSON.

§ 1. Either the judicial was wholly civil, or it was part of the
religion. If it was wholly secular and civil, it goes away with that
commonwealth to whom it was given ; if it was part of the religion
it goes away with the temple, with the lawgivers' authority by cession
to the greater, with the priesthood, with the covenant of works, with
the revelation and reign of the Messias : and though the instances
of this law proceeding from the wisest lawgiver are good guides to
princes and commonwealths where the same reasons are applicable in

* [In can. apost., lxiii., apud Bevereg. b [cap. lxv. torn. v. col. 746 A.]
synodic, tom. i. p. 41 C] c Contr. Faust. Manich. [lib xxxii.

* [Epist. xii. tom. iii. col. 1916 D. cap. 13. tom. viii. col. 457 D.]

CHAP. II. 1 THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 363

like circumstances of tilings, and in equal capacities of the subjects,
yet it is wholly without obligation. In the judicial law theft was
not punished with death, but with the restitution of four-fold ; and
unless the necessities of a republic shall enforce it, it were consonant
to the design of christian religion, the interests of souls, their value
and pity, that a life should not be set in balance over against a sheep
or a cup. In the judicial law of Moses adultery was punished with
death ; but it will not be prudent for a commonwealth to write after
this copy unless they have as great reason and the same necessity,
and the same effect be likely to be consequent ; it was highly fitting
there, where it was so necessary to preserve the genealogies, and
where every family had honours and inheritances and expectations of
its own, and one whole tribe expected in each house the revelation
of the Messias, and where the crime of adultery was infinitely more
inexcusable by the permission of divorces and polygamy than it can
with us. But with us, and so in every nation, many considerations
ought to be ingredient into the constitution of a capital law ; but
they have their liberty, and are only tied up with the rules and
analogies of the christian law : only the judicial law of Moses is not
to be pretended as an example and rule to us because it came from a
divine principle, unless every thing else fit it by which the propor-
tions were made in that commonwealth; for although God made
aprons for Adam and Eve, it would not be a comely fashion for the
gallants of our age and countries. But concerning this who desires
to see long and full discourses, I refer him to Guilielmus Zepperus
Be legibus Mosaicis, and the preface of Calvin the lawyer to his
Themis Hebrao-Romana.

§ 2. But the thing in general is confessed, and the arguments now
alleged make it certain ; but then why it should not be so in every
particular when it is confessed to be so in the general, I do not un-
derstand, since there are no exceptions or reservations of any particular
in the new law, the law of Christianity. But in two great instances
this article hath difficulty ; the one is 1) The approach of a man to
his wife during her usual term of separation, 2.) The other is con-
cerning the degrees of kindred hindering marriage ; both which being
taken express care of in the judicial law, and yet nothing at all said
of them in the laws of Christ, are yet supposed to be as obligatory to
Christians now, as to the Jews of old. Of these I shall now give
account because they are of great use in the rule of conscience, and
with much unquietness and noise talked of, and consciences afflicted
with prejudices and authority, with great names and little reasons.

Quest.

§ 3. "Whether the judicial law of mutual abstinence in the days of
women's separation obliges Christian pairs ?

§ 4. The judicial law declared it to be twice penal. Once it only
inferred a legal uncleanness for seven days, Lcvit. xv. 24. But in

364 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

Levit. xx. 18, it is made capital to them both; "they shall be both
cut off from the people."

§ 5. From hence Aquinas, Alexander of Ales, Bonaventure, and
Scotus affirm it to be a mortal sin for a husband then to approach
to her : Paludanus and Cajetan deny it ; and amongst the casuists
it is with great difference affirmed or denied; but with very trifling
pretences, as if they were to give laws, and not to inform con-
sciences upon just grounds of reason or religion.

§ 6. They who suppose it to be unlawful affirm this law to be
ceremonial, judicial, and moral. It is ceremonial, because it inferred
a legal impurity, or separation for seven days. It is judicial, by its
appendent sentence of death, and a capital infliction. It is moral,
because it is against charity, as being hurtful to the child in case any
be begotten by such approaches. The whole ceremoniality of it is
confessedly gone, but the punishment of it in the judicial law being
capital they urge it as an argument that it is moral. So that the whole
weight lies upon this : that which was by the law of God punished
with death, was more than a mere ceremony, and must contain in it
some natural obliquity and turpitude. And in this case we need not
to go far in our enquiry after it, for it is because of the great un-
charitableness, as being a cause of monstrous productions, or lepro-
sies and filthy diseases in the children ; and as the former of these two
signifies its morality, so this does formally constitute it : and this is
confirmed by the words annexed to the prohibition, " For the nations
committed all these things, therefore I abhorred themd :" amongst
which this in the question being enumerated, it will follow more
than probably, that since this thing was imputed to the heathens
who were not under Moses' law, it must be imputed because it was
a violation of the law of nature.

§ 7. To these things I answer, 1) That the punishment of all such
approaches under Moses' law with death, was no argument of any
natural turpitude and obliquity in the approach. For then circum-
cision would be necessary by a natural law, because every soul that
was not circumcised was also to be cut off from his people. But if
for this reason it were only to be concluded unlawful, then since this
reason is taken away, and it is by no law of God punishable, nor yet
by any law of man, it follows that now it cannot be called a mortal
or a great sin, to which no mortal punishment is annexed, nor indeed
any at all.

§ 8. 2) But neither was it just thus in the law of Moses. For by
the law of Moses it was nothing but a legal impurity, a separation
from the temple and public sacrifices and some sorts of commerce for
seven days ; and thus much was also imposed upon the woman though
she was locked up and conversed with no man even for her natural
accident : and if by the gravity or levity of a punishment we may
make conjectures of the greatness of a sin (of which I shall in the

d [Levit. xx. 23.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 3G5

third book give accounts) then it would follow that every such ap-
proach was nothing but a breach of a legal rite or ceremony, since it
was punished only with a legal separation, which also was equally
upon every innocent woman in that period. Yea, but besides this it
was made capital. I answer, that could not be, if the case were the
same ; for two punishments are not in laws inflicted upon the same
offence, directly and primarily : and therefore Radulphus Flaviacensise
supposes here to be a direct contradiction in the letter of these two
laws, and that they are to be reconciled by spiritual significations, in
which only they are obligatory to us under the gospel ; but I do not
very well understand what he would have, nor any ground of his con-
jecture, but am content it is not material, since he confesses that the
very letter obliged the Israelites, which how it is possible, and yet be
contradictory, I shall never understand. Hugo Cardinalisf says that
the first of these punishments was on him who did it ignorantly, but
it was capital only to him who did it knowingly and voluntarily. But
tins is not probable, for then it would be in effect so that the man
might only contract a legal impurity, and the woman be sure to die
for it :

Enimvero dura lege hie agunt nrulieres* :

for although the man could often say truly, and might always pretend
that he did it ignorantly, yet the woman could not : for it is not
likely that she should with much probability at any time say she did
it ignorantly, and since it cannot be but by a rare contingency, it is
not likely to be the subject matter of a regular law, and provided for
by a daily and perpetual provision ; especially since that case is
already provided for in other periods, as being sufficiently included
under them that by chance touch a woman so polluted : and there-
fore this does not reconcile the difficulty, but since it must be con-
fessed that on the woman (at least ordinarily) both these laws must
have effect, and yet the woman cannot easily and ordinarily be sup-
posed to be ignorant in such a case so as to need a law (for laws use
not to be made for rare contingencies), it follows that this distinction
is not sufficient to reconcile the difficulty. But Lyra and Abulensis
have a better, saying that the legal impurity was the punishment only
when the fact was private, but it was capital when it was brought
before the judge : and truly for this there was great reason. For
since the woman also was to die, it is not to be supposed that she
would accuse her husband and condemn herself, and such things use
not to be done publicly ; it is therefore to be supposed that whoever
did do this so as to be delated for it and convicted must do it iv
Xetpt vTttprifyavias, ' with the hand of pride/ in contempt and de-
spite of Moses' law, for which as S. Paul witnesses, " a man was to

• Explan. in Levit. [lib. xiv.] cap. 6. f [In Levit., cap. xx. torn. i. fol.

[p. 215. ed. fol. Colon. 1536.] 120 B.]

£ [Ecastor, lege dura vivont mulieres, — Plaut. Mercat., iv. 5. 3.]

366 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

die without mercy h." But now from hence I infer, that since the
contempt and open despite of the law only was capital, it was not
any natural turpitude that deserved that calamity; it was nothing
but a legal uncleanness, which every child had that did but touch
her finger.

§ 9. But then for the next argument, with which the greatest
noise is made, and every little philosopher can with the strength of
it put laws upon others and restraints upon men's freed consciences ;
I answer first upon supposition that it were true and real, yet it does
not prove the unlawfulness of such addresses. For if the man and
woman have a right to each other respectively, there is no injury
done by using their own right. Nemo damnum facit, nisi qui idfaeit
quod facere jus non habet, saith the law1. But that is not the pre-
sent case, for the married pair use but their own rights which God
hath indulged. And therefore Paulus the lawyer from the sentence
of Labeo hath defined k, that no man can be hindered from diverting
the water running through his own grounds, and spending it there,
though it be apparent that his neighbour receives detriment to whom
that water would have descended. I know this may be altered by
laws, customs, and covenants, but there is no essential injustice in it,
if loss comes to another by my using my own right. To which I
only add this one thing, because I am not determining a title of law in
open court, but writing rules of conscience ; that though every such
interception of water, or other using of our right to our neighbours'
wrong be not properly injustice, yet unless he have just cause to use
it, it is unlawful to do so, because it is uncharitable. ; because then he
does it with a purpose to do his neighbour injury. And so it is in
this case ; if any man or woman in such approaches intend hurt to
the child, as hoping the child might not live, or if either of them de-
signed that the child should by such means become hated, or neg-
lected in provisions, and another preferred, then I doubt not but to
pronounce all such mixtures impious and abominable ; and to this
sense those words of S. Austin1 in this article are to be expounded,
Per talem legem in Levitico positam non naturam damnari, sed con-
cipiendce prolis noxiam prohiberi ; the thing itself is not naturally
impure, but it is forbidden that hurt should be intended or pro-
cured to the child : for although in the instance of Paulus above
reckoned the injury is certain, and the person definite and known to
whom it is done, and in the present question both the event at the
worst is but uncertain, and the person to be injured not yet in being,
and therefore the case is much more favourable here than there ; yet
when this case does happen, there can be no excuse for it, because it
is the act of an evil mind, and an uncharitable spirit.

k [Heb. x. 28.] gest., lib. xxxix. tit. 3. col. 1289.]
1 L. ' Nemo.'De regul. juris. [Digest., ' Super Levit, quaeet. lxiv. [tom. iii.

lib. 1. tit. 17. 1. 151. col. 1866.] part. 1. col. 519 A.]
* L. 2. De aqua pluvia arcenda. [Di-

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OP CONSCIENCE. 367

§ 10. Secondly, upon supposition that this allegation were true,
yet it follows not that all such approaches were unlawful : as appears
in the case of a leprous wife, with whom that it is lawful to have con-
gress is so certain that it is told as an heroic story of Dominic us Ca-
talusius a prince of Lesbos m that he did usually converse with his
wife that was a leper, as still knowing it to be his own flesh, which
no man hates : but if writh a leper (whose issue is as certain to be
leprous, as in the other case to be any way diseased) it be lawful, the
effect notwithstanding ; then the argument ought not to infer a pro-
hibition, or conclude it to be unlawful. The same also is the case of
both men and women in all hereditary diseases, and in any diseases
which are resident in any principal part ; with any of which if either
of them be infected, it is (if this reason be good) equally unlawful
for them to beget children, or to use the remedy which God hath
given them against un cleanness.

§ 11. If it be answered that there is difference in the case, because
the present question being of short frequent and periodical separations,
the married persons may expect nature's leisure who will in a short
time return them to their usual liberties ; but if they have a leprosy,
that goes not off, but abides, and therefore either a child must be
gotten with that danger, or not at all ; and since it is better for a
child to be born a leper, or subject to leprosy, than not to be at all,
in this case there is indeed charity in some sense, but no uncharitable-
ness in any to the child, and there is a necessity also on the parents'
part. The same also is the case of a consumption, or any hereditary
disease ; but in the monthly separations there is no such need, be-
cause the abstinence is but short, and though a child be not then be-
gotten, he loses not his being, as in the other cases.

§ 12. To this I reply, that the difference of case pretended is not
sufficient, 1) because a consumption or a leprosy are no such incur-
able diseases but that for the preventing of uncharitableness, and
sad effects upon the child, they may expect nature's time ; and if it be
said, that there is, or may be danger of fornication in so long absti-
nence, I answer, so there may be in the shorter, and is certainly to
some persons ; and if the danger be an excuse and can legitimate the
congression even where there is hazard to have a diseased child begot-
ten in one case, then so it is in the other. For where there is the same
cause in the same suscipient, there also will be the same effect : so that
at least thus much will be gotten, that if there be a need in the time of
a short separation, then it is lawful ; and if it can upon this account
be innocent, it is certain that it is not naturally criminal. 2) Sup-
pose even this affection or accident abides on the wife, as on the
woman in the gospel who after twelve years' sufferance was cured by
the touch of our Saviour's garment ; then there is the same necessity
as in an abiding leprosy, consumption, or hereditary disease, and yet
in the mosaic law those permanent emanations were to be observed by

m [Fulgos., lib. iv. cap. 6. See vol. iv. p. 225.]

368 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK IT.

abstinence as much as the natural and transient ; by which it is cer-
tainly proclaimed to be wholly a legal rite ; because if this can abide,
and during its abode an approach be not permitted, although the
Jews were relieved by divorces and polygamy, and concubinate, and
so might suffer the law ; yet Christians who are bound to an indivi-
dual bed, will find a necessity, which if it were not provided for by a
natural permission, the case of some men would be intolerable, and
oftentimes sin be unavoidable, and that which by accident may be
lawful and necessary certainly is not essentially evil : for if it could,
then He who is the author of such necessity would also necessarily
infer that evil, and so be author of that too, which is impossible to be
true of God, the fountain of eternal goodness. But I add also this
consideration, that even in the mosaic law such congressions were
permitted after child-birth. For the legal impurity lasted but seven
days upon the birth of a man-child, " according to the days of the
separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean n," that is, for seven
days she shall have the same law upon her as in her usual period, but
no longer : for that which is added, " that she shall then continue in
the blood of her purifying three and thirty days °," it is not for ab-
stinence from her husband, but from entering into the tabernacle, and
from touching holy things ; so that the uncleanness being determined
five weeks before her purification was complete, must be in order to
contract or to nothing.

§ 13. But although upon supposition the allegation were true, yet
the reason of it concludes not, yea the argument is infinitely the
worse, since the supposition is false, and the allegation is not true.
For besides that the popular heresies of physic and philosophy are
now rarely confuted and reproved by the wise physicians of these later
ages, who have improved their faculty as much as any of the schools
of learning have done theirs, and the old sayings of philosophers in
this matter are found to be weak, and at the best but uncertain ; the
great experience of the world is an infinite reproof to them who say
that by such congressions leprous or monstrous children are pro-
duced : for the world would have been long since very full of them
if such evil effects were naturally consequent to those meetings.
S. HieromeP was the first who brought this pretension into the
christian schools (so far as I can learn) ; afterwards the schoolmen
got it by the end, and the affirmative hath passed ever since almost
without examination. But the schoolmen^ generally affirm (being
taught to speak so by Aquinas) that it is partly ceremonial, partly
moral, and that in this only it is obligatory, ex damno quod seqnitur
ex prole ; which because it hath no ground to support it must fall
into the common lot of fancies and errors when their weakness is dis-
covered. Tor although those physicians which say that this natural

n [Levit. xii. 2.] q Franc, a Vict, de Sacram., de redd,

o [vers. 4.] deb. conj. [art. 176. fol. 137 B, ed. 8vo.

p In xliv. Isai. [in xviii. Ezech., torn. Antv. 1580. J
iii. col. 821.]

CHAP. II.] THE CURAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 3G9

emanation is a KaOapcns or ' cleansing/ do believe that with the prin-
ciples of generation there may in such times be something minus
salubre intermingled ; yet besides that these are opposed by nil them
who say it is nothing but a KeWm? or 'evacuation/ both the one and
the other are found to be imperfect, by the new observations and
experiments made by a learned man who finds that neither one or
other can be the material part of nature's secret fabric. But however,
whether he says true or no, since things are so infinitely uncertain,
and man is made secretly and fashioned in secreto terra, these un-
certain disputes are but a weak foundation of a pretence for a moral
duty.

§ 14. To the last objection, that ' God abhorred the nation for
all these things/ and amongst them this is reckoned ; and therefore
there was in this some natural impurity, for by no other law were
they bound, and they could not be found to be transgressors against
any other : I answer, that f all these things' are to be taken concrete
el confuse, all indiscriminately in an heap, not all by singular distri-
bution ; as appears (besides this in question) by the instance of mar-
riage in certain degrees, which the servants of God did use, and yet
God delighted in them ; for Abraham married his father's daughter,
and yet this was reckoned amongst their catalogues of crimes1", and so
also in the case of the brother's wife, which is there reckoned, yet we
know it was permitted and enjoined in the case of heiresses being
childless widows : but when this thing was by God inserted into the
digest of their laws and made capital, it happened to be mingled with
other prohibitions which were of things against the laws of nature.
But to this objection I shall speak again in the question of cousin-
germans, num. 36 and 37 of this rule.

§ 15. The arguments now appearing to be invalid, I answer to the
question 1) That this abstinence was a mosaic law, partly ceremonial
partly judicial, but in no degree moral. 2) That the abrogation of
Moses' law does infer the nullifying of this, and hath broken the
band in pieces. 3) That the band which tied this law upon the
Jews was fear of death and fear of a legal impurity : which fears
being banished, and no new one introduced by our lawgiver, we are
not under restraint ; and if we will be careful to observe all that is
commanded us in Christ's law, it will be work enough, though we
bind not on men's shoulders unnecessary burdens. 4) It is a part of
the spirit of bondage to be subject to ordinances ; but God wrill now be
served by a more spiritual religion, and to abstain as in the present
instance and to think it is a part of God's service, is superstition ; it
is to worship Him with an instance that He hath not chosen or com-
mended : and therefore it is remarkable that when S. Paul gave
order to married pairs, jut/ a-noo-TeptLTe ak\ijkovs, ' defraud not one
another3/ he only gives this exception, ' except it be by consent for a
time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer ; and come

r [Lev. xx. 17, 21.] « [1 Cor. vii. 5.]

ix. l? b

370 OP THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

together again, that Satan tempt you not/ 8ia tt]v aKpacriav vfj.<2v, 'for
your want of power and command over your desires and necessities/
Abstinence in order to special religion is allowed and commended,
and that by consent, and that but for a sudden occasion, and that so
short, that it may not become an occasion of Satan's temptations ;
whatsoever is over and besides this may be upon the account of
Moses, but not of Christ and Christianity. 5) I speak this only to
take off a snare from men's consciences, laid for the unwary by un-
skilful masters of assemblies ; so that all I say of it is, that it may
be done lawfully. 6) But that which does only recommend it is,
where there is necessity that it be done. 7) It is sufficient though
the necessity be not absolute, if it be only ordinary and probable :
for if this were not so, instead of allaying storms and appeasing
scruples and breaking snares, they would be increased and multi-
plied ; for it will be a hard thing in most cases of that nature to say
that the necessity is absolute. 8) But since there is in such con-
gressions a natural abhorrency amongst most persons, and a natural
impurity ; if that which invites to it be not at least a probable ne-
cessity, it must be a great unclecency and violence of a wanton spirit.
9) It must always be without scandal and reproach. Tor even among
the Jews it was only a legal impurity if done without scandal, but if
with contumacy and owning of it it came to outface the modesty and
authority of the law, then it became deadly : and so it may now if
that which is not of good report be done and offered to the report
of all them which can condemn the folly and impurity, but cannot
judge of the necessity or the cause ; and the fact by becoming scan-
dalous is criminal, as much as when it is done without a probable ne-
cessity, and only upon lustful consideration.

§ 16. Some in their answers to this enquiry, make a distinction of
the persons ; affirming it in this case to be unlawful to ask, but law-
ful to pay a duty if it be demanded. But if it be naturally unlawful
it is then inexcusable in both ; for neither must the one tempt to an
unlawful act, nor the other consent to it, and there can be no obli-
gation to pay that debt which no man can lawfully demand. Neither
of them hath a right against God's law, and therefore the case is equal
in them both ; he or she that complies does actually promote the sin,
as well as the other that invites, and therefore in Moses' law they
were equally criminal and punished with death. But if it be not
naturally unlawful (as it appears it is not) then it may as well be de-
manded, as yielded to, when there is a probable necessity ; but con-
cerning that, the passive party is to believe the other, for if it be
known to be otherwise, he or she that consents does consent to an
act which is made unlawful by evil circumstances.

OF THE PROHIBITION OF MARRIAGE IN CERTAIN DEGREES.

§ 17. But the next enquiry concerning an instance in the judicial
law is yet of greater concernment : for all those degrees in which

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 371

Moses' law hath forbidden marriages, are supposed by very many iiow-
a-days that they are still to be observed with the same distance and
sacredness, affirming because it was a law of God with the appendage
of severe penalties to the transgressors it does still oblige us Chris-
tians. This question was strangely tossed up and down upon the
occasion of Henry the eighth's divorce from queen Katherine the
relict of his brother prince Arthur ; and according as the interest of
princes uses to do, it very much employed and divided the pens of
learned men, who upon that occasion gave too great testimony with
how great weaknesses men that have a bias do determine questions,
and with how great a force a king that is rich and powerful can make
his own determinations. For though Christendom was then much
divided, yet before then there was almost a general consent upon this
proposition, that the levitical degrees do not by any law of God
bind Christians to their observation. I know but of one schoolman
that dissents, I mean Paludanus ; or if there be any more I am sure
they are but very few,

Vel duo vel nemo';

but the other opinion

Defendit numerus, junctaeque umbone phalanges".

But abstracting from all interests and relative considerations, I shall
give as full accounts of this as I can, because the questions of degrees
and the matters and cases of incest are not so perfectly stated as the
greatness of the matter and the necessities of the world require ; and
besides this, it is at this day a great question amongst all men,
whether brothers' and sisters' children, or cousin-germans, may
lawfully marry ; which question supposes that not only the levitical
degrees are still thought obligatory, but even all those other degrees
which by a parity of reason can be reduced to those measures. I
shall therefore give an account of the sentence of all laws in this
great question, which can be supposed to oblige us.

OP PARENTS AND CHILDREN.

§ 18. Concerning this, I suppose it to be evident that nature hath
been as free in her liberties as in her gifts, open-handed enough to
all ; save only that she hath forbidden parents and children, higher
and lower in the direct line for ever to marry : just as rivers cannot
return to their fountains, nor evenings back again to their own morn-
ings from whence they set out, nor yesterday be recalled and begin
again to-morrow. The course and order of nature is against it ; and
for a child to marry the parent is for to-day to marry yesterday, a
going back in nature.

ilium, ilium sacris adhibete nefastis,

qui semet in ortus

Vertit, et indignae regerit sua pignora matri ".

1 [Pers. sat., i. 3.] u [Juv. sat., ii. 46.] v Papin. Stat. Thebaid., iv. [630.]

b b 2

372 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

§ 19. To which may be added this other sufficient natural reason,
that if a son marries his mother, she who is in authority greater by
right of geniture, becomes minor in matrimonio, less upon the same
materia] account upon which she became greater, atid the duty and
reverence of a mother cannot be paid to her by him who is her hus-
band : which I find well intimated by Phaedra to Hippolytus,

Matris superbum est nomen, et nimium potens*.

It is a contradiction of rights that the same person should be the
superior mother, and the inferior wife; which hath also some pro-
portion between a father and a daughter, as being undecent that she
from him should claim the rights of a wife, to whom she owes the
duty of a father.

§ 20. Besides these, there is a natural abhorrency of such mix-
tures. Contra pttdorem esse said Paulus the lawyer, fit is against
natural modesty :' which was rarely verified in the trial which the
emperor Claudius y made (wittily and judiciously, like that of Solo-
mon upon the two harlots) upon a wicked woman who called him
who indeed was her son, a stranger, a beggar, the son of another
wToman, and supposititious, that so she might defeat him of his father's
inheritance. The emperor espying her malice, and suspecting her
machination, found out this trial : ' If he be not your son, yet because
he is young and handsome, rich and possessed of the inheritance, the
title of which you would snatch from him, you shall marry him, and
so possess him and the inheritance too/ She though desperately base
refused that offer, and though she was unnaturally malicious, yet
would not be unnaturally incestuous ; and chose to suffer the shame
of discovery rather than the horrors of such a mixture.

§ 21. But all this was not sufficient to make it to become a natural
law, without the authority of God intervening. This made it to be
excellently reasonable to be established into a law, and therefore God
did so, and declared it, and did not trust man's reason alone with
the conduct of it : but then it became an eternal law when God made
it so, and that was at the very first bringing of a wife to Adam.
" For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother," said
God by His servant Moses7- declaring to us what God then made to
be a law, "and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one
flesh." This could not on both sides concern Adam, who had no
natural father and mother, and therefore was a law given to all that
should be born from him ; when they took a wife or husband re-
spectively, they must forsake father and mother, for between them
and their children there could be no such entercourse intervening :
and so the Jews, particularly Rabbi Selomoh3, expounds the place, and

* [Sen. Hippol. 609.] lib. iii. cap. 29. p. 3.3.3, ed. fol. Rom.

y [Sueton. vit. Claud., cap. xv. : the 1554.)]

anecdote however is related at length of * [Gen. ii. 24.]

the emperor Theodoric. (Joann. Venet., a [R, Solomon Jarchi, in loc. apud Sel-

apud Joann. Magn. Upsal. de leg. Goth., den., de jur. nat. et gent., lib. v. cap. 2.J

CHAP. 11.] THE GREAT KULE Of CONSCIENCE. 373

it was necessary this should then be declared, for ' as yet the marriage
of brother and sister was not forbidden/ saith the Gemara Sanhedrinb ;
and in obedience to this because Adam had no other, ' he laid aside
the love of earth and rain, of which he was produced/ said Isaac
Abravanel0 : and by this they usually reconcile the seeming differ-
ence between these words and the fifth commandment. A man shall
leave his father and mother, and vet he must honour his father and
mother ; he must never leave to honour them, but when he intends
to marry, he must forsake all thoughts of contracting with either of
them. Now the mother and the wife being the opposite terms in
the progression, he must leave one, and adhere or be united to the
other; it must needs be that dereliction or forsaking, or going from
the mother, not relating to honour but to the marriage, means that
the child must abstain and depart from all thoughts of such conjunc-
tion. A mother is not less to be loved, less to be honoured after
marriage than before ; and therefore in no sense relating to this is she
to be forsaken, therefore it must be in the other : and this our blessed
Saviour recorded also in His lawd, where whatsoever is not sufficiently
found cannot pretend to be a law of nature ; as I have already proved.
§ 22. And now this being established and recorded as a law of
nature in that way only that is competent, the disagreeing sentences
of some men and the contrary practices of nations is no argument
against it. Indeed I said in the first chapter, that the consent of
nations is not sufficient to establish a natural law; for God only
makes the sanction, but when He hath made it and declared it, the
disagreeing practices of great portions of the world cannot annul the
establishment. It is not sufficient to prove it to be a natural law
because wise people consent to it, but if God have made it so, it is
a natural law though half the world dissents ; and therefore we are
not in this affair to be moved at all, if wise men should in any age
affirm the marriages of sons and mothers to be lawful. So Diogenes e
and Chrysippusf affirmed upon a ridiculous conceit that cocks and
hens did not abhor it. Against which impertinent argument, although
it were sufficient to oppose the narrative which Aristotle ° makes of a
camel, and the Scythian horseh who brake his own neck out of detes-
tation of his own act to which he was cousened by his keeper ; for

Ferae quoque ipsae Veneris evitant nefas,
Generisque leges inscius servat pudor > ;

Yet it is better to set down this reasonable proposition ; that a thing-
is against the law of nature when (being forbidden by God) it is un-
natural to men, though it were not against the nature of beasts. But

b [Apud Selden., ibid. cap. 8.] p. 630.]

« [al. Abarbanel, quoted by Selden, h Plin. nat. lust., viii. 42. [al. 64.]—

ibid.] Varro, de re rustica, lib. ii. [ cap. 7. —

d [Matt. xix. 5.] Avicenna, de nat. anim., lib. viii. cap. 7.

e [Diog. Laert., lib. vi. cap. 2. § 72.] iElian. var. hist., lib. iv. cap- 7.]

1 [ibid., lib. vii. cap. 7. § 188.] ' [Sen. Hippol., 913.]

b Hist animal., lib. ix. cap. 17. I lorn. i.

374 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

as the authority of these men is inconsiderable and their argument
trifling, so also the disagreeing practice of some nations in this parti-
cular is wholly to be despised.

Gentes tamen esse feruntur,

In quibus et nato genetrix, et nata parenti
Jungitur1 ;

The Assyrians, the Medes and Persians, especially the most honoured
persons amongst them, their kings and their magi, did use it fre-
quently,

Nam magus ex matre et gnato gignatur oportet"1.

§ 23. 1) But the original and cause of this horrible and unnatural
custom we can so reduce to its first principle, that there can remain
no suspicion but that they did prevaricate the law of nature. For
when Niinrod had married his mother Semiramis, and presently in-
troduced the worship of fire, making that to be the Assyrians' and
Persians' god, he was gratified by the devil. For (as Saidus Batri-
cides" the patriarch of Alexandria reports) the devil out of the fire
spake to his first priest that none should officiate in his rites, unless
he would first lie with his mother, his sister, and his daughter. And
Sham the priest (for that was the name of the beast) did so, and so
together with his prince became an authentic president to all gene-
rations of degenerous brutes, and was imitated by all that empire.

toiovto wav rb fidpfSapov y4vos
Xlarrip t<= dvyarpl, irous re unrpl n'lyvvrai.
Kal t£>v 5' ovdhv i^sipyti i/6fj.os".

But what Xenophon said of the Persians is also true of all the nations
together, who were debauched by their laws and accursed customs,
Non eo minus jus esse quia a Persis contemnebatur ; ' It is still the
law of nature though prevaricated by the Persians and their subjects
and friends/ For when any thing appears to be so rots 7rA.eicrrois
Kal abLacrTp6(f)OLS nal Kara (fivcnv fyovcrLvV, ' to most and to the un-
corrupted nations, and to them who live according to natural reason'
it is a great presumption it is indeed a natural law ; and is so finally
if a command of God hath intervened in that instance, for by the
divine appointment it is made a law, and by the matter order and
use of it it is natural. But for the rest to whom these things seemed
otherwise than God and nature did decree, they were abused by none
but by their own lusts ; they were as a punishment of their vilest sins
given over ds TrdOrj dn/xias, to unnatural, to dishonourable, and un-
reasonable desire,

Cui fas implere parenteral

Quid rear esse nefasq ?

But this was the product of their idolatry, and some other basenesses :

1 Metam., lib. x. [331.] p Michael Ephes. in Arist. ethic, ad Ni-

m [Catull., xc. 3.] comach. [lib. v. fol. 71 b. vers, fin., inter

n [Apud Selden. de jur. nat. et gent., Eustratii et aliorum commentaria, ed. fol.

lib. v. cap. 11.] Ven. 1536.]

° Eurip. Androm. [174.] ■» [Lucan., lib. viii. 409.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE Ob' CONSCIENCE. 375

of the first S. Paulr is witness, that as a consequent of their forsak-
ing the true God they were given over to unnatural lusts : and Lucan8
observes the latter of the Parthians,

epulis vesana meroque

Regia, non ullos exceptos legibus horret
Concubitus. — — —

Now what is the effect of superinduced crimes and follies is most con-
trary to nature, and it were unnatural to suspect that she had not
made sufficient provisions in this prime case, upon pretence because
some unnatural persons have spoiled and defaced or neglected her
laws'. One thing by the by I shall insert. I find Socrates noted
by some that he said there is in the marriage of parents and children
nothing to be reproved but the disparity of age. But this is a mis-
take ; for though he brought that incompetent reason against it, yet
for other causes he abhorred it, accounting it to be a law established
by God and nature, p/re yovtas Ttaia-l, k.t.K. ll, that parents and chil-
dren should abhor such marriages. For God and all the world,
heaven and earth do so ; insomuch that a Roman philosopher was in
his dream warned not to bury the corpse of a Persian who had married
his mother :

M77 6a\l/ps ibu &daTTTOv, to. k\jo\ Ki>p/j.a yeveaOcu,
r9j ■na.VTwv /J-yTrjp /j.Tjrpocpddpoi' oil 5e'xeT' afSpa"-

'The earth who is the common mother of all, will not receive into
her womb him that denied the womb of his mother :' and the story
says, that the ground spued out the corpse of such a one that had
been buried. And Virgilx affirms that in hell there are torments
prepared for him

Qui thalamum invasit natae, vetitosque hymenaeos,

who pollutes his daughter's bed, and defiles himself with such for-
bidden entertainments.

OF BROTHERS AND SISTERS.

§ 24. 2) But though nature forbids this, yet the other relations
are forbidden upon other accounts. Nothing else is against the prime
laws of nature, but a conjunction in the right ascending and descend-
ing line. The marriage of brothers and sisters was at first necessary,
and so the world was peopled; all the world are sons and daughters
descending from the first marriages of brother and sister. But con-
cerning this that I may speak clearly, let it be observed that although
the world does generally condemn all such and the like marriages
under the title of incestuous, yet that is not properly expressed, and

' [Rom. i. 21. &c] u Xenoph. airo^fj.. [lib. iv. cap. 4.

8 [lib. viii. 401.] " § 20.]

* Vide Tiraquell. in leg. vii. connub., * Agath. hist., lib. ii. [p. 50.]

n. 22. [torn. ii. p. 110.] * ^neid., lib. vi. [263.]

376 OF THE CHRISTIAN LA.W, [BOOK II.

leaves us to seek for the just grounds of reproof to many sorts of un-
lawful marriages, and some others are condemned by too great a
censure. The word incest is not a scripture word, but wholly hea-
then; and signified amongst them all unchaste and forbidden marriages,
such which were not hallowed by law and honour ; an inauspicious
conjunction sine cesto Veneris, in which their goddess of love was not
president; marriages made without her girdle, and so ungirt, un-
blessed. This word being taken into the civil law got a signifi-
cation to be appropriate to it ; for there were three degrees of unlaw-
ful marriages, damnata, incesta, and nefariee. Damnatce nuptiee are
such which the law forbids upon political considerations ; such as are
between the tutor or guardian and the orphan or pupil, between a
servant and his mistress, between a freedman and his patroness, and
such was in the law of Moses between the high -priest and a widow ;
and in Christianity between a priest and a harlot, and between any
man and her whom he defiled by adultery while her first husband was
alive, all marriages with virgins professed and vowed. There is in
these so much unreasonableness of being permitted, that by the law
they stood condemned, and had legal punishments and notes of infamy
proportionable. Incesta, miptia are defined in the law to be coilio
consanguineorum vel ajfiniumy, 'the conjunction of kindred or allies/
meaning, in those instances which are by law forbidden ; and these
are forbidden upon differing considerations from the former, viz. for
their nearness of blood and relation, which the laws would have dis-
seminated more or less, for their approach to unnatural marriages,
for outward guards to the laws of nature, for public honesty, and
compliance with the customs of their neighbours, of the same interest
or the same religion, or for necessary entercourse. But because un-
skilful persons or unwary have called unnatural mixtures by the name
incestuous, as incestuous Lot, and the incestuous Corinthian, there-
fore whatever any law calls incest, they think they have reason to con-
demn equally to those abominable conjunctions. But neither ought
incest to be condemned with a hatred equal to what is due to these,
neither ought these to be called incest ; for in true speaking these
are not incesta nuptia, but nefaria, and natura contraries, wicked
or abominable, and contrary to nature : for although the law some-
times calls those mixtures which are between kindred by the title of
nefaries, or impious, yet it is to be understood only of that kindred
which is by the law of God and nature forbidden to marry : so the
gloss in authentic, de incest. nv.pt.z affirms, so Archidiaconus, Johannes
Andreas, Covarruvias, and the best lawyers ; and the word is derived
from the usage of it in the best authors :

y C. lex 'Ilia.' § 'Incest.' [Gratian. « Text in authentic. De incest, nupt. in

Decret. caus.] xxxvi. qu. 1. [can. 2. col. princ. collat. ii. [tit. vii. cap. 1. col. 41.]

2044.] L. ' Si adult, cum incest.' in princ, C. ' Cum secund. leges.' De haeret. in 6.

D. de adult. [Digest., lib. xlviii. tit. 5. [Sext. decretal., lib. v. tit. 2. cap. 19. col.

1. 38. col. 1092.] 577.]

CHAP. II.] THE GEEAT HULK OF CONSCIENCE. 377

Feras quoque ipsae Veneris evitant nefas":

the conjunction of parents and children is nefas Veneris, and the
marriages nefarious. Now of this deep tincture none are, excepting
marriages in the right ascending and descending line. The marriages
of brothers and sisters is incestuous, and the worst degree of it, and
so forbidden by the laws of all civil nations ; but therefore they are
unlawful only because forbidden by positive laws; but because the
prohibition is not at all in the laws of Christ, therefore it cannot be
accounted against the prime law of nature, of which that is a perfect
system. Not that it can in any case of present concernment or possi-
bility become lawful, or for any reason be dispensed withal by any
power of man; for it is next to an unnatural mixture, it hath in it
something of confusion, and blending the very first partings of nature,
it is of infinite vile report, intolerably scandalous, and universally for-
bidden. But though this be enough, yet this is not all :

§ 25. Michael of Ephesusb says that at the first these marriages
were indifferent, but made unlawful by a superinduced prohibition.
And indeed if they had been unnatural, they could not have been
necessary : for it is not imaginable that God who could with the
same facility have created a thousand men and as many women, as
one, would have built up mankind by that which is contrary to
human nature; and therefore we find that among the wisest na-
tions some whom they esteemed their bravest men did this. Ciinon
the son of Miltiades married his sister Elpinice, non magis amore
quam patrlo more ductus, said iEmilius Probusc, • not only led bv
love but by his country's custom.'' So Archeptolis, the son of the
brave Themistocles, married his sister Mnasiptolemad, Alexander
the son of Pyrrhus king of Epirus married his sister 01ympiase,
Mithridates married his sister Laodicef, Artemisia was sister and
wife to Mausolus king of Cariab', so was Sophrosyna to Dionysius
of Syracuse11, Eurydice to Ptoleinaeus Philopater1, Cleopatra to
Ptoleinseus Physconk, Arsinoe to Ptolemseus Philadelphus1, whom
when Sotades had reproved upon that account, saying, Els ov^
6(tli]v rpvixaXtav tov nevrpov uQels™, he imprisoned him. But I
need not bring particular instances of Egyptians; for Diodorus
Siculus" affirms that they all esteemed it lawful, and Dion Prusae-
ensis says that all the barbarians did so0.

§ 26. But all the Greeks did so too, having learnt it from their
first princes, whom after ages had turned into gods,

a [Sen. Hippol., 913.] ' [Justin., lib. xxx. cap. 2.]

b In Avist. eth. Nic, lib. v. [fol. 71 b, k [Val. Max., lib. ix. cap. 1.]

med. vid. p. 374.] ' [Justin., lib. xxiv. cap. 2 ; Pausan.,

c [al. Cornel. Nep. vit. Cimon., cap. i.] lib. i. cap. 7 ; Plin. hist, nat., lib. xii. cap.

d Plut. in Theniist. [torn. ii. p. 500.] •) ; Strabo, lib. x. p. 4G0, fol. Par. 1620.]
e T Justin., lib. xxviii. cap. ].] «■ [Plut. de lib. educ, torn. vi. p. 36.]

I [Justin., lib. xxxvii. cap. 3.] " [lib. i. cap. 27 ; Dio Cass., lib. xlii.
s | Strabo, lib. xiv. p. 656.] cap. 35.]

II [Plutarch, vit Dion., cap. vi. torn. " Vide Lucian. de sacrifices, [cap. v.
v. i'. 2o(i, Cornel. Nep., cap. i.] torn. iii. p. 79.]

378 OF THE CHE1STIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

Dii nempe suas habuere sorores,

Sic Satumus Opim, junctam sibi sanguine, duxit
Oceanus Tethyn, Junonem rector 01ympip.

Though I suppose that this is but a fabulous narrative in imitation
of the story of Cain and Abel, as appears by their tale of Jupiter
and Prometheus ; which is well noted by the observator upon the
mythologies of Natalis Comes under the title of Jupiter. But that
which moves me more than all this is the answer which Thamar
gave to her brother Amnon : " Now therefore speak unto the king,
for surely he will not withhold me from thee q," and yet she was
his father's daughter, his sister by the paternal line : and Abraham
told the king of Gerar concerning Sarah his wife1-, " and yet indeed
she is my sister, she is the daughter of my father, but not the
daughter of my mother," that is, the daughter of Terah as was
generally supposed, of which I shall yet give further accounts.
Now it is not to be supposed that either Abraham before or David
after the law would have done or permitted any thing against the
law of nature ; and if it was against a positive law, as it happened in
the case of Amnon and David, the marriage might be valid though
forbidden, and the persons be excused upon some other account,
which is not proper here to be considered.

§ 27. But I again renew what I said before, this discourse is not
intended so much as secretly to imply that it can now at all be or
be made lawful, or is at any hand to be endured. For the marriage
of brother and sister is against a secondary law of nature ; that is,
it stands next to the natural prohibition, and is against a natural
reason, though not against a prime natural law. Every reason
indeed is not a sufficient indication of a law, nor a natural reason
of a natural law ; but when the reason is essential to nature or
consigned by God, then it is, and as a reason approaches nearer
to this, so the action is more or less natural or unnatural; and
this is the case of brother and sister. For the reverence which
is due to parents hath its place here also, propter recentem aclmodum
parentum in liberis imaginem : and therefore it is with greater
reason forbidden, and if it were not, the whole world might be
filled with early adulteries. For the dearnesses of brother and
sister, their cohabitation, their likeness of nature and manners, if
they were not made holy and separate by a law, would easily change
into marital loves, but their age and choice would be prevented by
their too early caresses : and then since many brothers might have
the same kindness to one sister, or might have but one amongst
them all, the mischief would be horrible and infinite.

Dulcia fraterno sub nomine furta tegemus:
Est mibi libertas tecum secreta loquendi ;
Et damus amplexus, et jungimus oscula coram,
Quantum est quod desit8?

v [Ovid, metam. ix. 496.] Vide Alex. i [2 Sam. xiii. 13.]

ab Alexandr., Genial, dierum, lib. i. [cap. r [Gen. xx. 12.]

24.] 9 Ovid, metam., lib. ix. [557.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 379

§ 28. For these and other accounts which God best knew, He
was pleased to forbid the marriage, of brothers and sisters. This
law the Jews say God gave to Adam under the title De non
revelanda turpitudine ; but yet so, that it was not to be of force
till mankind were multiplied, but then it took place as men did
please. But this they say upon what ground they please; for it
is highly improbable that the law of nature should be allowed years
of probation, or that it should be a prime law of nature, which the
nature of things and the constitution of the world did make
necessary to be broken. But because God did afterwards make
it into a law, and there is now very great reason that it should be
a law, and the reason is natural, and will be perpetual, and all chris-
tian nations, and all that have any formed religion, have agreed
to prohibit such marriages; he that shall do so unreasonably, and
as things now stand so unnaturally and so foolishly, as either to
do it or teach it, must be of no religion, and of no people, and
of no reason, and of no modesty.

OF MOTHERS IN LAW AND THEIR HUSBANDS' CHILDREN.

§ 29. That the marriage of these is not against the law of nature
S. Austin* does expressly affirm in his questions upon Leviticus,
saying that there is forbidden the discovering his father's nakedness ;
but this is not to be understood of the father while he is alive, for
that is forbidden in the prohibition of adultery ; sed ibi prohibetur
malrimoniurri contrahi cum Mis quas seclusa lege licet ttxores ducere,
'marriage is there forbidden to be made with them with whom
otherwise it were lawful to contract/ But for this there can be no
reasonable and fair pretence. For a mother-in-law and a mother
are all one in the estimation of all the laws of the world, and there-
fore were alike in the prohibition : and the contrary was never
done but by them who had no pretence for it, but quod libet liceta,
whatsoever a man hath a mind to do that he may do ; for this was
the argument which Phoedra courts Hippolytus withal :

Nee quia privigno videar eoitura noverca,

Terruerint animos nomina vana tuos.
Ista vetus pietas aevo moritura futuro

Rustica Saturno regna tenente fuit
Jupiter esse pium statuit quodcunque juvaret ;

Et fas omne facit fratre marita sororv.

The impiety of their gods seemed to be their warrant, and their
pleasure was all their reason, their appetite was their argument.
But this we find sufficiently condemned by S. Paul", "it is a for-
nication which is not so much as named amongst the gentiles, that
one should have his father's wife." Cajetan supposes that this

w Quaest. lxi. [tin. part 1. col. 518 A.] ' [Ovid. Heroid., epist. iv. 129.]

" [vide Spartian. vit. Caracall., cap. x.] ™ [1 Cor. v. 1.]

380 OF THK CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

Corinthian did lie with her while his father was alive ; because the
apostle calls her not the widow, but the wife of his father. I am
of his opinion, but not for that reason, because that expression
he uses not so much to describe the person as to aggravate the crime •
but that it was in his father's life-time I am induced to believe by
the word iropvda, 'fornication/ which though it be often used for
adultery, yet I find it not used for nuptia nefaria, or that which
is usually called incest. But however, that which S. Paul notes
here and so highly abominates is not the adultery, but the impiety
of it ; not that it was a wife, but his father's wife ; and therefore
although even so it were a high crime and of a deep tincture, yet
the unnaturalness and the scandal of it S. Paul here condemns. It
was the same that Antiochus did to Stratonice the wife of his
father Seleucusx, and that which lieuben did to the concubine of
his father Jacoby; a thing so hateful to all nature that the very
naming of it is a condemnation ; and therefore is all one with the
prime natural law of the prohibition of the conjunction of parents
and children : for she that is one flesh with my father, is as near
to me as my father, and that's as near as my own mother; as
near I mean in estimation of the law, though not in the accounts
of nature, and therefore though it be a crime of a less turpitude,
yet it is equally forbidden, and is against the law of nature, not
directly, but by interpretation.

OF UNCLES AND NIECES.

§ 30. Now if the nearest of kin in the collateral line were not
forbidden by a law of nature, much less are they primely unlawful
that are further off. The ascending and descending line cannot
marry, but are forbidden by God in the law of nature. So mothers
in law and their husbands' children, and brothers and sisters, are by
the laws of all the world and for very great reason forbidden, but
not by the law of nature. But for all other degrees of kindred
it is unlawful for them to marry interchangeably when and where
they are forbidden by a positive law, but not else; and therefore
the marriages of uncles and nieces, or aunts and nephews, become
unlawful as the laws of our superiors supervening make it so, but
was not so from the beginning, and is not so by any law of Christ.

§ 31. In the civil law of the Romans it was lawful for the uncle
to marry the brother's daughter, and this continued by the space
of two hundred and fifty years, from the days of Claudius to the
reign of Constantine or thereabouts : and though this began among
the Eomans upon the occasion of Claudius his marrying Agrippiua,
yet himself affirms (as Tacitus2 makes him to speak) Nova nobis in
fratram Jtliaa eovjugia, sed aliis gentibus soleuuia, nee lege ulla

* [Appian. de bell. Syr., capp. lix. — ? [Gen. xxxv. 22.]

lxi. : cf. pp. i>?>. et 200 supra.] * Annal., lib. xii. [cap. 6.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 381

prohibita ; 'indeed it is new to us, but to other nations usual and
lawful :' and the newness of it scared Domitian8 so that he refused
it, and not many did practise it ; only I find that a poor obscure
libertine, T. Alledius Severus1' did it, as Suetonius0 observes : but
it was made lawful by the civil law, and allowed in the rules of
Ulpian; and when Nervad had repealed the law, Heracliuse reduced
it again and gave the same permissions.

§ 32. But that which moves me more is that it was the practice
of the Jews, the family of Abraham, and the counsel of the wise
men to do so, as Ben Maimonf the famous Jew reports. In mem if is
sapientum liabetur ut in uxorem ducat quis ante alias neptem ex
sorore, seu exfratre neptem, juxta id quod dicitur, A came tua ne te
abscondas. And Josephus does suppose that when Abraham said
of Sarah £, ' she is my sister, the daughter of my father/ the truth
is, she was his father's grandchild, that is, the daughter of Abra-
ham's brother : for unless it had been a known thing in that
nation that Abraham's family would not have married their german
sisters, it could have been no security to Abraham to pretend her
to be so ; for she might be his wife and his sister too, unless such
marriages had been unlawful and rejected. But then when Abra-
ham was reproved for his lie, lie helped the matter out with a
device ; she was his father's daughter, that is, by the usual idiom
of that family, the child of his father descending by his brother :
and this was S. Austin's11 opinion, Nam qui maxime propinqui erant
solebant fratres et sorores appellari, and Cicero1 calls his cousin Lucius
'brother;' so Lot is called 'Abraham's brotherV though he was but
the son of his brother Haran, just as near as his wife Sarah was
to him, whom for the like reason he called sister : but of this I
shall yet give a further account. But whether Josephus said true
or no, Abraham said true, that's certain : either she was his half-
sister or his brother's daughter, either of which is forbidden in
Leviticus : and this sufficiently declares that they have their unlaw-
fulness from a positive law, not from any law of nature.

§ 33. If it were needful to instance in any other great examples
of such marriages, it were very easy to do it. Aniram the father
of Moses married his aunt as some suppose1', Diomedes and Iphida-
mas among the Greeks married their mothers' sisters1, and Alcinous
took to wife Arete his brother's daughter111. Andromede was pro-
mised to her uncle Phineus". One of the Herods married his
brother's daughter °, and yet was not (so far as we find) reproved

[? Sueton. vit. Domit., cap. 22.] h Lib. xv. de civit. Dei, c. 16. [torn.

b [Tacit, ibid., cap. 7.] vii. col. 398. E.]

c [In vit. Claud., cap. 26: he does > De fin., lib. v. [cap. 1.]

not however give the name.] j [Gen. xiii. 8.]

<i [Dio Cass., lib. lxviii. cap. 2.] " [Exod. vi. 20.]

* [Cuspin. in vit. Heraclii.J i [Horn. Iliad., E. 412, A. 22(>.]

' [Halach. hura Bia, apud Seld. de m [Horn. Odyss., t]. 66.}

jur. nat. et gent, lib. v. cap. 10.] » [Ovid, metam., v. 1.]

g [Antiq. Jud., lib. i. cap. 12. p. 29.] ° [Herod the Great, — Joseph, antiq.

382 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

for it ; and he gave his own daughter to his brother Pheroras p, and
some suppose this to be the case of Othniel, in the days and under
the conduct of Joshua. For the words in the story are these i,
" and Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb took it ; and
he gave him Achsah his daughter to wife :" but of this I shall give
a particular account; for this being against the law of Moses by
which they were bound, was not to be supposed easily to have been
done by so pious persons : but all that I contend for, is, that it was
not unlawful before the law of Moses ; against these marriages there
was no opus scriptum in cordibus, no law of nature, but they became
unlawful upon another account, and therefore it was unlawful to them
only to whom that account was to be reckoned.

OF THE MARRIAGE OF COUSIN-GERMANS.

§ 34. From the premises it will abundantly follow, that no person
ought to be affrighted with the pretences of any fierce and misper-
suaded person that the marriage of cousin-germans is against the law
of nature : and in this case a man need least of all to fear ; for the
law of nature is a known and evident thing, it is notorious and felt,
and if any man shall need to be told what is against natural reason,
which is the matter out of which all natural laws are framed, he may
as well have need to be reminded when he is hungry or thirsty. For
although some persons have got a trick to scare their proselytes
from a practice to which they have no mind by telling them it is
against the law of nature, when they can prove it upon no other ac-
count to be unlawful, so making the law of nature to be a sanctuary
of ignorance and an artifice to serve their end, just as the pretence of
occult qualities is in natural philosophy ; yet concerning the law of
nature, it being imprinted in our hearts, explicated by Christianity,
relying upon plain, prime, natural reason, a man may as much need
to be told when himself does a thing against his own will, as when
he does against his own reason and his own nature. Only it is certain
that when education and our country customs have from the begin-
ning possessed our understandings and our practices, so that we never
saw any other usage of things or heard talk of any other, it looks as
if it came from nature and were something of her establishment. So
S. Paul to the Corinthians, " Does not even nature herself teach that
it is a shame for a man to wear long hairr ?" that is, even in nature
there is the signification of some difference in that matter, which
custom hath established into a law ; but in such cases as these, a
wise man can easily distinguish words from things, and appearances
from firm establishments. But that the law of nature hath nothing to

Jud., lib. xvii. cap. 1. § 3. p. 751.] Joseph, ibid.]

p [Pheroras refused the marriage, and q [Josh. xv. 17.]

she married Phasael, Herod's nephew. — r [1 Cor. xi. 14.]

CUAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 383

do in the marriage of cousin- germans, save only that she hath left
them to their liberty, appears from all the premises, which in this
instance as being further removed must needs conclude stronger
than in their own.

§ 35. But then in the next place if the enquiry be made what it is
in the judicial law of Moses, which is the main of our present en-
quiry; supposing the judicial law of Moses could in any of its in-
stances oblige Christians, yet cousin-germans were still free to marry :
for I do not so much as find it pretended by any one to be there for-
bidden, except S. Ambrose s, who disputing fiercely against Paternus
for marrying his son to his grandchild by another venter, that is, so
as the young gentleman was uncle to his wife, in anger against that
says that by the law of God (meaning in Leviticus) cousin-germans
are forbidden to marry, f much more/ says he, ' uncle and niece :'
qui enim leviora astringit, graviora non solvit sed alligat ; ' he that
binds to the less does not untie the greater/ But the event of this
is only that S. Ambrose is by all learned men condemned for an
a^apn/jua fivr]}xov€VTi.Kbv, ' a slip in his memory :' and men ought to
be wary lest great names abuse them by opinion and mistaken zeal.

But the law is this, Levit. xviii. 6. "None of you shall approach
to any that is near akin to him, to uncover their nakedness : I am
the Lord."

Here the questions use to be,

1) What is meant by ' none of you ■/

2) What is intended by ' near of kin to you :'

§36.1) 'None of you:' Vir virnon accedet : apdpoo-nos avOpanros
in the LXX. ' A man, a man shall not approach ;' so it is in the
Hebrew ; that is, say the rabbins, the Jew and the gentile shall not.
I shall not contend for it, or against it. I suppose it may well be
admitted that potentially all mankind was included, that is, all who
were born to Israel, or adopted by being proselytes, were bound to
this law, Jews and gentiles too when they became Jews in religion ;
but that it included others that conversed not with the nation, that
were strangers to their laws, is as if we should say the Parthians
were to be judged by the Gallic laws, or the Persians guided by the
Greeks. But the purpose of them who would introduce this sense,
is, that it might be intimated that these degrees here mentioned were
forbidden by the law of nature, and consequently obliging all Christ-
endom : the contrary whereof because it appears from the premises,
I shall only add, that no nation of old did observe all these laws, and
that there was never any sufficient argument to inforce upon us their
obligation, and because it must needs remain to us as it was before
the law, if they were not obliged then neither are we. But this I
suppose they might be, and some of them were obliged by special
laws before the collection and publication of the body of Moses' law.
For as the law of Christ is a collection and perfect explication of the

S. Ambros. ad Patemum, ep. lxvi. [al. lx. torn. ii. col. 1019 A.]

384 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

law of nature and essential reason, so Moses' law was a collection
of all the wise and prudent laws by which God governed those nations
and those ages which were before Moses. Thus the law of the sab-
bath was one great member of this collective body of the mosaic law,
but it was given before the solemnities of mount Sinai : the law that
the brother should raise up seed unto his brother who died without
issue, was also given to that family before the publication of it by
Moses, as appears in the story of Judah, and Thainar's quarrel about
Onan and the rest. And thus also I suppose that all or most of
these laws of marriage were given to the nations of the east and
south, descending upon them by the tradition of their forefathers ;
from God derived to Adam in part, and in part to Noah, and some-
thing of it to other patriarchs and eminent persons, and at last by the
commandment of God united into a digest bv Moses.

§ 37. And upon this account it is that God said that the Canaan-
ites had polluted themselves in all these things, and therefore the land
did spue them out, which although it cannot infer that these laws did
naturally oblige, as I have already discoursed*, yet that they were by
some means or other bound upon them is probable enough, though
in this matter there be no certainty. But in this there is ; for that
all mankind was not bound by all these laws of consanguinity and
affinity appears in all the foregoing instances : and the marriages of
the patriarchs must conclude them to be as impious as the Canaanites
in theirs, or else that these laws did not oblige all mankind ; and if
not from the beginning, then not now : if these laws were not natural,
they are not christian, which also will further appear in the sequel.

2) But there will be more consideration upon the second quare,
what is meant by ' near of kin to you :'

§ 38. Our English is not sufficiently expressive of the full sense of
it. The Latin is something nearer to the Hebrew, Vir vir non acce-
det ad prqpinquitatem carnis sum, ' to the nearness of his flesh/
Trpbs otKeta aapnos, or as other books irpbs olneiav crapKos, ad domes-
ticam carnis sua, to her that is so near of kin, that they usually dwell
in the same house, that is, parents and children, brothers and sisters,
or our parents' brothers and sisters. In these cases there being ever
the same account of consanguinity and affinity, this rule takes in all
that is there forbidden. But it is highly observable that there is
great difference between propinqui and cognati. God never forbad
to marry our kindred, but He forbad to marry the nearness of our
flesh : which phrase when we rightly understand this whole question
will be quickly at an end.

§ 39. For ' near of kin' is an indefinite word and may signify as
uncertainly as 'great' and 'little' do, nothing of itself determinately,
but what you will comparatively to others : and it may be extended
to all generations of mankind where any records are kept as among
the Jews they were ; from Judah to Joseph the espoused of the

1 Supra, § 14. [p. 369.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OE CONSCIENCE. 385

B. virgin, from Benjamin to Michol, from Levi to Heli : and thus it
is in great proportion amongst the Spaniards and Welch, and in all
nations in their greater and more noble families. The Welch do to
this day esteem him near of kin to them whom the English do not ;
and since we see the prohibition of marriage with kindred hath been
extended sometimes, and sometimes contracted, it is necessary that
all lawgivers do express what is meant by their indefinite terms.

§ 40. Hemmingiusu gives a rule for this as near as can be drawn
from the words and the thing. Projjmquitas carnis, says he, qua me
sine intervallo attingit ; that is, she that is next to me, none inter-
vening between the stock and me : that is, the propinquity or near-
ness of my flesh above me is my mother, below me is my daughter,
on the side is my sister. This is all : with this addition, that these
are not to be uncovered for thy own sake ; thy own immediate rela-
tion they are. All else which are forbidden are forbidden for the sakes
of these, for my mother's or my father's, my son's or my daughter's,
my brother's or my sister's sake ; only reckon the accounts of affinity
to be the same ; affmitates namque cum extraneis novas pariunt con-
juuctioues hominum, non minores ittis qua e sanguine venerunt, said
Philox ; 'affinity makes conjunctions and relations equal to those of
consanguinity :' and therefore thou must not uncover that nakedness
which is thine own in another person of blood or affinity, or else is
thy father's or thy mother's, thy brother's or thy sister's, thy son's or
thy daughter's nakedness. This is all that can be pretended to be
forbidden by virtue of these words ' near of kin' or * the nearness of
thy flesh.'

§ 41. And this we find expressed in the case of the high-priest's
mourning : ' the high-priest might not be defiled for the dead among
his people, but for his kin that is near unto him he mayy;' that
is, ' for his mother and for his father, and for his son and for his
daughter, and for his brother, and for his virgin sister.' This is the
propiuquitas carnis, she that is immediately born of the same flesh
that I am born of, or she out of whose flesh I am born, or she that
is born out of my flesh, is this ' near of kin.' There is no other pro-
pinquity but these ; all else are removed : and when a bar does in-
tervene, all the rest are or may be accounted 'kindred,' but not
'near of kin;' not the nearness of my flesh, which only is here
forbidden.

§ 42. Only this more ; that since the prime natural law does for-
bid the marriage of the ascending and descending line, that is, fathers
and children, and so consequently and by a stronger reason grand-
children, and downwards for ever in descent ; God was pleased to set
a TipotyvkaKT), a bar and a hedge round about this, to keep men off,
far off from it, that if men would be impious they might not at first

° [De conjug., p. 84. ed, 8vo. Lips. Mangey.]
1578.] y [Levit. xxi. 1, 2.]

* De leg. special, [torn. ii. p. 303. ed.

IX. c c

386 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

come to the highest step : and therefore as God placed the prohibi-
tion of brother and sister under, so on the side of it He forbad the
marriage of uncles and aunts ; for they are thy father's or thy mother's
' near kin/ they are to them the propinquitas camis : therefore for
the reverence of father and mother the Jews were bidden to keep off
one step more, for the last step of lawful is soon passed over into the
first step of unlawful, and therefore God was pleased to set them
further off. And the christian divines and lawyers well understand-
ing this, express the prohibition to this sense, that uncles and aunts
are not to be married, because they are loco parentis ; they are quasi
joarentes, images of fathers and mothers, for the reverence of which
the marriage of our uncles and aunts respectively are forbidden. This
is just as it was forbidden to the Jews to make an image; which
thing could not have any moral or natural obliquity, but it was set
as a Trpo(f)vkaKri, a guard and a hedge to keep them off from worship-
ping them. The case is the same here, for the Jews were as apt to
comply with the Egyptians and Canaanites in their incestuous mix-
tures, as in their idolatrous worshippings ; but therefore the hedges
were placed before them both. But half an eye may see the dif-
ferent accounts upon which in this place there was passed an equal
prohibition.

§ 43. But besides all this, what better determination can we have
of these indefinite words of ' near of kin/ or ' the nearness of thy
flesh' (for those are the words in the Hebrew, so they are to be
rendered) than the express particulars made by God himself in that
very place ; where none are reckoned in the equal collateral line but
brothers and sisters and their affines or allies, their husbands and
wives respectively; none in the unequal collateral line but uncles
and aunts and their allies; in the ascending and descending line
fathers and mothers, their children and their grandchildren with their
allies ; in all which there is nothing at all that concerns cousin-ger-
mans, neither upon any thing of this account can they be supposed
to be forbidden, or to be ' the nearness of our flesh/

§ 44. But if any scrupulous person shall enquire further, and
suspect that some degrees or persons are forbidden to marry that
are not here expressed, but included by a parity of reason, as it
happens in another instance ; for it is not forbidden to marry our
mother's brother's wife, but because here it is made unlawful to
marry father's brother's wife, it is to be concluded also for the other,
there being the same degree and the same reason : — I answer to this
by parts ;

§ 45. 1) It is very likely that it is so intended that in equal cases
there is an equal prohibition : but it cannot certainly be concluded
and relied upon that it is so, a) Because upon this account cases
of fear and scruple might very much be multiplied to no purpose :
for I remember that Fagius reckons out of the books of the rabbins
twenty persons forbidden to marry, which yet are not reckoned in

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT ItULE OF CONSCIENCE. 387

Leviticus. /3) Because of the rule of the law, 1. ' Mutus,' 48. D. Be
procur.z — Quod lege prohibitoria non vetitum est, permissum intelli-
gitur ; ' in negative precepts that which is not forbidden is presumed
to be allowed.' And to add more out of fear is either to be wiser
than the lawgiver, or to suspect him to be apt to quarrel by unknown
measures, and secret rules of interpretation, y) Because I find that
amongst wise nations the same degree does not always admit the same
prohibition. To marry my father's sister was forbidden, and it was
not forbidden to marry my brother's daughter, but it was sometimes
practised amongst the Hebrews : and they give this reason for it, be-
cause young men daily frequenting the houses of their grandfathers
and grandmothers converse with their aunts, and are therefore for-
bidden to marry lest such conversation should become their snare ;
but to the houses of their brethren their address is not so frequent,
their conversation more separate, and their interest and expectations
less, and therefore to marry the daughters of their brother might
with more safety be permitted because there is less temptation. Thus
by the laws given to the sons of Noah, the Jews observe that it was
permitted to marry the sister by the father's side, but not our sister
by the mother. It was Abraham's case; for as Saidus Batricidesa
the patriarch of Alexandria about seven hundred years since in his
ecclesiastical annals tells out of the monuments of the east ; ' Thare
begat Abraham of his first wife Jona, and she being dead he married
Tehevitha, and of her begat Sarah, Abraham's wife : and this is it
which he said, ' she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter
of my mother :' from whence they suppose this not to be permitted,
and that the other was : for so R. Jarchib glosses those words of
Abraham now quoted ; Quoniam inter gentes ratio consanguinitatis
piaterna neutiquam habebatur, ' because among the gentiles (meaning,
by the law of nature, or the law given to Noah) there was little or no
account made of kindred by the father's side in the matter of mar-
riages.' So amongst the Romans after the time of Claudius it was
permitted to marry the brother's daughter, but not the sister's
daughter, as appears in the rules of Ulpian, but the reason of this
particular instance I confess I cannot learn, I only observed it to
this purpose that amongst wise nations the same degree hath not
the same prohibition.

§ 46. But I am willing enough to admit it with these cautions :
a) That there be not only the same degree but the same reason. For
as Ulpian well observes in his rules, In quarto graclu permittltur con-
nubium extra eas personas quce parentum liberorumque locum habent .
therefore says he they add ' that the great aunt by the father's and by
the mother's side, and the sister's niece may not be married,' quamvis
quarto gradu shit, ' although they are in the fourth degree :' because
the prohibition is not always for the nearness or for the degree, but

* [Digest., lib. iii. tit. 3. 1. 43. col. 84.] cap. 2.]

* [Selden. de jur. nat. et gent., lib. v. b [In loc. apud Selden., ibid.]

C C 2

388 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

for the proper reason ; and if you could suppose a woman to live to
see six generations of her line, yet it is unlawful for her to marry that
sixth degree of nephews, and not unlawful to marry the first degree
of cousins.

§ 47. /3) In the descending line the case is otherwise than in the
equal line. Here the further off the persons are the less reason still
there is they should be forbidden : but in the descending line the
further the persons are removed the greater cause there is they should
be forbidden ; therefore there is no comparison between the cognation
of uncles and their nieces, and the cognation of cousins in the equal
lines, because the reason distinguishes them, not the kindred or near-
ness to the common parent.

§ 48. y) It is true which is affirmed in the law, in pari cognations
gradu, par idemque jus statuatur ; ' when the cognation is the same,
the law is so too ;' that is, if it be measured in the same kind of cog-
nation, ascending compared to ascending, equal collateral to equal
collateral, unequal to unequal ; for when the comparison is of things
in the same order, then not only the degree but the reason is most
commonly the same too, and that is principally to be regarded.

§ 49. But though I am willing enough to admit this rule with
these cautions, yet many others will not, nor think it reasonable that
any thing should be supposed to be forbidden in the levitical law,
but what is there set down, excepting the descent of children, in
which it is not easy to prevaricate beyond the degrees forbidden ex-
pressly, if a man had a mind to it, and it was never heard of that
a marriage was thought of between a woman and her great grand-
father. And they give this reason why they limit themselves to the
degrees expressed : because unless God had intended there a perfect
enumeration of all the persons forbidden to contract marriages mutu-
ally, it cannot be imagined why He should be pleased to repeat some
degrees twice which are equally forbidden in the several instances;
for if the parity of cognation were to be the measure, then those de-
grees which are twice repeated might without such repetition have
better been reduced to the rule, under which they were sufficiently
prohibited.

§ 50. 2) But whether it be or be not so, yet it can no way reach
to the case of cousin-germans : for there is in Leviticus no degree
equally near that is forbidden, except of such persons which are in
the place of parents, who are prohibited upon another account.

§ 51. But that which ought to put it past all question that the
marriage of cousin-germans was not prohibited by the levitical law
either expressly or by consequence and parity of reason, is this : be-
cause it was practised by holy men both before and after the law, and
so ordered to be done by God himself. In the law there are no words
against it, no reason against it expressed or intimated in a parity of
prohibition given to something else, and it was frequently practised
amongst persons of a known religion, and was by God giveu in com-

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 889

mand to some persons to do it; therefore nothing is more certainly
warranted, excepting only express commandments.

§ 52. The particulars I relate to in scripture are these; Jacob married
his cousin-german Rachel the daughter of his uncle Laban ; Amram
the father of Moses begat him of his cousin-german Jochabedc. That
she was his aunt is commonly supposed, but the LXX. and the vulgar
Latin report her to be his aunt's daughter, though by the style of the
Hebrews she was called his aunt; just as Chanameel is called in some
books the uncle of the prophet Jeremy, when he was really his uncle's
sond, and so the vulgar Latin bibles read it; and Lot was called
brother by Abraham when he was his brother's son. Caleb having
promised his daughter Achsah to him that should take Kirjath-Sepher,
she fell to Othniel the son of Kenaz Caleb's brother ; so Pagnine and
Arias Montanus read it, filio Kenaz fratris Caleb, meaning Kenaz
to be Caleb's brother. So that Othniel and Achsah were brothers'
children ; for it cannot be supposed that Othniel was Caleb's brother
and so was uncle to Achsah, for that being forbidden in the law of
Moses under which Othniel and Achsah lived, was not a thing so
likely to be done and consented to by Caleb; as I have already
noted".

§ 53. But the matter was made more notorious in the case of
Zelophehad's daughtersf, who because they were heiresses were com-
manded to marry their kindred ; and they married their father's bro-
ther's sons. This was a special case, but therefore it was a special
command ; and what was in all cases lawful was made in this case
necessary. For if the woman was an heiress she was to pleasure her
own family rather than strangers. And this was not only amongst
the Jews but amongst the Greeks and Latins, as appears by that of
the comedy g,

Lex est ut orbne, qui sunt genere proximi

lis nubant, et illos ducere eadem haec lex jubet.

If the woman was without children (add also and without a father,
that is, if her father be dead), the next of kindred was bound to marry
her : and therefore when iEschylush calls the marriage of certain
cousin-germans XeKrpa &v 6ep.is etpyei, ' marriages which the law
forbids,' and affirms puaivtcrOai yivos, ' the family is stained by it ;'
the scholiast adds that therefore these marriages are unlawful because
the fathers were alive ; and so it was not unlawful upon the stock of
kindred, but because the maid was e-niKkiipiTis, 'an heiress,' and
might not marry without her father's leave. This woman was called
among the Greeks ki:ibi.Ka£o\A£vri, ' a woman determined by law,' and
already judged to such a marriage, -naTpovyos, and ZiiUXrjpos, or

[Exod. vi. 20. f [Num. xxxvi.]

[Jer. xxxii. 12.] s [Terent. Pborm., i. 2. 75.]

' [§ 33. p. 382.] h In Danaid. [Suppl. 38.]

390 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

€Tnn\r)piT ls' and to them that were so it was not free to marry any
one, they must marry their kindred :

Hie meus amicus illi genere est proximus,
Huic leges cogunt nubere hanc '. ■

And we find in the old civil law that one Cassia was declared inlie-
reirix upon condition, si consoirino nupsisset, ' if she did marry her
cousin-german/ I. 2. C. de instit. et szibst.k ; and Papinian, I. 23 et
24. D. de ritu nuptiarum1, affirms, conditionem Mam, si consodrinam
duxerit, Juereditatis institutioni idilite?' adj'ici posse ; ' it is a legal
and a fair condition and may be the limit of an inheritance, that the
heiress be bound to marry her cousin-german/ And this in some
measure was the case of Euth, whom Boaz, great-grandfather to king
David, did marry by the right of a kinsman. " Now it is true," saith
hem, "that I am thy near kinsman, howbeit there is a kinsman nearer
than I :" which kinsman because he refused to marry Ruth, Boaz
took her to wife, and she became a mother in the line of the Mes-
sias ; for Christ came out of her loins according to the flesh.

§ 54. Into which line because this argument hath led me, I offer
it to consideration as the last and greatest example of the lawfulness
and holiness of such marriages under the law of Moses, and as a
warranty to all ages of the Christians : the B. virgin Mary the mother
of our most B. Saviour was married to her cousin-german, as was
supposed upon this reason : for her husband Joseph was the son of
Heli, saith S. Luke", that is, the legal son of Heli, for ' Jacob begat
him/ saith S. Matthew0. Now Heli and Jacob were brethren, the
sons of Matthan who was grandfather to Joseph and Mary ; for un-
less by the cognation of Joseph and Mary the same genealogy had
served for them both, the reckoning of the genealogy of Joseph could
not have proved Jesus to have descended from David. But if this
instance should fail, and that their consanguinity (for they were cousins)
did stand at further distances ; yet there are examples and reasons
and authentic presidents p already reckoned enow to warrant us in this
enquiry.

§ 55. By all which it appears what was the state of these marriages
under the law of Moses, and yet all the scruple at which weak per-
sons start or stumble, is derived from that sanction in Leviticus, which
in despite of all reason and all precedents and all observations what-
soever they will needs suppose to be a natural and moral law, so
making eleven commandments; for certain it is that the ten com-
mandments was to the Jews the sum of their moral law, in which since
some things that were ceremonial were inserted, it is not likely that
any thing that was moral should be omitted. In the ten words of
Moses there was nothing less than their whole moral law, though

; [Terent] Adelphi. [iv. 5. 17.] m [Ruth iii. 12.]

k [lib. vi. tit. 25. 1. 2. col. 521.] n [Luke iii. 23.]

1 [De conditione institutionis, lib. ° [Matt. i. 16.]

xxviii. tit. 7. 11. 23, 4. col. 883.] v ['precedents,' C, D.]

CHAP. II.] THE QltEAT RULE OF CONSCIEiVCE. 391

something more there was; but this of forbidding cousins to marry
was no where put. If it had been put in Leviticus it was but national
and temporary; for I have proved it was not against the law of na-
ture, which permitted nearer relatives than cousin-germans to marry :
I have also proved that the sanction of Moses did only oblige Jews
and proselytes; that if they had obliged all, yet cousin-germans are
not there expressly forbidden, and if they be not there expressly for-
bidden they are not forbidden at all ; but in case that other degrees
of equal distance and reason were there forbidden, though not ex-
pressed, yet this of cousin-germans is not by any consequence or in-
timation of that forbidden, because no degree is there forbidden which
can involve this, but it hath a special case of its own in which this
is not at all concerned, and all this I strengthened with examples
greater than all exception.

§ 56. It remains now that we descend to the christian law, and
enquire whether our great master and lawgiver Jesus Christ hath for-
bidden cousin-germans to marry? But this is soon at an end, for
Christ spake nothing at all concerning marriage but one sentence
which reduced it to the first state of nature, save only that He left
us in all things bound by the laws of nations and our just superiors,
of which two last I shall give account in the following periods. But
of that which Christ said the sum is this only ; " For this cause shall
a man leave father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they two
shall be one flesh." By which words He did establish all that was
natural and moral in this affair. "A man shall leave father and
mother/' by these words are forbidden the marriage of parents and
children ; " he shall cleave to his wife," by this is forbidden concu-
bitits musculorum ; " his wife," by this is forbidden adultery or the
lying with another man's wife, and extra-nuptial pollutions. Erunt
duo, " they two," by that is forbidden polygamy ; in camem imam,
" shall be one flesh," by this is forbidden bestiality or the abuse of
caro aliena, the flesh of several species ; which are all the unlawful
and unnatural lusts forbidden by God in the law of nature, and that
which was afterwards given to all mankind, and inserted in the levi-
tical law as the consummation and main design of the other prohibi-
tions which wTere but like hedges and outer guards to these.

§ 57. There is in the New testament only one law more which cai
relate to this question of marriages : " Provide things honest in the
sight of all menq," and "Follow after things which are of good re-
port1." That is, whatsoever is against public, honesty, the law of
nations, the common sense of mankind, that is not to be done by
Christians, though of the instance there be no special prohibition in
the laws of Jesus Christ : and Modestinus3 the lawyer said well, Li
nvptiis non solum quid liceal, scd etiam quid honestum sit, semper est
respiciendum. Concerning which lest there be a mistake in it, I pre-

q [Rom. xii. 17.] r [Phil.iv. 8.] ' [Digest, lib. xxiii. tit. 2. 1. 42. col. 681.]

392 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

mise this caution in general, that we do not take false or weak esti-
mates of public fame and honesty. Nothing but the laws of God and
men, or the universal sentence of that part of mankind with whom we
any ways converse, is the measure of public honesty. Thus for a bishop
to ride on hunting in his pontificals, or for a priest to keep an ale-
house, is against public honesty ; of the same nature are, for a woman
to paint her face, or to go in man's apparel : but when a thing is dis-
puted on both sides by good and learned men, to do either is not
against public honesty. That's a certain rule ; for when a thing is
called good and honest by wise and good men, the question is divided,
and therefore cannot be united against either of them. Upon this
account S. Paul reproved the incestuous Corinthian, because he had
done a fact which was not so much as named, that is, approved amongst
the gentiles, that one should have his father's wife. Caracalla indeed
did it afterwards, and it was before his time done in the family of
Seleucus ; but these were insolent examples, ever disallowed by the
Romans, and all the nations within their circuit : and consequently
the Greeks had long before S. Paul's time been more restrained in
their too sjreat licentiousness of marriages. And when the custom
of this thing had procured a licence for it amongst the Scots, S. Mar-
garet, wife to Malcome III. their king, did reduce the contrary law
of nations, and forbad a son to marry his father's wife, or a brother
to marry his brother's widow1.

§ 58. Beyond this the New testament having nothing, if we re-
duce this to the present question we must consider whether the mar-
riage of cousin-germans be against public honesty or good report, that
is, whether it be condemned by the law of nations and the prevailing
sentences or practice of wise men.

§ 59. Concerning this, I find that Plutarch" speaking of the ancient
laws and usages of the Romans in marrying their kindred, says it was
a practice before it was a law : and there happened to be a case of a
good man who had a great advantage by marrying his cousin-ger-
man ; upon occasion of which the people made a law that it should
be permitted to any one to do it, ^/ricfyLa-dixeuos Tracriv Z£elvai yafxelv
a^pis av€\JfLwv, to. 8e avoiripca K€Kco\.v(rOaL. Now this was very ancient,
and before this law for it I find no law against it : only if Claudius
in Tacitusx said true they were diu ignorata, no notice of them, or
• but seldom examples. Concerning which discourse though men are
pleased to talk as serves their turns, yet it is very certain that the
elder the times were, the more liberty there was of marrying their
kindred. However, there was an early law for it and none against it,
that I find; and when it began to be considered, tempore addito per-
crebuerunt, saith Tacitus, they in time grew frequent. In the ora-

1 [Selden, <le jur. nat. et gent., lib. v. u [Quaest. Rom., torn. viii. p. 76.]

cap. 11.] * [Anna!., lib. xii. cap. 6.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 893

lion of Sp. Ligustinus in Livyy there is this clause, pater mihi nxo-
rem fratris sui filiam decllt, ' my father gave me to wife his own
brother's daughter:' and Quintilianz mourning for the immature
death of his son, affirms that he was designed to be son-in-law to
his uncle. So Cicero pro Cluentio* says that his sister married Mc-
linusher cousin -german, and Augustus Ceesar gave his daughter Julia
to Marcellus the son of his sister Octaviab. The brave Brutus who
was the example of a rare moral man and a noble patriot was mar-
ried to Portia the daughter of his wise uncle Cato; and that incom-
parable prince Marcus Antoninus the philosopher and emperor was
married to his nearest Cousin Annia Faustina0, she was his cousin-
gennan. But thus it was at the beginning, and thus it was at the
ending of the Roman state and empire. At the beginning, the two
daughters of Servius Tullius were married to their cousin-germans
Lucius and Aruns, the nephews of Priscus Tarquinius : Livyd indeed
says it was not certain whether these young gentlemen were uncles
or cousin-germans to their wives, that is, whether they were sons or
nephewse to Tarquinius Priscus, but Dionysius Halicarnasseusf con-
tends earnestly that they were nephews. Toward the declination of
the Roman period and state we find that Constantius the emperor
gave his sister to her cousin Julianus.

§ 60. These and all the foregoing examples of the wisest, of the
best, of the most holy persons, patriarchs and kings, consuls and phi-
losophers, lawgivers and saints, the practice and customs of the great-
est and most civil nations are infinitely sufficient to dash in pieces this
weak pretence (if any should make use of it) that the marriage of
cousin-germans is against public honesty, and so consequently not of
good report. For that which God never forbad, but sometimes did
actually command, which the patriarchs did practise, which the
church of the Jews never scrupled at, but always were accustomed
to it; which wise men and good men have done without reproof;
which was admitted by the law of nations ; and is no where contra-
dicted in scripture, which records many authentic precedents of such
marriages ; in all reason ought to be of good report. And certainly
nothing hath done dishonour and so lessened the fame and good
opinion of such marriages, as the very making a question concern-
ing its lawfulness, and making a scruple even after the question is
well determined. To be suspected, lessens the fame of any man
or any thing : the doing justice to this article will do it reputation
enough.

§ 61. If we now shall enquire how the civil law of the Romans
did determine of these marriages, we shall be helped much in the

» [lib. xlii. cap. 34.] cap. i.]

1 [Instit. orat, lib. vi. procem. § 13.] d Lib. i. ab U. C. [cap. 46.]

" [cap. v.] e [i. e. 'grandsons,' — See vol. vii. p.

b [Dion. Cass., lib. I'm. cap. 27.] 504.]

c [Capitolin. vit. M. Aurel. Anton., f Antiq.,lib. iv. [cap. 28. torn. i. p. 223.]

394

OP THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

cure of the former fear. Tor if the law of the Romans allowed it,

that law which had so many brave and wise composers, and which so

many nations allowed of and practised, and still do in very many

kingdoms and republics, we have no reason to think it can be of ill

report. But concerning this the matter is not very disputable : it is

notorious that the civil law did allow it; I. 1. § ' duorum,' Inst, de

nuplJ et I. ' non solum.' § l.h I), de ritu nupt. C. de inst. et subst.

Paulus the lawyer said \ Si nepotem ex filio et neptem ex altero filio

in potestate Jiabeam, nuptias inter eos me solo auctore contrahi posse

PomponiiM scribit, et verum est : and Antoninus the emperor saidJ,

Non videri potest sub specie turpium nuptiarum viduitatem tibi in*

dixisse, cum te filio sororis sua consobrino iuo probabili cousilio ma-

trimonio jungere voluerit. I need in this say no more. It was always

permitted in the Greek and Roman laws, till the time of Theodosius,

who being over-ruled by S. Ambrose, forbad it by an express law •

Tantum pudori tribuens continentia ut consobrinarum nuptias vetuerit

tanquam sororum, said Aurelius Victor k ; ' he thought it more nice

and modest if he should enlarge the laws, and restrain what was not

restrained before/ But this as it arose suddenly, so as suddenly was

extinguished ; for it was abrogated by Arcadius and Honorius his sons,

whose constitution to this purpose is in Justinian, I. ' Celebrmidis' C.

Be nuptiis1, in which these words are remarkable, Revoeata prisci

juris auctoritate, restinciisque calumniarum fomentis, matrimonium

inter consobrinos liabeatur ; ' the law that forbad them was occasioned

and fomented by calumnies ; which being dispersed, the authority of

the ancient law was recalled/

§ 62. This only I am to admonish, that in the Theodosian code
the law of these emperors seems to say otherwise ; as is to be seen
under the titles of Si nuptice ex rescript. petant, and Be incestis nuptiis.
But the forgery is notorious enough : for when Alaric king of the
Goths had commanded his subject Arrianus the lawyer to make a
breviary of the code, he fitted those laws to the customs of his own
country, and so abused the law of Arcadius and Honorius ; as ap-
pears plainly by comparing those constitutions which passed under
the fingers of Arrianus, with those which under the same rubrics are
in the code of Justinian. For in this there is not one word spoken
of the marriage of cousin-germans under those titles. And as he
hath done in the breviary of the Theodosian code, so he hath done
in the epitome of Caius' institutions (he, or some such fellow as bad),
and made the civil law as he pleased expressly against the known
sanction of all the old law of the braver Romans. The same also
was done by Theophilus, who recited this law according to the
manners of his own time, and recites the law of Justinian exactly

« [Inst., lib. i. tit. 10. col. 26.] i [L. ' Conditioni.' 2. C. de instit. et

h [ibid., tit. u.- col. 27.] subst. [lib. vi. tit. 25. col. 521.]
' L. 'Si Nepot.' 3. D. de rit. nupt. * [Hist. Rom., cap. xlviii.]

[Digest, lib. xxiii. tit. 2. col. G76.] » [lib. v. tit. 4. 1. 19. col. 369.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 395

contrary to Justinian's sense by clapping a perfect negative to his
direct affirmative : but Curtius the Latin interpreter of Theophilus
hath set it right again according to the true intent of the civil law.
But it may be I Jo not well to trouble the question with these
little things, when the great lines of duty are so plain and legible :
and concerning this we have a full testimony from S. Austin"1 ; who
having observed that in his time cousin-germans did not often marry,
lixperti sumus, says he, in connubiis consobrinarum etiam nostris
li'iiiporibus .... quam raro per mores fiebat, quod fieri per leges
licebat, quia id nee divina prohibuit, et nondum prohibaerat lex hu-
maua ; that is, ' for cousin-germans to marry was neither prohibited
by the laws of God nor man ;' and so we have a testimony beyond ex-
ception concerning the civil law, and the law of God, and the law of
the church till his time. Now if it be objected that he says it was
done but seldom, it is no wonder. S. Ambrose and Thcoclosius a
little before that time had caused some restraint and made the matter
uneasy : and besides this, if any man could observe concerning any
one sort of persons how seldom they marry, that is, how few examples
any one man can observe of any degree though never so distant, this
will appear but light as the dew upon a flower, or the down of a
thistle. It is lawful for a father and his son to marry a widow and
her daughter, and for two brothers to marry two sisters, and no man
questions any thing of it ; but Quam raro hoc per mores fiat ; how
many examples can any one man reckon? Can he tell so many in
one age and of his own notice, as to make them up a multitude ? and
yet this would be but a weak argument against it, and not worth a
further consideration.

§ 63. That which is to be enquired next into is the canon law ;
and that indeed does forbid it : but how, and to what purpose, and
with what obligation, will not be wholly useless to consider.

§ 64. 1) In the very first canons of the church (excepting only
that one framed in the council of Jerusalem, Acts xv.) which are com-
monly called the canons of the apostles", there is a caution against
incestuous marriages, but the instances are only, 'He that marries
two sisters, or his brother's widow or daughter.' The penalty is, f he
may not be received into holy orders :' but for the matter of cousin-
germans it was not forbidden. Until S. Austin's time and thereabouts
it was true that nondum prohibuerat lex hnmana, divina nunquam :
' God's law had never, and till then man's law had not forbidden it,'
that is, it was then in all senses lawful : and in the synod of Paris"
almost six hundred years after Christ, those are defined to be unlawful
marriages qua contra praceptum Domini contrahuntur , ' which are
against the divine law/ none else ; amongst which the present case
is not to be suspected : and in the old canons of the church all the

m Lib. xv. c. 16. de civit. Dei. [torn. i. p. 444.]
vii. col. 398 D.] » [Concil. Paris, iii. (A.D. 557. Har-

n [Can. xv. — Coteler. patr. apost., torn. duin.) can. 4. torn. iii. col. -i.'iS C]

396 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

prohibited instances were comprised in these verses, which was their
authentic table :

Nata, soror, neptis, matertera, fratris et uxor,
Et patris conjux, mater, privigna, noverea,
Uxorisque soror, privigni nata, mirusque,
Atque soror patris, conjungi lege vetantur p

But in some assemblies of the bishops about this time, a little before
or a little after, the manners of the nations being spoiled with wars
rudeness and barbarism, they contracted incestuous marriages : and
it was therefore thought fit that as the marriage of uncles and nieces
were forbidden as a hedge to keep them further off from father and
mother, son or daughter, so this of cousin-germans was set as a
TrpcxfyvXaKri or an outward court to keep them from marrying brother
and sister. And therefore Harmenopulusi says they we're forbidden
by the laws of the Greeks. And it was amongst them no more than
was highly needful, for a reason which every one knows. But both
there and in the Latin church, when the prohibition of cousins' mar-
riage is joined in the same decree with the marrying of sisters, the
cause is rendered too suspicious. And yet there was an external cause
that had influence upon these sanctions of the church. The Goths
then prevailed by the sword, and the church to comply with the con-
queror was forward to receive this law from them : for the Goths had
it before the Romans, and it is very probable that those barbarous
people were the great presidents and introducers of the prohibition.

§ 65. 2) These laws were made by time and accidents, and were
extended or contracted as it pleased the popes of Rome, who (as one
observes) were for a long time iniquiores et invidi in maritos, ' apt
and easy to make all restraints upon marriages.'' If it were seasonable
and fit, it were not useless to observe many instances out of the canon
law to this purpose ; but I forbear : that which I now observe is,
that the prohibition amongst them began with cousin-germans, then
it went to the third and fourth degrees, then to seven, then to four
again; sometime to six, as in the synod at Cabaillon1; sometimes
usque clvrn generatio agnoscitur, ant memoria retinetur 9, ' as long as
any memory of kindred remains ;' and that will be very far in Wales,
where they reckon eight degrees and special names of kindred after
cousin-germans, and then kin for ever; and truly these canonists pro-
ceed as reasonably as their principles would admit. For if cognation
or consanguinity was the hindrance of marriage, wherever they could
reckon that, they had some pretence to forbid marriage ; but if they
only forbad it upon the accounts of nature, or by the precedent of
the divine law given to Moses they were to stop there where nature

p Cap. 'Litteras,' De restit. sponsal. qusest. 2. cap. 21. col. 2005.]
[Decret., lib. ii. tit. 13. cap. 13. col. 599.] » Concil. Tolet. ii. can. 5. [tom. ii.

« [Prompt, jur., lib. iv. tit. 6. § 5. p. col. 1141 A.] Concil. Worm. [can. 32.

298. ed. 4to. Gen. 1587.] tom. v. col. 742 C]
[Gratian. decret, part. 2. cans. xxxv.

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OK CONSCIENCE. 897

stopped, or the divine law. But that they would not, as knowing
it to be an easy thing to make laws at the charge of other men's
trouble.

§ 66. 3) The reasons why the projectors of the canon law did for-
bid to the fourth or to the seventh degree, were as fit a cover for this
dish as could be imagined. They that were for four gave this grave
reason for it. There are four humours in the body of a man1, to which
because the four degrees of consanguinity do answer, it is proportion-
able to nature to forbid the marriage of" cousins to the fourth degree.
Nay more ; there are four elements : ergo, to which it may be added,
that there are upon a man's hand four fingers and a thumb. The
thumb is the stirps or common parent ; and to the end of the four
fingers, that is, the four generations of kindred, we ought not to marry,
because, ' the life of a man is but a span long/ There are also four
quarters of the world ; and indeed so there are of every thing in it,
if we please ; and therefore abstain at least till the fourth degree be
past. Others who are graver and wiser (particularly Bonaventure)
observe cunningly, that besides the four humours of the body, there
are three faculties of the soul, which being joined together make
seven, and they point out to us that men are to abstain till the
seventh generation. These reasons, such as they are, they therefore
were content withal, because Ihey had no better; yet upon the
strength of these they were bold even against the sense of almost all
mankind to forbid these degrees to marry.

§ 67. 4) When the canonists appointed what degrees of kindred
they would have restrained from mutual marriage, they took their
precedent and measure from the civil law, making this their standard,
that so long as by the civil law inheritances did descend, so long by
the canon law it should not be permitted to kindred to marry ; and
upon this account they forbad marriage to the seventh degree, because
so far the laws appointed inheritances to descend. Now that this is
a weak and a false ground appears because inheritance descends even
to the tenth degree : and yet suppose it otherwise, yet the popes and
other compilers of the canons overshoot their mark extremely; be-
cause while they forbidding marriages to the seventh degree pretended
to follow some proportions and usages of the civil law, do yet reckon
the degrees otherwise than the civil law does, and consequently do
forbid marriage to the fifteenth civil degree exclusively. Tor whereas
by the canon law so far as either of the persons is distant from the
common parent, so far he is distant from the other in the equal line,
so that by this computation cousin-germans are distant in the second
degree and no more : but by the civil law there are accounted so
many degrees as there are persons besides the common parent, so that
in this computation cousin-germans are distant in the fourth degree ;
and consequently the seventh canonical degree is the fourteenth civil

1 [Greg. ix. decret., lib. iv. tit. 14. cap. 8. col. 1391: cf. lib. iii. tit. 41. cap. S.
col. 1272.]

398 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

degree, the unequalness and unreasonableness of which all lawyers will
deride. The same is in proportion to be said of their later reduction
of the canonical prohibition to the fourth degree inclusively.

§ 68. 5) These laws gathered by the Roman canonists are not now,
nor ever were they obligatory, but by the consent of the people, and
the allowance of princes : for bishops in their mere spiritual impresses
have no proper legislative power, where princes are christian ; and if
the prince please he may enlarge or restrain their power, so that he
make no intrenchment on the divine law, and do what is useful and
profitable. Fac leg I turn sepem, said the Jewsu; it makes the law firm
if you put a hedge about it ; and where viler people who had no fear
of God were apt to marry sisters or aunts, it was not ill to prohibit
something that was lawful, lest they should run into what is unlawful :
but this is matter of prudence only, and ought to be separated from
the question of lawful or unlawful. But then when the prince does not
bind, the subjects are free. Honesta et justa esse qua regi placent,
et regno utilia, ' those things which please the king and are profitable
to the kingdom are honest and just :' it was truly said but ill ap-
plied by Antiochus Seleucusv.

§ 69. 6) These laws are neither allowed by the prince, nor by the
ecclesiastical state in England, and because they were useless and
burdensome they were laid aside ; for they were but drains for money,
and levies of rents ; for even under the pope the way was, and is now,
open enough to cousin-germans if they have gold enough to purchase
the lead. And so it was when the civil law was tuned to the air of
the canon law, and both to the manners of the Goths : cousins might
marry with a dispensation from the prince; a form of which is to be
seen in Cassiodorew. But this is one of the many blessings of the
protestant religion, that we are not tied to pay money for leave to do
a lawful action ; so that as the Jews were wont to say, He that hath
married a wTife that is too near of kindred, let him turn proselyte and
then she is not of kin to him, I may in some sense use in the contest
between our laws and those of the Roman churches : he that hath
or desires to marry a wife of his kindred which is not too near by
God's law, but is by the pope's law, let him become a protestant,
and then though nothing can be allowed to him wrhich God hath for-
bidden, yet that leave which God hath given him man shall not take
away.

§ 70. 7) If it were at all considerable what is done by the canon
law, there is a new device brought in of spiritual kindred, and
marriages forbidden to be between such as answer at the font for the
same child ; that is, if we value the Roman canons, all mankind are in
perpetual snare, and that to no purpose.

§ 71. 8) But as for the present enquiry it is cons'derable that the
canon law itself does not pretend it to be against the divine law, but

u [Paul. Fag. Pirke Avoth, pp. 1, 56.~\ w Lib. vii. variarum. [cap. 46. torn. ii.

v [Appian. de reb. Syr., cap. lxi.] p. 115.]

CHAP. II.] THE GitEAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 399

does it wholly upon other accounts, as I have already instanced ; and
this appears ill the epistle of Eabanus to cardinal Humbert" ; Quod
/pontifices usque ad sextum vel septimum gradum conjugium proMbentt
magis ex consuctudine humana quam ex lege divina eos jprcecepisse cre-
dendim, ' the canons did not intend to signify it to be against the law
of God for cousins to marry in the degrees forbidden by the canon law.'
§ 72. 9) And after all, the laws of England do expressly allow it;
as is to be seen in the tables of marriage set up in churches usually,
and in the statute of 32 of Henry VIII. chapter xxxviii.y And it is
observable that in England they were allowed to do it ever since they
were Christians, unless they were papists. Eor till pope Gregory's
time and Augustine the monk (though Christianity had been here
almost five hundred years before) it was used by the Britains : and
P. Gregory did not think it fit that Augustine should put a restraint
upon them (as is to be seen in the British councils collected by that
learned and good man sir Henry Spelman2), but it was no little interest
and power which the popes afterwards procured in the families of
princes and other great personages by giving leave to them to marry
their near relatives ; and their posterity for their own sakes would in
all likelihood preserve that power, to which (as things then went)
they did owe their legitimation.

§ 73. Although I have passed through all laws that can oblige us
in this present enquiry; yet because the chief disquisition is con-
cerning the natural law, and whether or no any prohibition can from
thence descend upon the marriage of cousin-germans is the main
question ; it will be proper here to add one topic more, that is, the
prudence or reasonableness of the thing.

§ 74. Concerning which it is observable, that whoever shall go
about to assign the proper reasons why certain degrees are forbidden
to marry by the law of God, will by experience find it to be too hard
for his head : and rabbi Menahem Eacanatensisa observed, Quod ad
rationem attinet inter dlctorum incesli, magistri tradiiionum de ea nihil
certi acceperunt ; 'the masters of traditions have received no certain
account of those reasons for which God forbad incestuous mixtures.5
Indeed if we could find out the prime and proper reason, then by
proportions to it we could better understand how far the prohibitions
were to be extended : but this is to be despaired of. But yet men
have ventured to give such reasons as they could, which how far they
are applicable to the present question shall be considered.

§ 75. 1) That kindred ought not to marry is therefore decreed,
ne armilatio fiat in eadem domo, says one; 'the same degree of kin-
dred will be apt to love the same man, and so emulation will arise/
Well, suppose that : but if it does ; the marrying one of them will

1 [' Quota generatione licitum sit con- » [torn. i. p. 97. ed. fol. Lond. 1639.]

nubium,' torn. vi. p. 165 F.] a [Selden, dc jur. nat. ct gent., lib. v.

" [Statutes of the realm, vol. iii. p. cap. 10. J
792. fol. Lond. 1810—22.]

400 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

determine all the rest, and quiet the strife. But because tins proves
too much, it proves nothing at all : for upon the same account, a
young man should not marry in a family where there are many
daughters, ne amulatio fiat in eadem domo, to avoid emulation and
competition.

§ 76. 2) Cousins would do better not to marry (says another) ne
habeat dims necessitudines una persond°, f that one person may not
be a double relative :' for so names will be confounded, and the same
person shall be father and cousin to his own child. But what if he
be ? and what if a king be both a lord over and a son under his own
mother ? what if a man be a father and a judge, a brother-in-law and
a natural brother, as when two brothers marry two sisters ? the more
relations and necessitudes there are, it is so much the better, and a
twofold cord is not easily broken.

§77.3) It were well that cousins might not marry, that by their
kindred they might be defended from the injury of their husbands,
in case they should need it. Well suppose this too: yet, a) This
does not at all concern the man, for he will not need a defence by
his kindred against his wife. /3) For the woman, unless she marries
all her kindred, the other may be a defence against the violence of
one whom she does marry ; and will be more likely to prevail in the
defence against a kinsman than against a stranger, y) But if a
woman be brought to that pass, her cousin shall do her little advan-
tage against her husband, for such defences do but exasperate and
make eternal animosities ; but the laws are the best defences. 8) If
the cousin will be a sure defence against the husband's injury; then
if the cousin be married to her, he will be sure to do her no injury.
For he that will do evil himself, is but an ill security to be engaged
against another, and he that will prevaricate in the duty of a hus-
band, will hardly secure the peace of the woman by the duty of a
kinsman.

§ 78. 4) S. Austin's scruple is this : Inest nescio quomodo Jmmana
verecundice quiddam naturale ac laudabile, tit cui debet causa propin-
quitatis verecundum Jionorem ab ea coutlueat quamvis generatricem
tamen Ubidinemc; ' there is in the modesty of mankind something
that is natural and laudable, by which they abstain from congression
with them to whom they own the honour of reverence and modest
bashfulness.' This indeed is a good account where the modesty of
nature does really make restraints, and owes duty and reverence ; and
therefore is one of the most proper and natural reasons against the
marriage of parents and children, and is by the allowance of some
proportions extended to brother and sister; but if it be sent out one
step further, you can never stop it more, but it shall go as far as any
man please to fancy : therefore let it stop where God and nature hath
fixed its first bounds, and let not the pretence of a natural reason or

b [De civ. Dei, lib.xv. cap. 10. torn. vii. col. 398 G.] c [ibid., col. 399 A.]

CHAP. II.] THE GltKAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 401

instinct, cany us whither nature never did intend ; for it is certain
she gave larger commissions, however the fears, or the scruples, or
the interest of some men have made them to speak otherwise : and I
remember concerning Cicero, who sometimes speaks against the mar-
riage of cousins that it is but too reasonable to suppose he did it to
remove suspicion from himself, it having been objected against him
by Q. Eusius Calenus in Diod that he was too kind and amorous to
his own daughter; jilia matris pellex t'ibi jucundior atque obse-
quentior qtiam parent?, par est. So unequal, so uncertain a way it is
to trust the sayings of a man, when so frequently the man's opinion
is not caused by his reason, but by a secret interest.

§ 79. 5) Pope Gregorye in his epistle to the archbishop of Can-
terbury tries another way ; experimento didicimus ex tali conjvgio
Kofjolem ?i07i posse succrescere : if cousin-germans marry they will
have no children. But the good man did not remember that the
whole nation of the Jews came from the marriage of the two cousin-
germans of Jacob, Rachel and Leah ; and although by this discourse
it seems it was an usual practice to do it, for from the practice only
he could pretend to an observation of this event ; yet as to the event
of the thing itself, it is a very great experience which the world hath,
by which his observation is confuted.

§ 80. 6) But the best reason given against the convenience of it,
for none pretends higher, is, that it were better if cousin-germans
should not intermarry propter multiplieandas ajfinitates, as S. Austinf
expresses it, ut conjiiffiis avgeant necessitudines, 'that so they might
scatter friendships and relations in more families for the dissemina-
tion and extension of charity/ For cousins being already united
and loving, it were well by marriage to endear others which are not
so loving, not so united. Of this every one makes use that is pleased
to dissuade these marriages. But to this I answer, a) That suppose
this were well and without objection as to the material part, yet this
does no ways prove it unlawful, and indeed is not by the contrivers
of it intended it should ; as appears in Philo and Plutarch, from
whom S. Chrysostom and S. Austin did borrow it. ft) There may
be one inconvenience in it, and yet many conveniences and advan-
tages which may outweigh that one; and that there are so, will
appear in the sequel, y) This very reason when Philo & the Jew
had urged in general for the scattering friendships and not limiting
alliances to one family, he adds, quod respiciens Moyses alias etiam
multas propinquorum nnptias vetuit : meaning that this argument is
sufficiently provided for by the restraints that Moses made, and if we
marry out of those limits the friendship is enough scattered. For
beyond brother and sister, uncles and nieces, the relation is far

d Lib. xlvi. [cap. 18.] K [De leg. special., tom.ii p. 303. ed.

e [lib. xi. epist. (J4-. torn. ii. col. 1154.] Mangey.]
r [col. 398 G.]
IX. D d

402 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

enough off to be receptive of and to need the renovation or the
arrests of friendship.

§ 81. 7) 'It were well if cousin-germans did not marry, lest by
reason of their usual familiarity converse and natural kindness, for-
nications should be secretly procured ; it being too ready for natural
love to degenerate into lust/ — I answer that therefore let them marry
as the remedy. For it were a hard thing that cousins who do con-
verse and are apt to love should by men be forbidden to marry, when
by God they are not. For this aptness to love being left upon them,
together with their frequent conversation, is a snare, which because
God knew He permitted them to their remedy ; and if men do not
they will find that their prohibition of marriage will not be a suf-
ficient security against fornication. For brothers and sisters where
the danger is still greater, God hath put a bar of a positive law, and
nature hath put the bar of a natural reason and congruity, and the
laws of all mankind have put a bar of public honesty and penalties ;
and all these are sufficient to secure them against the temptation :
and this was observed by a wise man long since in this very instance,
avTLKa 8' ovk epq abektyos abekfprjs, aAAos 8e t<xvtt!]s' ovBe 7rarT/p
dvyarpbs, akkos he Tavrrjs*1' 'the father is not in love with the
daughter, nor a brother with his sister :' the reason is, kcu yap
(pofios kcu v6p.o<s LKavds epcora Kcokveiv, 'fear and the laws are re-
straint enough for this love :' but because to cousins this bar is not
set, the greater propensity they have to love, the more need there is
they should be permitted to marry. And this very thing was ob-
served by Rabanus in his epistle to Humbert', hujnsmodi pro/tibUio)ies
adulterii occasionem j^fcebere, ' such laws of restraint are occasions of
adultery •' and therefore he infers from thence, bonum esse nt pra-
ter missis Mis prohibitionibus legis dwina servetur conslitutio, it were
good if standing in the measures of the divine law, we should lay a
snare for no man's foot by putting fetters upon his liberty, without
just cause, but not without great danger.

§ 82. I know of no more reasons pretended against this affair;
I think these are all, and I am sure they are the most considerable.
But then on the other side, although it were hard to require any
more reason for the marriage of cousin-germans than we do for any
other marriage, that is, that we love the person, that she be virtuous
and fitted for our condition, yet I say ex abundanti, that there are
conveniences and advantages which are not contemptible, nor yet are
so readily to be found in the marriage of other persons.

§ 83. 1) There is the advantage of a great and most perfect parity
of condition that is regularly to be expected. There is no upbraid-
ing of kindred, greatness or weakness of fortune, occasioned by the
difference of elder or younger brother, (for this being in all families

h Xenophon de Cyri instit., lib. v. [cap. 1. § 10.
1 [torn. vi. p. 165 H.]

CHAP. II.] THE GRKAT RULE OP CONSCIENCE. 403

is not a reproach to any) ; and here is the greatest probability of a
similitude of passions humours and affections, and they that have
experience in economical affairs know that these things are not con-
temptible.

§ 84. 2) It is observable that when God intended to bless a family
and a nation, there He permitted, and in some cases commanded, the
marriage of cousin-germans, as in the families of Israel. And al-
though it was lawful for one tribe to marry into another, as appears
in David who married Michol Saul's daughter of the tribe of Benja-
min ; and the Benjamitish families were restored by the intermar-
riages of the other tribes after that sad war about the Levite's concu-
bine ; and Hillel the pharisee was of the tribe of Benjamin by his
father, and of Judah by his mother ; yet this was done so seldom,
that it was almost thought not lawful, but the most general practice
was to marry in their own nearer kindred, in their own tribe.

§ 85. 3) In the case of the knUk-qpoi or heiresses it was com-
manded both in the Hebrew and in the Attic laws that cousin-
germans should marry, lest the inheritance should go from the
family ; of which I have already given an account : but now I only
observe the reasonableness and advantage. S. Austin's laryius sparge
amicitias is nothing ; for when any considerable advantage is to be
done, certainly our own are to be preferred before strangers. And
the same also is true in proportion, when any one of the family is
passionately and to pious purposes in love with his cousin.

§ 86. 4) In the case of an aunt's daughter to be married to her
cousin by her mother's brother, there is this advantage to be gotten
to the female side ; she preserves her father's name in her own issue,
which she had lost in her own person and marriage.

§ 87. 5) In the accidents of household conversation, and in the
satieties of a husband's love, the stock of kindred comes in by way
of auxiliary forces to establish a declining or tempted love ; and they
understood this well, who made it an objection against the marriage
of kindred, lest the love being upon two accounts should be too
violent, as Aristotle in the second book of his politics k seems to in-
timate. But I suppose that they who are concerned in such mar-
riages, will not fear the objection ; but they have reason to value the
advantage,

dum pietas geminato crescit amore1,

while the marital love is supported with the cognation.

§ 88. 6) S. Augustine's argument is to me highly considerable"1;
Fuit antiquis patribns religiosa, curm, ne ipsa propi?iquitas sepaula/////-
propagimim ordinibus dirimens longius abiret, et propinqiiitas esse
desisteret, earn nondum longe positam rursns matrimonii vinculo col-
ligate, et quodammodo revocare fugienlem, ' the dearness of kindred

k [cap. 4. torn. ii. p. 1262.] m Lib. xv. c. 16. de civit. Dei [torn.

1 Ovid. Metam. x. [333.] vii. col. 398 E.]

d d 2

404 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

will quickly wear out, aud cousins will too soon grow strangers,
therefore the patriarchs had a religious care to recall the propinquity
which was dividing and separating too fast; and as it were, to bind
it by the ties of marriage, and recall it when it was flying away/
And indeed there is no greater stability to a family, no greater band
to conjugal affections than the marriage of cousins.

§ 89. I shall now speak no more to this question, but that I have
often met with a trifling objection concerning which I could never
find any reasonable pretence, or ground of probability to warrant it.
Second cousins may not marry, but are expressly forbidden, therefore
much rather first cousins though they be not named. To this I
answer that I never knew the marriage of second cousins forbidden,
but by them who at the same time forbad the marriage of the first :
and indeed I have searched and cannot fix my eye upon any thing
that I can imagine to be the ground of the fancy ; therefore I can
say no more to it, but that the law of God does not forbid either,
nor the laws of our church or state, nor the laws of nature or na-
tions, or right reason, but these marriages have advantages in all
these. And we find that Isaac married his second cousin, and that
was more for it than ever could be said against it. Abraham was
careful and Eebeccah was careful that their children respectively
should marry within their own kindred : for it so was designed be-
cause those families were to be greatly and specially blessed, and
they called one another into the participation of it. I conclude this
question with as much warranty to the marriage of cousin-germans
as can derive from the premises ; they may without scruple own it,
and say,

Viderit amplexus aliquis, laudabimur anibo".

I know no other pretences of any instance obliging Christians,
derived only from the judicial law : these two do not oblige, and
therefore the rule is true in its direct affirmation.

RULE IV.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF MOSES, COMMONLY CALLED THE MORAL LAW, IS
NOT A PERFECT DIGEST OF THE LAW OF NATURE.

§ 1. The Jews in their Cabala0 say that the law of God was made
before the creation of the world two thousand years, and written in
black burnt letters on the back side of a bright shining fire ; accord-
ing to that of David, " Thy word is a lantern unto my feet, and a

" [Ovid, epist. iv. 139.] ° [Martini ' Pugio fidei,' part. iii. dist. 1. cap. 7.]

CHAP. II.] THE GKEAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 405

light unto my paths." Their meaning is (for under fantastic ex-
pressions they sometimes intended to represent a material truth) that
the decalogue or their system of moral precepts was nothing but an
express of the tables of the law of nature, long before Moses' time
given and practised by their fathers. But this was not a perfect
system ; it was the best that ever was since Adam brake the tables
of the natural law, and let sin and weak principles into the world ;
and it was sufficient in the present constitution of the world, but
even this also was but like a psedagogue to bring us to Christ. In
the schools of Moses they practised the first rudiments of perfection,
but Christ was the last and therefore the most perfect lawgiver ; and
they that did commence under Moses the servant of God were to
proceed under Jesus Christ the son of God : and therefore the apo-
stle calls Christ re'Ao? tov v6\xov^, and if we will acknowledge Christ
to be our lawgiver, and the gospel to be His law, called in the New
testament, 'the law of liberty/ 'a royal lawq;' then we must expect
that our duty shall be further extended than to a conformity in our
lives to the ten words of Moses.

§ 2. I do not here intend a dispute whether Christ hath given us
laws of which neither before Moses nor since there are no footsteps in
the Old testament; for I think there are none such, but in the letter
or in the analogy they were taught and recommended before : but
this I say, that some excellencies and perfections of morality were
by Christ superadded in the very instances of the decalogue ; these
also were bound upon us with greater severity, are endeared to us by
special promises, and we by proper aids are enabled to their perform-
ance; and the old commandments are explicated by new commen-
taries, and are made to be laws in new instances to which by Moses
they were not obliged ; and some of those excellent sayings which
are respersed in the Old testament, and which are the dawnings of
the evangelical light, are now part of that body of light which derives
from the Son of righteousness : insomuch that a commandment which
was given of old was given again in new manner, and to new pur-
poses, and in more eminent degrees; and therefore is also called a
new commandment. Thus the conversation evangelical is called an
old commandment and a new oner. So that in the whole this will
amount to the same thing as if they were new commandments. I
will not therefore trouble this article with those artificial nothings,
or endeavour to force any man to say Christ hath given us new com-
mandments ; but this I suppose to be very evident, that we are by
Jesus Christ obliged to do many things to which the law of Moses
did not oblige the sons of Israel : but whether this was by a new im-
position, or a new explication of the old, it matters not, save that
some men will be humoured in their own manner of speaking.

§ 3. I give an instance: the Christians are obliged to love (heir

» [Rom. x. 4.] « [Jam. i. 25, ii. 12, ii. 8.] ' [1 John ii. 7, 8.]

406 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

brethren, and their neighbours ; the Jews were so too : but Christ
commanded us to love those whom the Jews did not call brethren or
neighbours ; even all that have the same nature, even all that are in
calamity. Tor to the question asked by the pharisees, And who is
our neighbour? Christ answered by the parable of him that fell
among the thieves : he that is in need is our neighbour. The Jews
understood this to mean nothing but one of the same nation or reli-
gion, the rest they hated. Here then is a new duty, to which the
Jews in the same latitude and in the same expressions were not bound
by the decalogue ; and this is as much as a new commandment, for
it is new to me if it imposes a new duty. So if God forbids incest,
and by it only means the conjunction of parents and children ; if after-
wards He commands us to abstain from brother and sister, uncles and
aunts, this is a new law under the old words3. The Jews might hate
their enemies, but Christians have none, that is, they have none whom
they are to repute such by a legal account. The seven nations in
Palestine were legally and properly to be accounted enemies ; but to
Christians all are to be esteemed as brethren in some account or other :
ovbels e^dpos r<5 (nrovbat^1, 'to a good man no man is enemy/ So
that by alteration of the subject matter the old law is become new,
that is, we have a new law. Lex vetus amorem docet in proximos,
nova in extraneosxx, ' the old law teaches love to neighbours, the new
to strangers ;' that is, to such whom the Jews called so, but yet the
Christians are to treat as neighbours. For that is a duty to us which
was not so to them ; and we may perish for omitting that to which
they were not obliged so much as under the pain of a legal impurity.

§ 4. But not only in the object of our duty, but in the expression
and signification of action, Christ is a new lawgiver : they and we are
bound to love our brethren ; but the precept of love did not bind
them to what we are bound, we must die for our brethrenv ; and of
this we have an express commandment, which it is certain they had
not, and no sign of it in their moral law. And it is not the same
words, but the same intensionw of duty that makes the same law.
The Jews were bound to love their wives ; but an easiness of divorce
did consist with that duty exacted by that law, but it will not do so
in ours. Now as in moral actions a degree alters the kind, so it is
in laws, for every new degree of duty that is required supposes a new
authority or a new sanction to infer it ; for the same law does not in
one age directly permit an action, and in another forbid it ; it does
not reward that person which in another it will condemn.

§ 5. But I add other instances. If repentance be a precept, and
not only a privilege, it is certain that in the gospel there is a precept
which was not permitted, much less enjoined ; for this obedience sup-
poses Christ to be our redeemer in nature before He is our lawgiver,

5 [Levit. xix. 18.] p. 184.]

' Hierocles. [in carm. aur., p. 56.] ' [1 John iii. 16; John xv. 12, 13.]

" Tertull. [vid. advers. Jud., cap. ii. w ['intention' B, C, D.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 407

and therefore that it could be no part of their moral law. But re-
pentance is not properly and primarily a law of nature; for though it
was the first action of religion that we find was done in the world, yet
it is such a one as supposes nature lapsed, and therefore at the most can
be but adopted into the law of nature : but yet because it is as much
a part of the law of nature as restitution is a part of natural justice,
this instance is not altogether an improper illustration of this rule.

§ 0. But there are also many things for which provisions are made
in the law of nature, for which there is no caution in the decalogue.
I instance in the matter of incest ; and if any man will reduce it to
the fifth commandment, it is certain he must then suppose only
the mixture of parents and children to be, and that of brother and
sister not to be incestuous ; for these cannot come under the title of
father and mother ; and if it be referred to the seventh command-
ment, it will be as improper as to suppose jeering to be forbidden in
the sixth. I could add that there being but two affirmative precepts
in the decalogue, there is no caution against sins of omission in any
other instances.

§ 7. I will not instance in those precepts which relate to our B.
Lord himself, and are superinduced by Christianity upon the law of
nature ; such as are, faith in Jesus Christ, hope of eternal life, fra-
ternal correption, avoiding scandal, custody of the tongue in many
instances, the sacraments, to stand fast in christian liberty, searching
the scriptures, humility, mortification, bearing the infirmities of the
weak, and many more ; all which proclaim Christ to be our lawgiver,
but do not properly denote the imperfection of the decalogue as it
is a system of the laws of nature.

§ 8. But I add from the very stock of nature many others. For
though by the decalogue we are forbidden to do evil, yet we are not
commanded to do good : and that is a material consideration, and can-
not by way of reduction be brought hither ; because they are wholly
different things, and are the effects of several reasons, and to be en-
couraged by distinct promises or immunities respectively, and are not
consecment to each other. For the sons of Israel and all the world
are bound to do evil to no man, but are not bound to do good to
every man. The first is possible, the second* is not; and the Jews
never understood that they were bound to give alms by the sixth
commandment ; and in nature the obligation to do good is upon a
positive account, as the obligation itself is. Of the same nature
is gratitude, readiness to help a man in need, to keep a secret in-
trusted to us, to perform promises ; all which are of greater concern-
ment to mankind than to be intrusted only to analogies, uncertain
inferences, and secret corollaries, and yet for these there is no pro-
vision made in the ten commandments.

§ 9. Neither can this measure of the decalogue be reproved, by
saying that all these laws of nature, and all the laws of Christ, may
be reduced to the decalogue. I know it is said so very commonly,

408 0¥ THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

and the casuists do commonly use that method, that the explication
of the decalogue be the sum of all their moral theology; but how in-
sufficiently, the foregoing instances do sufficiently demonstrate : and
therefore how inartificially will also appear in the violence and con-
vulsions that must needs be used to draw all these dissonances into
one centre. I remember that Tertullian* (I suppose to try his wit)
finds all the decalogue in the commandment which God gave to Adam
to abstain from the forbidden fruit, In hac enim lege Ada data
omnia pracepta condita recognoscimus, qua postea pullulave runt data
per Moysen. And just so may all the laws of nature and of Christ be
found in the decalogue, as the decalogue can be found in the precept
given to Adam : but then also they might be found in the first com-
mandment of the decalogue, and then what need had there been of
ten ? It is therefore more than probable that this was intended as a
digest of all those moral laws in which God would expect and exact
their obedience, leaving the perfection and consummation of all unto
the time of the gospel : God intending by several portions of the
eternal or natural law to bring the world to that perfection from
whence mankind by sin did fall, and by Christ to enlarge this natural
law to a similitude and conformity to God himself, as far as our
infirmities can bear. It was very well said of Tertullian7, Intelli-
gimus Dei legem eliam ante Moysen: nee in Oreb tantum, aut in
Sina et in eremo, sed antiquiorem ; primum in paradiso, post patri-
archs, atque ita et Judais certis temporibus reformatam : ut nonjam
ad Moysi legem ita attendamus, quasi ad principalem legem, sed ad
subsequentem quam certo tempore Deus et gentibus exhibuit, et repro-
missa per prop/ietas in melius reformavit ; ' the law of God was before
Moses, neither given in Horeb nor in Sinai, in the wilderness (nor in
the land,) but first given in paradise, afterwards to the patriarchs, and
then being reformed it was given to the Jews : so that we are not to
look after Moses' law as the principle2, but to the law that comes after
the law of Moses, which being promised by the prophets, God in the
fulness of time gave unto the gentiles in the times of reformation/
§ 10. The effects of this rule in order to conscience are these :

1) That we acknowledge Christ to be our Lord and master, our
lawgiver and our teacher.

2) That we understand the ten commandments according to His
commentary.

3) That the customs, explications, glosses, and usages of the Jews,
may not be the limit of our practice.

4) That we expect not justification by our conformity to the de-
calogue.

5) That we endeavour to go on to perfection, not according to the
pattern which Moses, but which Christ shewed in the mount.

6) That we do not reckon any system of the natural law, but the
books of the New testament.

x Lib. adv. Jud. [cap. ii. p. 184.] y [ibid.] z ['principal' B, C. D.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OE CONSCIENCE. 409

7) That we do not esteem it sufficient for us to live according to
nature (as the expression is commonly used) but that we live accord-
ing to grace, that is, the measures of reformed nature. For in this
sense these words of Justin Martyr3 are true and useful, to eri Kara
(pva-Lv fiiovv ovbe-ira) TteTTLo-TtvuoTos €<tt\v, ' to live according to nature
is the ornament or praise of one that is yet an unbeliever :' meaning
that the disciples of Jesus must do more. For according as the world
grows in age, so also it is instructed in wise notices; and it must
pass on to glory by all the measures and progressions of grace ; and
all that law by which we live in all the periods of the world is nothing
else but the several degrees and promotions of the law of nature. For
children are governed by one measure, and young men by another,
and old men still by a more perfect ; and yet the whole is nothing
else but right reason drawn into laws, and that which fits our nature
bound upon us by the decree of God : some laws fit our natures as
they are common to us and beasts, some fit us as we are next to
angels, and some fit us as we are designed to immortality and the
fruition of God ; and the laws of nature do grow as our natures do.
And as we see is in matters of speculation, those principles enter into
us, or are drawn from their hidden places in our age, of which we
had no sign in our youth ; and when we are children we admire at
those things and call those discourses deep and excellent, which when
we are grown up we are ashamed of as being ignorant and pitiful.
So it is in our manners, and so it is in our practical notices ; they
all grow till they arrive at their state and period ; but because the
eternal laws of God, that is, those laws which are not fitted to times
and persons and relations, but to the nature of man, that is, to all
mankind, intend to bring us to God and to all that perfection of
which we are capable, therefore it is that they also must increase ac-
cording to the growth of nature : when therefore the nature of man
■was rude and in its infancy, God drew out of the eternal fountain but
a few of these natural laws; but He still superadded more as the
world did need them, and at the last by His Son, who by His incar-
nation hath adorned our nature with a robe of glory, hath drawn out
all those by which we are to converse with God and men in the best
entercourses, that He might enable our nature to dispositions proper
and immediate to a state of glory. Not but that they all were poten-
tially in the bowels of the great commandments ; but that God did
not by any prophets or lawyers draw them all forth, till the great day
of reformation, at the revelation of the Son of God. But in this the
sentence of Ireii8eusb is wise and full; Consummata vita, pracejita in
v.troque teslameuto cum shit eadem, eundem ostendemnt Deum qui
particularity quidem pracepta apta utrisque praeceptis, sed eminentiora
et summa, sine quibus salvari non potest, in utroque eadem sua.sif ;
1 the precepts of perfect life are the same in both testaments, and do

" [Ad Zen. et Seien., p. 409 B.

" Lib, iv. cap. 26. in princip. [al. cap. 12. p. 241.]

410 OP THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

demonstrate the same God of both ; who indeed hath given severally
several instances of commandments, but the more eminent and the
chief, without which salvation is not to be had, are the same in both :'
meaning, that there are the same general lines of religion and of
justice in the old and in the new ; but the special and particular pre-
cepts are severally instanced by Christ and Moses.

EULE V.

ALL THE EXPLICATIONS OP THE MORAL LAW WHICH ARE FOUND IN THE PRO-
PHETS AND OTHER HOLY WRITERS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, ARE TO BE AC-
COUNTED AS PARTS OF THE MORAL LAW, AND EQUALLY OBLIGING THE CON-
SCIENCE.

§ 1. He that will explicate the mosaic law according to the per-
fections of the gospel, does expound the words of a child by the
senses and deepest policies of a witty man. I have seen some parts
of Virgil changed into impure fescennines, and I have also seen them
changed into the sense and style of the gospel ; but Yirgil intended
neither, though his words were capable of both ; and yet the way to
understand Virgil is by the commentaries of men of his own time or
nation, or learned in the language and customs of the Romans. So
it is in the decalogue of Moses. If Christians understand it by all
the severities and enlarged notices of the gospel, they accuse their
own commentary as too large, or the practice of the Jews who never
obeyed them at that rate ; and therefore all those wild reductions of
all good and bad to that measure is of no good use, but it is full of
error, and may have some ill effects ; of which I have already given
caution : but then because they may be explicated and can admit a
commentary, as all laws do beyond their letter, there is nothing
more reasonable, than that the commentaries or additional explica-
tions of their own prophets and holy men, and the usages of their
nation, be taken into the sacredness of the text, and the limits of the
commandment.

§ 2. Thus when God had said "Thou shalt do no murder," when
Moses in another place adds these words, " Thou shalt not hate thy
brother in thy heart, nor be mindful of any injury0;" this is to be
supposed to be intended by God in the commandment, and to be a
just commentary to the text, and therefore part of the moral law.
When they were commanded to worship the God of Israel and no

« [Lev. xix. 17, 18.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 411

other, this was to be understood according to David's commentary ;
and when he had composed forms of prayer to God, to pray to Him
was to be supposed to be a duty of the commandment. God com-
manded that they should ' honour father and mother/ which appel-
lative when Moses and the holy writers of the Old testament had
given to princes and magistrates, and had in another place expressly
commanded obedience to them, it is to be supposed that this is an
explication of the fifth commandment.

§ 3. This also is to be extended further, and by the sayings of the
prophets they could understand what things were permitted by Moses,
which yet God loved not ; and that the commandment had a further
purpose than their usages would endure : and though (as our blessed
Lord afterward expressed) Moses permitted divorces for the hardness
of their heart, yet that from the beginning it was not so, and that
greater piety was intended in the commandment, they were sufficiently
taught by the gloss which God himself inserted and published by the
prophet Hosead, " I hate putting away." In this and all other cases
the natural reasonableness of things, natural justice, and essential
piety, and the first institution of them, were the best indications of
these effects, which such sayings of the prophets and other holy men
ought to have in the enlargement of the moral law, or restraints of
privileges and liberties.

§ 4. The use of this rule in order to the government of conscience
is to describe of what usefulness in our religion, and what influence
in our lives is the Old testament ; all the moral precepts which are
particulars of the natural law or universal reason are either explica-
tions of the decalogue or precepts evangelical, by which the old pro-
phets did ' prepare the way of our Lord, and make His paths straight.'
It is the same religion theirs and ours as to the moral part ; intend-
ing glory to the same God by the same principles of prime reason,
differing only in the clarity and obscurity of the promises or motives
of obedience, and in the particular instances of the general laws, and
in the degrees of duties spiritual : but in both God intended to bring
mankind to eternal glories by religion or the spiritual worshippings
of one God, by justice and sobriety, that is, by such ways as na-
turally we need for our natural and perfective being even in this
world. Now in these things the prophets are preachers of righteous-
ness, and Ave may refresh our souls at those rivulets springing from
the wells of life ; but we must fill and bath ourselves in fontihus
salvatoris, ' in the fountains of our blessed Saviour :' for He hath
anointed our heads, prepared a table for us, and made our cup to
overflow, and ' of His fulness we have all received, grace for grace e/

§ 5. But this is at no hand to be extended to those prohibitions
or reprehensions of their prevarications of any of the signal precepts
of religion, by which as themselves were distinguished from other na-
tions, so God would be glorified in them. For sometimes the pro-

<> [Mai. ii. 16.] e [John i. 10.]

412 OP THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II»

phets represented the anger of God in a ceremonial instance ; when
either they sinned with a high hand in that instance, that is, with
despite and contempt of the divine commandment, or when the cere-
mony had a mixture of morality, or when it was one of the distinc-
tions of the nation, and a consignation of them to be the people of
God. But this will be reduced to practice by the next rule.

RULE VI.

EVERY THING IN THE DECALOGUE IS NOT OBLIGATORY TO CHRISTIANS, IS NOT
A PORTION OF THE MORAL OR NATURAL LAW.

§ 1. When Moses derived the ten commandments to the people,
he did not tell them in order which was second, which was fifth ; and
upon this account they have been severally divided as men did please
to fancy. I shall not clog these annotations with enumerating the
several ways of dividing them ; but that which relates to the present
enquiry is whether or no the prohibition of graven images be a por-
tion of the first commandment, so as that nothing is intended but
that it be a part or explication of that : and that it contain in it
only the duty of confessing one God, and entertaining no other
deity, viz., so that images become not an idol, or the final object of
our worship as a God ; and therefore that images are only forbidden
as dii alieni, not as the representations of this one God, and they
are capable of any worship but that which is proper to God ; or else
it is a distinct commandment, and forbids the having, or making,
and worshipping any images with any kind of religious worship.
These are the several effects which are designed by the differing divi-
sions of the first table : I will not now examine whether they cer-
tainly follow from their premises and presuppositions, but consider
what is right, and what follows from thence in order to the integrat-
ing the rule of conscience. That those two first commandments are
but one was the doctrine of Philof the Jew (at least it is said so)
who making the preface to be a distinct commandment, reckons this
to be the second ; deos sculptiles non fades tibl, nee facies omne
abominamentum soils et luna, nee omnium qua sunt supra terram,, nee
eorum quae repunt in aquis : Ego sum Deus Dominus tuus zelotes, fyc.
And the same was followed by AthanasiusS, ' this book hath these
ten commandments in tables : the first is, 'Eyco ei/xi Kvptos 6 0eos

' [' Quis rerum divinarum hseres,' torn. ii. p. 191, ed. Mangey.]
torn. i. p. 496 ; et ' De decern oraculis,' £ Synops. script. [§ 6. t. ii. p. 133 B.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 413

(toV bevTipav, ov iron/ems' aeavTu cthcokov ovhe ttclvtos* o//ouo/xa'
' I am the Lord thy God ; the second, thou shalt not make an idol
to thyself, nor the likeness of any thing :' and this division was usual
in S. Cyril's h time, who brings in Julian thus accounting them : ' I
am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt :
the second after this/ non erunt tibi dii alieni prater me, non fades
tibi simulacrum, fyc. : and the same way is followed by S. Jerome',
and Hesy chius k. These make the introduction to be one of the
commandments, and those which we call the first and the second to
be the second only.

§ 2. Of the same opinion as to the uniting of the two is Clemens
Alexandrinus1, and S. Austin"1, Et revera quod dictum est, non erunt
tibi dii alieni, hoc ipsum perfectius explicatur, cum prohibentur co-
lenda Jigmenta, 'the prohibition of marriages is a more perfect ex-
plication of those words, Thou shalt have no other gods but Me/
To the same sense Ven. Bede", S. Bernard0, the ordinary gloss,
Lyra, Hugo Cardinalis, Lombard, the church of Eome, and almost
all the Lutheran churches do divide the decalogue.

§ 3. On the other side these are made to be two distinct com-
mandments by the Chaldee paraphrast {in c. xx. &od.v) and by
Josephusq : Primum prceceptum Deum esse tinum, et hunc solum co-
lendum ; secundum, nullius animalis simulacrum adorandum. And
these are followed by Origenr, Gregory !STazianzens, S. Ambrose*,
and S. Hieromeu, even against his opinion expressed in another place*,
S. Chrysostom, S. Austin y, or whosoever is the author of the ques-
tions of the Old and New testaments, Sulpitius Severus2, Zonaras";
and admitted as probable by Ven. Bede b : but followed earnestly by
all the churches that follow Calvin, and by the other protestants not
Lutherans.

§ 4. 1) In this great contrariety of opinion that which I choose
to follow is the way of the church of England, which as it hath the
greater and more certain authority from antiquity, so it hath much
the greater reasonableness. For when God had commanded the wor-
ship of Himself alone excluding all false gods, in the next words He
was pleased also to forbid them to worship Him in that manner by

11 Lib. v. contr. Jul. [torn. vi. p. 152 r L. iii. bom. 8. in Exod. [torn. ii. p.

C] 156, 7.]

* In Hos. cap. x. [torn. iii. col. 1306.] s In carm. [torn. iii. p. 263.]

k In Levit. cap. xxvi. [fol. 162 C. ed. ' In vi. Epbes. Ttom. ii. append, col.

fol. Bas. 1527.] 249 A.]

1 Lib. vi. strom. [cap. 16. p. 809.] u [In eund. loc, torn. iv. part. 1. col.

m Quaest. lxxi. in Exod. [torn. iii. 394.]

part. 1. col. 443 E.] * [ubi supra.]

» In Exod. xx. [tom. iv. col. 111.] y [Quaest. vii. torn. iii. append, col.

° Sup. Salv. reg. [serm. iv. col. 1744 45 G.]

H.] " [Hist, sacr., lib. vi. cap. 30.]

P [Walton., bibl. polyglott.] ■ [Annal., lib. i. cap. 16. tom.i. p. 38.

■> Antiq., lib. iii. cap. 4. [al. 5. § 5. p. ed. fol. Par. 1686, 7.]

105.] b [ubi supra.]

414 OP THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

which all. the gods of the nations were worshipped, which was by
images : insomuch that their images were called gods, not that they
thought them so, but that the worshipping of false gods and wor-
shipping by images were by the idolaters ever joined. Now this
being a different thing from the other, one regarding the object the
other the manner of worship, it is highly reasonable to believe that
they make two commandments. 2) God would not be worshipped
by an image, because none could be made of Him ; and therefore it
is remarkable that God did duplicate His caution against images of
Him, by adding this reason to His precept, " remember that ye saw
no shape, but only heard a voice :" which as it was a direct design
of God that they might not make an image of Him, and worship Him
as the idolaters did their false gods, so it did indirectly at least inti-
mate to them, that ' God would be worshipped in spirit and truth0/
that is, not with a lying image ; as every image of Him must needs
be, for it can have no truth when a finite body represents an infinite
spirit. And this is most likely to be thus : because this being a
certain digest of the law of nature, in it the natural religion and
. worship of God was to be commanded ; and therefore that it should
be spiritual and true, that is, not with false imaginations and cor-
poral representment, was to be the matter of a commandment.
3) Since the first table did so descend to particulars as by a dis-
tinct precept to appoint the day of His worship, it is not unlikely
that the essential and natural manner of doing it should also be dis-
tinctly provided for, since the circumstantial was : but that could
not be at all, if it was a portion of the first commandment; for then
the sense of it must be according to the first intention, that images
should not become our gods. 4) The heathens did not suppose their
images to be their gods, but representments of their gods ; and
therefore it is not so likely that God should by way of caution so
explicate the first commandment, when there was no danger of doing
any such thing, unless they should be stark mad, or fools and with-
out understanding. 5) When God forbad them to make and wor-
ship the likeness of any thing m heaven and earth, He sufficiently
declared that His meaning was to forbid that manner of worshipping,
not that object ; for by saying it was the likeness of something it
declared that this likeness could not be the object of their worship-
ping : for because it is the image of a thing, therefore it is not the
thing they worshipped ; and it cannot be supposed of a man that he
can make the image of the sun to be his god, when he makes that
image of the sun, because he thinks the sun is the most excellent
thing. When therefore in the first commandment He had forbidden
them to acknowledge the sun or any thing else but Himself to be
God, in the next He forbids the worshipping Himself or any thing
else by an image. But of this I shall speak more afterwards ; be-
cause it relates to the moral duty.

c [John iv. 23, 4.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 415

§ 5. But I observe that all those moderns who confound these two
commandments have not that pretence which the ancients had, and
have quitted all that by. which such confusion could have been in any
sense tolerable. For Philo and those ancients who followed him
reckon the first commandment to be, ' I am the Lord thy God/ &c,
by which God would be acknowledged to be the Lord : and the second
did forbid c any other besides Him/ So that there might be some
appearance of reason to make the first commandment affirmative, and
the second negative; the first to declare who is God, the second to
forbid polytheism; the first to declare His entity, the second to
publish His unity ; the first to engage their duty to Him who had so
lately endeared them by freedom from captivity, the second to forbid
the adopting the gods of the nations with whom they were now to
converse. I confess that these reasons are not sufficient ; for they
multiply where there is no need, and make a division without dif-
ference, and leave all those periods which are about images to be of
no use, no signification ; and concerning their own practice and re-
ligion in the matter of images, though it is certain they wholly de-
rived it from the commandment, yet they take no notice of any war-
rant at all derived from thence ; but supposing that they did make
the division for these reasons, and that these reasons were good, yet
all the moderns quit all this pretension, and allow but three com-
mandments to the first table, and divide the second into seven ; to
effect which they make two commandments against concupiscence :
concerning which I will not say they might have reckoned more ac-
cording to the multiplication of the objects, four as well as two, but
this I say, as it is wholly without necessity, and very destitute of any
probability, so it is done against the very order of words. For al-
though Moses in Deuteronomy reckons the concupiscence of the wife
first, yet in Exodus, which is the copy of the decalogue as it was
given, Moses reckons the concupiscence of the house first. So that
the ninth commandment lies in the body of the tenth, and the tenth
lies part of it before the ninth, and part of it after ; which is a pre-
judice against it greater than can be outweighed by any or all the
pretences which are or can be made for it : especially since by the
opinions of the Koman doctors these two cannot as they lie here
make two objects ; for to covet another man's wife is the same as to
covet another man's servant, that is, as a possession, for multitude of
wives was great riches, and the peculiar of princes, as appears in
Nathan's upbraiding David, and the case of Solomon ; but to covet
the wife propter libidinem is forbidden by the seventh commandment,
as the Roman doctors teach, and under that they handle it. There-
fore the wife and the servant and the beast of another man being
here forbidden to be desired as matter of covetousness, make but one
object, and consequently but one commandment : and if because a
difference can be fancied, the wife and the house make two objects,
then the servant makes a third, for a house differs from a wife no

416 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

more than a servant from a house ; the use of these is as different as
of those, and can make as distinct objects of appetite and desire, and
therefore either they all must make but one commandment, or they
must make more than two.

§ 6. But the church of Rome and the Lutherans have several
interests, for other reasons they have none in so doing. The church
of Rome confounds the two commandments, lest the worshipping of
images should appear to be forbidden. For if it be a distinct com-
mandment which forbids the worship of images, then because all false
objects of worship are sufficiently forbidden in the first, it will not be
a competent answer to say, we do not worship images as gods, we do
not make idols of them ; for to worship any thing as God is not for-
bidden in the second commandment, but in the first : but therefore
lest the second commandment should signify nothing, it follows that
the taking of images into religion, or the worshipping God whether
true or false by an image, is there forbidden. But if these two com-
mandments were one, then they suppose, that this of forbidding images
being a pursuance of the prohibition of having any other gods, ex-
pounds it only to mean the making images to be God ; which be-
cause they do not, they hope to stand upright in the scrutiny con-
cerning this commandment.

§ 7. But to this I return this account, that although it be certain
that if these commandments be divided, it will follow that this manner
of religion by image- worship is particularly forbidden as a false manner
of worshipping, and consequently is upon no pretence to be intro-
duced into religion ; yet if we should suppose them to be but one
commandment, it will not follow that images are not forbidden to be
used in religious worshippings. For if God forbad them to make cleos
sculptiles, ' engraven gods/ that is, to worship such gods as may be
depicted or engraven ; such as the sun and moon, Apis and Jupiter,
the ox of Egypt or the fire of Persia ; then by the same reason we
conclude that deus sculptilis is no god, and therefore to make the
God of Israel to be a God depicted or engraven does dishonour and
depress Him to the manner of an idol. For therefore in the decalogue
recited by Philo and in the sense of all the ancients the reason against
making an engraven god is Ego sum Deus zelotes, ' I am thy God, I
am thy jealous God/ that is, I who cannot be represented by such
vanities, I am thy God, but they are not who can. Add to this,
that since the doctors of the Roman church make the decalogue to
be the fountain of all moral theology, and by that method describe all
cases of conscience ; it is necessary that they take into the body and
obligation of every commandment not only what is expressed in the
letter and first signification, but the species, the relations, the simi-
litudes, the occasions, any thing that is like the prohibition, and con-
cerning which we cannot tell whether it be or no ; and upon this ac-
count if they can retain images or think to honour God by the use
and worshipping of them, they may be confident of any thing, and

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 417

may as well use some pollutions of the flesh, as such pollutions of
idols.

§ 8. But there is also more in it than thus : for although it is
usually supposed by learned persons, that Philo the Jew, Athanasius,
S. Hierome, and S. Austin are of opinion that the two commandments
are not to be divided, but are all one ; yet if we look into their say-
ings we shall find them to have other effects than they suppose. For
they making the preface to be the first commandment, " I am the
Lord thy God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt," do sup-
pose that the object of religion and divine worship is sufficiently de-
clared, in that they think the same of that as all other men do of the
following words, " Thou shalt have no other gods but Me," viz., that
God proposing Himself as their God, whom only they were to worship,
did by that sufficiently exclude the worship of all false gods, or giving
divine worship to any thing besides Himself. So that when the ob-
ject is sufficiently provided for as it is in the first commandment, how-
ever it be computed, the former arguments will return upon them,
and it will be most probable that the next provision be made for the
manner of the divine worship ; and then the use of images in religion
and the religious worship of them will be by a necessary and imme-
diate consequent forbidden : for the forbidding tleos sculjrtiles forbids
not only other gods, but forbids them with that reason and demon-
stration. They that can be engraven or painted are no gods, and
therefore images and false gods are equally forbidden ; wherever an
image is joined to a god, there is a false god, or no true God; for
an image and the true God are inconsistent. So that wherever there
are two commandments before that of taking God's name in vain, as
it is amongst all the ancients, (Clemens Alexandrinus only excepted,)
there it is most likely that the first provides for the object of divine
worship affirmatively, and the second for the manner negatively : and
the effect of this will be, that they are in their division of the deca-
logue almost wholly destitute of authority or warrant from the ancients,
for they all make four commandments in the first table at least. The
Jews usually indeed did reckon five, taking in that of honouring our
parents, but they always made that of the sabbath to be the fourth ;
by all which it must needs be, that they must lie under the same ob-
jection which they would fain avoid : and though they confound those
two which we usually now reckon the two first, yet because the Jews
and ancient Christians who reckoned otherwise did account one com-
mandment to the same purpose as we reckon the first, that which
follows can never be proved to mean any thing but a prohibition of
that manner of divine worship by images, for it implies that to
worship God by an image is to worship an idol : an image of God
when it is worshipped is an idol, for neither can the true God have an
image, neither will He be worshipped by an image. Now though this
will not at all concern the images of saints, but only the worship of God
by an image, yet even this also when they think this image-worship

ix. e e

418 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

shall be a worshipping and honouring of God indirectly, and an act
pleasing to Him, will come under this commandment as certainly and
more apparently than fornication or intemperance shall come under
the sixth or seventh, whither their doctors usually reduce them.

§ 9. This thing more I am willing to add concerning the division
of the decalogue, that when the ancients did reckon the preface or
introduction to be the first commandment, it is not certain that they
put the words of " Thou shalt have no other gods but Me" to the
second : for as for Philo, he does not recite them at all, but reckons
the second otherwise than it is in Moses' books, and it is not certain
how he thought in this question to him that well considers his copy
of the decalogue. For he thus begins, ' I am the Lord thy God who
brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Thou shalt not make any
graven gods to thyself; nor any abomination of sun and moon, nor
of any thing that is on the earth, or that creeps in the waters : I am
thy Lord, the jealous God/ &c. Now in this which is first and which
is second is plain enough, though Philo does not number them ; but
whether the words of that which we call the first commandment by
him are understood in the first or in the second, does not hence appear.
But then for S. Athanasius whom the adversaries reckon theirs, the case
is yet clearer against them : for " I am the Lord thy God" he reckons
to be the first, omitting all that which follows until the second com-
mandment : but the second he plainly and perfectly reckons as we do,
" Thou shalt not make to thyself an idol, or graven image, nor the like-
ness of any thing." So that it is probable he begins the first com-
mandment with the preface, but it is certain he reckons the second as
we do. S. Hierome and S. Austin are pretended for them ; but they
also testify against them and against themselves by an uncertain and
contradictory sentence (as I have shewed) : indeed the apostate Julian
is much more for them, and does confound those which we call the
two commandments, but yet reckons one before them, just as Philo;
so that excepting Julian there will be found in antiquity,

Vel duo vel nemo b, —

scarce one or two that is on their side. However against them there
is a great authority, and very great probabilities of reason ; of which
in the following periods I shall add a more full account : in the
mean time as the church of Rome is destitute of any just ground of
their manner of dividing the ten commandments, so they will find it
will not serve that interest they have designed.

§ 10. But then for the Lutheran churches, they have indeed as
little reason for their division, and a much less interest and necessity
to serve and to provide for. They therefore thrust the second into
the first, lest it should be unlawful to make or to have pictures or
images ; for they still keep them in their churches, and are fearful to
be aspersed with a crime forbidden in the second commandment;

b [Pers. sat. i. 3.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 419

they keep them I say, but for memory only, not for worship or direct
religion. But in this they are more afraid than hurt; for suppose
the second commandment to be distinct and wholly against images
and their worship, yet every thing in the commandment is not moral,
though the commandment itself be. For God was pleased to appoint
such temporary instruments of a moral duty as were fitted to the ne-
cessities of that people; but such instruments were but like tempo-
rary supporters, placed there but till the building could stand alone.
But whether this clause of having or making images be referred to
the first or to the second commandment, it is all one. If to the first,
it means that therefore they are not to be made by them, lest they
become the object of divine worship ; if to the second, then they were
not to be made lest they become instruments of a false manner of
the divine worship : but in both the prohibition is but relative, as ap-
pears in the parallel places of Lev. xix. 4, but especially Lev. xxvi. 1,
" Ye shall make ye no idols, nor graven image, neither rear ye up
a standing image, neither shall ye set up an image of stone in your
land, to bow down unto it, for I am the Lord your God :" by which
it is plain that the prohibition is not terminated on the image, but
referring to religion; and is of the same nature as the forbidding
them to converse with idolaters, or to make marriages with them,
which God himself expressed to be lest they learn their evil customs ;
and all the reason of the world tells us, that such clauses whose whole
reason is relative and instrumental, may be supplied by other instru-
ments, and the reason of them or their necessity may cease ; and con-
sequently there can be no part of a natural law, whose reason without
a miracle and the change of nature can never alter. So that this fear
of theirs being useless, they may without prejudice and interest fol-
low that which is more reasonable. And this was sufficiently indicated
by the act and words of God himself, who gave order for the brazen
serpent to be made, and the images or rather hieroglyphics of cherubim
to be set over the propitiatory, which it is not to be supposed He would
have done if it had been against His own eternal lawc : He suffered
them not to worship them, but to make them, to shew that this was
not against the moral part of the commandment, though that was;
and the ark could endure the five golden mice and the five golden
hemorrhoids because though they were images yet they were not idols,
that is, were not intended for worship : but because Dagon was, it
fell before the ark ; that could not be suffered ; and in Solomon's
temple beside the pomegranates and other imagery, there were twelve
brazen bulls, but they were not intended for worship, and therefore it
was free to the Jews to use them or not ; but the calves of Dan and
Bethel because they weYefusiles dei, graven images used in divine
worship, were an abomination : and upon the shekel of the sanctuary

c Vid. Manasseh Ben Israel in concil. Gab.Vasquez. [in Thorn. Aquin., part, i.]

q. xxx. [in Exod. xx. 3, et xxv. 18. pp. disp. civ. cap. 6. [torn. i. p. 617, 9. ed. fol.

140—2, ed. 4to. Amst. 1633.] et Tertull., Ven. 1 608, 9.]
lib. ii. contr. Marcion., c. 22. [p. 392 D.j

E e 2

420 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

was impressed the image of Aaron's rod, and a pot of manna or thu-
rible ; it was lawful while there was no danger of worshipping them.

§ 11. This then is the first instance of the rule: the having or
making of images though it be forbidden to the Jews in the second
commandment, yet it is not unlawful to Christians. But of this I
shall say more in the following periods.

§ 12. Now concerning the religion of images, that is, worshipping
God by them directly or indirectly, whether that be lawful to Chris-
tians ; although I have sufficiently declared the negative already, by
reproving the great ground of that practice, I mean, the thrusting
the two commandments together, and have proved that they ought
not to be so confounded, or if they ought, yet that the worship of
images is not concluded from thence to be lawful or permitted ; yet
I hope it will be neither useless nor unpleasant if I determine this
case upon its proper grounds, in these two enquiries,

1) Whether it be lawful to make a picture or image of God ;

2) Whether it be lawful to worship God by a picture.

Quest.

Whether it be lawful to make a picture or image of God.

§ 13. I answer negatively, and that upon the plain words of God in
Deuteronomy d, which upon the account of the fifth rule are to be
accounted as an explication of the moral law, and therefore obligatory
to Christians ; as relating to the matter of the commandment, giving
a natural reason for a natural duty, and pursuing that with argument
which before He had established with authority, and writing that in
the tables of the heart which at first He delivered to Moses in tables
of stone ; " Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves, for ye saw
no manner of similitude in the day when the Lord spake unto you
in mount Horeb out of the midst of the fire : lest ye corrupt your-
selves and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure,
the likeness of male or female," &c. Now why did God so earnestly
remind them that they saw no image, but because He would not have
them make any of Him. And this is frequently pressed by God in
that manner which shews it not only to be impious to do it against
His commandment, but foolish and impossible and against all natural
reason. "To whom will ye liken God; or what likeness will ye
compare unto Him t" said God by the prophete. Meaning that there
is none, there can be none, and you may as well measure eternity
with a span, and grasp an infinite in the palm of your hand, as
draw the circles and depict Him that hath no colour or figure, no
parts nor body, no accidents nor visibility. And this S. Paulf argued
out of Aratus8 :

KaX rod fifv ytvos iafxkv,

[Deut. iv. 15, 6.] f [Acts xvii. 28.]

[Isai. xl. 18.] 8 [Phaenom. 5.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 421

*We are His offspring:' that is, we are made after His image and
similitude; Christ is the prototype, and we are efformed after His
image who is the first born of all creatures11 : man is made after the
likeness of God; not man in his body, but man in his soul, in his
will arid powers of choice, in his understanding and powers of dis-
cerning, in his memory and powers of recording ; and he that can-
not make the image of a will, or by a graven image represent the
understanding of a man, must never hope to make any thing like
God : there is no way to do that, but to make a man ; and that
although it be but an imperfect image of God, yet an image it is,
and the best that is upon the earth. But now from hence the apo-
stle1 argues, "Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we
ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or
stone, graven by art and man's device :" if the invisible, inexpres-
sible part of man is the image of God, and we are His sons by crea-
tion, expressing in our souls some little things of His infinite perfec-
tion, it cannot be supposed that this image can make an image like
God ; and if it cannot be like Him it is not to be made for Him, for
nothing is more unlike Him than a lie. The Athenians were dull
people, and knew not how to answer S. Paul's argument ; but we
are now-a-days taught to escape from this. For it is said, that it is
true God's essence cannot be depicted or engraven ; but such repre-
sentations by which He hath been pleased to communicate notices of
Himself can as well be described with a pencil as with a pen, and as
well set down so that idiots may read and understand as well as the
learned clerks. Now because God was pleased to appear to Daniel
like the Ancient of days, and the Holy Ghost in the shape of a dove,
and Christ in the form of a man, these representations may be depicted
and described by images without disparagement to the divinity of God.
§ 14. To these I give these answers; first, 1) the vision of DanieP
seeing the Ancient of days, tells of no shape, nothing like an old
man, but by that phrase did seem to signify the eternal God; he
tells of a head and hair like pure wool, that is, pure and white, one
of the synonyma of light or brightness, like that of ' His garment like
snow,' ' His wheels were a burning fire,' ' His throne a fiery flame ;'
that is in effect, when Daniel was asleep he had a vision or phan-
tasm in his head, where he had a representment of the eternal God,
in a circumfusion and a great union of light and glory, which he
when he was awake expressed by metaphors imperfectly telling what
phantasm that was in which he perceived the representment and
communication of God; that is, he there set down the shadow of
a dream of a bright shining cloud : for the metaphor is a shadow,
and his vision was a dream, and what he dreamt he saw was but the
investiture of God, like as when God by His angel went in a cloud
of fire before the sons of Israel ; nay, not so much, for that was really
so, this but a prophetic ecstasy in his sleep ; the images of which are
but very unfit to establish a part of divine worship, and an article of

" LCol. i. 15.] ' [Acts xvii. 29.] I [ vii. 9.]

422 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [iiOOK II.

practice, against natural reason and the letter of a commandment.
But, 2) I demand, whether did Daniel see the eternal God then or
no ? If he did not, then at the most it was but an angel of light in
the place of God; and then this can never infer the lawfulness of
making any image of God, for it was only God's angel, or a globe of
glory instead of God, and not God that appeared in His own person.
But if it be said he did see God, it apparently contradicts the scrip-
ture, "No man hath seen God at any timek :" and again, "The
eternal God whom no man hath seen1." The issue then is this, Daniel
did not see God the Father, neither could he : therefore God the
Father was not represented to him by any visible species : therefore
neither can we by any help or authority from this dream. And it
is not sufficient to say, that though Daniel did not see God's essence,
yet he saw the representment, for he did not see any representment
of God ; he did not see God by any thing that expressed His person :
for as for essences, no man can see the essence of a bee, or a bird,
but sees it by some proper representment, but yet by that represent-
ment he properly and truly sees the bird ; but Daniel did no way see
God's person or nature, not so much as by any phantasm or image :
an angel of light, or the brightness of an angel, he might dream of
in the ecstasy ; but in no sense could he be said to see God, except
only by His angel or embassador. So that when it is said, " No man
can see God," it cannot be meant that God's essence cannot be
seen, for this had said no great matter, for no essence can be seen ;
but it must mean that God " dwells in an inaccessible light whither
no man can approach," out of which He will send no emissions of
representment or visibility ; for if He had so done at any time, or
would do at all, it were not true that no man had seen Him, or could
see Him ; for if He had communicated Himself personally in any re-
presentment or visibility, then He had been seen, and in that instance
and at that time He were not the invisible God. 3) Suppose Daniel's
vision had been of God himself, yet as it was done to him by special
favour, so it was for a special purpose ; it was for a design of pro-
phecy, and to declare future events in the matters of war and peace,
not to establish a practice prejudicial to a commandment : and it is
strange that a vision or night's dream, expressed by way of rapture
and clouds of metaphor, communicated to one man, signifying un-
certainly, told imperfectly after the manner of raptures and prophe-
tic ecstasies, intended to very distant purposes, never so extended by
his own nation or used to any such end, should yet prevail with
Christians (who are or ought to be infinitely removed from such a
childish religion and baby tricks) more than an express command-
ment, and natural and essential reason, and the practice both of all
the Jews and the best Christians. There is nothing in the world
though never so bad, but by witty and resolved men may have more
colours laid upon it to set it out than this can from this pretension.
4) The vision itself, if it were expressed in picture as it is set down,

k [John i. 18.] i [1 Tim. vi. 15, 16.]

CHAP. U.J THE GK.EAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. I:'. 3

would be a most strange production of art, and a horrid represent-
ation of nature; and unless something were supposed which is not
expressed, it would be a strange new nothing. For " the Ancient of
days" does by no violence signify an old man; for it being a rcpre-
sentment of eternity, is the worst of all expressed by an old man ;
for that which is old is ready to vanish away, and nothing is more
contrary to eternity. Again, here is no mention of the appearance
of a man. There is indeed mention of a head, but neither of man
nor beast, bird nor fly expressed ; and hair like pure wool, but in
what it is like excepting only the purity is not told, nor can be
imagined: after this there is nothing but "a throne of flames" and
<e wheels of fire," and all this together would make a strange image,
a metaphor to express eternity, a head of I know not what light
without substance, visibility without a figure, a top without a bottom,
the whiteness of wool instead of the substance of hair, and a seat
upon wheels, and all in flames and fire : that it should ever enter
into the head or heart of an instructed man to think that the great,
the immense, the invisible, the infinite God of heaven, that fills
heaven and earth and hell, should be represented in image or pic-
ture by such a thing, by such a nothing, is as strange and prodigious
as the combination of all the daughters of fear and sleep and ignor-
ance. 5) After this vision of Daniel it was in the church of the
Jews esteemed as unlawful as ever to make an image of God ; and
by this the primitive Christians did not believe a warrant or con-
fidence could be taken to do any thing of that nature : and they
that now-a-days think otherwise have a new understanding and a
new religion, defying a commandment and walking by a dream ;
and are such whom a precept cannot draw, but they follow what
they understand not, and what was not intended to conduct their
religion, but to signify only the events and great changes of the
world. 6) If because mention is made of " the Ancient of days" in
Daniel, it were lawful to picture God like an old man, we might as
well make a door and say it is Christ, or a vine and call it our
master, or a thief and call it the day of judgment: a metaphorical or
mystical expression may be the veil of a mysterious truth, but cannot
pass into a sign and signification of it ; itself may become an hiero-
glyphic when it is painted, but not an image which is a fxop(f)r} ei6V
kos, and the most proper representation of any thing that can be
seen and is not present. They that paint a child to signify eternity
do it better than they by an old man signify Him that can be no
older to-morrow than He was yesterday. But by this I only intend
to note the imprudence and undecency of the thing; the unlawful-
ness is upon other accounts which I have reckoned.

§ 15. Concerning the humanity of our blessed Saviour, that being
a creature He might be depicted, I mean it was naturally capable
of it ; it was the great instrument of many actions, it conversed with
mankind above thirty years together, it was the subject of great

424 OV THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK. II.

changes, and the matter of a long story, and the conduit of many
excellent instructions, and therefore might without all question be
described as well as Caesar's or Meletius, Marc Anthony or the kings
of the gentiles. It might be done; and the question being here
only of the making or having of it, abstractedly from all other ap-
pendages or collateral considerations, I need say no more of it under
this title, but that it is neither impious nor unreasonable of itself to
have or to make the picture or image of Christ's humanity, or rather
of His human body : for against this there is neither reason nor re-
ligion, and if it be made accidentally unlawful that is not of present
consideration.

§ 16. But for the usual image of the Holy Ghost in the form of a
dove the pretence is great and fairer; no less than the words of
scripture. For in this instance that reason ceases for which God
did prohibit the making of His image; for here they did not only
hear a voice, but also they saw a shape; for the Holy Ghost de-
scended in the likeness of a dove, h o-oo/xariKco et8et, 'in a bodily
shape/ so S. Luke"1. To this I answer, that the Holy Ghost did
not appear in the shape of a dove at all ; but the dove mentioned
in the story relates only to the matter of His descending, and hover-
ing over Christ. And this 1) appears by the word in S. Matthew
ei8e to irvevfia tov 6eov Kara^aivov, wcret TTepurrepav, " He saw the
Spirit of God descending like a dove"/' that is, as doves use to de-
scend, hovering and overshadowing of Him. 2) The word axrei which
signifies an imperfect resemblance, or a limited similitude, does not
infer the direct shape of a dove, but something of it ; the motion or
the quantity, the hovering or the lighting like that of His appearance
on the day of pentecost0; cloven tongues axret 7rvp6$, ' as it were of
fire / that is, something of it, to shine it may be but not to burn, to
appear bright but not to move. 3) This appears yet more plainly in
the words of S. Luke, koX KaTa/3rjvai to Ttvevp-a to ayiov au>[xaTiK(3
eiSet, oxrei TrepiaTepav eir' clvtov, 'the Holy Ghost did descend in a
bodily shape as a dove upon Him :' where the ' bodily shape' can-
not mean the bodily shape of a dove, for then it must have been
wo-et irepLo-Tepas, ' as of a dove/ like that of the Acts, wo-et -rrvpos'
but it must wholly be referred to KaTa/3r}vai, He descended as a dove
uses to do : but then for o-a>p.aTLKbv ethos, ' the bodily shape/ it was
nothing but a body of light; the greatest visibility, called by the
apostle, fjL€yaXoTTp€Tiris ho^a, 'the excellent glory p/ which indeed
was the usual investiture of God's messengers in their appearances
and visibilities : and that there appeared a fire in Jordan at that
time, Justin Martyr q against Tryphon the Jew affirms expressly.
4) That this similitude was relative to the motion or the manner of
a dove's descent is so much the more probable, because this accepta-

■ ["J- 22.] » [iii. 16.] o [Acts ii. 3.]

' [2 Pet. i. 17.] q [cap. 88. p. 185 E.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 425

tion and understanding of it is more agreeable to the design and
purpose of the Holy Ghost's descending. Tor by ' flying' the Jews
did use in their symbolical theology to signify a divine influx or
inspiration, saith rabbi Jaccai upon the ninth of Danielr. This de-
scent therefore of the Holy Ghost in the manner of a dove's flight
signifies the gift of the Spirit of God to His holy Son, who received
Him not by measures but the fulness of Him ; and from His fulness
we all receive our portions.

§ 17. I cannot deny but that amongst learned men there is great
difference of apprehension concerning it, and the generality of men
without examining it suppose the Holy Ghost to have descended being
invested with the direct shape of a dove, €7reA0oVros kv ei'Bei irepL-
<TT€pas TTvevncLTos, so Justin Martyr8, for he expresses the words
otherwise than all the four evangelists ; they all say, coVel irepurTe-
pav, meaning as a dove descends : he changes the case and makes
it to be the shape or form of a dove : <paap,a opvtOos, so Origen*
calls it, ' the phantasm or appearance of a bird :' yet I will for the
present suppose it so, because the ancients did generally believe so :
but then 1 answer to the objection, that 1) although the ancients did
suppose it so, yet in the sixth council, that at Constantinople, can.
82 u, it is expressly forbidden to depict Christ like a lamb, or the
Holy Spirit like a dove. 2) Suppose the fancy of the ancients to
have some reality in it, yet it amounted to no more than this : it was
nothing but a light or fire effigiated into such a resemblance; or
like a bright cloud which represents strange figures imperfectly, any
thing according to the heart or fancy of them that behold it ; and
therefore is not so imitable as if it were a direct and proper ap-
pearance. So the gospel of the Nazarenes* expresses it, kcu evdvs
TT€pUkap.\\f€ rov tottov (pG>s p,iya' ' presently a great light did shine
round about the place •' and their apprehension of a dazzling light
in such a resemblance is but an ill warrant to make a standing figure
and proper imagery. Tertulliany supposes it was really and properly
a very dove indeed : and if so, the whole business is at an end, for
any dove may be pictured ; but the Holy Ghost must not be pictured
in that shape, though His errand and design was ministered to by a
dove. 3) And that indeed is the proper and full solution of this
objection. Supposing that the shape of a. dove did appear, yet this
no way represented Him, or was to be used as a sign of Him ; and
therefore it is observable when God had told the Baptist how he
should know the Messias, and that the Holy Ghost should consign
and signify Himz, He makes no mention of a dove, but of descending
only : not only plainly intimating that the mention of a dove was for

* [vers. 21.] * [Of theEbionites — Epiphan. haeres.

s [ibid., p. 186 A.J xxx. § 13. tom. i. p. 138 B.]

t [Contr. Cels., lib. i. tom. i.p. 359 A.] * Lib. de carne Cbristi. [cap. iii. p.

" [Sive quinisext. in Trullo, tom. iii. 309 B.]

col. 1689.] • [John i. 33.]

426 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

the similitude of motion not of shape, but also to signify that the
Holy Ghost himself was not at all to be represented as a dove.
But then if there was the shape of a dove, as the ancients suppose,
it looks downwards not upwards ; and was a symbol not to signify
any thing of the divinity or the personality of the Holy Spirit, but to
signify something in Christ, or in Christ's body the church, to repre-
sent the excellency and sweetness of Christ and of the church, His
perfection and our duty, the state of His institution and of our reli-
gion ; and so they who thus teach of the apparition of a dove ex-
press the symbol. The dove was to represent that great meekness
which was in Christa, and which He would insert into His institution
as no small part of a Christian's dutyb : which our blessed Saviour
was pleased also to express in the same similitude, 'be as harmless
as doves0/ Philod says that in the Jews' discipline a dove signifies
wisdom, that is, a good, a wise, a gentle, and debonair comport-
ment, not the severity of retirement and a philosophical life, but of
a civil, sweet, and obliging conversation. Some say that this dove
did relate to that dove which signified to Noah by an olive branch
of peace that God was again reconciled to the world ; and so did it
please God to use the like symbol when He would signify that recon-
cilement which was by Christ to be effected, and of which the other was
but a weak representment, and type, or figure. The world was now
also to be renewed at the appearance of this dove : but because this
no way relates to the person or the nature of the Holy Ghost, it can
no way hence be inferred that the Holy Ghost may be represented
by an image. This apparition if it was at all was symbolical of some-
thing below, not representative of any thing above : and in that sense
and to that purpose I do not doubt but it may be lawful to make a
picture of the dove that was seen, if I say, it was at all ; and of the
fiery tongues sitting upon the apostles ; for these were not repre-
sentative of the nature or person of the Holy Ghost, but descriptive
of the impression that from the Holy Ghost was made upon them :
and of this nature is the expression of the Baptist, ' He shall baptize
you with the Holy Ghost and with firee;' that is, from His baptism
or by His im mission, you shall receive graces and gifts whose effect is
properly expressed by fire, which also shall be its symbol.

§ 18. And after all this; if it should please God any Person of
the blessed and most holy Trinity should appear in any visible shape,
that shape might be depicted; of that shape an image might be
made ; I mean, it might naturally ; it might if it were done for law-
ful ends, and unless a commandment were to the contrary ; and
therefore so long as God keeps Himself within the secret recesses of
His sanctuary, and the majesty of His invisibility, so long it is plain

[Isa. xlii. 1 — a.] d [De animal, sacrific. idon., torn. ii.

b [Luke ix. 55.] p. '238. ed. Mangey.]

° [Matt. x. 16.] ' [Matt. iii. 11 ; Luke iii. 16.]

CHAP. II.] THE GKEAT RULE OK CONSCIENCE. 427

He intends the very first sense and words of His commandment : but -
if He should cancel the great reason of His commandment, and make
that by an act of His own to become possible which in the nature of
things is impossible, that is, that an image can be made of God; I
should believe that God did intend to dispense in that part of the
commandment, and declare that He intended it only for a temporary
band. For if the reason of the commandment were taken away,
either the commandment also ceases to oblige, or must be bound
upon us by another reason, or a new sanction, or at least a new
declaration ; or else it would follow that then His visible appearance
would become a snare to mankind. But because He hath not yet
appeared visibly, and hath by no figure or idea represented the God-
head ; and that it is a truth which must last as long as christian re-
ligion lasts, that ' no man can see God/ therefore it follows that it is
at no hand lawful to make an image of God or relating to the Divi-
nity. If a dove be made it must not be intended to represent the
Holy Ghostf, for besides that no dove did appear, nor shape of a
dove, yet if it did, it related not to the person of the Holy Ghost,
but to the impression made upon the person on whom the light de-
scended : and if the figure of the crucifix be made, or of Jesus in
the flesh, it is wholly relative to the creature, not to Him as God ;
for that is impious, and unreasonable, and impossible to be done in
any natural proportion. And the like also is to be said of those ex-
pressions in scripture, of the hand of God, His eye, His arm ; which
words although they are written, yet they cannot, ought not to be
painted : I do not doubt but it is lawful to paint or engrave an eye
or a hand, but not an eye or hand of God ; that is, we may not
intend to represent God by such sculpture or picture ; because the
scripture does not speak them to that end, that by them we may
conceive any thing of God : for as Hesselius well notes, these and
other like expressions are intended to represent some action of God ;
such as is that of Psalm lxxviii. alias lxxvii. ver. 65 g, who brings
in God excitatum tanquam dormientem, tanquam potentem crapulatuni
a circo : ' awakened out of sleep, and as a giant refreshed/ filled,
gorged 'with wine/ by which if any man shall represent God in
picture, his saying it may as well be painted as written will not
acquit him from insufferable impiety.

§ 19. Now this which I have discoursed is evidently according to
the doctrine and practice both of the Jews and primitive Christians.

Si quis dicat quod Spiritus S. in co- tatio illius formse secundum se: propter-

lumba apparuit, et Pater in veteri tes- ea non debetur ei aliqua reverentia sicut

tamento sub aliquibus corpora'libus for- nee illis forniis secundum »e. Nee ilia?

mis, ideoque possunt et illi per imagines forma fuerunt ad repraesentandas divi-

reprajsentari ; dicendum quod ilia? form* nas personas, sed ad repra'sentandum ef-

corporales non fuerunt a Patre vel Spi- fectus, quos divinse persona; faciebant in

ritu Sancto assumptae, et ideo repraesen- rebus. — Durand., in 3. Sent. dist. ix. q. 2.

tatio earum per imagines, non est reprae- n. 15. [p. 515.]

sentatio personae divinse, sed repraesen- tf [Bibl. Vulg.]

428 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

Concerning the Jews, Tacitush says of them, Mente sola, unumque nu-
men intelligtmt ; prqfanos, qui Deum imagines mortalibus materiis in
species hominum effingunt : ' they acknowledge but one deity, whom
they understand in their mind only ; esteeming all them to be pro-
fane who efform the images of their gods of corruptible matter into
the shapes of men/ And the testimony of S. Clemens of Alex-
andria1 is very full to this purpose; Deum ex Mosis disciplina nee
hominis effigie, nee ulla alia re reprasentari, ' God by the law of Moses
was not to be represented in the shape of a man or any other figure :*
and for the Christians that they also understood themselves to be
bound by the same law to the same religious abstaining from making
images of God, is openly and generally taught by the doctors of the
christian church for the four first ages together ; as without scruple
appears in the express words of Origenk, Tertullian1, Eusebiusm, Atha-
nasius", S. Hierome0, S. Austinp, Theodoreti, Damascene1", and the sy-
nod of Constantinople as is reported in the sixth action of the second
Nicene council55 : the sense of all which together with his own Poly-
dore Vergil1 thus represents; Cum Deus ubique prasens sit, nihil a
prmcipio post homines natos stultius visum est, quam ejus simulacrum
pingere, ' since the world began never was any thing more foolish than
to picture God who is present every where / for this is (according to
the sharp reproof of the apostle) to ' change the glory of the incor-
ruptible God into the similitude/ ev ojuoico/xari eiKoVos11, so it is in
the Greek, 'into the similitude of an image of a corruptible man,
and of birds and beasts,' &c, than which words nothing can be plainer
to condemn the picturing God : a thing which the very heathens did
abominate,

Sed nulla effigies, simulacrave nota deorum,
Majestate locum et sacro implevere timore,

said Silius Italicusx of the temple of Cadiz ; they had no images, no
pictures of the gods, but the house was filled with majesty and a holy
fear. And this they did not of ignorance, nor of custom ; but out of
reason and wise discourse. When Seneca y intreated his friend Luci-
lius to make himself worthy of God, he tells him how : Finges autem
non auro, non argento, non potest ex hac materia imago Dei exprimi
similis ; ' not with gold and silver, for of these an image like to God

h [Hist, lib. v. cap. 5.] Idem etiam p De fide et symbol., cap. 76. [torn. vi.

videre est apud Diodor. Sicul. [lib. xl. col. 157 D.J
eel. cap. 3.] « In Deut. q. i. [torn. i. p. 259.]

' Stromat., lib. i. [cap. 15. p. 358, 9.] r Lib. iv. de orth. fide, cap. 18. [torn.

^ Contr. Cels., lib. vii. [§ 66. torn. i. i. p. 280.]
p. 741.] « [Concil., torn. iv. col. 337 sqq.]

1 De coron. milit. [cap. x. p. 106.] ' Lib. ii. cap. 23. de invent, [p. 69.]

m Lib. i. cap. 5. praep. evang. [p. 14.] u [Rom. i. 23.]

n Orat. contra gentes. [torn. i. p. 13 x [lib. iii. 30.]

sqq.] y [Epist. xxxi. fin. torn. ii. p. 120.]

0 In cap. xl. Isai. [torn. iii. col. 306.]

CHAP. II.] THE GKEAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 429

can never be made/ And therefore Tacitusa says of the Germans,
that they Nee cohibere parietibus deos, nee in ullam fiumani oris spe~
ciem assimilate ex agnitione ccdestium arbitrautur, ' they think they
do not know the nature of the gods, if they should thrust them into
walls/ or depict them in the resemblance of a man or woman. Nul-
lum simulacrum jinxisse antiquitatem, said Macrobiusb, 'the old world
never made an image' (meaning of God) quia summus Deus nalaque
ex eo mens, sicut ultra animam ita supra naturam sunt, quo nihil fas
est cle fabulis pervenire, 'because the supreme God, and the mind
that is born of Him, as it is beyond our soul so it is beyond all nature,
and it is not fit that fables and fictions should be addressed to Him f

Nulla autem effigies, nulli commissa metallo.
Forma Dei mentes habitare et pectora gaudet".

God dwells in minds and hearts of good men, not in images and
metals.

§ 20. The next question is of greater effect, and though the answer
of it must needs be concluded from the former, yet because it hath
some considerations of its own and proper arguments, it is worth a
short enquiry.

Quest.
Whether it be lawful for Christians to worship God by an image.

§ 21. Concerning which the best ground of resolution is the com-
mandment, which it is certain the church of the Jews did under-
stand so, that they accounted it idolatry to worship God in any image
whatsoever; thus the Israelites were idolaters when they made the
golden calf, for so they proclaimed, "These are thy gods, O Israel,
who brought thee out of the land of Egypt : and to-morrow is a
solemnity to Jehovah," said Aaron. The calf they intended as an
image of their God, and by it they intended to worship Him ; which
is ' not improbable/ says Bellarmined ; which is ' certainly true/
said Feruse; and which is affirmed by the Spirit of God, 'they
changed their glory into the similitude of a calf that eateth hay /
that is, they represented God who was their glory by a golden calf.
And concerning Micahf, though his mother made an image, yet that
it was for the worshipping of the God of Israel appears in all the
story ; for upon this account he hoped that the Lord would bless
him, he took a Levite for his priest, he asked counsel of the Lord ;
yet these also he called his gods which were but the images of God,
by which it appears he was an idolater, because he worshipped the
true God by an image, which He had forbidden. The same was the
case of Gideon who made a covenant with them that God should be

a [German., cap. ix.] d [De imag., lib. ii. cap. 13. torn. ii.

b Lib. i. in somn. Scip., cap. 2. [p. col. 983.]

10.] e InActt.vii.[94.ed.fol. Colon. 1567.]

c [Stat. Theb., lib. xii. 493.] ' [Judg. xvii.]

430 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

their king, yet he made an ephod, that is, instituted a forbidden ser-
vice to Him, which thing became a snare to his house, and being a
prevarication of this commandment, was in its nature an idolatrous
worship, and yet it was but a superstitious or false worship of the
true God ; and this is affirmed by the christian doctors. Bon vult
se Deus in lapidibus coli, said S. Ambroses, ' God will not be wor-
shipped in stones or graven images/ and S. Austin11 affirms that
God in this commandment did prohibit, ne quis colat ullam imagi-
nem Dei nisi unam eandem qua cum ipso est Christiis\ 'that we should
worship no image of God but Him that is the lively image of His
person, that is, Jesus Christ :' and this is so affirmed by all the
fathers, so confirmed by the doctrine and practice of the church, so
adhered to by all the doctors of the Jews, that Vasquez finds himself
constrained to confess, Clare deducitur, non licuisse turn vermn Deum
in aliqua imagine venerari, 'it is clearly consequent, that then it
was not lawful to worship the true God in any image or represent-
ment/

§ 22. But it is said, that though it was not then, yet now it is ;
for that was only a temporary precept, relative to the Jews because
of their proneness to idolatry. So CatharinusJ affirms, totum hoe
praceptum esse positivum, non morale, this whole commandment is
positive, not moral : for however something related to the Jews,
yet by this commandment is only forbidden to worship the images
of false gods, or the image of the true God with divine worship.

§ 23. Against this I have many things to say : 1) that idolatry is a
sin against the law of nature, or of prime religion ; therefore what-
soever was idolatry in the Jews is the same sin in the Christians.
Indeed in the entercourses between man and man, though the rela-
tive duty be bound upon us by the commandment of God, yet the
instances can be altered by human authority and consent ; as new
kinds of incest, several instances of murder, of treason, and the like :
but where not only the law but the instances also are of God's ap-
pointment, what is once is always, unless God change the particular,
which He never did in the present question. One case there is in
which the particulars even of the present article can vanish ; viz.,
when a particular is commanded apparently for a transient reason,
and hath in it no essential reason, no natural rectitude ; but the wor-
shipping of God by an image is against natural reason, as I have
proved by the unlawfulness and unreasonableness of making an
image of God, and shall further prove in the sequel ; therefore al-
though by reason of the Jews' proneness to direct and prime idolatry
the commandment put new and accidental necessities, (I mean the
not having or making any pictures,) yet the prohibition of Worship-
s' Ad Valent. ep. xxxi. [al. xviii. torn. \ ['nisi ilia quae hoc est quod Ipse.']
ii. col. 835 C] ' Ut vid. est ap. Bellarm. de imag.

h Ep. cxix. ad Januar. [al. lv. torn. ii. [lib. ii. cap. 7. torn. ii. col. 951.]
col. 135 E.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 431

ping God by an image having a natural and essential rectitude, and
conformity to the simplicity of a natural, and to the spirituality of
the christian religion, it cannot be changed as the fancies or the in-
terests of men shall require ; and of this besides the apparent reason-
ableness of the thing we have an express testimony from Origen k,
Caterum christiani homines et Judai sibi temperant ab his propter
ill nd legis, Dominwm Deum timebis . . If em propter Mud, Non erimt
t'tbi Dii alieni prater me, et non fades tibi ipsi simulacrum, fyc,
aliaqne mtdta his similia qua adeo nos prohibent ab aris et simulacris,
id etiam emori jubeant citius qnam contaminemus nostram de Deo
Jidem talibus impietatibus : ' both Christians and Jews abstain from
these (worshippings) because the law says, Thou shalt have no other
gods but Me, and, Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image,
and for many other things like these, which so severely restrain us
from altars and images, that they command us to die rather than to
pollute our faith of God with such impieties/ The sum of which is,
that Christians as well as Jews understood themselves bound equally
by this commandment : and they were to suffer death rather than
image-worship.

§ 24. 2) To worship false gods, or to give divine honour to an
image which is not God, is all one kind of formal idolatry ; they
may differ materially, as the worshipping of silver does from bowing
the head to gold, but they are formally the same thing, for it is
making that to be our god which is no god ; and this is sufficiently
forbidden in the first commandment : now since there are more sins
against that commandment than one, let us suppose that the two
first (as we reckon them) are but one ; yet the next must be that
which is forbidden in the explication, that is to worship the true
God with a false image; it is making God to be like an idol by
representing Him in the same cheap impossible way, by using Him
like the false gods, by making His image to become an idol, by
giving Him a forbidden, hated worship, by honouring Him with
a lie ; all which, if they be not great violations of the commandment
to which they do belong, then there is but one kind of sin there for-
bidden, and this is an act of so great simplicity and incommunica-
bility that it hath neither brother nor sister, mother nor daughter,
kin' nor kin, analogy nor correspondencies, addresses nor degrees.
If it have not, why are so many particulars reduced to this com-
mandment by all casuists, friends or foes in this article : if it have,
this superstitious and forbidden worship being here named in the
commandment, and standing next to the prime idolatry, must at
least have the degree of the same obliquity.

§ 25. 3) He that makes an image of God and worships it, gives it
the worship of God whom it represents, or a different. If he gives a
different and consequently a less worship, he does not worship God in

k Contr. Cels., lib. vii. [torn. i. p. 740.]

432 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

the image ; but his worship such as it is is terminated on the image,
and then comes not into this enquiry : it is no more than loving a
bird for Lesbia's sake, or valuing a pendent for her sake that gave it
me ; and this may be a civil valuation, and is to be estimated
according to its excess or temper. But if by the image I mean to
worship God, then I join them together in the act of adoration, and
make them the same integral object : but then I give to both the
same worship ; and therefore unless they can both be united into an
identity, I must needs give divine worship to that which is no God ;
which is direct idolatry. If an image of God pass the worship
which I give unto God, then it goes first to the image, then to
God ; therefore it must needs be the same ; for that which passes
from the image to God must not be less than what is fit to be given
to God : but if it be the same, then it ought not at all to pass upon
that. If it be less than divine it must not be given to God ; if it
be not less, it must not pass upon that which is not God. If it be
less, it is impiety when it is offered to the prototype ; if it be the
same and not less, it is idolatry when it is offered to the image.

§ 26.) But I need not make use of both parts of the dilemma; for
it is certain that every relative worship must be the same in the
middle and the end, and it is confessed by most of those who worship
God and His Christ and His saints by images, that the same honour
is given to both. Eundem honorem cleberi imagini et exemplari, says
Almain ' ; ac proinde imagines S. Trinitatis, Christi, et cruris, cultu
latria adorandas esse : the images of the Trinity, of Christ, and of the
cross are to be adored with divine worship. The same is the opinion
of Alensis, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Albertus, Eichardus, Capreolus,
Cajetan, Coster, Valentia, the Jesuits of Colen, Triers, and Mentz,
who approved Coster's opinion; and indeed generally of all the Roman
schools, if we may believe a great man amongst them ; Constans est
theologorum sententia, iniaginem eodem honore et cultu honorari et coli
quo colitur id cujus est imago, said Azoriusm ; and he supposes this to
be the mind of the council of Trent, and insinuated by the second Ni-
cene, and certainly he was in the right. For though the council of
Trent used much caution in their expression of this invidious article,
and expressed no particular honour, but that due honour and worship
be given to them ; yet when at the latter end of the decree it approves
the second Nicene council and refers to that in the article ; it is
plain that the council of Trent intended such honour and worship to
be due, as the council of Frankfort said was not due : neither is it
to be imagined they durst contradict so constant an opinion, or openly
recede from their great Aquinas. They have amongst them many
fine devices, to make this seem what it is not ; but that which is
sufficient is this, that no distinction, no artifice will file the harshness

' [vid. in 3. sent., dist. ix. quaest. 1. fol. m Instit. moral., part. 1. 1. ix. c. 6.

26. ed. fol. Par. 1518.] [col. 1334 C. ed. fol. Par. 1602.]

CHAP, ri.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 433

off from this : for whereas the great thing that they say is this, that
this worship being not for the image, but for God's sake passed through
the image, does not give divine honours to the image ; but I reply, Is
it a divine honour that is given to the image or no; is it the same that
is given to God, or is it another? If it be the same, then though it be
not for the image but for God, yet it is for God that the divine worship
is given to the image ; that is, it is for God's sake that what is due
to God alone is given to that which is not God ; that is, for God's
sake, they commit idolatry. But if it be not the same, then how do
they worship God by the image? Idem est motus ad imaginem et
exemplar, says Aristotle", and upon this account they suppose what is
done to the image accrues to God ; but then as they must take care
that nothing be given to God that is less than Himself, 1 mean that
He be not worshipped with less than a divine worship ; so they may
also remember, that by one motion and act of worship they cannot
give less to the image than they do to God : whatsoever is less
than another is not the same with another ; if therefore the worship
given to the image be in any sense less than that which is given to
God, then it is not the same ; if it be not the same, then by the
same motion, by the same act of worship, there are two kinds of
worship given; which is a contradiction, that one should be two,
and also evacuates their great pretence of the reasonableness or pos-
sibility of doing worship to God by an image ; because upon this
account the same does not pass at once to both.

§ 27. 4) A good man is more an image of God than any painter
or engraver can make : but if we give divine honours to a good man
it were idolatry ; therefore much more if we give it to an image. I
use this instance to take off the trifle of worship relative, and wor-
ship terminative ; for if we should offer sacrifice to man, build tem-
ples and altars to him over against his doors, burn lamps, make
vows, appoint holydays, processions, litanies, institute fraternities,
give him the appellatives of honour which we usually ascribe to God,
it would not serve our turns to say, we do it to God whose image
this man is, and we intend the honour to God finally; there it rests,
it only passes through the good man, to be united to the glories of
God : it were idolatry without all contradiction. I find that acts of
humility have been done to the poor for Christ's sake, and the
actions wrere referred to Christ just as all other acts of charity and
alms used to be : but if divine honour be done to them, it is so far
from being entertained by God as the correlative of that worship,
that it is a dishonour to Him : He being curious of His own pecu-
liar, and having givqn no warrant, no instance that can amount to
any thing of that nature; and He will be worshipped, as Plato's
expression is, tw [xaXXov apiaKovn rpo7T(p, in that way (not that we
choose, but) that He best likes. He that will pass worship to God
by the mediation and interposition of a creature, must do it by

n [De memoria, torn. i. p. 452.]
IX. F f

484 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

using that creature in all the endearments and regards for God's
sake of which it is capable. Thus by reverencing the grey head
and rising up to him, we do honour to the great Father of men
and angels ; by relieving the poor we do honour to Christ ; but neither
is Christ honoured by us if we have made a rich present to a king
for Christ's sake, or call a poor beggar my lord : but when for God's
sake we pass those regards to several estates of men which are the
best usages which prudently they can require, then the good we do
to them, whether it be honour or relief, relates to God. But for
God's sake to give divine honours to a man, is as if to honour the
master we made his servant equal, or out of reverence to the
body we should wear the shoe upon our head ; and this argument
must needs conclude against the worshippers of images; for although
Vasquez, and I think he alone of all the world, owns the worst that
this argument can infer, and thinks it lawful to give divine worship
relatively or transitively to a man ; yet when that whole Church
excuses their worshipping of saints by saying they give only such
veneration to them as is proportioned to them, not latria but dulia,
that is, not divine worship in any sense, for so they would be under-
stood to speak and do ; it must needs be certain, that this argument
is not to be answered, nor yet to be outfaced. However, this is
certain, that when the Arians, who believed Christ to be a mere
creature, though they could not deny but that (according to the
express words of Scripture) He was the express and bright image of
His Father's glory, yet because they gave to Christ divine honours
for his relation sake to His Father the eternal God they were by
the fathers of the church expressly called idolaters, as is to be seen
in the first, third, and fourth orations of S. Athanasius against the
Arians, and in S. Cyril in Joh. 1. ix. c. 41 °, and divers other places :
and whatsoever Vasquez or any man else is pleased to think of it,
yet S. John? was twice rejected by an angel when he would have
given divine honour to him, when he would have worshipped him ;
and yet that angel represented God, and was the servant of Jesus.
And upon this account we may worship every creature, every fly,
every tulip, even the onions of Egypt ; for every plant is more an
image of God than a dead piece of metal or marble can be :

Presentemque refert quselibet herba Deum.

And it is in images as it is in the matter of oaths, of which our
blessed Saviour said that he that swears by heaven, or by the earth, by
the temple, or by the gold, it is all a case ; it all alike refers to God,
and does Him dishonour if the matter be vain or false : so it is in
images; every creature of God represents Him and is capable of
transmitting honour to Him, as a wooden image ; and yet because

° [torn. iv. p. 778 sqq.] p [Rev. xix. 10, xxii. 9.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 435

the best images of God are not susceptive of divine honours so much
as by relation, much less shall the worse images j and if it be ido-
latry to give such to a man, though with an intuition upon God, to
do so to a dead image which hath less likeness to God cannot be put
off by a distinction, and a vain imagination. I will not aggravate the
evil practices or doctrines which are in the church of llome con-
cerning this question, but it is obvious to observe, that although this
distinction of relative and terminative is invented by superstitious
persons to make the question hard, and to themselves greater oppor-
tunity of quieting the scruples of tender persons ; yet they do give,
and openly profess to give divine honours to that which is no God :
which I thus demonstrate, — The cross on which Christ suffered is but
a creature, but to the image of this they give a relative divine honour ;
therefore to the exemplar, which is that cross whereof the other are
but images, they terminate the divine honour. So Jacobus Almain
in the words a little before quoted, ' The same honour is owing to
the image and the exemplar ; and therefore the images of the Trinity,
and of Christ, and of the cross, are to be adored with the worship of
latria? (that is, divine). To this purpose is that clause in the pon-
tifical published by the authority of Clement the eighth q, Crux legati
quia debetur ei latria, erit a dextris, ' the legate's cross must be on
the right hand, because latria, or divine honour, is due to it.' Now
this being the image can challenge but this divine honour relatively;
but the cross that Helena found at Jerusalem was the exemplar,
therefore to that the divine worship is due ultimate et terminative,
it rests there ; which is as downright idolatry as can be defined.
But Aquinas'" proves it ought to be so by this argument, — that in
which we place the hope of our salvation, to that we exhibit the wor-
ship of latria, or divine worship ; but in the cross we place the hope
of our salvation, for so the church sings,

O crux ave spes unica
Hoc passionis tempore :
Auge piis justitiam,
Reisque dona veniam *.

' All hail, O cross, who art our only hope in this time of our suffer-
ing : increase the righteousness of the righteous, and give pardon to
the guilty/

I could add many more things to the same purpose* ; but because I

* Edit. Rom., p. 672. [fol. 1595.] regis prodeunt' ofVeuantius Fortunatus.

r [Summ., part. 3. quaest. xxv. art. 4.] — See his works, part i. p. 46. ed. 4to,

■ [This verse was added by some un- Rom. 1786; and Cassander, hymn, ec-

kuown author to the hymn ' Vexilla cles., p. 220.]

t Salve sancta facies nostri redemptoris,
In qua nitet species divini splendoris,
Impressa panniculo nivei candoris,

Salve vultus Domini, imago beata,
Ff 2*

436 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

intend not an accusation of any one, but institution to every one that
needs it, I shall only observe that this distinction is used with them
as miracles and the gift of tongues was, not for them that believe,
but for them that believe not : so is this for strangers, and them that
make objections, not for the obedient that worship images and break
the commandment ; for they must or may do more than give a rela-
tive worship : but yet because it concerns us and them, I add this
observation,

§ 28. 5) That if divine worship, or latria, be in any sense given to
an image, no distinction can save it harmless : for if it be given at
all, it is not changed in kind by being altered in circumstance. It
is that kind of worship which all the world understands to be proper
to God; now whether it be for itself or for any other thing, is no-
thing but an enquiry for what cause this incommunicable worship is
communicated to them, that is, a looking after the cause of a thing,
which no cause can legitimate ; and whether this be proper or im-
proper, yet still it is idolatry in one of the senses ; whether it be
direct or indirect, it still gives but an appellative and specificates the
idolatry ; for that which in its whole nature is unlawful and unna-
tural, cannot be lawful in a certain respect. Idololatra dicuntur qui
simulacris earn servitutem exhibeni qua debetur Deo, said S. Austin*,
' He who gives that to an image which is due to God is an idolater /
but he who answers that he does that thing but in this or this
manner, confesses the thing done and tells you how : but if the
manner destroys the thing, then it is not the same worship, and then
what need the distinction of the manner, which must suppose the
same matter ; but if the manner does not destroy the thing, then for
all the distinctions it is idolatry.

§ 29. 6) I consider that in the first commandment where atheism
and polytheism and allotheism are forbidden directly and principally,
and whatever is like it, or even with, or under it, the preface or the
reason of it is expressed by God, " I am the Lord thy God ;" plainly
declaring, that whatsoever is introduced against that commandment
is also against that reason : God is not our God, if we acknowledge
none, or if we accept of many, or any other ; so that by this precept

Nos deduc ad propria, o felix figura,

Ad videndum faciem quae est Christi pura.

[From a hymn in invocation of the to all who repeated it devoutly in presence

Veronica, or napkin said to bear the im- of the Veronica. See the Antidotanum

pression of Christ's features, preserved in Animae, by Nicolas de Saliceto, fol. 51.

S. Peter's church at Rome. This hymn col. 2. ed. 8vo. Delf. 1495; Hospinian.

was published by pope John xxn., and an de orig. tempi., lib. ii. cap. ii. p. 179. ed.

indulgenceof ten thousand days promised fol. Gen. 1681.]

Ave ferrum triumphale,
Felix hasta, nos amore
Per te fixi saucia.

1 [De Trin., lib. i. cap. 6. [torn. viii. col. 756 F.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 487

and upon this account, idolatry in the object is forbidden. But
in the next precept, or (if it be the same with this) in the next
periods of this commandment, there is another thing forbidden upon
another reason, "Thou shalt not worship any graven image, for I
the Lord thy God am a jealous God :" meaning that as His being
our God infers that none else must be made our God or have divine
honours done to it, so the superaddition of this attribute and appel-
lative of God, that as He is our God, so also He is a jealous God in
this very matter of entercourse with us, infers that we must not only
do what He bids, but also in his own way ; the thing and the manner
too are taken care of. And if He had in the second precept only
forbidden divine worship to be given to any artifice or to any crea-
ture, the proper reason for it had been ' for I am the Lord thy God/
but when to other words He puts another reason, it is certain it
must mean something new and not signified in the first periods : but
then, because the worshipping of any image of God with divine wor-
ship for the sake of the exemplar is that which is nearest and likest
the manner of the gentiles, and does insensibly steal the heart of
man away, and depresses our great thoughts of the eternal immense
God into the circumscription of an image, and draws the mind from
spiritual to material entercourses, and therefore does by immediate
consequence lessen the honour of God and the propriety of the
divine worship ; that all this should be forbidden is justly inferred
from the reason ; for of these things no better reason in the world
can be given, than that God is a jealous God, and will not have His
honour directly or indirectly given to any thing to whom Himself is
not pleased expressly to impart it ; and therefore there is a natural
proportion in the reason to the prohibition ; for since it is usual in
scripture to call idolatry by the name of fornication or adultery, God
is pleased here also to forbid that manner of worship which he ac-
counts adulterous, and declares He will not endure it because He
is jealous. And let it be imagined, what can be the effect of that
reason : something special must be apportioned to it, lest it be to no
purpose ; but that images be not taken for very God, that they may
not finally and for themselves receive divine honour, is the effect of
the first reason, and of the first precept ; whatsoever is next to this,
must be what is also next expressed, that is, not that images be not
worshipped for God, but that in the worshipping the true God which
is commanded in the first period, we do not bow the head and knee
before images, which is forbidden in the second periods. And if
men were in their proportion as jealous of their duty, and of avoiding
God's anger, and escaping the divine judgments, and of preserving
their eternal interest, as God is of His honour ; they would never so
much intricate their duty, and brand the commandment, and do that
which is so much against the letter of it, and against the doctrine
of that church to whom the law was given, and against so much
reason, and for the doing of which they are forced to use so much

438 OP THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

violence of answer, such convulsions of distinction : a jealous man
will not endure such comportments in his wife, for the justification
of which she is so hardly put to it, that she must have half a dozen
answers before she can please herself, or think that she does well,
and which after all, will look but like pitiful excuses. But above all
excuses it would seem the worst if she should say, I do admit an-
other man, but not as my husband, but with a less regard and another
sort of complication than I use to him ; and that which I do I do it
for his sake, he is so like him that he is his very picture ; and he is
his very great friend, and what I do is for that very regard. A
jealous man would hardly take this for satisfaction. And if it be
considered that there is nothing so clear but something may be said
against it, and tt(xvtI \6y& Ao'yo? avrUeiTcu, ' every word can be
contradicted by a word/ and then how many presumptions, how
many reasons, how many express words, how many ages, and how
many religions, do join in the condemnation of worshipping God by
an image ; it may very well be concluded that our jealous God will
not endure half so much disobedience, wilful ignorance, and ob-
stinacy, in such persons as against so much reason and religion and
for so few and trifling pretences will worship God and His Christ by
images against the words of His own commandment.

§ 30. 7) If it be enquired how an image can be an idol; the
answer must be, by giving to it divine worship, or something that
is due and proper to God. Now whoever knows it to be an image
of a thing, if he have any use of reason, if he be not a changeling,
believes better of the exemplar than of the image, and knows that
the worship sticks not in the image : he cannot worship it for itself,
but for something to which it relates, or for something that adheres
to it, or is derived upon it ; still the honour goes beyond the natural
or artificial image. The image hath no worth of its own beyond the
art or nature, and can be estimated but as silver, or marble, or
carved ; and therefore no religion passes upon it for its own sake :
since therefore whatsoever passes on it is for the sake of that which
it represents, an image that is understood to be an image can never
be made an idol ; or if it can it must be by having the worship of
God passed through it to God; it must be by being the analogical,
the improper, the transitive, the relative (or what shall I call it)
object of divine worship. Now that this consideration may have its
effect, I shall not need to say that an idol and an image is all one,
though that be true in grammar; and ErasmusV said that S. Ambrose
knew no difference between them, but that every image (made for
religion) is an idol, and that he himself saw no difference : but
because the church in some ages hath supposed a difference, I shall
also allow it ; but find all the danger of any such allowance taken
away by the instance of the brazen serpent, which did pass under

' Inl Cor. viii. [torn. vi. col. 704 C]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 439

both notions, for it was a mere image or representment of a serpent,
and the commemoration of God's* delivering His people from them ;
but when it came to be used in a religious worship then it was an
idol, permitted when it was a bare image, but broken when it passed
into an idol. An image or a doll do not differ in themselves but by
use and custom of speaking : the church calling it an image so long
as it is used lawfully, but it is an idol when it is used unlawfully; that
is in plain speaking, an image is lawful to be made or kept for some
purposes but not for other. It is lawful for story, for memory of an
absent friend or valued person that is away, for the moving an affec-
tion, for ornament and the beauty of a place; but it is not lawful
to have them, not lawful to make them with designs of ministering
to religion, or the service and worship of God : which I choose to
express in the words of the author of the famous books under the
name of Charles the great2, Nos imagines in basilicis positas iclola
noil nuncupamus ; sed ne iclola nuncupentur, adorare et colere eas
recusamus, 'we do not call all images by the name of idols, but lest
they become idols we refuse to worship them/ But yet this I add,
that although in the use of the two Greek words et/ccoz/ and elbcoXoi'
and of the Latin idolum and imago, men have troubled themselves
with finding material differences ; yet although it might be of some
use in enquiring the meaning of the ancient doctors of the church in
the question of images, yet it will be wholly impertinent as to the
commandment. For God forbidding images used the word 7DS,
which signifies properly a graven image ; and because there were
more sorts besides this, God was pleased to forbid Ha-IDI-^ which the
LXX render by iravros ojuoicojua, ' the likeness of any thing / and it
contains sculptile,fusile, ductile, confiatile, that is, all sorts of repre-
sentations, flat or extant, painted or carved ; and the force of this
word can be eluded by no distinction. But then as to the meaning
of these words in the use of the ancient doctors, this is certain, that
although about the time of the second Nicene council, this distinc-
tion of idolum and imago wTas brought into the christian church ;
yet it was then new, and forced, made to serve the ends of new
opinions, not of truth : for in Tertullian's time there was nothing of
it, as appears by his words in his bookZte idololatria*, Ad hoc neces-
saria est vocabuli interpretat'io : ethos Grace formam sonat ; ab eo
per diminutionem elbooXov deductum ceque apud nos formulam fecit.
Jgitur omnis forma vel formula idolum se did exposcit : estque
idololatria, omnis circa omne idoltim famulatus et serviius : 'every
image (meaning, of God) is an idol, and all worship and service
about them is idolatry/ This is plain, and short. And that once
for all I may make it clear that an idol and an image was all one in
the sense of the word and of the ancient church, it is undeniably so

■ [De imagin.] lib. iv. [cap. 18 p. 582. 8vo. 1549.]
■ Cap. iii. [p. 87 A.]

440 OF THE CHKIST1AN LAW, [BOOK II.

used in Cicero, lib. i. de fin. botior. et maLh, Imagines qua idola
nominawt, quorum incursione non solum videamus sed etiam cogite-
mus, Sfc, and for the church S. Chrysostom0 is an authentic witness,
for he calls the pictures by which they then adorned their houses
by the names of idols, Oi/aas . . KaraKocrixov^v elbcaka Travra^ov k<u
£6ava la-Twvres, ' we trim our houses, placing every where idols and
pictures/

§ 31. Upon this account we may understand the meaning of the
primitive fathers, who would not endure that a picture should be
made, or kept, who condemned the art itself as deceiving and
adulterous, who said that God forbad the very trade itself: so
Tertulliand, Jam vero ipsum opus personarum quce.ro an Deo placeat,
qui omnem similitudinem vetat fieri, quanto magis imaginis sua?
1 Can the making vizors please God, who hath forbidden all simili-
tudes or images and pictures to be made, and how much more any
image of Himself ?' Nobis enim est aperte vetitum artem 'fallacem
exercere, said S. Clemente speaking of pictures and images, the very
art is forbidden to Christians. The same is affirmed by Origenf,
and long after by S. Chrysostom ; but Tertullians said, that the
devil brought painting and carving into the world; and adds,
toto mundo ejusmodi artibus interdixit servis Deib, that God hath
forbidden to all His servants in all the world to use such arts. But
they are to be understood by their own words spoken when they
had the same reason and less heat ; for that the very making of
images was forbidden by God by way of caution only and provision,
not for any turpitude or unreasonableness in the thing, but for the
danger which then was pregnant, themselves affirm : similitudinem
vetans fieri omnium . . oslendit et causas, idololatrim sc. substantiam
cohibeutes : subjicit enim, Non adorabitis ea, Sfc. so Tertullian1. To
the same purpose is that of Origenk speaking of the Jews, ' there
was no painter or statuary admitted into their cities, their laws
driving away all this kind of people/ ne qua occasio prceberetur
Ziominibus crassis, neve animi eorum a Dei cultu avocarentur ad res
terrenas per kujusmodi illecebras, 'lest any occasion should be given
to rude people of drawing their minds from the pure worship of
God to earthly things.' Now if this sense was also in the com-
mandment, it is certain that this was but temporary, and therefore
could change, and that it was changeable appears in this, that God
by a divine spirit assisted Bezaleel and Aholiab in the like curious
arts, and by other instances which I have already reckoned 1 : now

[cap. 6.] p. 524; of. lib. viii. § 17. p. 754.]

[In Phil. iii. hom. x. § 3. torn. xi. p. e De idol., cap. iii. [p. 86 D.]

279 C] h ("ibid., cap. iv. p. 87 A.]

d De spect. cap. xxiii. [p. 82 C] » Lib. ii. c. 22. adv. Marcion. [p. 392

e Protrep., p. 41. edit. Paris. [1629, D.]

al. p. 54. ed. 1715.] strom., lib. vi. [cap. k Contr. Cels., lib. iv. [torn. i. p. 524.]

18. p. 825.] ' Rule vi. § 10. [p. 419.J
' Lib. iv. contr. Cels. [§ 31. torn. i.

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 44]

this sense and severity might perpetually oblige the Jews, because
during the whole abode Sf their synagogue there was almost an
equal danger by their perpetual conversation with idolatrous nations:
and therefore it was very well said of Tertullian" in the matter of
the brazen serpent, f if thou regardest the law, thou hast God's law,
Make not the likeness of any thing : but if thou considerest that
afterwards Moses did command them to make the likeness of a ser-
pent, do thou also imitate Moses, and against the law make no
likeness, unless God also give thee a commandment as He did
Moses.' Meaning that the singular example was no prejudice to
the law ; exceptio format regulam in non exceptis. This part of the
commandment was by God dispensed with in that instance and in a
few more : but these few confirm the rule in all things and instances
besides themselves, for they say that without God's leave we may
not break this commandment. In Tertullian' s time this very neces-
sity did still abide, and therefore they had the same zeal against
images and ' whatsoever gave substance to idolatry / that's Tertul-
lian's phrase for painters and statuaries. But then this also is to
be added, that all those instances in the Old testament of the brazen
serpent, the bulls, the pomegranates, the cherubims, the curious
works of Bezaleel, are not to be used as arguments against the
morality of the second commandment, because these were single
causes, and had their special warrant or approbation respectively
from the same fountain whence the prohibition came : at least let
them prevail no further than they ought ; let them mean no more
than they say, and let us go no further than the examples, by which
we find images made for other uses, but not for worship : and
therefore the commandment may be moral in all the periods of it,
this only excepted which relates to the making of them.

But when we consider further that Solomon caused golden lions
to be made about his throne, and the Jews imprinted images on
their money, and in Christ's time they used the images of Cassar on
their coin, and found no reprover for so doing, this shews that there
was something in the commandment that was not moral ; I mean
the prohibition of making or having any images : for to these things
we find no command of God, no dispensation, no allowance positive,
but the immunity of reason and the indemnity of not being re-
proved ; and therefore for so much as concerns the making or hav-
ing pictures and images we are at liberty without the warranty of
an express commandment from God. The reason of the difference
is this; the first instances (excepting that of the brazen serpent,
which because it was to be instrumental in a miraculous blessing must
suppose a divine commandment, like a sacrament or sacramental,)
were of images used in the tabernacle or temple, and so came within
the verge of religion ; and for their likeness to the main superstition

" De idol., cap. v. [p. 88 B.J

44£ OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

might not be ventured upon without special leave or approbation :
and therefore God gave command for the images of the tabernacle,
and by His majestatic0 presence in the temple approved all that was
there. Upon what confidence Solomon ventured upon it, and whether
lie had a command or no, I find not recorded, but ex post facto we
find it approved. But for the other images which related wholly to
civil use, right reason and the common notices of things was their
sufficient warrant while they could have no end in disobedience, no
temptation to it, no reward for it ; when it did not contradict any
natural or religious reason there was no danger of idolatry, no
semblance of superstition. So that the result is this; the Jews
were forbidden to make or have any images, and this was because
of their danger; but this was no moral law. But the very making
and having them for worship is forbidden as the thing itself is.
Just as adultery and wanton looks are forbidden in the same com-
mandment, and are acts of the same sin ; so is worshipping and
having them for worship, it is that which S. Paulp calls in the
matter of uncleanness, ' making provision for the flesh to fulfil the
lusts thereof :' making images and pictures to this end is providing
for the flesh ; for this also is fornication and spiritual whoredom.
And as we may look upon a woman, and be innocent, so we do not
look upon her for lust ; so may we have or make pictures and
images, but for worship we may not : and in this sense of the words
even this period of the commandment is also moral, and obliges us
as much as the Jews ; but if those words did abstractedly and
without their relation bind the Jews, it did never bind us but by
way of caution and prudence, that is, when we are in the same
dangers as were the Israelites, in the rudeness and infancy of their
church especially. And this we find in Tertullianq, that when he
had affirmed the very art of painting and engraving to be unlawful,
to them who enquire, what then shall the poor men do who have no
other means to get their living, he answers, 'let them paint tables
and cupboards, and remove their art from danger of religion to
necessary and fit provisions for life ; let them do things as like as
they were enabled by their art/ so they were unlike the violations
of religion; and therefore the church celebrates on the eighth of
November the memory of Claudius Nicostratus and their fellows
who chose to die rather than make images for the heathen temples ;
they were excellent statuaries, but better Christians. By which it
is plain that he means the very art as it ministered to idolatry ;
for abstracting from that ministry and that danger it was lawful
enough ;

Qui fingit sacros auro vel marmore vultus,
Non facit ille Deos ; qui rogat ille facit r ;

0 ['majestic' B, C, D.] " [De idol., cap. viii. p. 89 B.]

p [Rom. xiii. 14.] r [Mart., lib. viii. epigr. 24.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 443

' He that worships the image, he makes it an idol •' and he that de-
signs any assistance to the idolatry, or knowingly ministers to it, he
adopts himself into a partnership of the crime. To which purpose
was that of Tertullian9, Facio {scil. imagines) sed non colo ; quasi ob
aliquam causam colere non audeat, nisi ob quam et fa-cere non debeat,
scilicet ob Dei essentiam1 utrobique : hno tu colis, qui facis lit coli
possint. He answers the objection of them that say, I make images,
but I do not worship them : ' as if/ says he, ' there were any reason
forbidding thee to worship them, but the same for which thou oughtest
not to make them ; I mean, the omnipresence of God. Nay thou
worshippest them who makest them that they may be worshipped/
But in all other senses the making a picture is not making an idol ;
and therefore that severe sense of the commandment though as it
is most probable it did oblige the Jews, and all persons in equal
danger ; yet because the reason may cease, and the danger be secured,
when it is ceased the obligation is null ; and therefore though that
was in the commandment, yet it is no part of its morality ; but that
excepted, every other clause is moral and eternal.

§ 32. 8) And all this is perfectly consenting to the analogy of the
Gospel, which is a spiritual worship, unclothed of bodily ceremonies,
stripped naked of beggarly rudiments, even those which God had com-
manded in the old law : Christ placed but two mysterious ceremonies
in the place of all the shadows of Moses; and since Christianity hath
shaked off that body and outsides of religion, that law of a carnal
commandment, that we might ' serve God in spirit and truth/ that is,
proportionable to His perfections, it cannot be imagined that this spiri-
tual religion which worships God in praises and love, in charity and
alms, in faith and hope, in contemplation and humility, in self-denial
and separations from all corporal adherencies that are not necessary,
and that are not natural ; I say it cannot be imagined that this spiri-
tual religion should put on a phantastic body, which as much as it can,
separates from a real : that Christianity should make a vizor for God,
who hath no body, and give that to Him which the heathens gave to
their devils; D<vmoniisu corpora contulerunt, 'they gave a body to
their demons/ says Tertullian v, when they made images to them;
that he who under the law of carnal ordinances could not endure an
image, should yet be pleased with it under the pure and spiritual in-
stitution of the Gospel. A Christian must yvr\criovs 0epa7reia? aenrd-
CzoQcll, ' worship God with genuine and proper worshippings/ that is,
^/vxvs ^i^fj Kal ixovr] dvaiq, 'with the pure and only worship of the
soul/ Now if the ceremonials of Moses were contrary to this spiri-
tuality, and therefore was taken away by the Gospel, it cannot be
imagined that images which are more contrary to a spiritual wor-
ship should be let in by Christ, when they were shut out by Moses.

• [De idol., cap. vi. p. 88 C] " [' daemonis.']

1 [lege ' ofiensam'.] v De idol., cap. vii. [p. 88 D.]

444 OP THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

To this purpose they are excellent words which were spoken by
Clemens Alexandrinusw, 'Moses many ages before made a law that
there should be no graven, no molten, no painted image or like-
ness of a thing made amongst them; that we should not attend
sensible things, but pass to those which are perceived by the un-
derstanding only. For the daily custom of seeing him in effigle
makes that the majesty of God becomes vile and contemptible ; and
by material substances (gross images) to worship that essence which
is only discerned by the mind, is by the sense to undervalue the eter-
nal mind/

§ 33. 9) And upon these accounts we find that the Christians were
great haters of image-worship, and even of images themselves ; and
did deride the heathen follies, who in the midst of their witty dispu-
tations and wise discourses of God, did so unman themselves and
baffle their own reason as to worship this invisible God by looking
upon a contemptible image. To this purpose Origenx discourses
wisely ; ' God hath chosen the folly of the world, those amongst the
Christians whose lives were most simple, modest, and more pure than
that of the philosophers, that He might put to shame those wise men
who blush not to speak to lifeless trunks as if they were gods or
images of the gods. For what sober man does not easily discern
him who after his excellent and philosophical discourses of God or of
the gods does presently look upon images, and offers prayers to
them; or by the beholding them as some conspicuous sign, strives
to lift up his mind to the imagination of an intelligible deity ? but
the Christian though but unlearned yet he believes verily that the
whole world is the temple of God, and he prays in every place, shut-
ting his bodily eyes, but lifting up the eyes of his mind .... and
being rapty as it were beyond this world, he makes his prayers to
God for great things.' This is the advantage, the spirituality and
devotion of the Christian. Concerning which it were easy to bring
many ancient testimonies; which wdioever is desirous to see, may
find them frequently in the fathers of the four first ages, but espe-
cially in Irenseus, I. i. contr. Imr., c. 24z; Origen, I. vii. contr. Cels? ;
Tertull., de idol., c. 5b, and de coron. mil.0, and de Spectac, c. 23d;
Clemens Rom., Recogn. I. v.e, and Clem. Alex., strom. i.( et v.s ; S.
Chrysost., in Synod, vii. act.6h, and in 1 Cor. viii.1 j Epiph., har.
xxix.k ; Amphiloch., apud Sgn. vii. action, ead.1 ; Optatus, I. Hi.
contr. Donat.m ; S. Ambrose, ep. xxxi. ad Valent.n ; S.Austin,

w Stromat., lib. v. [cap. 5. p. 662.] ' [cap. 15. p. 359.]

x Contr. Cels., lib. vii. ("torn. i. p. 726.] B [cap. 5. p. 602.]

* ['rap'd' A, 'wrap'd'X C, D.] h [Concil, torn. iv. col. 396 B.]

* [al. 25. p. 104, 5.] ' [Horn. xx. torn. x. p. 171 sqq.]
a [torn. i. p. 726 sqq.] k [? lxxix. torn. i. p. 1061.]

b [p. 88 B.] l [col. 397 C]

c [cap. x. p. 106.1 m [cap. 12. p. 69.]

d [p. 82 C] n [torn. ii. col. 833 sqq.]

e [§14 sq. p. 550 sqq.] ° [Serm. ii. torn. iv. col. 1259 sqq.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 4-45

in psal. ciii.0, all which speak of this article so as needs no com-
mentary, and admits of no evasion, decretorily and dogmatically and
zealously.

§ 34. Now against this heap of plain testimonies there is not any
one clear sentence and dogmatical proposition to be brought ; and if
there could be brought forty particular instances of a contrary prac-
tice, though there are not three to be had in pure antiquity and in
authentic testimony, yet it could not in any degree abate the certainty
of this doctrine ; because the doctors of those ages say that wherever
there is any such thing, it is unlawful. Epiphaniusp did rend in pieces
the veil at Anablatha near Bethlehem, because it had in it the picture
of a man, and this is so notorious that Alfonsus a Castro i calls him
an iconoclast; but Epiphanius gives this account of it to the bishop
of Jerusalem, Contra auctoritatem scripturarum esse ut in Christi
ecclesia hominis pendeat imago ; and, Istiusmodi vela contra relvjl-
onern nostram veniunt ; ' It is against the authority of the scriptures,
it is against our religion, that the image of a man, that such veils
should be in the church :' and Lactantiusr as plainly, Dnbium non
est quin religio nulla sit, nbicunque simulacrum est, ' where an image
is, it is certain there is no religion •' and S. Austin answers all pre-
tensions to the contrary which can readily be drawn from antiquity :
' I know/ says he, ' many that are worshippers of pictures, but such
as neither know nor exhibit the force of their profession, but they
are such who are superstitious in their very religion, such which the
church would condemn, and daily seek to correct like evil children.''
This being the doctrine of the primitive church, if a contrary practice
comes in, it is certain it is by corruption of faith and manners. The
temples of gods and the images of gods they had in equal detesta-
tion : not that they hated public places of worship, but templet, non
ecclesias, or dominicas ; for we must know that in the language of
the fathers by ' temples' they did mean such as the gentiles had :
such as the holy scriptures call the place of Micah/s images, ' an
house of godss/ according to that famous saying of Isidore, templi
nulla ratio quod non coronat simulacrum, ' It is no temple that is
without an image ;' and it is no church that hath one according to
the primitive christian doctrine : and it was remarkable what is told
by iElius Lampridius in the life of Alexander Severus, that when
Adrian the emperor had commanded churches to be built without
images, it was supposed he intended them for the service of Christ ;
than which there needs no greater or clearer instance of the doctrine
and practice of the holy primitives.

§ 35. But the best and most perfect account that can be given of
the christian religion in this article, is by the ecclesiastical laws.

p [Epist. ad Johann. Hierosol., torn. r Inst, div., lib. ii. de orig. error, [cap.

ii. p. 317.] 19. torn. i. p. 185.]

11 [Advews. haeres., lib. viii. col. 572.] "[Judges xvii. 5. J

446 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

The council of Eliberis in Spain1 made a canon, Placuit picturas in
ecclesia esse non debere, ne quod colitur aut adoratur in parietibus
depingatur ; 'pictures must not be in churches, lest that which is
worshipped or adored be painted upon the walls/ From which plain
place Bellarmine, Perron, Binius and divers others take great pains
to escape : it matters not how, as to the question of conscience ; it is
sufficient what Agobardus11 bishop of Lyons above eight hundred
years ago says in this very particular; 'Now error is so grown and is
perspicuous, that they approach near the heresy of the Anthropomor-
phites, and worship images, and put their hope in them ; the cause of
which error is, that faith is departed from men's hearts, and they put
their confidence in what they see. But as when we see soldiers armed,
or husbandmen ploughing or mowing or gathering grapes in picture,
or the pictures of huntsmen pursuing their game, or of fishermen
throwing their nets, we do not hope to receive from them a mullet, or
a month's pay, handfuls of barley or clusters of grapes ; so if we see
winged angels painted, apostles preaching, martyrs dying, we are not
to expect any aid or good from the images we see, because they can
neither do good nor hurt. Therefore for the abolishing of this super-
stition, recte ab ortlwdoxis patribus dejinitum est, it was rightly de-
fined by the orthodox fathers that pictures ought not to be in churches,
lest that which is worshipped (viz. God or His Christ) be painted
upon their walls/ To the same purpose the fathers of the fourth
council at Constantinoplev did quote the words of Epiphanius, as we
learn from the acts of the second Nicene council, in these words;
'Take heed to yourselves and hold the traditions which ye have re-
ceived, decline not to the right hand or to the left : and remember
my beloved sons that ye bring not images into the churches, nor
into the cemeteries of the saints; but by remembrance place God
in your hearts/ To the same purpose was it decreed by another
synod at Constantinople of three hundred and thirty eight bishops",
under Constantius Copronymus, forbidding all use of images in
churches or out of them : and so much of their decree as forbad the
worship of images was followed by Charles the great, and the learned
men of that age, and confirmed by the synod at Erankforty where
the bishops of Italy, France and Germany were called by the em-
peror to that purpose/ To these if we add the council of Mentzz, and
the second council of Sensa, who commanded populum moneri ne
imagines adoret, ' that the people should be warned that they do not
worship images •' we have testimony enough of the christian doctrine
and usages of the best men, and the best times.

1 Eliber. can. 36, [torn. i. col. 254.] Ilia T Syn. vii. act. 6. [torn. iv. col. 389.]

[lex] non imprudentermodo, verumetiam x An. Dora. 753. [citat. in synod, vii.

impie concilio Elibertino lata est de tol- act. 6. col. 345 sqq.]
lendis imaginibus, — Canusloc. theol.,1. v. y [Can. ii. torn. iv. col. 904.]

c. 4. concl. 4. de pict. et imag. [p. 251.] • [Can. xlii. torn. ix. col. 2122.]

u [De pictur. et imag., cap. 33. p. 266. a Senon. ii. c. 20. [can. 14. torn. ix. col.

ed. 8vo. Par. 1666.] 1945.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT KULE OF CONSCIENCE. 447

§ 36. Concerning the christian doctrine, I suppose myself to have
said enough in this article. But besides the premises there is some-
thing peculiar to be superadded- which concerns both Jews and gen-
tiles, and the uninstructed laity of the Christians.

§ 37. 1) Concerning the Jews I have already made it appear that
their religion was perfectly against images. But I have two things to
add which relate to them ; first that in the disputations between the
Jews and christian doctors in the primitive church, they never ob-
jected against the Christians that they either had images or did wor-
ship them ; as is evident to them that read the conference between
Justin Martyr and Tryphon, and in the book which Tertullian wrote
against the Jews, and in divers other rencontres ; in which the Jew
was forward to object all that he could asperse the Christian withal,
and he on the other side as ready to defend his cause. But not one
word in any of them of objection against the Christians in the matter
of images ; which is an evident argument that the use of images wras
not as yet known to the church of the first ages.

2) For when the doctrine and manners of the Christians began to
be sullied and degenerate, and she who was a pure virgin and dear
to Christ began to fornicate with strange imaginations ; the Jew in-
stantly became clamorous and troublesome in the article, professed
himself to be scandalized at the whole religion, and in all disputa-
tions was sure to lay it in the Christian's dish. There was a famous
dialogue written a little before the time of the seventh synod, in
which a Jew is brought in, thus speaking to the Christianb, Scan-
dalizor in vos Christiaui quia imagines adoratis : scriptura quippe
ubique prcecipit non facer e quenquam sibi sculptile, vel omnem simi-
liiudinem: '1 am offended at you Christians because ye worship
images ; whereas the scripture every where commands that no man
should make to himself any graven image or the likeness of any
thing/ Of the same accusation Leontiusc bishop of Cyprus takes
notice in his Apology against the Jews : and that the Jews make
great noises with this accusation of the Christians, and put very
much upon it, we may see in the epistle of Ludovicus Carretusd, and
the Catechetical Dialogues of Fabianus Fiogus6. But this observa-
tion is very remarkable out of the Jewish talmud ; for in the first
part of it which they call the misna, there is not one word of decla-
mation or reproof against Christians in the matter of images (as hath
been long since observed by learned men ;) for this was made about
two hundred years after Christ, in all which time the Christians did
hate images as much as the Jews did. But in the gemara Baby-

b Syn. vii. act. v. [torn. iv. col. 293 sorum divinorum, ad Calc. Synagogae

"■\ Judaicae J. Buxtorfii ; vid. p. 637. ed.

« [Apud Joann. Damascen. de imag., 12mo. Hanov. 1607.]
orat. i. torn. i. p. 325, et fusius in synod. • [Dialogo fra il catechumino, &c, cap.

vii. act. 4. col. 193 sqq.] 33. fol. 68, 9. ed. 4to. Rom. 1582.]

d [Judeeus conversus, sive liber vi-

448 OP THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

lonicum, which is the second part of the talmud that is of authority
amongst them, which was finished about five hundred years after
Christ, at which time also images began to be received in churches ;
there and in all the commentaries of the rabbins published in the tenth
or eleventh age, the Jews call the christian churches nnj. iTTiny IV3,
beth havoda zara, ' the house of idolatry / and it will be impossible
that ever they can become Christians so long as they see images wor-
shipped in our churches, and the second commandment left out of
the catechisms of those with whom especially they do converse.

§ 38. That which I am to say concerning heathens is this, that it
is impossible that those Christians who worship images of God should
distinguish their manner of worshipping the true God from the man-
ner by which the heathens worshipped their gods. For they did not
suppose their images to be gods, and therefore they would laugh at
the Christians if they had nothing else to say against them but that
God is not a stone, or metal polished by the engraver's tool. Thus
Arnobiusf brings in the gentiles speaking, Neque nos cera, neque auri
argentique materias neque alia quibus signa confiunt, eas esse per se
deos et religiosa decernimus numina, sed eos ipsos in his colimus, . .
quos dedicatio infert sacra, Sfc. : ' we do not think the gold, or the
brass, or the silver, of which we make our images, to be gods : but in
these images we worship them/

Hoc Deus est quod imago docet, sed non Deus ipsa,
Hoc videas, sed mente colas quod cernis in ipsa*.

* The image is not God, but represents Him ; your eye upon the image
and your mind upon God.' Quis enirn alius est nisi si sit plane
fatuus, qui haec deos esse putet, non autem deorum donaria et simula-
cra ; 'None but fools/ said Celsush, 'will call them gods which are
but images of the gods / and it is very pertinent which Lucian1 told
the matron, who took it ill that she was complimented too high and
compared in beauty to the goddesses : ' I never did/ says he, ' fair
lady, compare you to the goddesses, but with their images made by
the best workmen of stone, or brass, or ivory. And I do not think it
impious to compare things with men, if those things are made by
men, unless you will suppose that Phidias made Minerva, or that to
be the heavenly Venus which a great many years ago Praxiteles made
at Cnidus. But take heed, for it is an undecent thing to think such
things of the gods, whose true representations (as I suppose) no hu-
man industry can make/ The same is to be seen in AthenagorasJ, in
Arnobiusk, in Lactantius1, S. Austin"1, and divers others. Signa ad

f [Contr. gent., lib. vi. § 23. max. bibl. vi. p. 52.]

vet. patr.., torn. iii. p. 497 E.] j Legat. pro Christian, [cap. xviii. p.

e [Polydor. Vergil, de invent, rer., lib. 80 sqq.]

vi. cap. 13.] k Lib. vi. adv. gentes. [p. 490. ]

h Origen. contra Cels., lib. vii. [torn. i. ' Lib. ii. Div. inst., cap. ii. in init.

p. 738.] [torn. i. p. 116.]

1 Lucian. pro imagin. [cap. xxiii. torn. m De civit. Dei, lib. viii. cap. 23. [torn.

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 449

Junonis sosjnta cruore mauavere, said Livy" j 'the signs/ meaning
the images in Juno's temple, ' did drop blood :' and Clemens Ro-
manus0 brings in the heathens saying, (We worship visible images
to the honour of the invisible God ;' and they could sometimes laugh
at their gods whom their priests exposed to worship, and yet them-
selves knew them to have been a plum-tree.

Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum,
Cum faber incertus scamnum faceretne Priapum,
Maluit esse deum : deus inde ego, furum aviumque
Maxima f'ormido''.

It was a great question amongst the carpenters whether this wood
should be a god or a stool ; now they that talked thus, knew what
that was which their mystic persons called a god ; they were sure
they could be but images of them. So that these Christians who
worship God by an image, although they otherwise sin against the
first commandment than heathens do who worship false gods; yet
they sin equally against the second commandment, and by images
transmit worship to their God respectively. I do not doubt but the
ruder among the heathens did suppose the very image to be their
god, or that their god did dwell in their temple, and in their image,
or that a divine power was communicated to it ;

Ut pueri infantes credunt signa omnia aliena
Vivere, et esse homines, sic isti omnia ficta
Vera putant ; credunt signis cor esse in ahenis q.

for some are such very children as to think the wooden puppet to be
a woodman : and therefore when the prophets discoursed against
them in the matter of images, they called them wood and stone, gold
and silver, and represented the folly of putting trust in things that
had no life, which themselves placed there, which cats did sit upon
and birds build their nests in : but either by these arguments they
did reprove those fools amongst them who did suppose them to be
gods indeed (who also sinned directly against the first command-
ment, and committed idolatry in the object of their worship), or
those better spirits and wiser heads among them, who though they
derided that folly, yet they put their trust in the images, as sup-
posing them invested with power from their god, and that by them
lie would do them benefit.

3) Now how far differing this is from the practice of Christians
in some times and places, we may guess by the complaints made by
learned men, particularly by Cassander1-, and Polydore Vergil s, and
Hesselius* the Regius Professor at Louvain ; but without the aid of
their testimony, it is plain by their public and authorized treatment of

vii. col. 210.] et in psal. cxiii. cone. 2. * [Hor. sat, i. 8. 1.]

[torn. iv. col. 1259 sqq.] et lib. iii. de 4 Lucil. [apud Lactant. inst. div., lib.

doctr. christ. [cap. 6 — 9. torn. iii. part. i. cap. 22. torn. i. p. 105.]

1. col. 47, 8.] t Consult, loc. de imagin. [p. 974 sqq.]

" Dec. ii. 1. 3. [al. lib. xxiii. cap. 31.] s De invent, rer. [lib. vi. cap. 13.]

0 Recog., lib. v. [§ 23. p. 552.] ' In Decal. part. i. c.6'6". [p.59.ed. 1567.]

IX. G g

450 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

their images, they consecrate their images, they hope in them, they
expect gifts and graces from them, they clothe them and crown them,
they erect altars and temples to them, they kiss them, and bow their
head and knee before them, they light up tapers and lamps to them,
which is a direct consumptive sacrifice, et reliquam observationem
circa eas similiter ut gentes faciunt ; 'they do to their images as the
heathens do to theirs/ they are the words of Irenseus", by which he
reproves the folly of some that had got the pictures of Christ and
Pythagoras and other eminent persons : but that which is most to be
reproved and can be less excused is their prayers and forms of dedi-
cating their golden or wooden images ; ' Sanctify O God this form
of the blessed Virgin", that it may bring saving help to Thy faithful
people, that thunders and lightnings may be driven away the sooner,
that immoderate rains or floods, and civil wars or the invasion of
heathens, may at the presence of this be suppressed.' As bad or
worse are in the pontifical in the dedication of an image of the
cross, and of S. John, and at the hallowing the Agnus Dei y. Now
these things are as bad as can be, and yet done to images (I do not
doubt) for their sakes whom they represent, but yet with some re-
gard to the image itself; for so they value our lady of Hales, our lady
of "Walsingham, of Loretto, of Sichem, Aspricollis, Prurietana, Ardil-
leriana, more than our lady of Notre-Dame, or Florence, or S. Denis.
Now when the relatives of one term do differ, it is for themselves that
the difference is, not for the correlative which is still the same ; and
here for the common people to discern the niceties and the intricate
nothings that their learned men have devised to put a visor upon
this folly, is so impossible that it will not be easy to make them
understand the terms, though a learned man were by them at every
cringe they make. They cannot tell whether the worship be to the
image or the exemplar, which is prime and which is secondary ;
they cannot distinguish of latria, and dulia, and liyperdulia, nor can
they skill in proper or improper worship, mediate and immediate,
univocal, equivocal, and analogical, nor say how much is for this, and
how much for that, or which is simple and which is allayed, which is
absolute and which is reductive. And although men in the schools,
and when they have nothing to do but to make distinctions which no
body can understand, can separate word from word, form from matter,
real from notional, the shadow from the body, a dream from a vision,
the skin from the flesh, and the flesh from the bone ; yet when they
come to action and clothe their theorems with a body of circumstances,
he that attends the present business of devotion and desire will not
find himself able or at leisure then to distinguish curiously; and
therefore it was well said of Hesselius of Louvain, 'Images were

° [Contr. haer., lib. i. cap. 25. p. 105.] dendis.']

* Pontific. Rom. [The reference cor- » Vid. Missal. Rom. sub tit. ' De ritu

responds generally with the prayer in servan.' [In the ' rubricae generates' pre-

the pontifical under the title ' De bene- fixed to the missal.]
dictione capsarum pro reliquiis inclu-

CHAP. II.] THE ORKAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 451

brought into use for the sake of the laity, and now for their sakes
they are to be removed again, lest they give divine worship to the
image, or fall iuto the heresy of the anthropomorphites :' he
might have added for lest by worshipping God by an image they
commit the sin of superstition and idolatry, breaking the second
commandment/ For the same folly which in the heathens was
reproved by the primitive Christians, the same is done now-a-days
by Christians to their images. I shall conclude this with a story
out of an Italian who wrote commentaries of the affairs of India.
When the poor barbarians of Nova Hispania* in the kingdom of Mexico
had one day of a sudden found their idols taken down and broken,
they sent four principal persons of their country to Alfonsus Zuasus
the licentiate who had commanded it ; they complaining of the
injury, supposed also and told him, they did believe it to be done
without his consent or knowledge, as knowing that the Christians
had idols and images of their own, whom they valued, and adored
and worshipped : and looking up and espying the image of S.
Sebastian whom Alfonsus had in great veneration hanging by his
bed side, they pointed at him with their finger, saying, the same
regard which he had to the image of S. Sebastian, the same they
had to theirs. The governor being troubled with this quick and
not barbarous discourse, turned him about a little, and at last told
them that the Christians did not worship images for their own
sakes, but as they represented holy persons dwelling in heavenly
places ; and to demonstrate that, took down the image of S. Sebas-
tian, and broke it in pieces. They replied that it was just so with
them, and that they were not so stupid to worship the images for
their own regards ; but as they represented the sun and moon and
all the lights of heaven. Alfonsus being yet more troubled, was
forced to change the state of the question, by saying that the object
wras differing though the manner was not; that the Christians did
by their images pass honour to the great Creator of the world, but
they did it to creatures, to evil spirits and false gods; which was
indeed very true, but it was a removing the question from the second
commandment to the first : for although in relation to the first the
heathens have the worst of it, yet as to the second these Christians
and the poor Indians were equal; and the wit of man cannot tell
how they differ.

§ 40. But I shall add this, that though it be impossible to know
how the worship of God by an image should come into the world,
unless it be as Tertullian said of the very art of making images, that
it came from the devil ; yet it is observable that it never prevailed
any where but in a degenerating people. The Jews at first were pure

1 Pietro Martire [it should be Gonzalo Italian translation in the ' Navigationi

cl'Oviedo.] hist, delle Ind., 1. xx. c. 11. et viaggi,' &c. of Ramusio, vol. iii. p.

[§ 28. fol. 182 of the Spanish edition, 184. fol. Ven. 1606.]
fol. Salani. 1547. It is contained in an

452 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

worshippers of the God of their fathers, but at any time when Satan
stood at their right hand and made Israel to sin, then they would
play the fool with images. In the purest times of Christianity they
kept themselves clean from images ; but as they grew worse, so they
brought in superstition, and worship of images : and so it was amongst
the heathens too. While they kept themselves to the principles of
their institution and tradition which they had from the patriarchs of
nations who had been taught by God, and lived according to nature,
they worshipped God simply and purely.

Si Deus est animus

Hie tibi prsecipue pura sit mente colendus".

A pure and immaterial substance is dishonoured by any worship but
that of a pure and holy mind ; and the ancientest Romans for a
hundred and seventy years together worshipped without an image,
said Varrob, who adds this judgment of his own, quod si adhuc man-
sisset castius dii observarentur, ' if the same had been still observed,
the gods had been more purely, more chastely worshipped.' The word
which Varro uses is very proper and according to the style of scrip-
ture, which calls idolatrous worshippings by the name of ' fornication/
But Varro adds this reason : Qui primi simulacra deonim populis
posuerunt, eos civitatibus suis et metum dempsisse, et errorem addidisse;
' the introduction of images brought in error and cast out fear /

Stulte verebor ipse cum faciam Deosc:

If I worship what I make, I will not fear what I worship. ' Well
and wisely did he suppose, said S. Austin d, that the greatness of their
gods might soon become despicable by the foolishness of images :
and it might reasonably prevail against the old superstition, to sup-
pose that He who governed all the world ought to be worshipped
without an image/ The same testimony we have in Plutarch in the
life of Numae : 'The gods had houses and cells but no images, as
supposing it to be impious to express the greatest things by the
basest, and knowing that there is no other way of coming to God but
by the mind/

§ 41. From hence I infer that neither God nor nature, neither reason
nor religion brought images into the worship of God ; but it was the
invention of superstitious men, or rather of the enemy of mankind,
that he might draw the heart of man from contemplation of the in-
visible and depress it to low phantasms and sensible adherences, to
diminish the fear of God, and to produce confklencies in dead sub-
stances clothed with accidents of art; to amuse the foolish, and to
entertain the weakest part of him that is wiser, and that religion
might be capable of tricks and illusions which could not happen to
immaterial and spiritual worshippings. But that all the reason of the

* [Dionys. Cato, moralia, distich, i.] ° [Sen. Octav. 449.]

b [Apud August. De civ. Dei, lib. iv. d [ubi supra.]

cap. 31. torn. vii. col. 111.] e [torn. i. p. 259.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 453

world is against it may be the rather presumed, because although the
patrons of images offer at some reasons for the use of images in story
and ornament and instruction, yet no man pretends to any reason-
ableness of worshipping God by an image, or giving God's due to an
image : some of them say that the same worship passes from the
image unto God, and therefore it is lawful, and God is not dis-
honoured ; but upon no reasonable account can it be said that there-
fore it is good, that it pleases God, that it promotes His honour, that
it is without danger ; and however any man may intend to pass the
relative honour that way, yet no man hath any warrant that God will
accept it, or that He will endure it that way ; that He will receive
His sacrifices most readily when they are first washed (shall I call it ?
or fouled) in the Borborus, by the pollutions and abominations of
images ; for that they are called so in scripture is evident, but they
are never commended there, not one good word of them is there
recorded, but of the worship of them nothing but prohibition and
execration and foul appellatives. There is no necessity of it, no ad-
vantage by it, no man is helped by it, no command, no licence, no
promise, no scripture for it ; all the religions that ever God did in-
stitute are expressly against it, and to sum up all, it is against the
law of nature; of which I need no other witnesses but the testimony
of all those wise personages who affirm the two tables of Moses to be
moral in every precept excepting that of the sabbath, and to be of
the law of nature. So Irena3usf expressly, so Tertulliang, S. Cyprian'1,
Origen', S. Augustine k, and generally all antiquity. The sum of all
I express in the words of S. Paul1, 6 0eos 6 -nouiaas KoVjuoy ovx vtto
Xeip&v avdpunrtov OepaireveTaf ' God is not worshipped with men's
hands/ that is, with the productions of art and imagination.

§ 42. I conclude that the second commandment is a moral and
natural precept in the whole body and constitution of it, if the first
words of it be relative to the last; that is, if the prohibition of
making images be understood so as to include an order to their wor-
ship : but if these words be made to be a distinct period, then that
period was only obligatory to the Jews, and to Christians in equal
danger, and under the same reason; and therefore can also pass
away with the reason which was but temporary, transient, and acci-
dental ; all the rest retaining their prime, natural, and essential ob-
ligation.

OF THE JEWISH SABBATH AND THE LORD'S DAY.

§ 43. There is one instance more in which the rule is more ap-
parently verified, which I mentioned a little above; and that is the

1 Contr. liaeres., lib. iv. capp. 31, 32. ' Origen. in Exod., hom. viii. [torn. ii.

[al. 16, 17. pp. 247, 8.] p. 157 sq.]

« De idololatr. [cap. iii. p. 87.] k Lib. xv. contr. Faust., cap. i, et 7.

h Ad Qmnn.. lib. iii. cap. 59. [p. 82.] [torn. viii. coll. 274, 8.]

et De exhort, mart., cap. 1. [p. 171.] ' [Acts xvii. 25.]

454 0¥ THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

precept of the sabbath, which God instituted for many reasons. 1) To
be a perpetual memorial of the creation, and that God might be glo-
rified in the works of His hands by the religion of that day. 2) To
preserve the memory of their deliverance from the captivity of Egypt,
Deut. v. 14, and upon the same account to do ease and remission
rots hov\oi.s XoytKois nal aAdyois, f to servants reasonable and unrea-
sonable/ R. Moses Ben Maimon in his Moreli Neboc/timm affirms
that the end of the sabbath is, Septimam vita partem homini pra-
stare liberam, et vacuam a labore et defatigatione, turn conservare et
confirmare memoriam et fidem creationis mundi, 'that we should
spend the seventh part of our life in ease and rest, and preserve the
faith and memory of the article of the world's creation/

"Ej85omo»' fifJ-ap %t\v, Kal rf reri\effTO awavra '

because upon the seventh day all things were finished : and therefore
according to that of Linus cited by Eusebius0,

'Ej85<fyt7j elv ayaOols, Kal e$86/j.r) iarl yevc6\r),
'EB56/J.T1 h> TTpoiTOKTi, Kal i856/j.7] earl TiXfirj.

' The seventh day is the day of the world's nativity, or the feast of

its birth, it is the chiefest and most perfect of days/ 3) S. Austin?

hath another fancy ; and he intends to offer at no higher rate : Did

probabiliter potest, observandum sabbatum Judais fuisse praceptum

in umbra futuri, qua spiritalem requiem figuraret^ quam Deus ex-

emplo hujus quietis suafidelibus bona opera facientibus arcana signi-

ficatione pollicebatur : ' It may be said probably that the precept of

the sabbath to the Jews was a type and shadow of the spiritual rest

which God by His example did by a secret signification promise to

the faithful that did good works/ I acknowledge that there is a fair

proportion in the sign, and in the thing signified ; but whether this

was so intended by God, or so understood by the Jews, is but pro-

babiliter dictum, a probable conjecture taken only from the natural

similitude of the things.

§ 44. But allowing this, the consequent of all will be, that what
was for temporary reasons established cannot pass an eternal obliga-
tion. Concerning which it is to be observed that those are to be
called temporary or transient reasons, not only when the thing ceases
to have a being, such as those laws which were to separate the Jews
from the gentiles, and those which related to the tabernacle, or the
land of their dwelling, or the manner of their sacrifice, or their ad-
dresses to their chief city ; for these cease by subtraction of the mat-
ter and the natural abolition of the material cause, because the wall
of partition is taken down, and the law of ceremonies is abolished,

m Part. iii. cap. 43. [p. 470. ed. 4to. rov ri/xap, k. t. \. odyss., «. 362.]

Bas. 1629.] ° [Prsep. evang., ibid.]

- Homer. [So Clem. Alex, (strom., lib. v S. Aug. de Genes, ad lit., lib. iv. cap.

v. cap. 14. p. 713.) and Euseb. (praep. 11. [torn. iii. part. 1. col. 167 B.]
evang., lib. xiii. cap. 12.) read for Tirpa-

CHAP. II.] THE CHEAT KULE OE CONSCIENCE. 435

and the people are exterminated from their country, and their sacri-
fices are ceased, and their city is destroyed, and their temple burnt ;
but that reason also is transient and temporal which in a like in-
stance passes into a greater of the same kind. Thus the deliverance
of Israel from the Egyptian bondage, though being a matter of fact
it is eternally true that it was once done, yet it is a temporary trans-
ient reason because all God's people now rejoice in a greater de-
liverance and from a bondage that was infinitely worse; from the
slavery of sin, and the powers of hell. And thus also the great rea-
son of the sabbath, I mean God's rest from the works of the crea-
tion, is a temporary transient reason, because there is now a new
creation; vetera transierunt, 'old things are passed away'',' and all
things are become new ; and the gospel is via /men? ' a new crea-
tion/ and our natures are regenerate and reformed, and made with
new principles of a new life to higher ends than before ; and there-
fore, though the work of God's creation is to be remembered, and
God to be glorified by us in His works, yet when there is a greater
reason, the solemnity must relate to that, and the lesser duty can be
well served by that clay which can also minister to the greater.

§ 45. And therefore we find that something of this very reason is
drawn into the observation of the Lord's day, or the first day of the
week, by Justin Martyr1, rr\v tov j)\lov i]pipav Koivf] -jravres ttjv
ovvikcviTiv TTOiovfxeOa, en-aSr/ Ttpcorrj karlv i]fi€pa zv f) 6 0eo? to

(TKOTOS KOI T7]V v\.T]V TptydS KO(Tp.OV eTTOLTICTe, KCU 'Ir/CTOl/S XpLCTTOS O

?/ju.e'repoy aojrr^p rrj avrr] iip-tpq e/c venptov avia-Trj- ' we celebrate con-
ventions or assemblies commonly upon the Sunday, because it is the
first day in which God separated the light from the darkness and
made the world, and on the same day Jesus Christ our Saviour arose
from the dead.' The first of these looks more like an excuse than a
just reason ; for if any thing of the creation were made the cause of
a sabbath, it ought to be the end not the beginning, it ought to be
the rest not the first part of the work ; it ought to be that which God
assigned, not which man should take by way of after justification.

§ 46. But in the precept of the sabbath there are two great things.
One was the rest, the other the religion of the day. The rest was in
remembrance of their deliverance from Egypt; and therefore they
kept their first sabbatic rest upon the very clay in which their redemp-
tion was completed, that is, as soon as ever Pharaoh and his host were
overthrown in the red sea ; and this because it was external, ritual,
national, relative, and temporary, abused by superstition, and typical
of something to come, without all contradiction is so perfectly cere-
monial and consequently abrogated, that there can be no greater
wonder than to see some Christians such superstitious observers of
the rest of that day, that they ecmal even the greatest follies of the
Jews ; who, as Munster8 out of the rabbins observes, thought it un-

■) [2 Cor. v. 17.] • [In Exod. xx.— BibL Hebr- Lat per

r Apol. ii. [al. i. p. 84 A.] Seb. Minister, tom.i. p.l52.fol. Bas.1546'.]

456 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

lawful to put an apple to the fire to be roasted upon that day, and
would not pour wine upon mustard-seed, nor take a clove of garlic
from its skin aud eat it : nor thought it lawful to pursue a skipping
flea, nor to kill any creeping thing that had variety of sexes, nor to
climb a tree lest they break a bough, nor by singing to still the cry-
ing of a child, nor to play upon the harp, nor by walking on the grass
pluck up a leaf with the shoe. These trifles as they were such which
even the Jew was no ways obliged to, so they are infinitely against
christian liberty, and the analogy and wisdom of the religion.

§ 47. But the Jews say that Enoch and Noah, Abraham and Jacob
kept a festival to God, a memorial of the creation. If so, yet we find
no rest observed by them, nor any intermission of their journeys ;
but it is reasonable to believe that by some portions of their time
they did specially serve God, as well as by some actions of their life,
and some portions of their estate : and to this it is not improbable
that Moses did relate, when to the words in Deuteronomy, "Ee-
member to keep the day of the sabbaths to sanctify it" ov rpoirov
kvereikaTo <tol Kvpios 6 @eo? aov, ' according as the Lord thy God
had commanded thee/ meaning, at the beginning of the world. But
in this part of the precept there was nothing of rest, but much of
holiness and proper sanctification.

§ 48. Now concerning this the resolutions will be easy. That
God should be served and glorified by us is a part of natural and
essential religion : this cannot be done with nothing, there must be
bodies and gifts and places and time to do it in. The patriarchs
did bind themselves or were bound by God to certain circumstances ;
for that which is indefinite and unlimited shall neither be done con-
stantly nor regularly : but since the day of the creation's ending was
afterwards made the rule of fixing a day, it is also probable that that
also was the limit and rule for the patriarchs' religious solemnity.
This indeed is denied by S. Irenseus and Tertullian and some others,
affirming that the patriarchs who kept no sabbath were yet pleasing
to God, but because certainly it was so to the Jews, upon a reason
which though it can be involved in a greater, yet it cannot totally be
forgotten; it is more than probable that the religion of the day must
never be forgotten, but God must have a portion of our time for His
service, and the blessing which they were both in and before the law
to commemorate must also by implication or else expressly be re-
membered.

§ 49. Upon this or some equal account the primitive Christians
did keep the sabbath of the Jews; not only for their compliance
with the Jews till the distinction were confessed and notorious, but
because the moral religion which was served by that day was not
brought into the religion of the Lord's day as yet; therefore the
Christians for a long time together did keep their conventions upon
the sabbath, in which some portions of the law were read* : and this

1 [Acts xv. 21.]

CHAP. II.] TIIK GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 457

continued till the time of the Laodicean council'1, which also took
care that the reading of the gospels should be mingled with their
reading of the law ; which was in a manner the first public reason-
able essay of uniting the religion of both days into one.

§ 50. At first they kept both days, with this only difference, that
though they kept the sabbath, yet it was after the christian, that is,
after the spiritual manner : in these exuberancies and floods of re-
ligion which overflowed their channels, one day of solemnity was not
enough ; but besides that they by their sabbath meetings had enter-
course with the Jews in order to their conversion, and the Jewish
Christians in order to the establishment of their religion, they were
glad of all occasions to glorify God ; but they did it without any
opinion of essential obligation, and without the Jewish rest, and upon
the account of christian reasons. Of this custom of theirs we find
testimony in Ignatiusx, uAA' e/cacrros fjpitov aaj3(3aTiC^TU) irvevixaTiKcSs
p.ekerr] vop.cov yaipoiv, ov crw/xaro? ai»e<rei, hripnov pyiav 0eoC 0avp.d-
C<*>v, oi>x ecoAa iaOiaiv Kal \Xiapa ttlvoh', Kal pLep.eTprip.eva fiabiCw,

Kal 6pxw€L Ka' x°P°^'iy vo^v 0^K *Xovcrt XatPcoz;- That was their
way of observation of the sabbath. ' Let every one of us keep the
sabbath spiritually, delighting in the meditation of the law, not in
the ease of the body, wondering at the works of God, not in indulg-
ing to delicious banquets, and softer drinkings or dancings that do
not better the understanding/ So that they kept the sabbath not as
did the Jews, who as Munster affirmed supposed it to be a keeping
of the sabbath if they wore better clothes, or eat more meat, or
drank the richest wines. Idleness and luxury and pride are the
worst ceremonies of the religion of the sabbath; the proper employ-
ment of that day is religion, which the Jews, and from them some of
the most ancient Christians, signified by ' meditation of the law/ But
then he adds ; Kal p.era to aa(3(3aTLcrai eopTa(eT<i) ttols <£iAo'x/h<ttos
ri]v KvpiaKi\v, ti]v avao-rdatp-ov, ti]v fiacnXiba, ri]v vttcltov traaojv
jlpLep&v ' After they have kept the sabbath let every one that loves
Christ keep the day of the Lord, the day of the memorial of His re-
surrection, which is the queen and supreme of all other days / and
without further testimony we find it affirmed in general by Balsamo2,
irapa tcov ayicov irarepcov e^LfTwdrjcrav bioXov (r\ebbv reus KvptaKals ra
o-aft(3a.Ta' 'The sabbath day and the Lord's day were almost in all
things made equal by the holy fathers/ and some of them called
them brethren, so Gregory Nyssena; some, Ka\i]v t^v <rvvu>piba rod
o-aPfidrov Kal rf/s KvptaKrjs, so Asteriusb, 'an excellent combination
or yoke of the sabbath and the Lord's day •' and i]p.epas eoprwv, so
the canon of the apostlesc, the 'feast days/ which Zonarasd well ex-

u Can.xvi. A.D. 364. [torn. i. col. 783.] a [De castig., torn. iii. p. 312 D.]

1 Epist. ad Magn. [interpol. cap. ix. h [Horn. v. p. 61. ed. 4to. Antv. 1615.]

p. 57.] c [can. liii. (al. lv.); Coteler. patr.

y [al. Kp6rois.~\ apost., torn. i. p. 449.]

' [vid. in concil. sext. in Trullo, can. d [Apud Bevereg. synodic, torn. i. p.

lv., apud Bevereg. synodic, torn. i. p. 223.] 35 D.]

458 01' THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

plicates to the present sense, but the constitutions of S. Clemente
(which is indeed an ancient book) gives the fullest account of it, to
o-afSfiarov ix4vtol nal ttjv KvpLaKrjv kopTa^TOi, on to p.€v S^juioupy/a?
iarlv im6ixvr\\j.a, ?/ 8e avaaTaaeoos' ' let the sabbath and the Lord's
day be kept festival ; that because it is the memorial of the creation,
this of the resurrection :' and therefore whereas it is in the com-
mandment, ' Six days shalt thou labour/ &c, he says that servants
are to labour but five days; and upon this account it was in the
Greek church especially, and is to this day forbidden to fast upon
the sabbath and the Lord's day.

§ 51. The effect of which consideration is this; that the Lord's
day did not succeed in the place of the sabbath, but the sabbath was
wholly abrogated, and the Lord's day was merely of ecclesiastical in-
stitution. It was not introduced by virtue of the fourth command-
ment, because they for almost three hundred years together kept that
day which was in that commandment ; but they did it also without
any opinion of prime obligation, and therefore they did not suppose
it moral. But there was together with the observation of the day a
piece of natural religion which was consequently moral; that is, a
separation of some time for the glorification of God and the com-
memoration of His benefits : not that it can be reasonably thought
that the assignation of a definite time can be a moral duty, or that
an indefinite time can be the matter of a commandment ; and there-
fore I suppose it to be unreasonable to say, that although the seventh
day is not moral, yet that one day is, or at least that some time be
separate is moral ; for that one day in seven should be separate can
have no natural, essential, and congenite reason, any more than one
in ten, or one in six : for as it does not naturally follow that because
God ceased from the creation on the seventh day, therefore we must
keep that holy-day, so neither could we have known it without re-
velation, and therefore what follows from hence must be by positive
constitution. Now if it be said that it is moral that some time be
set apart for God's service : I say it is true, that it is necessary,
naturally necessary that it be so, but this cannot be the matter of a
special commandment ; because it being naturally necessary that God
should be solemnly worshipped, this must suppose a time to do it in
as a natural circumstance, and needs not a commandment, which is suf-
ficiently and unavoidably included in the first commandment, in which
we are bound to serve God with religion. The fourth commandment
enjoined a definite time, but that was ceremonial and abrogated ; but
an indefinite time is not a duty of this commandment, but supposed
in that which commands us to worship God : for we may as well
worship God and do no action, as worship Him in no time. The de-
finite time here named is taken away, and the indefinite time cannot
be a distinct duty, but yet in imitation of the reasonableness and
piety of that law, and in commemoration of a greater benefit than

e Lib. vii. [cap. 23. p. 372.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 459

was there remembered, a day of more solemn religion was used by
the christian church ; for as on the Jewish sabbath they remembered
the creation and their redemption from Egypt, so on the Lord's day
they commemorated the works of God, and their redemption from
sin, hell, and the grave : but the first reason was to yield to the
second, as the light of a lesser star falls into the glories of the sun,
and though it be there yet it makes no show, because a bigger beauty
fills up all the corners of the eyes and admiration : and now the
Lord's day hath taken into itself all the religion but not the rest of
the sabbath ; that is, it is a day of solemn worshipping of God and
of remembering His blessings, but not of rest save only as a vacancy
from other things is necessary for our observation of this ; because
as the Italians say, Io nonpua cantare et portare la croee, 'I cannot
sing and carry the cross too / a man cannot at once attend to two
things of contrary observation.

§ 52. That we are free from the observation of the sabbath S.
Paulf expressly affirms, adding this reason; feasts, new moons, and
sabbath days, and meats and drinks are but " the shadow of things
to come, but the body is of Christ •" where by the way let it be ob-
served that upon the occasion of this and some other like expressions
the Christians have supposed that all the rites of Moses were types
and figures of something in Christianity, and that some mystery of
ours must correspond to some rite of theirs : this fancy makes some
impertinencies in the discourses of wise men, and amuses and enter-
tains the understandings of many with little images of things which
were never intended, and hath too often a very great influence into
doctrines ; whereas here the word <tkux tcov jueAAoVraw, ' the shadow
of things to come/ means a shadow in respect of the things to come,
that is, if these rituals be compared to the ra jue'AAorra, ' those things
which were to come,' they are but very shadows and nothings : o-Kia,
or shadow, signifies not in relation but in opposition to corpus. ' The
shadow/ that is, a religion consisting but in rituals and exterior
solemnities ; but Christianity is ( the body/ that is, that durable, per-
manent, true and substantial religion which is fit for all men, and
to abide for all ages : and therefore Hesychiusg by corpus Christi
in this place understands the word of ' doctrine / that is, a religion
which consists in wise notions, tv akqdeiq, ' in truth/ not in external
rituals that signified nothing of themselves, but something by insti-
tution. Others by 'the body of Christ' here understand the chris-
tian church : in which sense the word is used by S. Paul to the
Corinthiansh ; and in this very place it means so if the words be
read as some Greek copies do, that is, with conjunction and reference
to the next verse, to he awpa rod XpiaTou ixrjhels i/fxas Karafipafiev-
e'rco, K.r.k. ' Let no man make a gain of you who are the body of
Christ/ However that S. Paul affirms the customs of the Pvthaffo-

' [Col. ii. 16.] Bas. 1527.]

8 [In Levit. cap. xv. fol. 87 B. ed. fol. h [1 Cor. xii. 27.]

460 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

reans in abstinence from flesh and wine, and of the Jews in their
feasts and sabbaths, to be no fit matters in which men are to be
judged, that is, for the not observing of which they are to be con-
demned, but to be shadows and umbrages, not substantial parts ot
religion, is evident by the antithesis however it be understood : but
in order to other purposes I observed here that he does not mean
they are types and figures, for the Pythagorean vanities did never
pretend to this ; but they and the other too are but shadows, empty
and unprofitable in respect of the religion which Christ brought into
the world. They were ineffective and insignificative ; but only pre-
sent entertainments of their obedience, and divertisements and fixings
of their thoughts apt to wander to the gentile customs, but nothing
of natural religion.

§ 53. Now although the primitive Christians did also meet pub-
licly upon the Jewish sabbaths, yet that they did not by virtue of
the fourth commandment appears because they affirmed it to be cere-
monial and no part of the moral law, as is to be seen in Irenaeus,
Tertullian, Origen, S.Cyprian, and others before quoted (numb. 41).
And in the council of Laodicea', the observation of the Jewish sabbath,
which till that time had continued amongst Christians, was expressly
forbidden : Non oportet christianos judaizare et in sabbato vacare,
sed operari eos in eadem die, dominicam prceponendo eldem diei. Si
hoc eis placet, vacent tanquam christiani, quod si inventi fuerint
judaizare, anathema sint, 'Christians must not keep the rest of the
sabbath, but work upon that day, preferring the Lord's day before it.
If they will rest on that day let them rest as Christians, but if they
rest as Jews let them be accursed :' that is, if they will keep the day
holy, let them sanctify it as Christians should sanctify their day, that
is, only with such a rest as ministers to the opportunities of religion,
not so as to make the rest to be the religion of the day.

§ 54. The Jewish sabbath being abrogated, the christian liberty
like the sun after the dispersion of the clouds appeared in its full
splendor ; and then the division of days ceased, and one day was not
more holy than another, as S. Paul disputes in his epistle to the Gala-
tiansj, and from him S. Hieromek; and when S.Paul reproved the
Corinthians for going to law before the unbelievers, who kept their
court days upon the first day of the wreek, he would not have omitted
to reprove them by so great and weighty a circumstance as the pro-
faning the Lord's day, in case it had been then a holy day, either
of divine or apostolical institution; for when afterward it grew into
an ecclesiastical law, and either by law or custom Mas observed toge-
ther with the Jewish sabbath, Constantine made a favourable edict
that the Christians should not be impleaded on those two festivals1.

1 Can. 29. [torn. i. col. 786. vers. Isid. 271.]
Mercat.J ' Apud Euseb. [vit. Constant., lib. iv.

' [Gal. iv. 10.] cap. 18.]
k In hunc locum, [torn. iv. part. 1. col.

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 4G1

Of which I only make use to this purpose, that among the gentiles
these were law-clays; and therefore the Corinthians must needs have
been profaners of that day by their law-suits, and therefore have
been upon that account obnoxious to the apostolical rod, if the day
had then in any sense of authority been esteemed holy.

§ 55. But although there was no holiness in any day, yet they
thought it lit to remember the great blessings of God which were
done upon certain days. An action'cannot be separated from time;
it must be done some day or other, and most properly upon the an-
niversary, or the monthly or weekly minds™, but yet this they did
with so great indifferency of observation, that it cannct look less
than that there was a providence in it. For although all the chris-
tian church that kept the sunday festival, did it and professed to do
it in remembrance of the resurrection of our Lord, yet that the day of
its memory was not more holy than any day, and was not of neces-
sary observation, it appears by the eastern churches and all the dis-
ciples of S. John, who kept the feast of the resurrection of our Lord,
I mean the anniversary, the great, the prime feast, and that which
was the measure of all the rest, not upon that day of the week on
which Christ did rise, but on the day of the full moon, whenever it
should happen. Now this must needs be a demonstration that the
day of the resurrection was not holy by divine or apostolical institu-
tion. The memory of the blessing was to be eternal ; and though
the returning day was the fittest circumstance, yet that was without
obligation ; for if the principal was mutable, then the less principal
could not be fixed, and this was well observed by S. Austin", Hoc in
eis culpat apostolus, et in omnibus qui serviunt creaturoe potius quam
Creatori. Nam nos quoque et dominicum diem et pascha solenniter
celebramus ; . . sed quia inlelligimus quo pertineant, non tempora
observamus, sed quae Mis significantur temporibus : ' he first esteemed
it to be a serving the creature more than the Creator to observe any
day as of divine institution ; but then if it be objected that we also
observe the Lord's day and the feast of Easter, he answers, it is not
the day we keep, but we remember the things done upon that day.'
Tor the day is indifferent, and hath no obligation. God himself de-
clared His dislike of the religion or difference of days by an evange-
lical prophet0 : and what God the Father did then sufficiently declare,
His holy Son finished upon the cross, and His apostles published in
their sermons ; only such days are better circumstanced, but not
better days. The same is affirmed by S. Hierome upon the fourth
chapter to the Galatiansp.

§ 56. But now that we are under no divine law or apostolical
canon concerning the Lord's day, we may with the more safety en-
quire concerning the religion with which it was accidentally invested.

m ['Month's mind.— A celebration in ° Contr. Adam. Man. c. 16. [torn. viii.

remembrance of dead persons a month col. 135 E.]
after their decease.'— Nares's Glossary.] ° [Isa. lxvi. 23.] p [ubi supra.]

462 OP THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

S. Cyprian q and S. Austin* suppose that because circumcision was
commanded to be on the eighth day, it did typically represent the
Lord's day, which is the eighth from the creation. The council of
Poro-Juliums saith that Isaiah prophesied of this day ; and that the
Jewish sabbath was the type of this day was the doctrine of the
fathers in the council of Matiscon1. 'This is the day which the
Lord hath made/ said the psalmist, as he is expounded by Arnobiusu
and divers others : Exultemus et latemtir in eo, quia lumine vero
nostras tenebras fugatimis illuxit ; nos ergo constituamus diem do-
minicum in confrequentationibus usque ad cornua altaris : 'Let us
rejoice and be glad in it, because the Sun of righteousness dispersing
the clouds of darkness hath on this day sinned upon us ; let us there-
fore keep the Lord's day in solemn assemblies even unto the horns
of the altar/ Upon this day Christ finished the work of our re-
demption which was greater than the cessation from creating the
world, on this day He rose again for our justification, and therefore
this is called by S. Ignatius ' the queen of days ;' upon this day
Christ twice appeared to His apostles after the resurrection, upon
this day S. Paul* appointed the collection for the poor, and conse-
quently enjoined or supposed the assemblies to be upon this day;
upon this clay the Holy Ghost descended upon the apostles, and on
this day S. Peter preached that operative sermon which won three
thousand souls to the religion ; on this day S. John was in ecstasy
and saw strange revelations y : so that it is true what Justin Martyr
said, ' our B. Lord himself changed this day ;' that is, by annulling
the sabbath and by His resurrection and excellent appearances and
illustrations upon that day ; not by precept, but by indigitation and
remarking that day by signal actions and a heap of blessings; so
that it is no wonder that S. Cyprian and S. Leo, S. Ignatius and S.
Austin, the councils of Laodicea, Matiscon, and Poro-Julium, of
Palestine and Paris2 speak so much of the advantages and preroga-
tives of this day, the celebration of which was so early in the chris-
tian church that it was, though without necessary obligation or a law,
observed in all ages and in all churches. It is true that Socrates3
said, Skottos fxev ovv yzyove rots airoo-roXois ov irepl //fxepwi' eopracrn-
kwv vonoOeTtlv, 'it was the purpose of the apostles to make no
laws concerning festival days •' but it is also very probable what one
said, that it descends from apostolical institution, servata tamen li-
bertate Christiana; that is, the apostles did upon the Lord's day
often meet, break bread, and celebrate the memory of Christ, and
by their practice recommended the day as the most fitted for their

i Ad Fid. epist. lix. [al. Ixiv. p. 1560.]

161.] x [1 Cor. xvi. 2.]

' Ep. cxix. ad Januar. [al. Iv. torn. ii. y [Apoc. i. 10.]

col. 137 A.] ■ [Concil. Paris, vi. lib. i. can. 50. torn.

8 Can. xiii. [torn. iv. col. 861.] iv. col. 132.5, 6.]

1 Can. i. [torn. iii. col. 460.] " » THist. eccles., lib. v. cap. 22. p. 292.]

u In Psal. cxvii. [p. 335. ed. 8vo. Bas.

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE, 403

synaxes or conventions; but they made no law, imposed no necessity,
but left the church to the christian liberty, and yet (that I m;iy use
the words of the fathers in the council of Matisconb) juslum est ut
hanc diem celebremus per quamfacti sumus quod nonfuimus, fit is fit
we celebrate this day because of the blessing of the resurrection hap-
pening on this day, by which we became that which before we were
not/

Quest.

And now if it be enquired how we are to celebrate this day ?

§ 57. I answer, that we are sufficiently instructed by those words
of the Laodicean council0, vacent tanquam christiani ; there is a cer-
tain rule and measure by which Christians keep their festivals. The
Jewish manner was a perfect rest; the christian manner is an ex-
cellent religion and devotion, but no rest excepting such a rest as
ministers to religion. Abstinence from such works, which if we
attend to we cannot attend to the religion that is commanded, is
essentially necessary when the keeping of the day religiously and
solemnly becomes necessary. There are also some corporal works
which are proper celebrations of the day, or permitted in all religions
upon their festivals : such as are acts of public or private benefit,
works of necessity, little things, and unavoidable ; which are some-
times expressed in this verse,

Parva, necessariuin, res publica, res pia fratri*1.

Among the old Romans e in their most solemn festivals some things
were specially permitted,

Quippe etiam festis quaedam exercere diebus
Fas et jura sinunt : rivos deducere nulla
Religio vetuit, segeti praetendere sepein,
Insidias avibus moliri, incendere vepres,
Balantumque gregem fluvio mersare salubri'.

It was lawful to turn the water lest it might do mischief, or that it
might do good ; to stop a gap in a hedge to prevent a trespass, to
lay snares for birds, to water the cattle, to burn weeds : and no re-
ligion forbids things of this nature.

§ 58. But besides the laws and practices of heathens in the natu-
ral religion and observation of festivals, we may be instructed by the
same religion amongst the Jews and Christians. Reading and me-
ditating the law was the religion of the Jews upon their feasts and
sabbaths : " Moses of old hath them that preach him in every city,
being read in the synagogues every sabbath day," said S. James g.
They met eis Upovs tottovs, as Philoh calls their synagogues, and
they heard Moses and the prophets read and expounded : there they

b [ubi supra.] c [p. 460. supra.]

d [Parva, necessarium, respublica, cum pietate, —

Calviir. de rit. eccles., part. ii. sect. ii. cap. 7. p. 239, ed. 4to. Jenae, 1701]

" Macrob. [saturn., lib. iii. cap. 3.] 44; Luke iv. 16, 31 et xiii. 10.]

' [Virg. georg., lib. i. 268.] h [' Liber quisquis virtuti studet,' torn.

s [Acts xv. 21 ; vid. Acts xiii. 14, 27, ii. p. 458, ed. Mangey.]

461 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

did all the actions of natural religion ; there they taught piety and
holiness, justice and government, economical and political affairs,
and the measures of things good and bad and indifferent; and though
in their synagogues the exposition and meditation of the law was
their principal employment, yet in their tabernacle and in their tem-
ple which were their places of worship, they offered sacrifice and sung
hymns and praises and glorifications of God. This was the duty and
the religion of their sabbath ; not as it was a special separate feast,
but because this was the employment fitted for all spiritual and re-
ligious feasts whatsoever.

Sancta dies oritur, linguisque animisque favete,
Hoc dicenda bono sunt bona verba die1.

All holy days are days designed for holy offices, for the celebration of
the divine name and the divine attributes, for charitable and holy
discourses. That rest which God superadded, being only comme-
morative of their deliverance from the Egyptian servitude, was not
moral, nor perpetual ; it could be dispensed with at the command of
a prophet, it was dispensed with at the command of Joshua, it was
broken at the siege of Jericho, it always yielded when it clashed
with the duty of any other commandment; it was not observed by
the priests in the temple, nor in the stalls by the herdsman, nor in
the house by the major domo ; but they did lead the ox to water, and
circumcised a son, that is, it yielded to charity and to religion, not
only to a moral duty but to a ceremonial, and therefore could not
oblige us. But that which remained was imitable; the natural re-
ligion which was used upon the Jewish festivals was fit also for the
holy days of Christians.

§ 59. And this also plainly was the practice of the Christians, and
bound upon them by the command of their superiors. 1) It was
not crcojuaros aviaei as S. Ignatius1 expressly affirms, the rest of the
body is no essential duty of the christian festivals, that was a judaical
rite; but ' the Christian is bound to labour, even upon that day/
says that holy martyr ; for then there had been no positive inhibi-
tion. And the primitive Christians did all manner of works upon
the Lord's day, even in the times of persecution, when they are the
strictest observers of all the divine commandments ; but in this they
knew there was none : and therefore when Constantine the emperor
had made an edictk against working upon the Lord's day, yet he ex-
cepts and still permitted all agriculture or labours of the husbandman
whatsoever : for ' God regardeth not outward cessation from works
more upon one day than another/ as S. Epiphanius1 disputes well
against the Ebionites and Manichees.

§ 60. Thus far was well enough when the question was concerning

> [Prospera lux oritur, linguisque animisque favete ;

Nunc dicenda bono sunt bona verba die. — Ovid. Fast., lib. i. 71.]
J Ep. ad Magnes. [p. 457 supra.] • [Hseres. xxx. § 32; et lxvi. § 82.

k L. ' Omnes' C. de feriis. [Cod. Jus- pp. 158, 702.]
tin., lib. iii. tit. 12. 1. 3. col. 193.]

CHAP. II.] THE GKEAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 465

the sense and extent of a divine commandment ; labour is a natural
duty, but to sit still or not to labour upon a whole day is no where
by God bound upon Christians.

§ 61. 2) It was not avia-ei crcaixaros, but it is ^eAe'r?7 vo\iov, and

b-rjfxiovpyCav Geov 6avyLa(m>, so the same father"1. The meditation

and exercise of the word of God, and admiring the works of God,

that was the work of christian festivals : and that they might attend

this, they were commanded to abstain from servile works more or

less, these or others respectively in several times and places. This

we find in Justin Martyr" speaking of the christian sabbath and

synaxes ; 'The citizens and countrymen are assembled together, and

first are read the scriptures of the prophets and apostles, then the

priest or president makes a sermon or exhortation to them to practise

what they heard read, then all go to prayers, after this they receive

the holy eucharist, then they give alms to the poor : this is the

manner of the christian festivity.' Now what cessation from the

secular works is necessary in order to the actions of religion, all

that we may suppose to be accidentally the duty also of the day. To

this purpose is that saying of S. Gregory0, Dominicorum die a labore

terreno cessandum est, atque omni modo orationibus insistendum, ut si

quid neglig entice per sex dies agitur per diem resurrectionis dominica

precibus expietur : ' on the Lord's day we must cease from worldly

labour, and by all means persevere in prayer; that whatsoever in

the six days was done amiss may be expiated by the prayers of the

seventh, the day of the Lord's resurrection/ In the synod at Tours p

in France the religion of this day was also strictly enjoined ; Oportet

Christianos in laude Dei et gratiarwn actione usque ad vesperam per-

severare, ' Christians must persevere in praising God and giving thanks

to His holy name until the evening ;' that is, until the evening song

be finished, for then the ecclesiastical solemnity is over. They who

were tied to this long office, could less be permitted to do any secular

business, and according as the piety of the church increased, so the

prohibitions of labour were the more strict, for that which was wholly

relative must increase and diminish according to the diminution or

enlargement of the correspondent. Constantineq forbad all labour

but the labours of husbandry, but affirms the Lord's day to be the

fittest for dressing or setting of vines, and sowing corn. Leo and

Anthemius emperors'" forbad all public pleasures, vexatious suits or

actions, arrests, and low-days, appearances in courts, advocations and

legal solemnities on the Lord's day. The third council of Orleans9

permitted waggons and horses and oxen to travel upon Sundays, but

forbad all husbandry that the men might come to church. In an old

,n [ibidem.] col. 1018.]

u Apol. ii. [al. i. p. 83 D.] * L. ' Omnes,* 3. Cod. de feriis. [not.

° Lib. xi. epist. 3. [torn. ii. col. 1214 k, supra.]
C] r [ibid. 1. 11. col. 195.]

p [Concil. Turon. iii. can. 40. torn. iv. • [Can. xxviii. torn. ii. col. 1428.]

IX. H h

466 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

synod held at Oxford* I find that on the Lord's day conceduntur opera
agriculture et carrucarum, and I find the like in an old injunc-
tion of queen Elizabeth", "Corn may be carried on Sundays when the
harvest is unseasonable and hazardous." In these things there was
variety, sometimes more sometimes less was permitted; sometimes
fairs and markets, sometimes none. In which that which we are to
rely upon is this,

1) That because it was a day of religion, only such things were to
be attended to which did not hinder that solemnity which was the
public religion of the day.

2) Nothing at all to be admitted which was directly an enemy to
religion, or no friend.

Of the first I have already produced sufficient witness. Of the
second there is the less doubt, not only because natural reason does
abhor all irreligious actions especially upon a day of religion; but
because all the pious men and lawgivers of the christian church
have made complaints and restraints respectively of all criminal or
scandalous actions upon that day. Witness S. Ignatius in his epistle
to the Magnesiansv, Tertullian, apology, cap. xlii., S. Gregory" in his
epistle to Augustine archbishop of Canterbury, and S.Augustine bishop
of Hippo, in his sixty-fourth epistle to Aureliusy, the twenty-third
canon of the council of Toledo *, the edict of Leo and Anthemius,
all which complain of and forbid the evil usages of the profaner
men who spend the Lord's day, which by the church of God and in
imitation of God himself and in celebration of the greatest mystery
of our redemption was appointed for the solemn service of God, in
riotous eating and immoderate drinkings, vain feastings, and wanton
dancings, enterludes and songs, as if they intended to verify the scoff
of Eutilius%

Septima quseque dies turpi damnata veterno,
Tanquam lassati mollis imago Dei :

and that the rest of the day did represent God to have been weary,
but therefore was designed for wine and the licentiousness of his
servants.

3) The rest of the day was so wholly for the ends of religion, so
merely relative to the public services of the church, so nothing of
the proper and absolute duty of the day, that the fathers of the
church affirm it to be better to work than upon that day to be idle
and do nothing. So S. Austin b expressly, Melius facer et . . in agro

' [A.D. mccxxii. can. 8. Harduin., our soveraigne Lady Queene Elizabeth,
torn. vii. col. 117.] § 20. 4to. A.D. 1559.]

["All parsons vicars and curates
shall teache and declare unto their pa-

rishioners, that they maie with a safe and z [ ? ' ad Romanos,' cited above.]

"al. epist. xxii. torn. ii. col. 28.]
Gratian. decret, part. 3. de* con-

cap, ix. p. 20.]
p. 33, 4.]

quiet conscience, after their common

prayer in the tyme of harvest labour

upon the holie and festivall daies, and seer., dist. iii. can. 2. col. 2139.]

save that thyng whiche God hath sent." a In Itinerar. [lib. i. 391.]

— Injunctions given by the Queene's k ■ L. De decern chordis, c. 3. [vid.

Majestie, the first yere of the raigne of torn. v. col. 50 C]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 467

sho aliquid utile quam si in agro otiosus existeret : et melius famines
eorum die sabbati lanam facer ent quam qua lota die in neomeniis sit is
publice saltarent : ' to do something that is profitable in the field is
better than to sit there idle, and to spin is better than to dance/

4) In those places where the offices of the church are not expen-
sive of the whole day, it is lawful to do (upon just cause) any work
that is not forbidden by our superiors, or scandalous to our brethren,
in those portions of the day which are unemployed : and to deny this
is called perverseness and contrary to faith, cap. 'Perven? de consecr.
dist. 3C. Quidam perversi spiritus homines prava inter vos aliqua et
sanctae fidei adversa seminarunt, ita ut die sabbati aliquid operari
prohiberent. They that forbid all manner of work as unlawful by
divine law upon the sabbath are pradicatores antichristi, 'preachers
of antichrist ;' ' for he, when he comes/ says S. Gregory, diem sab-
bati atque dominicum ab omni faciei opere custodiri, ' shall forbid all
working upon the sabbath and the Lord's day/

5) The Lord's day being set apart by the church for religion ought
to be so employed as the laws of the church enjoin, and no otherwise ;
and although it were an act of piety (not only to attend to public
offices, but even) to attend to especial and more frequent private de-
votions on that day than others, yet this is without all obligation
from the church; concerning whose intention to oblige we can no
ways presume but by her words and laws when she hath declared
herself.

6) The question concerning particular works or permitted recrea-
tions is wholly useless and trifling; for quod lege prohibitoria vetitum
non est, permissum intelligitur, says the law : ' all that is permitted
which in the negative precept is not forbidden :' but as for some
persons to give themselves great liberties of sport on that day is
neither pious nor prudent, so to deny some to others is neither just
nor charitable. The ploughman sits still in the church and the priest
labours, and the wearied man is permitted to his refreshment, and
others not permitted because they need it notd ; and there is no vio-
lation of any commandment of God, even when there is a profa-
nation of the day indulged upon pious and worthy considerations.

§ 62. I end this with the words of Gersone, Quilibet eo die absti-
neat ab omni labore aut mercatione aut alio quovis lahorioso opere
secundum ritum et consuetudinem patriae, quam consuetudinem pra-
latus spiritualis illius loci cognoscens non pro/tibet; quod si apud
aliquem super tali consuetudine . . . dubietas occurrat, consulat ills
superiores : ' upon the Lord's day we are to abstain from all mer-
chandizes or other laborious work according to the custom and law
of the country, provided that the bishop knowing of any such custom
do not condemn it; and if there be any doubt concerning it, let him

° [Can. 12. col. 2141. e Gregorio, lib. d Gloss, ordinar. [in Matt, xxviii.]

xi. cpist. 3, (al. lib. xiii. epist. 1. torn. ii. e In Decal. [torn. ii. col. 263 F.]

col. 1213.)]

h h 2

468 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

enquire of his superiors.' In all these cases, custom and the laws,
the analogy of the commandment and the designs of piety, christian
liberty and christian charity, are the best measures of determination.
§ 63. I have now done with the two great exceptions which are
in the decalogue, and are not parts of the moral law. All the rest
are natural precepts of eternal obligation; and are now also made
christian by being repeated and renewed by Christ; and not only
left in their prime natural necessity, but as they are expounded into
new instances of duty, so they put on new degrees of obligation.

§ 64. As a supplement to this rule, and in explication of many
emergent questions concerning the matter of the divine laws, and
their respective obligations, it will be useful to enumerate the signs
and characteristics by which we can without error discern which pre-
cepts are moral, and which are not : for this is a good and a general
instrument and rule of conscience and useful in many particulars.

THE MEASURES OF DIFFERENCE TO DISCERN BETWEEN MORAL PRECEPTS
AND PRECEPTS NOT MORAL IN ALL THE LAWS OF GOD.

§ 65. 1) All moral laws are such whose prime and immediate
measures are natural reason : but of precepts not moral the reasons
may be economical or political, some emergency of state or accident,
a reason that passes away or that is introduced by a special blessing
or a special caution, a personal danger or the accidents of conversa-
tion. That we should obey our parents is a moral law. This we
know, because for this we naturally and by our very creation and
without a tutor have many reasons, and see great necessities, and
find abundant usefulness. For whoever is in need cannot be relieved
but upon such conditions as they who are to relieve them will im-
pose upon them. Love and obedience are but gratitude and neces-
sity ; because all children are imperfect and helpless persons, living
upon the love and care of parents and nurses : they derive their
natures and their birth, their education and maintenance from them ;
that is, they owe to them all that for which any man can be obeyed
and loved, they have on them all the marks and endearments of love
and fear, they are in respect of their children useful and powerful,
better in themselves, and beneficial to their decendants ; and there-
fore the regal power is founded upon the paternal.

Avrap iycuv oVkoio &va£ effoft rj/xerepoio'.

And unless where God did speak by express voice, He never did
speak more plainly, or give power to one man over another so plainly
as to parents over their children ; their power is the fountain of all
other, and the measure of all other ; it hath in it the end and use-
fulness of all government, it hath love and it hath caution, it is for

' [Horn, odyss. o. 397.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 469

the good of the subjects, and though it keeps the honour in itself
yet the advantage ever passeth on to others. And then if we con-
sider that children are a part of their parents, that the parents are
blessed and cursed in them, that there is in them toward their
children a natural affection, that the little image of immortality in
which men desired to last for ever is supplied to them by succession,
which preserves their name and memory; their parents are more
wise, and more powerful, and before in time, and useful in all re-
gards ; that children cannot at first understand, nor do, nor speak,
and therefore naturally they must be in the possession of them that
can ; that no man will quit his interest without just reason ; and
these reasons of subjection being prime and natural, and some of
them lasting, and all of them leaving an obligation and endearment
behind them, they cannot pass away without leaving. indelible im-
pressions; it must necessarily and naturally follow that children
must pay to their parents the duties of love and obedience,

"Octtij 5e tovs TtKovras iv /8i'y ce'/Set,

'O 5' 4ctt\ koI fair Kal davwv 6eo7s <pi\os *.

It is the voice of nature : he that honours his parents is dear to God.
Now when there is so much prime and natural reason ; or if there
be but any one that is so, which by nature we are taught, it is God's
mark upon an eternal precept : and whatsoever God hath com-
manded that is naturally reasonable, that is, if it be naturally known,
or if it be a reason that is not relative to times and persons, a reason
that will not pass away with the changes of the world, a reason that
enjoins a tiling that is perfective of our nature, and which cannot be
supplied by something else ; all that is to be confessed to be a part
of the moral law. But on the other side if we take the instances of
circumcision, and enquire whether this can be an eternal law ; be-
sides the ways of discovering this by the lines and measures of reve-
lation, we can also tell by the causes of its injunction : it was ap-
pointed as a mark of a family, a separation of a people from other
nations, the seal of a temporary covenant, a violence to nature, not
naturally apt to signify or to effect any thing beyond the wound
made by the sharp stone, a rite for which no natural reason can be
given ; and therefore it was never written in our hearts, but given in
tables that could perish.

§ 66. 2) That of which no reason can be given is not a moral
precept. Because all moral laws being also natural are perfective of
human nature, and are compliances with our natural needs, and with
our natural and measured appetites ; they are such in which all
mankind feels a benefit, and where he sees his way ; they are and
have been found out by the heathen, drawn into their digests of laws,
and there was never any law pretended to be moral, but they that
did pretend it offered at a reason for it, derived from the fountains

« Eurip. [Heraclid. apud Stob. floril., tit. Ixxix. 2.]

470 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II,

of nature. For every moral law being natural, either it must be
naturally consonant to the understanding, or only to the natural
desires : if to the understanding, then there is a discernible reason ;
if only to the desires, then the measure might be this, that whatso-
ever we naturally desire shall become a natural duty, which if it
could be admitted, would infer all the mischiefs and disorders of the
world. Upon this account all sacraments and sacramentals are ex-
cluded from being moral laws, because they depending wholly upon
divine institution, whose reasons are very often secret and unrevealed,
we can neither naturally know, nor naturally consent to them, and
therefore can stand bound to them no longer than to the expiration
of that period for which they were invented.

§ 67. 3) The consequents of natural reason are no indications of
a moral commandment. For moral laws are few, and founded upon
1 prime reason, such as appears so to all discerning persons ; but when
! once men begin to argue, and that their art or observation is also to be
. relied upon, it is so often deceived and always so fallible, that God's
wisdom and goodness would never put our eternal interest upon the
disputations of men. It is said by some men to be of the law of
nature that spiritual persons should be exempt from secular jurisdic-
tion ; but because they infer this from some proportions of nature,
the natural distinction of spiritual and temporal, by two or three
remote and uncertain consequences, it is to be despised; though we
had not a) so many precedents in the Old testament to the contrary,
and |Q) the example of our blessed Lord, who being the head of all
spiritual power was yet subject to the civil magistrate, and y) the
express words of S. Paulh speaking of the secular magistrate, and
commanding ' every soul to be subject to them ;' that is, priests and
monks, apostles and evangelists and prophets (as S. Chrysostom1
thence argues), and all this, 8) besides the notoriety of the thing
itself ; spirituality being a capacity superadded to persons, who by a
former, that is, a natural duty are subordinate to secular superiors.
But besides all this, if the deduction of consequents shall be the mea-
sure of moral duties, then the wittiest disputant shall be the lawgiver,
and logic will be the legislative, and there will be no term or end of
multiplication of laws ; for since all truth depends upon the prime
and eternal truth, and can be derived from thence and return thither
again, all actions whatsoever that can be in any sense good or useful
will be in all senses necessary and matter of duty. There is a chain
of truths, and every thing follows from every thing if we could find
it out : but that cannot be the measure of laws, for besides that a
thing is reasonable, there must be a divine commandment ; and if a
good reason alone is not sufficient to make a moral law, a bad one
is not sufficient to declare it. That all who are obliged by a law
should at least by interpretation consent to it, is said by many to be
of the law of nature ; yet this is so far from being a moral com-

h [Rom. xiii. 1.] ' In hunc locum, [horn, xxiii. torn. ix. p. 686.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 1-71

mandment, that in some very great communities of men, the clergy
who are not the ignoblest part of the people, have no vote in making
laws, nor power to choose their representatives. Indeed it is very
reasonable and full of equity that all states of men who are fit to
choose for others, should at least be admitted to choose for them-
selves; yet because this relies not upon any prime natural reason
that necessarily infers it, but is to be trusted to two or three con-
sequences and deductions, men have leave to use their power, and
may choose whether they will in this thing use the absolute power
of a prince, or the more compliant posture of a father. This is bet-
ter, but that is not evidently against a moral commmandment.

§ 68. 4) A law that invades the right of nature is not always the
breach of a moral commandment. By the law of nature no man is
bound to accuse himself, but because it is not against the law of
nature if he does, and only against a privilege or right of nature, a)
the complicated necessities of men, /3) the imperfection of human
notices, y) and the violence of suspicion, 8) and the dangers of a
third person, e) or the interest of the republic, 0 or the concerns of
a prince, may make it reasonable that a man be asked concerning
himself, and tied to give right answers. A natural right is no indi-
cation of a moral law : but of this I have already spoken upon
another occasion.

§ 69. 5) Every consonancy to natural reason is not the sufficient
proof of a moral law ; for as we say in natural philosophy that ra
4>vctlkcl and to, Kara ttjv (fyvcnv, ' things natural' and ' things accord-
ing to nature' are not all one ; it is according to nature that they
who have the yellow jaundice should look of a yellow colour, but this
is not a natural affection, but preternatural all the way ; so it is in
moral instances : it is consonant to nature that we should not boil a
kid in her mother's milk, but this makes no moral law, for it is not
against a natural law if we dok. There are some little rationalities
and proportions and correspondencies of nature which are well and
decent and pretty, but are not great enough to establish a command-
ment, or to become the measure of eternal life and death. Nothing
less than the value of a man or the concernment of a man is the
subject of moral laws j and God having given to a man reason to
live justly and usefully, soberly and religiously, having made these
reasonable and matters of conscience by a prime inscription, hath by
such prime reasons relating to God or man bound upon us all moral
laws. Man only is capable of laws, and therefore to man only under
God can moral laws be relative.

§ 70. 6) When God gives a law and adds a reason for it, it is not
always the signification of a moral law, though the reason be in itself
eternal ; unless the reason itself be proper, relating to the nature of
the thing, and not matter of empire. For example, when God com-
manded the people of Israel to give the first-born to Him or to re-

k Vid. Aquinat 1. 2". quaest. xcv. art. 2. [torn. xi. fol. 205 b.]

472 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

deem it, He adds this reason, " I am the Lord1." Now although this
reason be eternal, yet it is not a proper reason for this, but a reason
by which He does or might enjoin all commandments : and it is also
matter of empire and dominion, by which He can remonstrate His
absolute supreme legislative power, which is reason sufficient for our
obedience, but yet it is extrinsical to the nature of the precept ; and
therefore upon this account it cannot be called moral, whose reason
is always natural proper and immediate. But yet even this very
reason although it is a matter of empire, yet when it is put to a com-
mandment as a proper reason, and refers to the matter of the law,
it is a certain token of morality : for thus this is the preface or the
reason affixed to the first commandment, and something like it is in
the second : for here when God says, " I am the Lord," it is a pro-
per, natural, essential reason, inferring that therefore we must have
no other gods, nor to any other thing that is not God give divine
honour.

§ 71. 7) When God in the Old testament did threaten the hea-
thens or punish them for any fact, it is not a sufficient argument to
conclude that fact to be done against a moral commandment, unless
other things also concurred to the demonstration. This I made to
appear in the instance of some marriages ; and it relies upon this
reason, because the nations were obliged by the precepts of Noah,
all the instances or particulars of which were not eternal in their
obligation.

§ 72. 8) All the instances or pursuances of a moral law are not
as moral or necessary as their fountain ; but that moral law is only
to be instanced in those great lines of duty, which are named or ap-
parently designed in the letter or analogy of the law. That those
who minister at the altar should be partakers of the altar, is a mcral
law, and a part of natural and essential justice and religion : in pur-
suance of this, the priests did eat of the sacrifice, and were main-
tained by tithes and offerings; and thus this moral law amongst
them was instanced and obeyed : but though these were the ways in
which the Jews did obey a moral law, yet these instances are not
moral and eternal, because the commandment can be performed
without them ; and though the ox be muzzled when he treads out
the corn, yet if he eats his fill before and after his work there is no
breach of the commandment. Thus also it is commanded that we
should rise up to the grey head, which is a pursuance of the fifth
commandment; but yet this expression of reverence to old men is
neither necessary at all times, nor yet to be done by all persons :
another expression may do all the duty that is intended, and he that
with civil circumstances gives an alms to an old beggar hath done
more regard to him than he that gives him a compliment. For
although moral commandments are sometimes signified with the in-
vestiture of circumstances or particular instances, yet because great

1 [Num. iii. 12, 13.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 473

reason is their measure, prime, natural, essential and concreated rea-
son, it is easy to make the separation.

§ 73. 9) The strong, violent, and firm persuasions of conscience
in single persons, or in some communities of men, is not a sufficient
indication of a moral law. The weak brother of whom S. Paul
speaks durst not eat flesh, but thought it an impiety next to unpar-
donable, but he was abused : and there are at tins day some persons,
some thousands of persons against whose conscience it is to dress
meat upon the Lord's day, or to use an innocent permitted recrea-
tion. Now when such an opinion makes a sect, and this sect gets
firm confidents and zealous defenders, in a little time it will dwell
upon the conscience as if it were a native there, whereas it is but a
pitiful inmate and ought to be turned out of doors.

§ 74. 10) The consonant practices of heathens in a matter not ex-
pressly commanded by God to them, is no argument that what they
did in that instance was by the light of nature, or a duty of a moral
commandment. The heathens paid tithes to Hercules, they kept
the seventh day sacred, they forbad their holy persons to make
second marriages; but it will be too great an easiness upon this
account to suppose these to be matter of essential duty : not only
because (as Tertullian observes) the devil was willing to imitate the
severity or customs and rites of God's church, to make his own as-
semblies the more venerable, symbolical, alluring and persuasive ; but
because the nations to whom God commanded tithes, sabbaths, and
the like, had entercourse with many others, and were famous in the
world by blessing and miracles, by the laws and oracles of God, by
excellent government and the best learnings. The Phoenicians con-
veyed many Hebrew customs into Greece, and some learned persons
went to school in Palestine, and taught their own nation some mys-
teriousnesses which themselves learned under the Jewish doctors :
and when the judaizing Christians did pertinaciously retain circum-
cision, they might upon this ground have pretended it to be conso-
nant to the law of nature ; because even the gentiles, the Egyptians,
the Arabians, all the nations that descended from Ishmael and Esau,
and divers other nations their neighbours did use it. But consent is
no argument when it is nothing but imitation.

§ 75. 11) The appendent penalty of temporal death imposed by
God almighty upon the breakers of a law, does not prove that law
to be of eternal obligation. I instance in the gathering sticks upon
the sabbath, the omitting circumcision, the approaching a wife in
diebiis pollutionis ; all which were made sacred by the greatest penalty,
but yet had not the greatest obligation ; they were not moral.

§ 76. 12) When two laws are in conflict and contest, and call for
an impossible obedience, one must yield to the other ; but that which
must yield is not moral and eternal. The observation of the sabbath,
and doing acts of charity, did often interfere in the actions and oc-
currences of our blessed Saviour's life ; but the sabbath was always

474 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

made to yield to charity. Thus sacrifice and mercy, the outward
work and the inward, the letter and the spirit, do often make con-
trary pretensions ; but sacrifice, and the outward work, and the letter,
are to yield and to comply, and therefore are but the expressions or
instances, or significations of a moral duty, but of themselves have no
morality. This holds in all instances and hath no exception.

§ 77. 13) By the not considering of these measures a great part of
mankind have been deceived, but they could only be secured by the
first ; which because it is also possible to be mistaken in the applica-
tion, by reason of the miscarriages and confidence of some men, there-
fore the last resort of all moral laws is to the scriptures of the New
testament, in which whatsoever is commanded to all mankind is either
moral in its nature or is so by adoption ; which last clause I put in
by reason of the sacraments, and some glorious appendages of mo-
rality and heroical acts of charity commanded by Christ ; the obser-
vation of which although it be not moral, or of prime natural neces-
sity, yet because they are commanded by Christ whose law is to
oblige us as long as the sun and moon endures, to us Christians
and to all to whom the notice of them does arrive, it is all one in
respect of our duty, and hath no real difference in the event of things.
But if from the Old testament men will (as it is very often attempted
in several instances) endeavour to describe the measures of moral
laws, the former cautions are of necessary observation.

EULE VII.

THERE IS NO STATE OF MEN OR THINGS BUT IS TO BE GUIDED BY THE PROPOR-
TION OF SOME RULE OR PRECEPT IN THE CHRISTIAN LAW.

§ 1. That is, where there is no law to restrain us we may do what
we please ; but where we are tied up to rules and measures, we have
no lawgiver or fountain of religion but God, who in these last days
hath spoken to us only by His Son, who as He is supreme in all things,
so He is every way all-sufficient, and as by Him only we can be saved,
so by Him only and by His spirit we must be governed. To this pur-
pose we believe that He hath taught us all His Father's will : He is
"the author and finisher of our faith m," and therefore to Him and to
an obedience to Him we must bring our understanding ; we pray that
His " will may be done here as it is in heaven," and therefore He is
perfectly to rule our wills here, for we are sure He does rule all above :
we have no lawgiver but Him, no rule but His will, no revelation
of His will but in His word ; and besides this we have no certain
place where we can set our foot. The laws of the Jews were either
for them and their proselytes alone, or were adopted into the chris-

m [Heb. xii. 2.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 475

tian code ; right reason gives measures for things, but of itself makes
no laws unless it be conducted by a competent authority. The pro-
phets were either expounders of Moses' law, or preachers evangelical ;
that is, either they called to obedience in things not moral, or if they
did, they only spake the sermons of the gospel ; and whatsoever was
excellent in all the world was but a derivation from the wisdom of
the eternal Father; and all this was united into a system of holy
precepts at the appearing of the eternal Son : and since ( there is no
name under heaven by which we can be saved but only the name of
Jesus n/ and He saves us not only by procuring pardon for them, but
by turning us from our iniquities, by efforming us anew, by reform-
ing whatsoever was amiss in manners and persuasion, by conforming
us to the similitude of the holiness and perfections of God, and brings
us to glory by the ways and methods of grace, that is, never leaves
us till our graces are perfect and even with eternal felicities ; it fol-
lows that we must go to Him, that He must teach us and guide us,
that He must govern us and persuade us, that His laws must be our
measures, His wisdom must be our star, His promises our aims, and
we may as well say there can be two principles as that besides Him
there can be any eternal and supreme lawgiver. One is more than
all the numbers of the world.

§ 2. And if we look into the nature of His laws, we shall handle
this truth as the people on mount Sinai did see thunder : all excel-
lencies have as perfect unity as any one hath ; and there can be but
one justice, and it is the same grace of mercy which dwells in the
bowels of all the good men and women in the world ; and of temper-
ance there can be but one general measure, and unchastity is a cer-
tain prevarication of one excellency that is known to all the world ;
and as for religion, since there is but one God, and He is to be wor-
shipped as Himself pleased, and to convey His blessings to us by
what mediator and by what instruments Himself shall elect, there
can be in these things no variety, unless there be a plain deficiency
in the means of the divine appointment. All the duty of mankind
is in religion, justice, and sobriety ; and in all these things God by
Jesus Christ hath given us many laws, and besides them He hath
given us no other, we have but one Lord, and therefore but one law-
giver and measure of justice : we have but one faith, and therefore
but one religion ; we have but one baptism, or solemnity of renun-
ciation of the flesh, the world and the devil, and therefore but one
rule for our comportment ; one measure of sobriety according to the
unity of our nature, which being made after the image of God is
one as God is one. If therefore our blessed Lord be a perfect law-
giver, His law alone must be the measure of our duty and obedi-
ence ; but if He be not a perfect lawgiver, whither shall we go to
understand the will of God ? " Master, whither shall we go ? for
thou hast the words of eternal life," said S. Peter" ; there's the ques-

" [Acts iv. 12.] » [John vi. 68.]

476 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

tion and the answer too, and they together make the argument a
demonstration. For if we can obtain eternal life by the words of
Christ, then they contain in them the whole will of God ; for he that
fails in one is imperfect and loses all ; and therefore in the words of
Christ there is a perfect provision for an entire obedience, because
they are a sufficient way to life eternal.

§ 3. The effect of this consideration is, that all the measures of
good and evil must be taken by the evangelical lines. Nothing is
to be condemned which Christ permits, and nothing is to be per-
mitted which He condemns. For this is the great prerogative and
perfection of Christ's law above that of Moses, some things by Moses
were permitted for necessity, and because of the hardness of their
hearts ; thus divorces and polygamy became legally innocent, because
a perfect law was too hard for that people, and like a yoke upon a
young ox would have galled them, not subdued them ; and if he had
strained too hard, the silver cords of discipline would have been first
broken and then despised. But when Christ came He gave perfect
laws, and more perfect graces ; He made the capacities of His obedi-
ence larger, and fitted the law and the subject by even and natural
and gracious proportions, and permitted nothing which His Father
loved not ; and now ' every plant that God hath not planted must
be rooted up p ;' and therefore this law must needs be absolute, and
alone, and unalterable, and perfect, and for ever : and this appears
infinitely upon this account, that although our nature is such that it
will always be growing in this world towards perfection, and there-
fore that it is imperfect, and our obedience will be imperfect; yet
even this Christ does not allow or positively permit, but commands
us to be perfect, that is, to go on towards it, to allow nothing to our-
selves either of crime or of suspicion, to be perfect in our desires, to
be restless in our endeavours, to be assiduous in our prayers, never to
think we have comprehended, never to say it is enough : and if our
blessed Master does not allow of any imperfection of degrees, but
thrusts the most imperfect forwards to perfection, it must be certain
that in His provisions and His laws there can be no imperfection,
but He hath taken care for all things on which eternity depends,
and in which God is to be glorified and obeyed. And therefore in
no case can it be allowed to any man, or to any company of men, to
do any thing which is not there permitted.

Quest.

§ 4. Upon the account of this rule it is to be enquired whether it
can be lawful for a prince or republic to permit any thing for the
public necessities of the people which is forbidden by the laws of
Jesus Christ.

§ 5. To this I answer with a distinction, that if the question be
whether in any cases there may be actual impunity, there is no per-

'' [Matt. xv. 13.]

CHAP. IT.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 477

adventure but there may ; for sometimes it is necessary, as when a
multitude sins, for then the remedy is much worse than the disease,
and to cut off all would effect nt nemo sit quern peccasse pceniteat ;
there would be justice without discipline, and government without
subjects, and a cure without remedy. And therefore it is that
princes in the mutinies of armies or in the rebellion of their people
use to cut off the heads of offenders, or decimate the legions, as
Caesar and Germanicus did : but if it be part of the people, though
a considerable part, and the action highly criminal, we find great ex-
amples that executions have been done by subjects, by the innocent
part, and then all the offenders suffered. Thus it happened in the
mutiny of Coecina's legions and their defection to the Ubii, the in-
nocent part cut off all the rebels : and thus it was commanded by
Moses who punished all them who worshipped the golden calf by
the sword of the Levites ; he set every man's hand against his brother,
and none of the criminals did escape. But sometimes it is impossi-
ble to punish all ; and very often the evil would be more than the
good. For in all penal laws and inflictions although there be much
of vindictive justice, yet this justice is but a handmaid to government
and correction. When revenge is not also discipline, then it is no
government, unless tyranny be the name of it. So that in such
cases, it may be lawful to spare some who need it indeed but deserve
it not.

§ 6. But if by impunity be meant a legal impunity, it must either
mean that a law shall warrant the action, or that it shall beforehand
promise indemnity : if it warrant the action, which the evangelical
law hath forbidden, it is like the laws of Omriq, it is statutum non
bonicmx, and erects a government against the law of Christ ; if it con-
demns the action but promises indemnity, it disparages itself, and
confesses its own weakness : but as the first can never be lawful, so
neither can the second ever be made so but with these cautions.

CAUTIONS TO BE OBSERVED IN CIVIL PERMISSIONS OP AN UNLAWFUL

ACT OR STATE.

§7.1) That the thing so permitted be in the present constitution
of affairs necessary, and yet will not be without the evil appendage.
Thus it is necessary that in all communities of men there be borrowing
and lending ; but if it cannot be without usury, the commonwealth
might promise not to punish it, though of itself it were uncharitable
and consequently unlawful. For it is either lawful, or else it is un-
lawful, for being against justice or against charity. If it be against
justice, the commonwealth by permitting it makes it just : for as it
is in the economy of the world, the decree of God doth establish the
vicissitudes of day and night for ever ; but the sun by looking on a

i [Mic. vi. 16.] r [Ezek. xx. 25.]

478 OP THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

point not only signifies but also makes the little portions of time
and divides them into hours ; but men comma; with their little arts
and instruments make them to be understood, and so become the
sun's interpreters : so it is in the matter of justice, whose great return
and firm establishments are made by God, and some rules given for
the great measures of it ; and we from His laws know just and unjust
as we understand day and night : but the laws of princes, and the
contracts of men, like the sun, make the little measures and divide
the great proportions into minutes of justice and fair entercourse ;
and the divines and lawyers go yet lower, and they become expounders
of those measures, and set up dials and instruments of notice by
which we understand the proportion and obligations of the law and
the lines of justice : just and unjust we love or hate respectively by
our warrant from God ; and from Him also we are taught to make
the general lines of it; as Do what you would be done to, Restore
the pledge, Hurt no man, Rob not your neighbour of his rights,
Make no fraudulent contracts, no unjust bargains: but then what
are his rights and what are not, what is fraudulent and what is fair,
in what he hath power, in what he hath none, is to be determined by
the laws of men. So that if a commonwealth permits an usurarious
exchange or contract, it is not unjust, because the laws are the par-
ticular measures of justice and contracts, and therefore may well
promise impunity where she makes innocence (as to the matter of jus-
tice.) But if usury be unlawful because it is uncharitable, then when
it becomes necessary it is also charitable comparatively ; and as to
charity no man by the laws of God is to be compelled (because it is
not charity if it be compelled, for God accepts not an unwilling giver,
and it is not charity but an act of obedience and political duty when
by laws men are constrained to make levies for the poor,) so much
less can they be compelled to measures and degrees of charity : and
if to lend upon usury be better than not to lend at all, it is in some
sense a charity to do so ; and if it be when it will not be otherwise,
there is no question but the prince that allows indemnity is not
to be damnified himself. I instanced in this, but in all things else
where there is the same reason there is the same conclusion.

§ 8. 2) Impunity may be promised to any thing forbidden by the
law of Christ, if it be in such cases in which the subject matter is
disputable and uncertain whether it be so or no ; then it may. Thus
it happens in questions of religion, in which it is certain there are
many resolutions against the truth of God ; but yet they may be
permitted, because when they are probably disputed, no man is fit to
punish the error but he who is certain, and can make it appear so to
others, that himself is not deceived.

§ 9. 3) Whatsoever is against the law of Christ in any instance
may not be directly permitted for the obtaining a greater good, but
may for the avoiding of a greater evil which is otherwise indeclinable.
If a prince be perfectly persuaded that the suffering the doctrine of

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 479

transubstantiation is against the laws and words of Christ it may not
be suffered, though the parties interested promise to pay all the gabels
of the nation and raise an army to defend it : but if a rebellion can-
not otherwise be appeased it is lawful; not only upon many other
accounts which are appendent to the subject matter, but because
when two evils are before me, neither of which is of my procuring, I
am innocent if I suffer either, and I am prudent if I choose the least,
and I am guilty of no crime because I am but a suffering person :
but if I do it to obtain a greater good, I choose the evil directly,
because I am not forced to pursue the greater good ; I can be with-
out it, and although I may choose the least evil because I cannot
avoid that or a greater, yet when the question is whether I shall
permit an evil or lose an advantage, I may escape all evil at no
greater price than by losing that advantage : so that here is no ex-
cuse because there is no necessity ; and in the matters of duty, no
good can make recompence for doing any evil, but the suffering of a
greater evil is highly paid for by the avoiding of a greater.

§ 10. 4) When any such evil against the laws of Christ is per-
mitted, the evil itself must be so reproved, that the forced impunity
may not give so much encouragement to the crime as the cen-
sure must abate. The reason is, no evil must be done at any
price, and we must rather lose our life than cause our brother to
offend ; and if each man is bound to this, then every man is bound
to it. But because impunity is the greatest encouragement to sin,
and next to the pleasure or interest of it, is the greatest temptation,
care must be taken that what serves the interest of the republic may
not deceive the interest of souls ; and this being the greatest ought
infinitely to be preferred, and therefore unless something be directly
done that may be sufficient security against the probable danger, no
interest of the commonwealth is to be served against it, because none
is sufficient to be put in balance against one soul.

§ 11. 5) This impunity (especially if it be in the matter of sobriety)
must not be perpetual, but for a time only, and must be rescinded at
the first opportunity. Thus S. Austin when he complained of the
infinite number of ceremonies which loaded the church, and made her
condition more intolerable than that of the Jews under the levitical
yoke, adds this withal, that this was no longer to be tolerated than
till there was a possibility to reform. And when S. Gregory had
sent Augustine the monk to convert the Saxons, he gave him advice
not to press them at first too passionately to quit their undecent mar-
riages, which by their long customs and the interest of their families
they would be too apt to hold too pertinaciously and with inconveni-
ence, but afterwards it would be done.

§ 12. 6) Till the impunity can be taken away, it were an act of
prudence and piety, and (in many cases) of duty, to discountenance
the sin by collateral and indirect punishments. Thus the old Romans
confined their lupanaria to the outer part of the city. It was a sum-

480 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

moenium, and their impure women had a name of disgrace, and a
yellow veil was their cognizance ; and so the Jews are used in some
places : but thus we find that S. Paul and the apostles tolerated those
Christians which from among their own nation gave up their names
to Christ, who yet were polygamists, or which was equivalent had
married a second wife their first being living and divorced; but
although this could not well be avoided, lest they should be vexed
into apostasy, and their judaical hardness of heart was not yet in-
tegrated sufficiently by the softer and sweeter sermons of the gospel ;
but yet to represent their dislike of such marriages which they were
forced to tolerate they forbad such persons to be taken into their
clergy, so punishing such persons by a privation of honour whom
they could not punish by a direct infliction of censures, or separation
from their wives.

§ 13. 7) In all such tolerations of evil, the secular interest must
be apparently separate and declared to stand far off from any thing
of the religion ; and the consciences permitted to stand or fall under
them, who are to take care of them and answer for them. The per-
mission by the civil power is not to rescue them from the ecclesias-
tical rod ; for it being a matter of civil interest is not to derive any
countenance from religion, so much as accidentally ; for no powers of
man can forbid the servants of Christ to preach His law, to declare
His will, and to get subjects to His kingdom, and to turn sinners
from the error of their way ; if they do, they must not be obeyed,
but God must, and if they die for it they are well enough.

§ 14. But now against the doctrine of the rule many things may
be objected, for there seem many things and great cases to be for
which the laws of the holy Jesus have made no provision. I in-
stance in a very great one, that is, the whole state of war, and all
the great case and incidents of it. Tor since it is disputable whether
Christianity allows of war, and it is not disputable but very certain
that it speaks nothing of it expressly, neither gives any cautions con-
cerning it in particular, it will seem to be a casus omissus in the law.
To this there may be many considerations offered.

OP THE MEASURES OF WAR BY CHRIST'S LAW.

§ 15. 1) If it be said that all war is unlawful, against the analogy
and against many express lines of our religion ; it is indeed a short
way of answering this difficulty, but will involve the whole christian
world in many more : but of this in the following numbers I shall
give accounts.

§ 16. 2) If it be said that Christianity leaves that matter of war
wholly to be conducted by the laws of nature and nations ; we shall
find that this will entangle the whole enquiry, but we shall never
come to any certainty. For if the christian law be (as I have proved)

CHAP. II.] THE GKEAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 481

a perfect digest of the natural law, to say the affairs of war are to be
conducted by the laws of nature, is not to put them from being de-
termined by the christian law, because they are the same ; and if in
the law of Christ there be no rules of war, neither can there be any
in nature. But besides this, if the laws of nature which concern war
be not set down in the gospel and writings of the New testament,
but that we be sent to look for them in the tables of our own hearts,
in which some things are disordered by passion and many more are
written there by interest, and some by custom, and others by educa-
tion, and amongst men these are the authors of contrary inscriptions ;
we shall find the law of nature a strange thing by that time we have
drawn it from thence only, and looked over it to find some rules of
Mar, whose whole being is very much against the excellent and per-
fective laws of nature.

§ 17. 3) If it be said that war is to be conducted by the measures
of peace, we speak what is impossible to be true : for inter arma silent
leges; not only because the sword is licentious and impudent, but
because the cases of peace and war are wholly different.

§ 18. 4) If it be said that right reason must be the measures; I
answer, that if right reason could beheard possibly there would be
no war at all : and since one part begins the war against reason, it is
not likely that he for any reason that can be urged shall lose his ad-
vantage. But besides this who shall be judge? whose reason shall
rule ? whose arguments shall prevail ? and will he who is minor in
causa be minor in pralio, he who hath the worst at the dispute yield
also in the fight ? and are not the pugnacissimi, the fighting men,
such as will hear and understand the least reason ?

§ 19. 5) Some will have the law of nations to be the measure of
war ; and possibly it might if there were a digest of them, and a
compulsory to enforce them : but there being neither, they are un-
certain what they are, and are admitted with variety and by accident,
and they shall oblige strangers when the men are conquered, and sub-
jects by the will of the prince ; that is, the measures of war shall be
the edicts of any single general and nothing else.

§ 20. In the midst of these oppositions it will be hard to find
something certain ; but that which can most be relied upon is this,
that christian religion hath made no particular provisions for the
conduct of war under a proper title, because it hath so commanded
all the actions of men, hath so ordered the religion, so taken care that
men shall be just, and do no wrong, hath given laws so perfect, rules
so excellent, threatenings so severe, promises so glorious, that there
can be nothing wanting towards the peace and felicity of mankind
but the wills of men. If men be subjects of Christ's law, they can
never go to war with each other ; but when they are out of the state
of laws and peace, they fall into the state of war, which being con-
trary to peace, is also without all laws. So that the injurious person
is not to enuuire how to conduct his war, for he is gone beyond all

ix. i i

482 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

law, into a state of things where laws are of no value ; but for the
injured person, he is just so to comport himself as he can, having one
measure of action, and another of defence.

§ 21. Eor his defence, it is not to be measured by laws, but by
privileges : that is, things being gone beyond the laws of nature, he
is left to his natural powers and defences ; and is to do this without
any other limit, but that he defend himself and his relatives and drive
away the injury. That is, there being no law of God to forbid him
to defend himself, he is at his liberty which naturally every man
hath : Hoc et ratio doctis, et necessitas barbaris, et mos gentibus, et
feris natura ipsa prcescripslt, ut omnem semper vim quacunque ope
possent, a corpore, a capite, a vita sua propidsarent r ; ' the learned are
taught by reason, the barbarous nations by necessity, the civil by
custom, the very beasts also by nature, to defend their head, their
body, their life from all injury by all means/ For God hath nowhere
forbidden that a man shall be defended,

Armaque in armatos sumere jura sinunt",

'we may put on armour to defend us against an armed malice :' He hath
indeed forbidden private revenges, because those are entrusted to the
laws and public persons ; but when a single person is injured he can
defend himself or crave the patronage of princes and the laws ; but
when public interests are violated, when kingdoms and communities
of men and princes are injured, there is no law to defend them, and
therefore it must be force ; for force is the defensative of all laws ;
and when all laws are injured, there can be no way to reduce men to
reason but by making them feel the evils of unreasonableness. If
this were not so, then all commonwealths were in a worse state of
affairs than single persons ; for princes are to defend each single
person, and the laws are to secure them ; but if the laws themselves
be not defended, no single person can be ; and if they could, much
rather should all. Whatsoever is absolutely necessary is certainly
lawful; and since Christ has nowhere forbidden kings to defend
themselves and their people against violence, in this case there is no
law at all to be considered, since there is a right of nature wThich no
law of God hath restrained, and by that right all men are equal ;
and therefore if they be not safe from injury, it is their own fault or
their own unhappiness ; they may if they will, and if they can ; and
they have no measures in this but that they take care they be defended
and quit from the danger, and no more. The Jus naturae, the rights
and liberties, the equalities and privileges of nature, are the warrant
of the defence, or rather there needs no warrant where there is no
law at all : but this right of nature is the measure of the defence ;
we may be defended as much as we need.

§ 22. But then if it be enquired, what is the measure of actions
which must be done in the conduct of the defence by the injured

r Cic. pro Mil. [cap. xi.] * Ovid. [Art. amat. iii. 492.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. Is")

prince or republic, and how shall they be measured if Christ in His
laws hath made no provisions and described no rules ; I answer, that
the measures of action in public are no other than the measures of
the private, the same rule of justice is to be between princes and
between private persons : they also must do as they would be done
to ; they must keep covenants, perform their words, hurt no innocent
person whom they can preserve, and yet preserve themselves; they must
keep themselves within the limits of a just defence ; and as in private
contentions and repetitions of our right we must look after justice,
but do nothing against charity, we must defend our rights, but do
the adversary no wrong, and by no vexatious measures secure our
own interest and destroy his just right in an unnecessary conduct of
our own, so it is with princes : he that is injured may drive away the
injury, he may fight against invaders, he may divert the war if it be
necessary ; but he may not destroy the innocent with the guilty, the
peaceable countrymen with the fighting soldiers : and nothing can
legitimate that but an absolute necessity, that is, it must not be done
at all when it can be understood and when it can be avoided ; and
there is no direct action of war but it is to be ruled by necessity and
justice and charity, and in these there is no variety of the rule, and
no change except what is made by the subject matter, which must be
made to combine with the measures of justice and charity by the in-
struments of reason and customs and public fame, and all the mea-
sures of wise and good men.

§ 23. Wars are so to be managed as private contentions are, and
there are the same rules for both, that is, when they are equals ; but
if it be a war betwixt subject and superior, it is on the prince's part
to be conducted as other acts of public justice : when a single exe-
cutioner can punish offenders, that is enough ; if one cannot, more
must, for it is every man's interest that the injurious should be
punished ; and he that can raise the country troops by law to assist
the executions of justice, may raise all the troops of his kingdom to
do the same duty when there is a greater necessity. But for the
subjects who take up arms against their superior, there is no answer
to be given by what measures they must conduct their arms, there is
no measure at all for them but one, to lay them down and never to
take them up again. For it cannot be expected that a wise and a
holy lawgiver should give rules for the banditti to manage their vio-
lences, or the Circassians how to conduct their plunder and their
robberies. Christ never gave any laws concerning rebels, but obedi-
ence and repentance ; and for just wars, that is, the defensive wars
of princes (for there is no other just but what is defensive directly or
by a just equivalency) Christ hath given no other laws but the same
by which single persons in their contentions or differences are to be
conducted : and thus also S. John the baptist* gave the same mea-
sures to the soldiers which contain every man's duty ; " Do violence

' [Luke iii. 14.]

ii 2

484 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II .

to no man," "and be content with your wages." For war is the
contention of many : and as it is in social contracts which are to be
governed by the same justice as private merchandise, so it is in social
contentions ; for in this case, two and two thousand make no differ-
ence in the rule, but much in the circumstances of the matter.

Quest.

§ 24. But upon this instance it is seasonable to enquire whether
the precedents of the Old testament be so imitable by them that go
to war that they can pass into a law, or if not, yet whether they are
safe or no.

§ 25. The question though instanced in the matter of war, yet is of
use in all affairs whatsoever ; because there are divers portions ot
mankind a) who think every thing is imitable which they find done
in the scriptures, and /3) nothing safe or warrantable that is not.
These being their measures of right and wrong, have great influence
into the questions of conscience, and therefore are to be established
upon certain rules.

OF THE NEGATIVE MEASURES OF EXAMPLES IN TILE OLD TESTAMENT.

§ 26. 1) Therefore it is evident that not every thing done in the
Old testament is a warrant for us : I instance in all the injustices
and violences, rapines, and open prevarications of natural rights, con-
cerning which there needs no further disquisition ; but we are to
keep ourselves to the rule, that is, to God's measures not to man's,
non qua itur, sed qua eundum"- j and we must not follow a multitude
to do evil, Argumentum pessimi turba est: quceramus quid optimum
factum sit, non quid usitatissimum ; et quid nos in possession e felici-
iatis reternce constituat, non quid vulgo veritatis pessimo interpreti
probatum sit x : ' the crowd is the worst argument in the world : let
us enquire not what is most usual but what is most excellent ; let us
look after those things which may place us in the bosom of beati-
tude, not those which can tune with the common voices, which are
the worst interpreters of truth in the whole world :' and therefore
that some persons were recorded in the scriptures is no hallowing of
the fact, but serves other ends of the Spirit of God. But in this
there is no question.

§ 27. 2) The actions of good men in scriptures are not a compe-
tent warrant for our imitation, not only when they are reproved, but
even when they are set down without censure. The reasons are
plain, a) because all the stories of the Bible are not intended to be
sermons ; and ' the word of God is useful for doctrine, for reproof,
for exhortation and for information y •' not every comma and period

u Seneca de vita beata,cap. i. [torn. i. " [ibid., cap. 2. p. 527. J

p. 52G.] y [2 Tim. iii. 16.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 485

for every one of these purposes, for they are contrary, but in the whole
there is enough to make the man of God perfect, and readily instructed
to every good work, to every holy purpose. Therefore as we must
not imitate the adultery and murder of David, which are expressly
condemned, so neither may we dissemble madness as he did at Gathz,
nor persuade another to tell a lie for us as he did to Jonathan a, that
he should say he was gone to Bethlehem when he went but into the
fields, and to pretend sacrifice when it was a very flight. /3) Because
every man is a liar, and therefore unless himself walks regularly he
can be no rule to us. y) Every servant of God was bound up by
severe measures, and by His rule he was to take account of his own
actions, and therefore so are we of his. 8) There were in the Old
testament greater latitudes of permission than there are to us : poly-
gamy was permitted for the hardness of their hearts, but it is severely
forbidden to us ; and though without a censure we find Jacob to be
husband to two sisters at once, yet this cannot warrant us who are
conducted by a more excellent spirit, taught by a more perfect insti-
tution, governed by a severer law under the last and supreme law-
giver of mankind : Met(ova e-TTibcUvvadou Set rr/v aperriv, . . on 7roAAr/
1) rod 7Tvevp.a.TOS X^Pts eKK^vrai vvv, koX fxeydKr] rrjs rov XptcrroD
■napovaias r) boopea, said S.Chrysostomb ; ' we Christians ought to shew
a greater virtue and more eminent sanctity, because we have received
abundance of the Spirit of God, and Christ's coming is a mighty gift :'
and if we should derive our warranties from the examples of the Old
testament, it were all one as if from the licences of war we should
t;tke pattern for our comportment in the days of peace and laws, or
from children learn what were the measures of a man. e) Because
sometimes the actions of good men were in them innocent because
done before a law was given to them, but the symbolical actions by
a supervening law afterwards became criminal. Thus although the
drunkenness of Noah is remarked without a black character, and
plainly told without a censure, it cannot legitimate drunkenness in
us ; because he was not by any positive law bound from a freer use
of wine directly by proper provision, but we are. () Because the
actions of holy men in scripture are complicated, and when they are
propounded as examples, and the whole action described, there is
something good and something bad; or something naturally good,
and something peculiar and personally good, which cannot pass into
example. Thus when S. Paulc speaks of Gideon and Jephthah,
Samson and David, Deborah and Barak, who through faith subdued
kingdoms ; here their subduing kingdoms by invasion and hostility
is not propounded as imitable, but their faith only, and therefore let
us follow their faith but not their fighting, and carry the faith to
heathen countries, but not arms. So when the fact of Razis is pro-
pounded as glorious and great when he killed himself to avoid Nica-

1 [1 Sam. xxi. 13.] a [j Sam. xx. (>.]

b De Virgin, [cap. n It., torn. i. p. 334 D.] c [deb. xi. 32.]

486 OP THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

nord, the whole action is not imitable, but only so much of it as was
pious and prudent ; and the other is to be praised as being the choice
of a lesser evil, or is to be left to its excuse, as being necessary and
unavoidable.

§ 28. 3) The actions of men in the Old testament, though at-
tested and brought to effect by the providence of God, is no warrant
for our practice, nor can they make an authentic precedent. I in-
stance in the fact of Jeroboam, who rebelled against the house of
Solomon ; although God was the author of that change, and by His
providence disposed of the event, yet Jeroboam had rules to have
gone by, which if he had observed God would by other means have
brought His purposes to pass, and Jeroboam should not have become
a prodigy and a proverb of impiety. For a man is circumscribed
in all his ways by the providence of God just as he is in a ship ; for
although the man may walk freely upon the decks, or pass up and
down in the little continent, yet he must be carried whither the ship
bears him. A man hath nothing free but his will, and that indeed
is guided by laws and reasons ; but although by this he walks freely,
yet the divine providence is the ship, and God is the pilot, and the
contingencies of the world are sometimes like the fierce winds which
carry the whole event of things whither God pleases : so that this
event is no part of the measure of the will, that hath a motion of its
own which depends not upon events and rare contingencies, or the
order of secret providence : and therefore this which could not com-
mend his action cannot warrant our imitation.

§ 29. 4) Actions done in the Old testament, though by a com-
mand of God, do not warrant us or become justifiable6 precedents,
without such an express command as they had : if the command was
special and personal, the obedience was just so limited, and could not
pass beyond the person. Thus Jehu took up arms against the house
of Ahab by the command of God, who intended to punish him
severely ; but we may not lift up our hand against our prince though
he be wicked, unless God give us such an express commandment ;
for nothing is imitable but what is good, but in this there was
nothing good but the obedience, and therefore nothing can legiti-
mate it but a commandment.

§ 30. 5) Actions of good men, if done upon a violent cause or a
great necessity, are not imitable, unless it be in an equal case and a like
necessity. David when he was hungry went into the priest's house,
and took the bread which was only lawful for the priests to eat, and
to this example Christ appeals ; but it was in a like case, in a case of
necessity and charity ; he that does the same thing must have the
same reason, or he will not have the same innocence.

§ 31. 6) Examples in matters of war are ever the most danger-
ous precedents ; not only because men are then most violent and
unreasonable, but because the rules of wrar are least described, and

ri [2 Mac. xiv. 37, 46.] e [' justifiable' A.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 487

the necessities are contingent and many, and the reason of the action
depending upon heaps of circumstances (of which peradventure no
notice is recorded) can less be understood; and after all this, be-
cause most commonly they are unreasonable and unmerciful. That
David made the people of the Ammonites to pass under saws and
harrows of iron, is not safely imitable by christian soldiers ; because
it had so much cruelty, which either must be criminal or have an ex-
traordinary legitimation, which it is certain christian princes cannot
have unless it be by a rare contingency, and a new revelation, to
which they can never reasonably pretend. But that they may drive
out an invading army, that they may kill them that resist, that they
may by war defend the public rights in which all the private are in-
volved, they may safely take for their warrant the example of Abra-
ham fighting in behalf of the king of Sodom, the act of Melchisedec
in blessing God for the success of that battle, the wars of the judges
and of David ; because these were just and necessary by special com-
mand, or necessary defence; faith was the great instrument, and
God's blessing gave them prosperity ; they were against no law, and
the like cases God hath not since restrained, and therefore we of our-
selves being left to the rights of our nature, and unconfined by the
laws of God, proceed prudently when we have the confidence of such
great examples, against which the interest of no law is publicly, the
interest of no virtue is secretly engaged.

§ 32. 7) When a law is changed, the examples which acted in
proportion to that law lose all manner of influence and causality, and
cannot produce a just imitation. Among the Jews it was lawful for
a private person to transfix his brother or his father if either of them
tempted him to idolatry f; and in a cause of God they might do pub-
lic justice by a private hand. All the actions of their zealots done
in such instances are no examples to Christians, because when that
priesthood was changed, the law was changed, and then the nature
of the action passed from lawful to unlawful, and therefore could not
be imitated. He that is to write Greek must not transcribe it by
the Hebrew alphabet; and when the copy is altered, the transcript
must also receive variety and specific difference. Thus the disciples
of our Lord would fain have done as Elias did ; but Christ told them
that he was not imitable in that, by telling them the spirit which is
the principle or great instrument of action was wholly changed. It
was not safe for them to do as Elias did, because they were to do as
Christ commanded. Thus we find in the Old testament king Solo-
mon dedicating and consecrating of a temple ; it was a new case, and
he was an extraordinary person, and the christian church hath tran-
scribed that copy so far as to dedicate and consecrate churches or
temples to the service of God ; but she does it by the ministry of
bishops, who are amongst us the presidents of prayer, and have
those special assistances and emanations of the holy Spirit upon their

[Compare p. 037. above.]

488 OP THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

order which Solomon had in his own person, and much more ; and
therefore though the act is exemplar, yet it is not imitable as to the
person officiating, because to do so is not properly the effect either
of power or of office ; but being to be done in the way of prayer is
by the reason of the thing itself and the constitution of the church
appropriate to the presidents of religion.

OF THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST.

§ 33. 8) In the New testament we have so many, so clear, so
perfect rules, that we have no need of examples to instruct us or to
warrant our practices, but examples to encourage and to lead us on
in the obedience of those rules. We have but one great example,
Jesus Christ, who, living in perfect obedience to His Father, did also
give us perfect instruction how we should do so too in our propor-
tion. But then how far Christ is imitable, and ought to be imitated
by us, is best declared in this short rule.

§ 34. In whatsoever He gave us a commandment, in that only we
are bound to imitate Him : but in whatsoever He propounded to us
as excellent, and in whatsoever He did symbolically to it, in all that
also we may imitate Him.

§ 35. This rule establishes the whole case of conscience in this
affair : because our blessed Saviour being an extraordinary person
was to do some extraordinary things, in which either we cannot, or
we ought not to imitate Him. He fasted forty days, we cannot:
he whipped the buyers and sellers out of the temple, we may not
without the authority of a public person : he overthrew the tables of
the merchants, but the young man in Portugal5 who being trans-
ported with zeal and ignorance beat the chalice and the sacrament
out of the priest's hand out of passion against his idolatrous service
(as he understood it) had a sad event of his folly amongst men ; and
what reward of his zeal he found with God is very uncertain. But
whatsoever He taught to mankind, of that also He became a glorious
example : but by the sermons only we are instructed, by the example
encouraged; for admouetur omnis cetas fieri posse quod aliquando
factum est h, we see it possible to be done what Christ commanded
us to do, and then did that we might follow His steps. But His
example in these things makes up no part of our rule, because it is
perfect without them : here our rule is perfect, and so is our ex-
ample; but because Christ did some things beyond our rule and
past our measures, and things of personal virtue and obligation,
therefore we are to look upon Christ as imitable just as His life
was measured by the laws He gave us; where they are, even there
we also must endeavour to be so. There is this only to be added,
that in the prosecution of His obedience to His heavenly Father, He
sometimes did actions in gradu heroico, of great excellency; which

s [? Bordeaux.] Fox, Martyrol. [lib. Svo. Lond. 1839-41.]
vii. in A.D. 1557, vol. iv. p. 427. ed. h S. Cyprian. [Ad Donaf., p. 5.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 489

although they are highly imitable, yet they pass no obligation upon
us but that we endeavour to tread in His steps, and to climb up to
His degrees, and to desire His perfections. That these pass upon us
no other obligation, appears, because they are sometimes impossible
to be attained to ; and they are the highest and the best, and there-
fore are not direct matter of duty, which belongs to all, to the highest
and to the lowest. But that these do pass upon us an obligation to
endeavour to attain them, and of labour towards them in our circum-
stances, appears in the greatest instance of all, the highest obedi-
ence, even that which was unto death; for " therefore Christ hath
suffered for us, leaving an example to us, that we might follow His
steps' :" that is, when He had given His church precepts, and pro-
pounded to them rewards of suffering, He also was pleased to give
us the greatest example as a commentary upon His own text ; de-
claring that the commandment did extend to the greatest instance,
and that we should do as He did, obedlens j "actus usque ad mortem),
* He was obedient even unto death ;' and so must we when God re-
quires it in particular. And that this is our duty, and that the obli-
gation reaches thus far, is certain upon the interest of love ; for we
must love Him who is our Lord and our God, we must love Him
with all our heart and with all our powers, and therefore endeavour
to be like Him : f) be <rvfj.(pu>vos tw v6fA<±> Tifxif ?/ r?)? ova-ias eari t<5v
Tifxaifxtimv yvoocrts, nal fj irpbs avrifv kclto. bvvafj.iv e^o/xotaxris' b yap
ayaira ns, K.al fxifjeirai oaov olov re, . . cos yap (paaiv ol YlvOayop-
clol, TijU.7/0-ets tov Oeov apurra eav ru 6e<£ -rifv biavoiav o/xoiwo-r/sk' ' the
greatest honour we can do to God and God's law is to understand
God and to become like to Him/ For every one imitates that which
he loves. Religiosissimus cultus est imitari, said Lactantius1; that's
an excellent instance of the divine worship, to endeavour to become
like to the holy Jesus.

§ 36. 9) But this is to be reduced to practice so as that a) the
duty be certainly imitated, and /3) the degree of duty aimed at, and
y) the instance be chosen with prudence and liberty. Thus when
we find that Christ did spend whole nights in prayer, the duty here
recommended is earnestness and diligence in prayer. In this we
must imitate our blessed Lord ; because His rule and His example
make ti]v naXifv o-vvupiba, an excellent consideration and society.
But then to do it with that vehemence and earnestness, that degree of
diligence, is a rare perfection which we can only tend to in this life,
but we must do what moral diligence we can ; and as for the instance
and particularities of duty and devotion, we are yet at greater liberty,
for we are not obliged to pernoctation in prayer, so we pray earnestly
and assiduously, which is the duty, and endeavour to do it like Christ,
which is the passion of the duty, and the degree of love, and the way

* [1 Pet. ii. 21.] 1 [Div. inst, lib. v. cap. 10. fin. torn.

J [Phil. ii. 8.] i. p. 388; cf. S. Aug. de civ. Dei, lib.

k Hierocl.,inPythag.carm.aur. [p. 22.] viii. cap. 17. torn. vii. col. '_'0(i B.]

490 OP THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

of perfection; but that it be in the night or in the day is but the
circumstance of the duty, nothing of the nature, nothing directly of
the advantage of it ; and is to be wholly conducted by prudence and
consideration of accidents.

§ 37. 10) After all this, as Christ must be imitated in all the matter
of duty, and is imitable in degrees of duty, and that for the circum-
stances of it we are wholly at liberty ; so also it is in matters of His
own ordinance and institution, in which the religion is to be obeyed,
the design is to be observed and promoted, the essentials of the ob-
servation to be infallibly retained ; but in the incidencies and colla-
teral adherencies, which are nothing to the nature of the rite, nor at
all appertain to the religion, there is no obligation, no advantage, no
love, no duty in imitating the practice of our blessed Saviour. Thus
to celebrate the blessed sacrament of the Lord's supper with bread
and wine, to do it in remembrance of His death, to do it as He com-
manded, in obedience to Him, to receive it a prasidentium manu,
' from the hands of the presidents' of religion, is matter of duty, and
matter of love, and matter of obedience; but to suppose we are
bound so to imitate the actions and circumstances of the actions of
Christ, as that it is duty or necessity that we take it in unleavened
bread, to mingle water with wine, to receive in wines of Judaea, to
receive it lying or leaning on a bed, to take it after supper, is so far
from being matter of love or duty, and a commendable imitation of
Christ, that it is mimical and theatrical, trifling and superstitious, a
snare to consciences, and a contempt of religion : it is a worshipping
of God with circumstances instead of forms, and forms instead of sub-
stances ; it is like burning mushrooms upon the altar, and a convert-
ing dreams into a mystery; it is flattery, not love, when we follow
our Lord in those things in which He neither gave command nor did
any thing of religion or excellence, that is, in which He neither pro-
pounded Himself imitable, nor to be obeyed. For what worthiness
was there in it that Christ did eat this supper at supper time; or
that when He did institute this He was at His other supper, and did
as the fashion of the country was at His supper ? what religion was
there in it that He drank the wine of His own country, and what
ceremony or mystery was it if according to the usages of sober persons
He put water into His wine for His ordinary beverage? and how
could these become matters of religion or imitation, when they were
only the incidencies and investitures of the ordinary actions of life
and conversation ? and in these things the interest of religion is con-
ducted competently by common reason. He that follows the vices
of his prince does like the man that worshipped Mercury by throw-
ing stones at himm ; and he serves him with a mischief, and to please
his vicious prince thrusts him forward to eternal ruin. But he that
to humour him carries his neck aside", or shrugs his shoulders in the
same manner, or holds his knife at dinner by his pattern, is a flat-

m [See p. 291. above.] n [Compare vol. ii. p. 40, and iv. p. 306.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 491

terer; but he only loves his prince and is a worthy servant, who
fights bravely if his prince be valiant, and loves worthy things by his
example, and obeys his laws and celebrates his fame and promotes
his interest, and does those things in imitation for which his lord
is excellent and illustrious in all the world.

§ 38. But because against a rule no example is a competent war-
rant, and if the example be according to the rule, it is not the exam-
ple but the rule that is the measure of our action ; therefore it is fit
to enquire of what use it can be to look after the examples either of
the Old or New testament ; and if it be at all, since the former mea-
sures are not safe, to enquire which are. In which enquiries we are
not to consider concerning examples whose practices are warranted
by rules ; for in them as there is no scruple, so neither is there any
usefulness save only that they put the rule into activity, and ferment
the spirit of a man; and are to the lives of men as exhortation is to
doctrine, they thrust him forward to action whose understanding
and conscience was pre-engaged.

OF THE USE OF EXAMPLES IN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT.

§ 39. But then if it be enquired, what use examples are of beyond
the collateral encouragement to action, and which are safe to be fol-
lowed ? I answer,

§ 40. 1) That in cases extraordinary, where there is no rule, or
none that is direct or applicable with certain proportions to the pre-
sent case, then we are to look for example, and they are next to the
rule the best measures to walk by. But this is of no use in any mat-
ter where God hath given a law ; but may serve the ends of human
enquiry in matters of decency and personal proportions, when men
are permitted to themselves and their entercourse with others. For
the measures of human actions are either the to ayiov kcu to oUatov,
'that which is holy, and that which is just;' and of this our blessed
Lord hath given full rules and measures : or else the measure is, to
kclXov kcu t6 Trpiirov, ' that which is worthy and becoming such a
person •/ and because laws do not ever descend to such minutes, the
practices and examples of imitable and exemplary persons is the aux-
iliary of laws. But this is coincident to that of fame and reputation :
thus if it be enquired in the days of persecution, whether it be fit to
fly or to abide the worst ; although we are by all general rules un-
limited and unconstrained, and so the question of lawful or unlawful
will cease, yet because it may be a question of the to iipiiiov, we
may look about and see what such men as we are and ought to be,
have done. " Shall such a man as I fly ?" said the brave Eleazar0 ;
he did not, and so made up the rule by becoming a worthy prece-
dent.

° [See 1 .Mace. vi. *3, 6, ix. 10; 2 Mace. vi. 18.— Nehem. vi. 11.]

492 OF THE CHRISTIAN LAW, [BOOK II.

§ 41. 2) In complicated questions, when liberty and necessity are
mingled together, rule and example together make the measures.
Thus if it be enquired how we are to comport ourselves towards our
king, and what are the measures of our duty towards a tyrant or a
violent injurious prince, the rule is plain ; we must not strike princes
for justice, and we must not hurt the Lord's anointed, nor revile the
ruler of the people : but if we enquire further concerning the exten-
sion of a just defence, the example of David is of great use to us,
who not only comported himself by the laws of God and natural
essential reason, but his heart smote him for that he had cut off the
lap of Saul's garment ; and by his example kept us so far within the
moderation of necessary defence, that he allowed not any exorbitancy
beyond it, though it was harmless and without mischief.

§ 42. 3) In the use of privileges favours and dispensations, where
it is evident that there is no rule, because the particular is untied
from the ligatures of the law ; it is of great concernment that we take
in the limits of the best examples. And in this we have the prece-
dent of our blessed Saviour to be our guide : for when in the ques-
tion of gabels or tribute-money, He had made it appear that Himself
was by peculiar privilege and personal right free ; yet that He might
not do any thing which men would give an ill name to, He would not
make use of His right, but of His reason, and rather do Himself an
injury than an offence to others. This is of great use in all the like
enquiries, because it gave probation that it is better to depart from
our right than from our charity ; and that privileges are then best
made use of, when they are used to edification.

§ 43. 4) In all matters of doubt, when the case seems equal to
the conscience on either hand, so that the conscience cannot deter-
mine, there the examples of wise and good men are of great use to
cast the balance and to determine the action; for to an equal scale
every grain that is added will be sufficient to make the determination.
If it be disputed whether it be lawful to rely upon the memory of
our good works, and make them as an argument of confidence in
God ; and the rules of conduct seem antinomies, and when we think
God's goodness and justice is warrant for the affirmative, and yet the
rules and precepts of humility bear us to the negative ; between these
two, if they stand on equal terms, the example of Hezekiah is suffi-
cient to make the determination.

§ 44. 5) The greatest use of examples is in the interpretation of
laws : when the letter is equivocal, and the sense secret, or the de-
grees of action not determined, then the practice of good men is the
best external measure we can take ; for they are like sententim judi-
cata in the law, the sentences of judges and the precedents in the
like cases, by which the wisest men do often make their determina-
tions. Thus the example of Davidp in dividing the spoil between

» [1 Sam. xxx. 24, 5.]

CHAP. IT.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 493

them that fought and them that guarded the stuff, as being a sen-
tence in a question of equity, became a precedent in the armies of
Israel for ever after.

§ 45. These are the uses we may make of examples in holy scrip-
tures and ecclesiastic writers, which uses are helps to our weakness,
but no arguments of the imperfection of Christ's law ; for all these
uses are such which suppose us unable to make use of our rule, as
in the case of a doubting conscience, or not to understand it, as in
case of interpretation ; or else are concerning such things which are
not direct matter of duty, but come in by way of collateral obliga-
tion ; as in matter of decency and personal proportions, for which
although examples may apply them, yet the laws of Christ have
given us the general measures.

§ 46. But then since there is this use to be made of them, and
the actions of men in scripture are upon so many accounts, as I be-
fore reckoned, inimitable and unfit precedents, the next enquiry is,
what are the positive measures by which we may know what ex-
amples are imitable and fit to be proceeded in?

THE POSITIVE MEASURES OF EXAMPLE, AND WHICH MAY BE SAFELY

FOLLOWED ?

§ 47. 1) In this the answer hath but little difficulty, not only
because of the cautions already given in the negative measures, but
because the enquiry is after examples in cases where the rule is not
clear and evident, not understood, or not relied upon ; and they
being in some sense used only in the destitution of a rule, may with
the less scruple be followed, because if there be no rule clear enough
to guide the action, neither will there be any to reprove the example.
Therefore that which remains is this ;

§ 48. 2) That example is safe whose action is warranted by God's
blessing. Thus the piety of the Egyptian midwives was imitable,
in that they refused to kill the Lord's people at the command of
Pharaoh, for it is said, "therefore God did build them houses'1;"
it was mingled with an officious lie, but that was but accidental to
their action and no part of its constitution, and therefore not relative
to the reward : but whatsoever God says He rewards with a blessing,
that in equal circumstances may be safely imitated. I do not say
whatsoever is blessed or is prosperous is imitable; for it may be
prosperous and yet unblessed in one regard and accursed in another,
or successful to-day and blasted to-morrow, or splendid in this world
and damned in the next ; or permitted for the trial of God's ser-
vants, or the extinction of their sins, or the very thriving of it may
be the biggest curse, and nurse up the sin into its monstrous ugli-

'' [ExoJ. i. 21.]

494 OP THE CHRISTIAN LAW, LB00K n'

ness, and is no other but like the tumour of an ulcer; it swells
indeed, and grows very great, but it is a sore all the way, and is a
contradiction to prosperity ; aud sin never thrives, unless it be in the
most catachrestical and improper way of speaking in the world : but
I say, when it is said, or plainly enough signified in scripture that
God did bless the man for so doing, that for which he was blessed,
that I say is only imitable. And on the other side though an action
be described in story without its mark of good or bad, it is a great
condemnation of the action if the event was intolerable, and the
proper production was a mischief : and thus was the drunkenness of
Lot condemned, because incest was the product, and of Noah, be-
cause shame and slavery were the two daughters of it.

§ 49. 3) Because in these examples, for which there is no perfect
rule, the concernment is not a direct but a collateral duty, not mat-
ter of direct obedience but fame and reputation, that ' things honest
in the sight of all men be provided1/ therefore such examples only
are to be followed which are ' of good report B.' A man shall not be
called a just person if he invades his neighbour's rights, and carries
war to dispossess a people that live in peace, upon pretence because
we find in scripture that Nimrod did so, because he was an infamous
person ; but when Joshua kept the Gibeonites alive, because though
he was deceived by them yet he swore to them, and yet did make
them to be slaves to his people, he is very imitable both in one part
and in the other ; and we may not break our words upon pretence
we were deceived, but yet we may do all that we can justly do for
the interest of our relatives ; and all this can well depend upon the
example of Joshua, because his fame is entire and illustrious, he is
accounted a good and a brave man.

§ 50. 4) We must be careful to distinguish the examples of things
lawful from the examples of things good and just ; and always imi-
tate these, but with caution follow those : not only because what was
lawful in the Old testament is not always so in the New, but that
what is lawful at all times at some times is not fit to be done. But
then, let every example be fitted to the question. If the enquiry be
whether this question be holy or no, an example that declares it law-
ful does not answer that question ; but if it be asked whether it be
lawful, the example proving it to be holy does conclude the other
more strongly.

§ 51. 5) When evident signs of piety, like veins of silver in the
grosser earth, are mingled with the example, it adds many degrees
of warranty to the determination. Thus our blessed Saviour, in His
apology made for His disciple, appealed to the example of David, eat-
ing the bread of proposition : it was indeed an argument to them de-
pending upon the fame of the patriarch, but yet our blessed Saviour
knew there was in it great charity and lines of piety to his hungry

r [Rom. xii. 17.] ' [Phil. iv. 8.]

CHAP. II.] THE GREAT RULE OF CONSCIENCE. 495

followers, when David neglected a ceremony that he might do a
charity and relieve a necessity ; and therefore Christ did it not be-
cause David did it, but because he might : David's action was not
Christ's warrant, but the piety of the thing was warrant to them
both. And, indeed, this is the right use of examples ; by the ad-
vantage of the man's fame they may reprove an adversary, but by the
great lines of piety mingled with the body of the action they may
become a precedent for our imitation.

I have now given accounts concerning that principle (mentioned
num. 25,) which affirms ' every thing to be imitable if done and de-
scribed in the scripture, unless it be signally forbidden/ Concerning
the other, ' that nothing is safe or warrantable that is not/ I reserve
it for its proper place.

CHAP. III.

OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION OP THE LAWS

OF JESUS CHRIST.

EULE I.

IN NEGATIVE PRECEPTS THE AFFIRMATIVES ARE COMMANDED, AND IN THE
AFFIRMATIVE COMMANDMENTS THE NEGATIVES ARE INCLUDED.

§ 1. Not he that gives the law only, but he who authoritatively
expounds the law becomes to us a lawgiver : and all who believe in
God and in Jesus Christ confess themselves subjects of the christian
laws; but all do not obey alike, who confess themselves equally
bound, and are equally desirous to obey, because men by new or false
or imperfect interpretation of laws become a law unto themselves or
others, giving them measures which our blessed Lord never in-
tended ; and yet an error in these things is far more dangerous than
in a thousand others in which men make greater noises. I shall
therefore endeavour to describe plain and rational measures of inter-
pretation, that we may walk securely.

§ 2. It is observable that in the decalogue, and so in the whole
law of Moses, there are more negative precepts than affirmative.
The Jewish doctors a say that there are six hundred and thirteen pre-
cepts given by Moses, according to the number of letters in the
decalogue, which are six hundred and thirteen. But of these three
hundred and forty-eight are affirmative, according to the number of
joints of a man's body ; but three hundred and sixty-five are nega-
tive, according to the number of the days of the year : but to omit
these impertinent and airy observations of the Jews, it ministers some
useful and material considerations, that in the decalogue all the moral
precepts, one only excepted, are negative, (for that of the sabbath is
the caput caremoniarum ;) but that of obedience to our superiors is
only positive and affirmative. The reasons were these, by which also
we can understand the usefulness of the observation.

3. 1) Because this being the first great reformation of the world
was to proceed by the measures of nature, from imperfection to

[De Voisin, observat. in prooem. Martini ' Pugionis fidei,' p. 86. ed. fol. Lips.
1687.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 497

growth, from the beginnings of religion to its greater excellencies ;
but in nature the first step of our progression is to abstain from evil :

Virtus est vitium fugere, et sapientia prima
Stultitia caruisse6.

And therefore the face of the commandment was covered with the
robe of discipline, and God would so secure their services that they
should not displease nor anger Him ; but the excellencies of holiness
by which He was to be endeared to mankind were especially the
glories of Christ, not the horns of Moses, the perfections of evange-
lical sanctity, not of the beginnings of the law.

§ 4. 2) The great sanction of the law was fear of punishment ; and
therefore God chose to represent His law to them in negatives, that
according to the endearment so might be the obedience. Now to ab-
stain from evil is the proper effect of fear, but to do good for fear of
punishment is as improper as to threaten a man into love. Fear is
the bridle of servants and boys, love is the spur of brave and good
men.

Nee furtum feei, nee fugi, si mihi dicat

Servus, Habes pretium, loris non ureris, aio :

Non hominem occidi, Non pasces in cruce corvosc:

That's the dialogue of masters and servants. If you be a thief you
shall be condemned to the mill, if you be a murderer you shall be
broken upon the wheel ; but if you abstain from such crimes, your
reward shall be, you shall escape the/urea : since therefore the spirit
of the law was the spirit of fear and of bondage, God did transact
His covenant with them in negative measures.

§ 5. 3) The law of Moses was a pursuance of the covenant of
works ; and since it had in it very little beside the umbrages of the
Xpiivrbs Cvyos, the sweet yoke of the gospel, it did stipulate for ex-
act measures; but therefore the precepts were negative that the
obedience might be the more possible, and the injunction the nearer
to paternal : for it is much more possible to abstain from sins of
commission than from sins of omission : so that,

Optimus ille est

Qui minimis urgeturd

is the best measure of obedience to the mosaic law : he is the good
man who cannot be accused to have done what the law forbids, he
who hath done the fewest evils, not he who does the most good :
and thus also the pharisees understood their duty ; and they were
not reproved by our blessed Lord for understanding the negative
precepts by the rules of abstinence and a negative duty, but a) be-
cause they understood their negative duty only by the measures of

b [Hor. epist., i. 1. 41.] c [Hor. epist., i. 16. 46.]

A [Hor. sat.,i. 368.]
IX. K k

498 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

the letter, not of the intention and spirit of the law : and /3) because
when they had been by the commentaries of the prophets and other
holy men instructed in some evangelical measures and more perfect
intendments, secretly at first designed by God, and so expounded by
the prophets by way of evangelical preparation, yet they would still
adhere to the old and first understandings of the law ; because they
loved some sins which (as they had known) were forbidden by those
negative precepts if they would have opened their hearts to under-
stand them as they should.

§ 6. 4) That the fifth commandment is affirmative in the midst of
all the commandments that are negative, hath a peculiar reason, but
nothing against the former discourse : for 1) it being a sanction of
obedience to our superiors under God, is to be expressed in actions
and external significations, not only because these only can do bene-
fit, service, and advantages to our parents and princes, but because
of nothing else can they be judges : men take no cognizance of
thoughts and secret purposes, but of outward significations; and
therefore the precept was to be affirmative, that is, preceptive of
outward actions. 2) There is in children toward their parents so
much natural love and so much fear, and they are so long under their
power and the needs of minority, that it will very rarely happen that
children can despise their parents, or curse them ; their own interest,
and their own passions, and their own affairs will secure the negative
measures of the commandment ; and therefore the world was in this
instance disposed to receive greater degrees of injunction and a higher
commandment, nature in this instance doing the same office for them
as the whole law did in the other ; that is, it was Traihayooyos, a
' schoolmaster' to bring them to Christ : and if they had been as
much disposed for the entertainment of the rare and excellent affirma-
tive commandments of Christ in the matter of chastity and charity
and meekness and humility as in the matter of duty to their parents,
there would have been less need of the interposition and interval of
the law of Moses before the coming of Christ.

§ 7. And these observations are verified by the avnarpocpr} or
corresponding part : for the precepts of Christ are positive and
affirmative, as appears in His sermon on the mount, which is the
summary of His law; in which when He expounded the negative
commands of Moses, he still superadded an affirmative of His own.
So that it will be nothing but matter of speculation to discourse
whether or no in the law of Moses the affirmatives were included in
the negatives : it is certain the pharisees did not understand them
so; and they are not always involved in the nature of each other,
and the promises of the law were not sufficient to encourage the
ayaOoepyta, the doing of good works, though the fear was enough
to restrain the evil : but that which concerns the conscience is that
which now is evident and palpable. In the laws of Jesus Christ the
| negative and affirmative are but correlatives, opposita relativa, and

CHAP. III.] OP THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 499

do infer each other. Thus we find it expressed often ; " Whoso
looketh on a woman to lust, hath committed adultery e," that was our
blessed Lord's commentary on the sixthf commandment, which was
negative ; but He adds, " If thy right eye offend thee pluck it out8."
So again, " Resist not evil," that's the negative precept, but Christ
adds, " if any man sues thee at the law and takes thy coat, let him
have thy cloak also." So in the matter of oaths, Christ said, " Swear
not at allh," for He still added a more severe negative to the negative
of the law ; but then He adds His own affirmative, " Let your com-
munication be yea, yea, nay, nay ;" that is, let it be plain and simple,
meek and positive, easy and ingenuous.

§ 8. Thus our blessed Lord did in His recitation and exposition
of the moral commandments delivered by Moses ; in the interpreta-
tion and enlargement of which although it was proper to declare a
negative by a negative, yet He would follow His own method and
design, and superadd His own affirmative ; and when He was doing
the office of a lawgiver rather than of a prophet and expounder of
the old law, there His words were positive and affirmative. Witness
the eight beatitudes, the precepts of charity and humility, of giving
and forgiving, of fasting and prayer, and many others : but because
in the doing all this He made large discourses and gave laws and
exhortations, precepts and reasons, promises and threatenings in com-
plication and mutual consequences ; therefore we are without further
enquiry sufficiently instructed that our duty is now intended to be
complete, and as we must abstain from all evil, so we must do all
the good we can.

§ 9. But this is to be understood with its proper caution. For
we say in logic, Ad negationem non semper sequitur affirmatio oppo-
site, ' every negative does not presently infer every contrary affirma-
tive/ as a matter of duty. It follows well, " Thou shalt not forswear
thyself, but thou shalt pay to the Lord thy vows," but it does not
follow that therefore thou shalt make vows. So in these also there is
no consequence of obligation : thou shalt not take from thy neighbour
what is his, therefore thou shalt give to thy neighbour : thou must
take from none, therefore thou must give to all : thou must not give
false testimony, therefore thou must tell all the truth thou knowest :
thou mayest not give wrong judgment, therefore you must give right ;
for it may so happen that you need not give any at all. These in-
stances point out to us the measures of affirmatives which follow from
the contrary negations. Thus :

§ 10. 1) Affirmative duty follows from the negative, not in con-
traries but in contradictories. To make a vow and break a vow are
contraries, and therefore it follows not, because I must not break a
vow therefore I must make one ; but to break a vow and not to break
it are contradictories, and therefore if one be forbidden the other is
commanded : and if the commandment be expressed in negatives, Thou

e [Matt. v. 28, 29.] ' [Compare p. 45 above.] e [ver. 39, 40.] " [ver. 34.]

Kk 2

500 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

slialt not break thy vows, the affirmative is in the bosom of it, there-
fore thou shalt keep them ; because unless this part of the contra-
diction be done the other is, and therefore it is not enough that we
do nothing expressly against the instance of the vow, but we must
also understand ourselves obliged to the performance of it according
to the first intention. The reason of this is, because between two
contraries there can be a third thing of a disparate nature, not at all
included or concluded by either part, either by inference or by oppo-
sition.

§ 11. 2) From a negative an affirmative is not always inferred in
a particular instance. We must not be uncharitable in any instance,
but it follows not that by virtue of this commandment therefore we
must be charitable or do our alms in every instance ; for every man
is not bound to redeem captives, or to visit prisoners : the reason is,
because uncharitableness and visiting prisoners are not opposed in
their whole matter and nature, but the commandment which is con-
trary to uncharitableness can be obeyed according to all its intention
although it be not instanced in that particular. But this is to be
added, that when by accidents and circumstances and the efficacy of
some other commandment we are called upon to this instance, then
that this be done is by virtue even of the negative, by the prohibition
of uncharitableness, because when we are determined to an instance,
the sanction of the whole commandment is incumbent on it, and will
not be satisfied without it ; but in other cases it is indifferent, and is
obeyed by any instance that is fitted to our circumstances and to our
powers. It is like a man's stomach, which of itself is indifferent to
any good meat, but when by a particular upcuris or accident it requires
this and nothing else, it must either have this or it will fast. So are
affirmative laws ; though they oblige to every instance, and are in-
different to any that we can and may, yet sometimes we are deter-
mined to this and no other, and then the whole force of the law is
upon it. But else ordinarily it is true that the universal negative
infers only the indefinite affirmative, not the particular : the universal
is only inferred by the consequence, the particular by accidents and
circumstances.

§ 12. 3) Prom a negative law the affirmative is inferred, but not
in the same degree of duty and necessity. It is not so great a sin
if we neglect an act of charity, or an opportunity of doing glory to
God, as if we do an act of uncharitableness, or positively dishonour
God. The reason is, because sins of omission are less than sins of
commission, because negligence is not so bad as malice, and of omis-
sion sometimes there is no evil cause, but a mere negative or un-
avoidable inadvertency; but of a sin of commission the cause is
always positive, and therefore always intolerable.

§ 13. 4) The affirmative which is inferred by the negative law of
Christ is not absolute and unlimited like the negative, but modi-
ficated and limited by its proper and extrinsic measures. We must

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 501

in no case and for no regard hinder our innocent neighbour from
doing his necessary work, but it does not follow that therefore we
must always set his work forward, and lend him oxen to plough his
land ; for it is in no case lawful to do evil, but in many cases it is
lawful not to do good, that is, there is something more required to
specificate a positive act besides the consequence of a negative law.
For although the body of an action is there commanded, yet because
the body of the action must be invested with circumstances, they also
must have their proper causes, or they cannot have a direct necessity.
" Never turn thy face from any poor man1/' is a negative precept, to
which the affirmative of Christ doth rightly correspond, "give to
every one that asksk." Now although the negative is universally to
be observed in its own just sense, tit ne aversemtir a pauper e, that is,
that we deny not to be charitable to him ; yet when this comes to
be specificated by positive actions, the commandment is not the only
measure, but some conditions are required of him that is to receive,
and some of him that is to give : for to him that will not work when
he can we are not to give, and he that needs it for himself is not
obliged to part with it to his brother, supposing their needs are equal
or not extreme. To this purpose is that known rule, that negative
precepts oblige always, and to an actual obedience in all times, but
affirmative, although they always oblige, yet they can be obeyed but
in their own season. So that although every negative precept is in-
finite and hath no limit, yet the affirmative have extrinsic measures
and positions of their own ; something to make them laws to me and
you, though the consequence of the negative is sufficient to make
them to be laws to all mankind. So that although negative pre-
cepts may be the mother of affirmatives, yet the child is but a dwarf
and not like the mother ; and besides that it is exposed to be nursed
by chance and by circumstances, by strangers and all the measures
of contingency.

§ 14. 5) When affirmatives are included in, and inferred from
the negatives, the proportion of them is not positive but compara-
tive. Thus when our blessed Lord had given commandment, " re-
sist not evil," that is, we should not do evil for evil, the affirmative
which is properly consequent from this is, " do good for evil :" and
this is obliging according to the former measures ; but when you en-
quire further into the proportions, and ask after the instances which
our blessed Saviour made, we shall find that their obligation is not
positive but comparative. " If a man strike thee on thy cheek, turn
the other also;" that is, rather than revenge thyself for one injury
receive another, and rather than vex him who forces thee to go a
mile, go with him two mile : not that Christ intends you should
offer to do thyself a shrewd turn, or invite another : nor that thou
shouldst suffer it, if thou canst fairly avoid it ; but that thou should-
est choose rather to suffer two evils than do one. But this is espe-

1 [Tobit iv. 7.] * [Matt. v. 42.]

502 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

cially to be reduced to practice in matters of counsel rather than
precept, that is, when the affirmative inferred from the negative is
matter of perfection rather than positive necessity, then the com-
parative proportion is a duty ; but the absolute proportion and mea-
sure is but counsel. To oblige an enemy and do him acts of favour
and benefit is an excellency of charity, for which Christians shall re-
ceive a glorious reward ; but this is a counsel of perfection, which if
upon probable reasons and fairly inducing circumstances it be omit-
ted, a man shall give no answer for : but when the case is so that it
must be that I must either take revenge of him, or else rescue him
from that revenge by an act of kindness, by a labour of love, or an
expense of charity, then this becomes a duty ; for in comparative
measures every affirmative is at least obligatory ; that is, we must
rather be at any trouble or expense to do an affirmative than pre-
varicate a negative commandment.

§ 15. But then as to the other part of the rule, that 'in the af-
firmative commandment the negative is included/ there is no other
difficulty but this, that caution be had that the negative be opposed
to the affirmative in relation to the same subject ; for because we are
bound to love our friends therefore we must not hate them ; but it fol-
lows not (as the pharisees did falsely comment on this text) because
we must love our friends therefore we must hate our enemies ; for
these two are not opposed as affirmative and negative in the same
subject, but as two affirmatives relating to subjects that are divers.

§ 16. But this is sometimes not to be understood of the precise
commandment itself, but of the appendages, I mean the promises
and threatenings : for though it follows, We must do good to our
neighbour, therefore we must do no evil to him ; yet it does not follow,
Do this and live, therefore if ye do not do it ye shall die ; the reason
of that is this, because there are some things encouraged with excel-
lent rewards, the negatives of which are permitted to us with im-
punity. Thus it is said by our blessed Saviour, " when thou makest
a feast, invite the poor, and thou shalt have recompence in heaven1,"
but then if we do not invite the poor it does not follow that we shall
be punished in hell, but we shall not have that recompence which
the hospitable man shall have. So that to invite the poor is an
affirmative precept, but in this the negative included is not, Thou
shalt not invite the rich, or if thou dost thou shalt be punished;
but that it is not so excellent a thing ; it is not so encouraged by
the proposition of an eternal reward, but expires in a temporal in-
terest : so that the negative included relates to the reward, not to
the precept, and means this only, If thou dost not invite the poor
thou shalt not have any reward in heaven for feasting and making
entertainments. But the sign of this is, a) when the precept is
only in the particular instance of a general commandment, as this of
inviting the poor is of alms or charity : or else /3) when it is mat-

1 [Luke xiv. 13,4.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 503

ter of counsel and not of express precept j then the negative is not
directly included in the preceptive words, but in the reward that is
appendent.

§ 17. Lastly, when it is said that in the affirmative precepts the
negatives are included, the word ' negative' is to be understood in
the moral sense ; that is, so as to include the privatives also. Thus
when we are commanded to love our brother, it is not only forbid-
den to us to hate him, but we are also commanded not to omit to ex-
press our love by symbolical actions ; for not only contrarieties and
repugnancies to the duty of the commandment, but even omissions
also are forbidden ; and this is highly to be regarded in the matters
of charity, which toward enemies we use to estimate by our not
cursing him, our not hurting him, our not being revenged on him :
these, indeed, are proper instances of the negative included, but the
privatives also are to be considered ; for not loving him is hating
him, our refusing to do him kindness, our not praying for him, our
unaptness to do him good offices, our remembering and reporting
his injustice, our refusing to converse with him, and denying him
the comforts of our society, when without danger or injury to our-
selves we may converse, is a prevaricating the negative or privative
measures of the commandment.

RULE II.

WHEN A NEGATIVE AND AN AFFIRMATIVE SEEM OPPOSITE IN ANY SENSE, THE
AFFIRMATIVE IS TO BE EXPOUNDED BY THE NEGATIVE, NOT THE NEGATIVE
BY THE AFFIRMATIVE.

§ 1. Thus are those various expressions of our blessed Saviour to
be considered and understood : " Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son
of man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you ;" and yet our
blessed Lord says, " He that eateth the flesh of the Son of man hath
life abiding in him"1." Now to them who suppose these words to
relate to the sacramental manducation, the question is, whether or
no it be necessary to drink the blood in specie as well as to eat the
flesh, because of the exclusive negative requiring both under the for-
feiture of eternal life ; or shall it suffice to receive the flesh only,
because life is promised to be in him who eats the flesh, in that place
no mention being made of drinking the blood.

§ 2. To this the answer is made by this rule ; the negative cannot
be lessened by the affirmative, because a negative can have no de-

m [John vi. 53, 4.1

504 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

grees as an affirmative can j and if the affirmative were in this case
sufficient, when the negative is express to require more, then the
affirmative were directly contrary to the negative : but on the other
side, though the affirmative requires less than the negative, there is
no contradiction, a) Because in matters of duty whatsoever is any
where required is every where supposed, and no interpretation can
lessen it from what it is in its whole integrity. /3) Because all our
duty is not every where repeated, but the not repeating it in any
place cannot annul the obligation in that place where it is expressly
required, y) Because a threatening in all laws is of more force and
efficacy than a promise; and therefore when under a threatening
more is required, the promise that is affixed to a part of it must be
understood by the analogy and promise to that threatening, because
one thing is enough to destroy us, but one thing is not enough to
preserve us. Bonum ex Integra causa, malum, ex qualibet particu-
lar^, h) Because it is ordinary in scripture to give the promise to
every part of duty, which yet shall never be paid to that alone : thus
to purity, to poverty of spirit, to mercy, to faith, to alms, to patience,
to hope, the promises of blessedness are given ; but although it is
said, " the pure in heart shall see God," and " the poor in spirit
shall have the kingdom0/' and they that quit houses and lands for
Christ's sake shall receive the reward of the other world ; yet uuless
all that is required be put together in the duty, nothing of the reward
shall be given to the person. Every part of an exclusive negative is
an indispensable duty ; but every affirmative that is encouraged by a
promise does not contain a whole duty, but a part of duty, which by
being symbolical to the whole is encouraged as every other part is,
but is not paid but in an entire payment, to an entire obedience.

§ 3. This also is true when in the affirmative more is put than in
the negative, for even then the negative is the strict measure of the
commandment, and the limit of its absolute necessity and exaction.
" He that bclieveth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that be-
lieveth not shall be damned"." Here the negative is the utmost
limit, the necesse esse is described in that, the bene esse and the ordi-
nary expectation in the other ; by which we are thus to understand
this and such other expressions, that the negative contains the indis-
pensable duty, and supposes an obligation that nothing can excuse
in persons capable ; but the affirmative that supposes more is yet for
that which is over and above content with a less necessity, and ad-
mits of easier dispensation. Tor it containing all that is expected is
like a summumjus, which though by the method of laws it is often
expressed that obedience may be invited as forward as it can, yet the
iindKeia or the abatement is in the negative ; that's the lowest, and
therefore it is bound up with the penalty. Tor to the highest duty
the reward is promised, and it is more than enough to pay it, but the

n [Dionys. Areop., de divin. noin., cap. ' [Matt. v. 3, 8.]

iv. p. 216 B : compare vol. vi. p. 337-] p [Mark xvi. 16.]

CHAP. 111.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 505

punishment is threatened by lower measures; God abates much be-
fore He smites, and though He will reward every good we do, yet
every good that is omitted is not punished with death. But this is
to be understood when the good is of that nature that it may be
omitted upon a probable cause, or without malice, or without the
direct prevarication of an express commandment : for many good
things are wholly put to us upon the account of hope and promises,
and not of commandments and obedience ; though in these also
God makes what abatements He please, but we are to make none
at all.

EULE III.

IN THE AFFIRMATIVE AND NEGATIVE PRECEPTS OF CHRIST, NOT ONLY WHAT IS
IN THE WORDS OF THE COMMANDMENT, BUT WHATSOEVER IS SYMBOLICAL
OK ALIKE, IS EQUALLY FORBIDDEN OR COMMANDED.

§ 1. When S. Paul had enumerated the works of the flesh, and
had put into the catalogue most of those crimes which are commonly
named in laws and fame and the manners of men ; he adds, ml
ra o/xota tovtois, ' and those things which are like to these*!/ For

1) There are some things which are too bad to name, such were the
impurities of the tribades, fellalrices, drauci, pathici, padicatores,
of which the apostle r says, " it is a shame even to name such things
as are done of them in secret :" ttclOt] arijuias, that's the general word
which the apostle uses for them all, ' dishonourable lusts/ Now
when all unnatural lusts are forbidden, all mixtures but what are hal-
lowed by marriage and the order of nature, it is no part of the per-
fection of the law to name the species of impurity, and the circum-
stances of that vileness which gets new names as men please to undo
themselves by tricks and artifices of shame.

2) There are some sins which are like new diseases, vile and in-
fectious in one year, or in one age, which were never heard of before,
and die with reproach and are never heard of again. That a woman8
should grow to that impudence as to marry her adulterer in the same
town where her husband was living, and a prince, was so rare a con-
tingency, that though it was once done in Rome, yet no law was
needful to prevent it : and there needed uo law to forbid a man to
marry a boy, yet Nero did marry Sporus*, and he married Dorypho-
rusu, whom Tacitus v calls Pythagoras : but this was no less a sin,

i [Gal. v. 21.] t [Dio CasS) ]ib- lxiii# p< 72i A. J

r [Ephes. v. 12.] u [Sueton. vit. Neron., cap. 29.]

s [Messalina,— Tacit, annal., lib. xi. • [ Annal., lib. xv. cap. 37 ; Dio Cass.,

cap. 26.] ubi supra.]

506 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION |_BOOK II.

because it was not the express vocal contradiction of a law ; it was
against a law that named it not.

3) There are some sins which nature and the public manners of
the world do so condemn, that they need no special mention in the
laws. No law forbids us to eat man's flesh, and yet all the civil part
of mankind hate and condemn them that do it; and those Egyptians
who did deperire defunctarum cadavera*, fall in love with the dead
bodies which they did anoint, were condemned by the voice of all
the world, without the charges of an express law ; and all that read
the narratives of the gnostic impurities, how they did in the impurest
sense litare in sanguine famineo? , and make their eucharist of mat-
ter of abomination, have enough of prime reason and common
notices of laws and things to condemn their vileness, though they
never study the question or enquire which commandment they pre-
varicate.

4) There are some sins like others that are named, which are not
distinct kinds, but like the monsters of Africa2 produced by hetero-
geneous mixtures, or equivocal generation. Thus to geld a child to
make him have a good voice is so like cruelty, and the unmerciful-
ness of homicide or mutilation, and is such a curiosity of voluptu-
ousness and sensuality, that though it wants a name to signify its
whole sinfulness, yet it must stand condemned though there be no
text against it described expressly in the tables of the law. To give
money for ecclesiastical preferments is so like the sin of Simon Magus,
that it hath obtained his name and his reproach, and yet it is not the
same crime ; but upon the account of S. Paul's 6/xouo/xa or ' simili-
tude/ it hath the same condemnation. Thus polygamy is like adul-
tery, and marrying after divorce (except only in the case of forni-
cation) is like polygamy. Concerning which things there is one
measure in general, and -some other more particular.

§ 2. 1) In general.

The likeness of things to those which are expressly forbidden
is not to be estimated by forms and outsides, and material resem-
blances, but by the intrinsic irregularity and reason of the prohibi-
tion. To kill a wife or daughter taken in adultery, even in those
countries where by the laws it is permitted, looks as like murder as
killing can : but because the laws allow the interested man to be the
executioner, it is the public hand not the private that takes the ven-
geance; and therefore they are not alike in a culpable similitude.
But on the other side to take my goods wherever I find them looks
like justice : but because of justice a man is not to be judge and
executioner in his own case, and this thing is in many cases forbidden
by the laws, this is against justice ; for it is not enough that it is his
own; for although it is justum, ' a just thing/ to take my own, yet to
do it from a thief by private authority where it is forbidden by the

x [Herod. Euterp., cap. 89.]

y [Epiphan. haeres. xxvi. torn. i. p. 86 D.] % [Compare vol. in. p. 448.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 507

public, is justum injusie factum, fa just thing done after an unjust
manner/ But if there be a likeness of injustice, a prevarication of
the same reason, an equal injury, then not the letter of the law, but
the reason and the spirit of it is its condemnation. Tar pari referre,
to give back the good I have borrowed, is one of the great lines of
justice; and upon this account we are bound to pay debts, to per-
form contracts, to make equal returns of valuable considerations, and
whatever is against this is against justice. But then because acts of
kindness are the transition of a good from one to another, and although
it is without a bargain, yet it is not without an obligation ; ingratitude
comes under the ra o\x.oia, it is so like injustice that it is the worse
for it. It is expressly commanded that we should provide for our
children according to our powers, and therefore they that expose them
are worse than infidels and have denied the faith ; but then to deny
to nurse their own children (unless it be upon a just and a reasonable
cause, upon charity or necessity) is so like exposing them, that it must
stand as reprobate under the sentence of the same commandment.

§ 3. 2) But the particular measures of this rule are these : whatso-
ever is of the same specification is of the same obligation and necessity.
But if men would be ingenuous and worthy in giving sentences of
their actions, and understanding the measures of their duty, there
could be no difficulty in this : for men are easy enough to consent
to a general rule, but they will not suffer their own case to be con-
cerned in it ; and they understand the particulars too fast when it is
the interest of their brother, but if it be their own they know nothing
of it. It is written, " Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy Goda," and
all the world consented to the law since the promulgation : but yet
many nations and many ages of Christendom did admit the trials of
rights by duels, and of innocency by fire ordeal ; which was as direct
a tempting of God as any thing next to desperation itself, and by
this is sufficiently reproved. If the labourer be worthy of his hire,
then so is the priest; if the priest of the old law, then also the
minister of the gospel : which particular I choose to instance in,
that by occasion of it I may give caution against that which causes
error in the application of this measure and sense of laws unto the
conscience.

§ 4. For because all actions are invested and varied with many
circumstances, they who are concerned in a particular with which
they are willing to escape, think every new circumstance to be a
warrant great enough to exempt him from the general rule. Thus
if a rule was given in the law of Moses, they who would not have it
drawn into consequence in the gospel observe that differing circum-
stance of the divers laws, and think it answer enough to say, It was
so in the law, but what is that to the gospel ? Now this answer is
only true when the law and the gospel have contrary measures in

[Matt. iv. 7; Luke iv. 12.]

508 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

the same instance; that is, when the instance did not only relate
to the law of Moses, but is against the analogy of the gospel.
Thus no unclean thing was to come into the presence of the Lord,
and therefore the leper or the polluted in prqfluvio sanguinis or
seminis might not come into the temple: but then if we argue,
this is much more true in the gospel, which is a state of greater
purity than the law, we can conclude nothing ; because the measures
of legal and evangelical purity are wholly differing, and therefore
here the relation to the several states and laws is considerable and
makes a material difference. But when there is nothing in one that
appropriates it to itself, and nothing in the other that excludes it,
then the circumstance and relation alters nothing of the proposition ;
and so it is in the matter of maintenance for the evangelical min-
ister.

But no circumstance can alter the question, unless it be a material
ingredient in the very constitution of it, and changes the reason of
the former usage. Thus when by the commandment we are tied to
give every one their own, if the owner be a madman, and in his fury
demands his sword, although this particular be a specification of the
general rule, yet it is altered by a circumstance which changes the
reason of the law, or supposes it changed. So when David brought
his men to eat shew-bread in the days of need, the priest asked if
the young men had abstained from their wives, saying, that then they
might : but he that shall argue from hence, that no man can receive
the sacramental bread but he that hath been continent in that in-
stance, may be surely enough answered by telling him that such
contacts did sometimes and to some purposes contract legal impu-
rities, but not evangelical, in which only the purity of the spirit is
required ; or if also corporal were required, yet such approaches under
the protection of marriage are declared to be koitt) a/xtarro?, as great
a purity as chastity itself, of which this is one kind. But when there
is no cause of change of the ingredient in the article, if it be of the
same nature, though differing in extrinsical or unconceming circum-
stances, it is by way of specification included in the rule, and is to be
conducted by its measures.

§ 5. 3) Whatsoever is equivalent to the instance of the law, is
also within its sanction and constitution. By ' equivalent5 (speaking
morally not logically) I mean that which is inferred a) from the
greater to the less affirmatively : or j3) from the less to the greater
negatively : or y) from that which is equal to it both affirmatively and
: negatively. For thus laws are extended on all hands : the same law
that forbids murder forbids cruel thoughts and violent anger, what-
soever tempts to murder or is the beginning of it, or is in the natural
progression towards it. So on the other side, the law commands us
to obey our superiors (meaning the spiritual) ; the same law though
it there names them not, does more strongly command us to obey
princes, for they also "are over us and watch for the good of our

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 509

souls, and must give an account for themV Thus if husbands must
give honour to their wives, then wives must give honour much rather
to their husbands. If you may not steal out of my house you must
not spoil my goods in them, much less may you fire my house and
burn my goods too : if you must be faithful in little things, much
more in greater things : if you must give your life for God, much
rather must you give your goods : if you must not defile a temple,
much less must you dishonour your bodies.

§ 6. This also is to be extended to the proportionable obligation
of correlatives. Tor if the relative be bound by the laws of Christ,
then so also is the correlative ; which rule hath no exception, but an
explication of it is sufficient. For either the duty of relatives is
equal or unequal in degrees, and it is either in the same instance
or in divers. If the instances be divers, they are in all cases ex-
pressed competently in the New testament; as the duty that hus-
bands and wives, that children and parents, that masters and ser-
vants, that princes and subjects owe to each other respectively ; and
they need not to be conducted by involution and consequence, for
their duties are described in distinct lines. But if the duty and in-
stances be in the same kind but differ in degrees, then the measure
of the degrees is to be conducted by proportion to the difference of
persons, by public honesty, and the sayings of wise and good men,
and the common usages of the best, and the measures of reason.
But if they be the same in kind and degree, then the rule and mea-
sure of one is the rule and measure of both, though one only be
named in the law. And this is of use not only in the equal in-
stances of unequal relatives, but in all the instances of equals ; as in
friendships, societies, guilds, colleges, exchanges, traffics, and the like.
There must be care taken that according to S. Paul's0 rule there must
not be aveais, ease, remission and advantage to one, and 6Xi\j/ls}
trouble, burden and disadvantage to the other ; but in relations that
are equal, the duty and the expression must be so too ; ever with this
caution, that if the duty be the same between relatives, it cannot
follow that the privileges are the same. The husband and wife are
equally obliged in the duties of love and justice : but they have not
equal powers, neither can the woman put away the man, as the man
can the woman : for though man and woman are pares in conjngio,
tied to an equal love and an equal duty, yet they have not an equal
power nor an equal liberty ; in government and divorces they are not
equal.

§ 7. But upon the account of this rule the Christians have a most
certain demonstration of the unlawfulness of polygamy, or of having
many wives at once. For our blessed Saviour d said, " He that puts
away his wife unless it be for fornication, and marries another, com-
mitteth adultery :" therefore he much more is an adulterer who
marries another when his wife is not put away, and hath not com-

b [Heb. xiii. 17.] c [2 Cor. viii. 13.] " [Matt. v. 32; xix. 9.]

510 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

mitted fornication. But in this and the like cases we are to proceed
by the measures of reason and the common usages of laws.

§ 8. 1) A law drawn from a law must be evidently and apparently
in the bowels of it before such extraction, or else it must not be ob-
truded as the sentence and intendment of the lawgiver. "Obey
them that have the rule over youe," is a plain commandment : but
if you infer therefore in all things that they say, Deny your own
reason, and submit your understanding, this follows not; because
we are commanded to obey them only in such things where they
ought to rule over us, but that it is not in our understandings,
over which God alone is the ruler, and those whom He hath sent
are rational and authorized guides ; they have power to teach and
power to exhort, they are to do any thing that can inform us and
invite us to good, and we must follow them in all ways that lead us
to God, and that they do we are to believe until we have reason to
believe the contrary: but because beyond these measures the law
neither said nor meant any thing, therefore the obligation extends
not so far.

§ 9. 2.) "Whatsoever is not in the letter of the law is then under-
stood to be intended by the law when it is drawn from thence by a prime
and immediate consequence ; in which there is no violence, nor arti-
ficial chains, nor devices of wit and labour. For laws ought to be
but few, and they love not to be multiplied without apparent necessity ;
and he that makes more than Christ intended, lays a snare for his
own foot, and is cosened by his own argument. Christ commanded
us that we should do our alms and prayers in secret : from hence it
follows, that all solemnities of pride, and all the dressings and adorn-
ments of our prayers designed for vanity and publication are criminal ;
and under this prohibition come all acts of proper specification. But
then if I argue from hence further and say, therefore it is not lawful
to appoint public assemblies for prayer ; or if it be yet it is not law-
ful to appear to men to be passionate and devout ; and further yet,
that private prayer is better than public, and therefore that it is to
be preferred before the public, and therefore yet that we may safely
"neglect the assembling of ourselves together f" for prayer; I argue
foolishly, and cannot impose a necessity of obedience upon any. The
law warrants me to go no further but within sight of it : if I go one
step from her words, I am within the call of her voice ; and my obe-
dience can well be exacted where it can be well proved, but never else.
It is in laws as it is in articles of belief, to which we are obliged pri-
marily, and afterwards to every thing that is certainly and immedi-
ately drawn from thence : but if you go beyond one consequence, there
are so many certain but indiscernible fallibilities, so many intrigues &
of fancy in the disputer, and so much unaptness in the hearer, that
it is ten to one they either do not understand one another, or do not
understand the article : and so it is in laws ; so long as we go on in
e [Heb. xiii. 17.] ' [Heb. x. 25.] B [' intriques,' A.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 511

the straight line of its letter and known intention we commit no error,
or can soon be reproved if we do, but if we once double a point, we
presently lose sight of the law ; as appears in the instance now given
iu the precept of ' praying in secret/ against which it is no objection
to say, the consequents were not rightly deduced from the words of
that precept. For I grant it it is true they are not ; but then I say
it is also ten to one but it will be so in any instance that shall be
made fruitful with anfractuous11 and involved consequences : for
that is it that I say, A man's reason is to be suspected when he goes
a great way from this rule ; and we by our logic shall become but
ill lawgivers. Whatsoever can certainly and truly be deduced from
a law does as certainly oblige us as the instance that is named, or
the first specification of it, or the direct consequent, if it could be
made as evident as it is certain ; but because it cannot, therefore it
can oblige but in the degree of its clarity and manifestation ; for that
is to the remote instance the same as publication is to the command-
ment itself. But the precepts or laws of Christ are like the radix
prosapice, ' the grand parent of a family/ from whom the direct de-
scendants are for ever to be reckoned to the kindred in the straight
and proper line ; but when once it goes to the transverse and col-
lateral, they not only have no title to the inheritance, but every
remove is a step to the loosing the cognation and relation to the
chief house.

§ 10. 3) In drawing consequent duties from express laws the first
presumption is for piety and the honour of God, that is, if the obliga-
tion be not evident ; yet if it be evident that such obedience is for the
honour of God, it is more probably to be supposed that that conse-
quent was intended by the law of God, whom it so apparently serves.
But where this or the like material ingredient is not, we are to pre-
sume for our liberty rather than for the multiplication of laws ; be-
cause that is charity and prudence, and both of them are very con-
siderable in the constitution and interpretation of a law. But this is
more full in the next rule.

RULE IV.

WHEN ANY THING TS FORBIDDEN BY THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST, ALL THOSE
THINGS ARE FORBIDDEN ALSO WHICH FOLLOW FROM THAT FORBIDDEN ACTION,
AND FOR WHOSE SAKE IT WAS FORBIDDEN.

§ 1. This rule is of use in all laws, and is expressed to the same
caution both in the code of the civil law, and in the decretals ; and
the reason of it is, because the laws of any lawgiver being the effects

h ['winding, mazy,'— Johnson.]

512 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

of his greatest wisdom are designed to the best end, and are intended
only to operate towards and to effect that end : to this purpose laws
are made to prevent evils, and though the evils are not always named,
yet against them it is that the laws are cautionary and provisionary ;
so that the evil is much more forbidden than that which brings it, or
leads it in, because sometimes the evil instrument may be destitute
of its evil effect, and therefore is in many degrees innocent and harm-
less, but if the evil be introduced it is all that which the laws were
afraid of. And therefore Aristotle1 said right, to 8r) rihos kudo-Tris
7roAtreias ov Sei XavddvetV alpovvrat yap ra irpbs to re'Aos' ' we are
to consider the end of every republic, for they choose all things in
order to their end/ and the laws are made for public defence, secu-
rity, and profit ; so it is in religion and the laws of God. When we
give alms we are commanded not to blow a trumpet, so being warned
against pride ; but if without that instance or signification we be
really proud, or value ourselves upon that account, or despise our
brother as less holy, or oppress the fatherless and widow, though
without that pretence of holiness and the advantages of hypocrisy,
they are greater breakers of the commandments than by their fond
and fantastic proclamations of their charity. Thus we find in S.
Paulj an express prohibition, that we "should not make provision
for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof;" that is, that we do not take
in great stowage of meat and drink, or use of arts of sharpening the
desire, or caressing the fancy to make the pleasures brisk and active,
and the sense quick and pleased : but some there are that make tem-
perance the instrument of pleasure, and the minister of sensuality,
and can be most pleased when they take the least care, and some
mind the pleasures so as they will not tarry for the instruments or
need them not ; in these and the like cases if there were no distinct
prohibition of that evil effect, yet it were sufficiently prohibited in the
prohibition of the instrument. But because most of the evil effects
of evil instruments are expressly and by name forbidden in the New
testament, this rule is of use principally in the aggravation and con-
demnation of sin ; and it means that every judgment and every evil
we suffer which we were foretold of, and which is a foreseen effect of
such an action, is to be imputed to us ; and besides the direct sin we
are also guilty of uncharitableness by doing that which we know will
hurt us. God in the forbidding the sin commands us also to pre-
serve ourselves, and besides the sin is angry at the very death.

§ 2. This rule hath two limitations : 1) It is not to be understood
of events contingent and accidental, but either natural and proper, or
foretold and threatened, or at least usual and noted. He that mali-
ciously sows false doctrine in the church is answerable not only for
the heresy, but for the mischief that he intends, or is willing it should
produce ; but if another man to spite him or to hinder his fame shall
set up a contrary heresy, although this was the spawn of the first

' [Rhet, lib. i. cap. 8. torn. ii. p. 1366.] i [Rom. xiii. 14.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 513

toad, yet because it was an equivocal production it shall be no other-
wise imputed but to reproach him amongst men, to reprove his folly,
and to be an argument of a speedy repentance.

§ 3. But a) AVhatsoever effect is natural to a forbidden action is
directly upon the same account. Thus, whosoever divides the church,
to him are imputed all the evil effects of schism which are its natural
productions. If an imperious foolish woman by a continual inquie-
tude, by her evil nature and a vexatious spirit, so disturb her hus-
band's quiet and the ease of his soul and the comforts of his life that
he also lose his health, she is not only guilty of the violation of the
laws of love and duty and meekness by which she is bound to God
and to her husband, but is guilty of murder, or high injuriousness
and un charitableness according to the degree of the mischief which
she sees impressed and growing upon him.

§ 4. /3) Whatsoever event is foretold and threatened, all that also
is imputed to him that does the forbidden action to which it is
threatened; and he is directly felo de se who by lust brings upon
himself the rottenness of life, far worse than the putrefaction of the
grave, and he is a perfect prodigal of his fortune who by committing
sacrilege invites the worm, and calls a spirit of unthriftiness and con-
sumption to his estate ; and he that grieves the Spirit of God and
causes Him to depart is guilty of that beggary and baseness of spirit
with which such evil usages of the holy Spirit of God are often pun-
ished. For as God forbad some sins not only for their own sakes,
but that others which are their foul issues might be strangled in the
womb, so He forbad all sins and laid direct and collateral restraints
upon them, that man might not be unhappy and extremely miserable.
As therefore he who by one sin introduces another is guilty of both,
so he who brings any evil which God graciously intended should not
fall upon us, to him that evil is to be imputed, and that evil also does
either directly or accidentally according to the nature of the subject
matter increase his guilt.

§ 5. y) If an evil effect be not either natural or threatened, yet if
it happens ordinarily and be noted, it is to be imputed to him who
does that evil and forbidden action which does infer it. The reason
is because he wilfully sins against the purpose of the law who will
not prevent that evil which the law intendeth to prevent, and makes
the law void and illusory, that is, destitute of its effect, and perfectly
in vain as to that intention. Thus it is observed that the father's or
the mother's curse destroys the pleasures of a sin, and the gaiety of a
fortune, and the prosperity of an offending child : he therefore that
shall do a forbidden action which shall bring such a curse upon him-
self is not only justly punished, and is to impute that to himself per-
fectly and alone ; but if upon his account evil descend upon his pos-
terity or relatives, he is guilty of that evil, and is a direct sinner in
their punishment.

§ 6. 2) The other limitation which I am to interpose is this, that

IX. L 1

514 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

the evil effects of an evil action are imputed but in proportion to the
will and actual understanding, beyond the sphere of which whatsoever
does happen, it is collateral and accidental both to the intention and
to the time. A man's action hath a proper life of its own, and it
leaves a permanent effect, or is productive of the same by a con-
tinuing emanation ; this if it be foreseen and considered and chosen,
is as imputable as if it were present or immediate. But because a
man can see but so far, and hath a limited efflux and impression by
all his actions, he is not to be judged or condemned by any thing that
shall happen beyond that proper extension ; and if some Polonians or
Transylvanians, English or Irench, make ill use of the arguments of
Arius, it is not to be supposed that it shall be put upon Arius his
account at the day of judgment, and that his or any man's damnation
shall increase upon such accounts, which as they are beyond the in-
tention of the man, or the efficacy of his action, so also beyond the
distance of his prevision.

§ 7. But for tliis that rule which is nearest to exactness is this,
No effect which happens after a man's death is imputable to him as a
new sin. So far as it was actually intended and designed in his life-
time, or foreseen and not reversed, so far it is imputed upon the
stock of the present malice, not of the future event; his own act
and his own intention for the present, and his actual design of the
future, are sufficient load upon him ; but then because his act and his
actual design could not live after his death, therefore nothing beyond
the life of the man can be a new sin ; because as he cannot actually
or habitually will that event, so neither can he rescind it. If he can-
not will it in any sense, it can in no sense be imputed, but if it could
be willed, then it may also be refused and rescinded; which because
it is impossible, therefore the increase of evil stands not at his door
that occasioned it, and cannot either will it any more or hinder it.
This is that which is meant by our blessed Saviour k, "The night comes
when no man worketh ;" and whatsoever is beyond the line of life
is also beyond the line of malice, and therefore cannot increase or
begin upon a new score when the whole stock is spent.

§ 8. Lastly, that which proves all this does also further explicate
the rule. Whatsoever event depends upon the will of another is so
contingent in respect of him that first set the evil on work, that it is
no longer upon his account than he actually or habitually desires it
or endeavours : because now the evil hath a new cause, and every
emergent event is upon such a cause as cannot be forced, or indeed
produced by any thing besides itself; and therefore to itself only it is
to be imputed, excepting where the malice of the first agent hath an
actual or intended influx into the second.

k [John ix. 4.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 515

EULE V.

THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST AEE THE MEASURES OF THE SPIRIT, AND ARE
ALWAYS TO BE EXTENDED TO A SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICATION.

§ 1. It was a fair character that was given of the Christians1,
TieiOovrai rots wpto-/J.eVots fo'juots, /cat rots toiois /3tois vlkGhti tovs
v6[xovr ' they obey the laws appointed for them, and by the piety /
and charity of their lives excel even the measure of the laws them- !
selves/ For by what instance soever God would be glorified, and by'
what charity soever our brother can be relieved, and by what justice
societies are established and continued, in all that they exercise them-
selves according to their whole power, and would do more if they
could, and sometimes do more than they are required : and often-
times with better circumstances than are exacted, and always with a
mind more ready than their hand.

§ 2. Human laws can exact but the outward action, they neither '
can command the understanding nor judge the will, because they
cannot secure that nor discern this; and without these two their
interest is well enough preserved. He that pays my money though
it be against his will does me justice and is quit before the king, and
if he dissembles, yet if he gives me good words I cannot implead
him of calumny or slander. Thus the pharisees understood the law
of Moses m, and called him innocent whom the laws could not charge ;
but therefore Christ calls them to new accounts. He that offers a
pure lamb to God may dishonour Him with a foul thought ; and no
sacrifice is pure by the skin and colour, but by the heart and hand
of him that presents it. Acts of external religion are publications of
the divine honours, but the heart does only pay them : for there it
is that God does sit judge alone, and though He hath given us bodies
to converse below with a material world, yet God's temple is in
heaven, in the intellectual world; and the spirit of a man is the
sacrifice, and his purest thoughts are oblations, and holy purposes
are the best presents, and the crucifixion of our passions is the best
immolation, the only beasts of sacrifice, and the cross of Christ is the
altar, and His passion is the salt of all our sacrifices, and His inter-
cession makes the sweet perfume ; and so atonement is made by the
blood of the Lamb, and we are accepted in our services, and our wills
are crowned with the rewards of a holy obedience. If our hearts be
right our services will never be wanting or rejected, and although
our hearts can supply the want of external power, yet it is certain
that nothing can supply the want of our hearts, and of good affec-
tions ; these must be entire, for they are God's peculiar portion, and

1 Per scriptor. ad Diognetum. [Just. Mart., p. 236 R.]
m [Matt. vi. and xxiii.]

l1 %

516 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

therefore must not be divided. Plutarch" tells of Apollodorus that
he dreamed he was taken by the Scythians, flayed alive and then cut
in pieces and thrown in a boiling caldron, where his heart leapt
forth into the midst of all the little portions of flesh, and told them,
' I am the cause of all this evil/ It was something like that saying
of S. Bernard0, Nihil ardet in inferno nisi propria voluntas, 'no-
thing burns in the eternal flames of hell but a man's heart, nothing
but his will / for " from the heart proceed evil thoughts, adulteries,"
&c, said our blessed Saviourp : but therefore God requires the
heart, that is, that the principle of actions be secured, and the prin-
cipalis domus, the chief house where God loves to dwell and reign
be kept without thieves and murderers. This then is the first sense
of the rule, that our obedience which Christ exacts is a sincere obedi-
ence of the will, and is not satisfied with the outward work. He that
gives alms to the poor, and curses them in his heart ; he that enter-
tains an apostle in the name of an apostle, and grudges the expenses
of his diet, is neither charitable nor hospitable, and shall neither have
the reward of an apostle nor a brother. In vain it is to wash a goblet
if you mean to put into it nothing but the dead lees and vapp of
wine ; and a fair tomb of amber was too beauteous and rich an en-
closure for Martial's i viper and his fly,

Introrsus turpem, speciosum pelle decora r.

But this is a caution against hypocrisy in the moral sense of the
words, but the legal sense of the rule is, that in all laws, the first in-
tention is that God be served with the will and the affections, and
that these be never separated from the outward work.

§ 3. But it is also meant that the whole design of the laws of
Jesus Christ is to be perfective of the spirit, and His religion is a
spiritual service ; that is, permanent and unalterable, virtuous and
useful, natural and holy, not relative to time and place, or any mate-
rial circumstances, nor integrated by corporal services : the effect of
which is this ;

§ 4. 1) The body of the christian services does wholly consist of
natural religion, that is, such services whereby we can glorify God
and represent our own needs ; that is, prayers and eucharists, acts of
love and fear, faith and hope, love of God and love of our neighbour,
which are all those things by which we can be like God, by which we
can do good and by which we can receive any : and excepting the
sacraments, whose effect is spiritual, aud the sense mysterious, and the
rites easy, and the number the smallest of all, there is in the digest of
the christian law no commandment of any external rite or ceremony.

§5.2) As it intends wholly an exclusion of the mosaic ceremo-
nies, so it will not admit a body of new and superinduced ceremonies;

n De iis qui tarde a num'ine puniuntur. p [Matt. xii. 34 ; xv. 19.]

[torn. viii. p. 196.] q [lib. iv. epigr. 59, 32, et vi. 15.]

0 [vid. S. Bernard, de resurrect. Dom., r [Hor. epist. i. 16. 45.]
serin, iii. col. 173; cf. vol. v. p. 598.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 517

for they are or may be as much against the analogy of the spiritual
law of Christ, as the other. The ceremonies of the christian services
must be no part of the religion, but either must be the circumstances
of the religion, or the imperate acts of some virtue. The Christian
must be in a place when he prays, and that place may be determined,
and thither he must go, and yet he may go any whither else; his
action is finite and must be done in time, and that time may be ap-
pointed him, and then he must do it at that time, and yet he may do
it at any time else. If he be commanded by his superiors to pray
kneeling, he must kneel at the appointment of the law ; and yet he
may in his own devotions at another time fall upon his face or pray
standing. But the christian and the mosaic ceremonies thus differ :

a) The mosaic rites were appointed by God, the christian only by
men.

/3) Consequently they are necessary parts of the religion, these
are not.

y) The mosaic ceremonies did oblige every where, the christian
only in public.

6) They were integral parts of the religion, these are but circum-
stances and investitures of the religious actions.

e) These are to be done with liberty, but the Jews were in bond-
age under theirs.

C) Ours are alterable, theirs lasting as their religion.

rj) Theirs were many and burdensome, ours ought to be few ; of
the number of which our superiors are to judge by charity, and the
nature and common notices of things, and the analogy of the liberty
and laws of Christianity. But although there are no publicly de-
scribed measures beforehand by which princes or prelates shall ap-
point the number of their ceremonies, yet there is in reason and
common voices sufficient to reprove the folly of him who because he
would have his body decently vested shall wear five and twenty
cloaks : stola et tunica, something for warmth and something for
ornament does well ; but she that wears so many adornments on her
head and girdle that it is the work of half a day to dress her, is a
servant of the tiar of her own head, and thinks neither her soul nor
her body, but her clothes, to be the principal. By this I intend to
reprove the infinite number of ceremonies in the Roman church;
they are described in a great book in folio,

Quern mea non totum bibliotheca capit8:

' my purse will not reach to buy it ;' but it is too like the impertinency
of the busily idle women I now mentioned : and although by such
means religion is made pompous and apt to allure them that admire
gay nothings and fine prettinesses, yet then it also spends their reli-
gious passions and wonder in that which effects nothing upon the
soul. It is certain that actions of religion must be fitted with all

' [Mart., lib. xiv. epigr. 190.]

518 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

those things which minister to decent and grave and orderly and
solemn actions ; but they must be no more but a just investiture of
the religious action ; and every thing can distract us in our prayers,
and all the arts of watchfulness and caution are too little to fix our
intentions in them, and therefore whatsoever can become a proper
entertainment of the mind, can also be a diversion of the devotion
and a hindrance to the prayer. The sum is this, Ceremonies may
be the accidents of worship but nothing of the substance : this they
were among the Jews, that they may be amongst the Christians;
time and place for the action, habit and posture for the men, that's
all that religion needs ; whatsoever else is grave and decent, and
whatsoever else is orderly is not to be rejected ; but if it be not
these, it is not to be imposed, and when they become numerous
or grievous they are to be removed by the same lawful hand that
brought them in.

§ 6. 3) In the christian law all purities and impurities are spiri-
tual, and the soul contracts no religious charge without her own act.
He that touches a dead body, though he does not wash, may lift up
pure hands in prayer ; but if his soul be unclean, no water, no cere-
mony will wash him pure without repentance :

Ah nimium facilcs, qui tristia crimina credis
Fluminea tolli posse putetis aqua'.

It had been well if in all ages this had been considered, and particu-
larly in the matter of marriage : for when single life was preferred
before the married for the accidental advantages to piety (especially
in times of persecution) which might be enjoyed there rather than
here, some from thence extended their declamation further, and
drawing in all the auxiliaries from the old law, began to prefer
single life before marriage, as being a state of greater purity, and
then by little they went on thinking marriage to be less pure, till at
last they believed it to be a state of carnality; and with the per-
suasions of men effected by such discourses were also mingled the
discourses of heretics, who directly condemned marriage ; and that
which descended from this mixture of doctrines, some false and the
others not true, was a less honourable opinion of that holy institu-
tion on which God founded the first blessing of mankind, and which
Christ hath consecrated into a mystery, and the holy Spirit hath
sanctified by the word of God and prayer, and which is the seminary
of the church, and that nursery from whence the kingdom of heaven
is peopled". But if marriage be lawful, then he that lives in that
state as he should, contracts no impurities, but is capable of any holy
ministry, and receptive of any sacrament, and fit for any employment,
and capable of any office, and worthy of any dignity. Let them
who have reason and experience to verify their affirmative speak all

« [Ovid, fast, lib. ii. 45.]

u [Compare the sermon ' on the marriage ring,' vol. iv. p. 211.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 519

the great things of single life that can be said of it; and they may say
much, for the advantages are many which are in a single life, and in
a private state, and an unactive condition, and a small fortune, and
retirement; but then although every one of these hath some, yet
a public state, and an active life, and a full fortune, and public
offices, and a married life, have also advantages of their own, and
blessings and virtues appropriate ; and in all God may be equally
served, according as the men are, and the advantages neglected or
improved. But that which I insist upon is, that to be rich is no
sin, and to be a public person is no crime, and to be married is no
impurity ; and therefore to suspect a disproportion between this state
and spiritual actions or offices, is a jealousy whose parent is heresy,
and pride and interest are its nurses. Fornication is uncleanness,
and concubinate and voluntary pollutions and unnatural lusts are un-
cleanness, and makes us unworthy to approach either to the altar
or to the rails, but marriage that fills heaven makes no man unfit
for churches or holy offices.

§ 7. Upon this account I am also to take away those scruples
which have been thrown into men's consciences by some indiscreet
persons, concerning involuntary pollutions; concerning which we
find many absurd stories of friars, and of pretended temptations and
spites of the devil to hinder them from receiving the holy sacra-
ment, by procuring such accidents to them before the solemnity :
which persuasion was wholly upon this account, that the spirit could
be polluted by something that is without, and that the accidents of
the body could defile the soul, and this and the like were the acci-
dents that could do it. In which cases it is without all peradventure
true, that if the soul consented not before or after, neither nature
nor nature's enemy are to be taken into the accounts of just dis-
positions or indispositions to spiritual ministries : if we serve God
with our whole mind and with all our heart, and do what we can
that is good, and avoid all evil that we can avoid, we cannot be
prejudiced by what we cannot avoid.

§ 8. 4) Although the spirituality of the gospel excludes all sha-
dows of ceremonies and all bodily rites from being of the substance
of religion, yet this spirituality does not exclude the ministry and ser-
vice of the body : for the worship of the body may also be spiritual ;
to worship God with our bodies is Aoyi/o) Aarpeia v, a ' reasonable/
and therefore a ' spiritual worship/ Thus when the eyes are lift up
in prayer, when the bowels yearn with pity, when the hands are ex-
tended to fill the poor man's basket, the body serves the spirit, and
the spirit serves God, and all is a spiritual religion. But because
a bodily religion such as was that of the Jews cannot be a spiritual
religion such as must be that of the Christians, and yet the service
of the body is also a part of the ministry of the spirit; the rule

[Rom. xii. 1.]

520 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

which can determine our conscience in the instances of this article
is this :

WHATSOEVER IS AN ELICIT OR IMPERATE ACT OF VIRTUE, WHETHER IT
BE ACTED BY THE SOUL OR BY THE BODY, IS AN ACT OF SPIRITUAL
RELIGION.

For in virtues there is a body and a soul, and all transient actions, or
ad extra, have something of materiality in them which must be mi-
nistered to by the body. For therefore our blessed Lord hath com-
manded mortification of our bodies, that our bodies may become spi-
ritual; and as acts of understanding are ministered to by material
phantasms, so are the most spiritual acts of virtue, the love and the
fear of God, by sad spectacles and gracious accidents, by feeling good
and suffering evil ; and as the actions of discerning sensitive objects
are direct products of the soul, but yet have for every one of the
faculties a proper organ in the body, so have the virtues of a Chris-
tian ; they are acts and habits of a sanctified soul, but to some the
hand does co-operate, to some the eyes, and to some all the body,
that as the graces of the soul are commencements and dispositions
to glory, so these spiritual ministries of the body may nourish it
and dispose the body to its perfect spirituality in the resurrection of
the just.

§ 8. But then these ministries of the body are then only to be
adjudged a spiritual service, when the soul and the body make but
one entire agent ; just as when the soul sees by the eye, we say the
eye sees, because that seeing is the action or passion of the soul,
which uses that organ in her operation : so when the act of the body
and soul is but one and the same product of religion, it is the soul
and the spirit which is the principal agent, and from thence the ac-
tion must be denominated to be spiritual. But as when the eye is
made to twinkle and look spritefully, or amorously, or is proposed as
a piece of beauty and does something of its own, but no natural and
proper ministry of the soul, it is the instrument of vice or vanity and
not of the soul ; so it is in the services of the body : if the body of
our services be not the product of the soul, and the imperate act of
some virtue, or the proper specific act of some grace, it can never be
a part of the religion. S. Paulw hath given us perfect measures in
this enquiry ; ' to give our body to be burned, to give all our goods
to the poor, to have all faith/ are but the bodies and outsides or
material parts of our religion, and are good for nothing : but when
all these proceed from charity, that is, from a willing, a loving
spirit, from a heart that is right to God, that is desirous to please
Him, then faith justifies, and giving gifts to the poor is true alms,
and giving our bodies to the fire is a holy martyrdom : and in this
sense dressing bodies to their burial is an act of spiritual grace, to

w [1 Cor. xiii. 3.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 521

adorn places of prayer, to build them and fit them for the service of
God, is an act of spiritual religion, to minister to the poor, to dress
children, to make them clean, to teach them their catechisms, though
bodily ministries, are yet actions of the spiritual religion of a Chris-
tian. But from this those things only are excluded which either are
not the direct productions of a sanctified soul, or proper and pru-
dent ministries to some virtue.

§ 9. 5) The spirituality of the laws of Jesus Christ have yet one
effect more. In all contrasts or interfering of laws, or senses of the
lows, the spiritual sense is to be preferred, the spiritual action is to be
chosen. By which it is not meant that ever there can be a dispute
between the act of the mind and an act of the body j because as no
man and no thing can hinder the soul from willing or understand-
ing, from loving or hating, from fearing or slighting, from valuing
or neglecting its proper object, so the act of the body which is to
minister to the soul cannot stand in contradiction to that to which
in the very nature of the thing it is subordinate. But the meaning is,
when laws are to be expounded, that sense is to be chosen which
more relates to an act of grace than that which is nothing but an
external ministry : thus, if the question be between the beautifying
of a chapel or the rescuing of the poor from famine, although that
might be an act of spiritual religion, when religion requires that spe-
cification of an act; yet because that hath less of the spirit in it than
the other, and is not required in the presence of the other, this is to
be adjudged the more spiritual, because it is the more holy. If the
question be between keeping of a holy day, or doing charitable re-
liefs to necessitous people, Christ in the instance of the sabbath hath
taught us to prefer charity before external ministries, obedience be-
fore sacrifice, mercy before oblations ; and did not only make way
for the taking off all mere bodily rites, but also for the expounding
His own laws to the more spiritual sense, that is, to the compliance
with the most excellent and useful grace. So also for the exposition
of laws expressed by material significations, as cutting off the hand,
plucking out the right eye, eating the flesh of Christ, drinking His
blood, the flesh, that is, carnal commentaries profit nothing; but
these words are spirit and life ; that is, they are neither to be under-
stood nor practised in the material but spiritual sense.

§ 10. But as to the general conduct of the conscience in all these
enquiries, the rule is this : all acts of virtue are to be preferred be-
fore the instruments of it, and that which exercises it before that
which signifies it, and the inward acts before the outward. Thus
when fasting is appointed in order to prayer, and yet both cannot
be together, (for that by fasting we are disabled to pray) there it
is, that prayer must be preferred and fasting let alone. If corporal
austerities be undertaken for mortification of a rebellious body, if
they hinder the body in the direct ministries to the soul in other
cases, and become uncharitable, charity is to take place, and the

522 OP THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

austerities may be supplied by something else. Now this rule hath
in it no exception nor variety but this, that it is to be understood in
instances of corporal and spiritual acts that are of a disparate nature,
and but only accidentally subordinate, as fasting to prayer, keeping
holy days for the special ministries of religion, lyings upon the
ground to chastity, and the like : but in the actions external, which
are proper exercises of a virtue, the external which is directly, natu-
rally, or by institution subordinate to the internal, must never be
omitted upon pretence of preferring the internal ; because they never
can contradict one another, as it never can be disputed whether the
soul or the eye shall see : for the soul sees by the eye and cannot
see without it ; and it may so happen in the external acts of virtue
ministering to the internal, as in some cases a man is not charitable,
unless he extends his hand to the poor, or lifts him out of a ditch,
or guide him in the way. This instance and sense of the rule we
learn from S. Jamesx : "if a brother or a sister be naked and desti-
tute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, be ye warmed and
filled, notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are
needful to the body, what doth it profit V That is, it is in vain to
pretend internal charity without the external ; in many cases it
cannot be without it, and when it can, it is because there is no ob-
ject for the act, or no possibility to do it ; and then the internal is
to be done not by way of preference to the external, but in destitu-
tion of it and supply. But this will be yet further explicated in
the following rule.

EULE VI.

THE IMPERATE ACTS OR OUTWARD EXPRESSIONS OF THE VIRTUE OF ONE COM-
MANDMENT MUST NOT CONTRADICT THE ELICIT ACTS OF ANOTHER.

§ 1. By imperate acts I mean such which are commanded to be
done by the interest of any virtue whatsoever, not proper to the vir-
tue, but such as may minister to it or signify it. Thus to deny the
impure solicitations of an unchaste person is a proper, an elicit act of
the virtue of chastity ; but to lie upon the ground, to wear an hairen
shirt, to use disciplines, to roll our naked body upon thorns, to sleep
in snows, are imperate acts ; that is, such which the virtue may choose
and exercise for its own advantage and interest, but such which are
not necessary to any man in particular, nor to most men in the gene-
ral ; useful indeed in some cases but not necessary in any. To eat
and drink sparingly and so as may minister to health and religion is

x [.Tames ii. 15.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 523

directly, that is, a proper and elicit act of temperance ; but if a man
spares to eat that he may have wherewithal to pay his debts, it is an
imperate act of justice ; if to make himself healthful and strong to
war, it is an act of fortitude. The terms being so explicated, the
measures of the rule are these following particulars.

§ 2. 1) The elicit acts of several virtues can never be contrary to
each other ; as an act of religion is never against an act of charity,
chastity is never against justice, temperance is never against piety.
The effect of which proposition is this, that one ought not to be pre-
tended against another, and no piety to parents can engage us to be
drunk for their sakes, no pretence of religion can make it lawful to
neglect the care of our children ; and to this purpose was that ex-
cellent precept of the son of Sirachv, ' Let not the reverence of any
man cause thee to sin •' it i3 no good manners to comply with our
superiors against our supreme, and there is a time and a place for
every virtue, but no time nor place, no cause or opportunity of doing
against any. It may so happen that the external actions of several
virtues cannot consist, as sometimes I cannot pay the gabel to the
prince and the offering to the priest ; I cannot feed my child and
the poor that begs ; I cannot at some times tell truth and yet pre-
serve the life of my brother. Now when the two external elicit acts
of virtue are inconsistent, the one must of necessity give place ; the
rules of which are to be given more properly in another place z : but
that which for the present I am to say, is this, that although the
outward act cannot at all times be exercised and so must in certain
cases be omitted, yet in no case can it be lawful for the interest of
one virtue to do against another.

§3.2) The imperate acts of one virtue may contradict the imperate
or instrumental and ministering acts of another; as fasting when it
is commanded by religion may be against the advice of our physician,
whom to observe it is sometimes a precept of prudence, sometimes of
charity. Religion commands us sometimes to feast, and at the same
time our charity bids us save our expense, that the poor may be fed
the more plentifully. The reason of this is because all the imperate
acts of virtue are external and must depend upon something from
without : which because it can unavoidably be hindered, it must needs
also be that it may inculpably be omitted. But then the rule is
this, because all imperate acts of virtue are nothing in themselves
but wholly in relation to the virtue, that imperate act which minis-
ters to that virtue which is then to be preferred, must also be pre-
ferred. The reason is plain : the accessory must follow the nature
of the principal ; and therefore if we must now prefer the virtue, we
must also prefer the instrument. The case is this : Don Antonio
Licente of Portugal, according to the Portuguese and Spanish vanity,
loved to see his wife painted, and one evening commanded her to
appear with him so disguised at a masque ; she having notice that a

1 [Ecclus. iv. 22.] ' Lib. iii.

524 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

young gentleman who was passionately in love with her would be
there, and knowing that it would enflame his passion if she were so
adorned, enquires of her confessor by what means she should restrain
the folly of that inamorato, and receives this amongst other advices,
that at no hand she should appear before him with any artificial
handsomeness. If she obeys her husband's humour at that meeting,
she does hurt to a soul, and gives fuel to an impure flame which
already is too big : if she does not obey him in that instance, her
husband will lose the pleasure of his fancy. But because she finds
there is no other evil will be consequent to her omission, but that
her husband shall want a little fantastic pleasure; and the con-
sequent of her obeying him would be (for aught she knew) that God
might lose a soul : she chose to do an act ministering to spiritual
charity and the chastity of her brother, rather than an act that could
be instrumental to nothing but the airy pleasure of her husband;
though otherwise she had been bound to signify her obedience to
him by any thing that had been lawful.

§ 4. But in this there is some variety, and ought to be some cau-
tion. For although the principal virtue is to be preferred not onlv
in itself or in its proper and elicit acts, but also in its imperate and
instrumental ; yet this is to be understood to be true, when the in-
struments are in equal order to their respective virtues, or when there
is no considerable difference. For if the action in question minis-
tering to the less principal virtue do very much promote it, and the
other which is instrumental to the more principal do it but an incon-
siderable advantage, the ministry of the less principal is in that case
to be preferred : the reason is, because by this omission of an incon-
siderable instrument the present duty is not hindered ; but the ser-
vice of God is advantaged in the other, because it is able to effect
something that is considerable toward the service of God, which the
other is not. The case is this : I knew a brave man who by a con-
spiracy of evil persons was condemned to die ; he having of a long
time used to fast till the morning office was completed, because he
found fasting to be practised by antiquity, and by holy persons in
their more sotemn offices, and thinking it might or did him some
advantage in order to the bettering of his prayer, did think to do so
in the morning before his execution. But then on the other side he
considered that if he fasted he should suffer a great diminution of
spirits, and possibly might be suspected of pusillanimity if he did
suffer a natural lipothymy, and therefore could not tell what he
should do. He was sure that to acquit himself before God in his
duty was much to be preferred before the other of appearing brave
and hardy before men, and therefore that his private prayers were
more to be regarded than his public confidence, and therefore was
choosing to fast : but then he reflected on the actions instrumental
again, and considered that his abstinence from a little meat would
bring but a very little and inconsiderable advantage to his prayers,

CHAP. HI. J OF THE LAWS OF JUSUS CHRIST. 025

but his eating would very much strengthen his heart, and do him a
very considerable advantage that way, he chose this, because the
other could easily be supplied by the intenseness of his spirit, his
zeal, and his present necessity, but this could not but by natural
supplies and supportations of the strengths of the body.

§ 5. But in the like cases prudence and the conduct of a good
o-uide is the best security to him that enquires with an honest heart
and pure intention; and then the determination is best, and the
conscience is safest when both can be reconciled : but when they
cannot, the former measures are to be observed.

§ 6. 3) Those actions which can only signify or serve the interest
of virtue by way of collateral advantage and indirect ministry, must
ever give place when they hinder the proper acts of any virtue what-
soever. Pasting must never be used when to fast is against charity ;
because charity is directly commanded, but fasting is relative to
something else, and is not commanded for itself. Now in those
things which are of a disparate nature, a principal is ever to be pre-
ferred before an instrument, and an act of duty before an act of pru-
dence, and necessity before convenience.

§ 7. 4) But in things subordinate, that is, when the outward act
is an elicit act of virtue, and truly subordinate to the internal, there
can be no contradiction of one to the other, but the outward act and
the inward must be both performed ; that is, neither of them must
be pretended in objection to the other, for they cannot hinder each
other; but the outward can be hindered only by something from
without, but the inward by nothing. So that in order to conscience,
the rule is this ; he that does an inward and elicit act of virtue, will
certainly if it be in his power, do the outward elicit act : that is, the
hand will move at the command of the will, and the foot will go if
it be commanded, and if the soul be charitable the hand will be apt
to minister. For it is not well within, unless it be well without,
that is, unless the virtue express itself in outward action where it can.
And on the other side, an outward elicit act of virtue can never go
alone, unless it be the product of a good heart and of an inward
elicit act ; it is the imperate act of pride, or ambition, or a vicious
fear, or covetousness, or something criminal, but neither the imperate
nor the elicit act of any virtue whatsoever.

§ 8. 5) Though the words of art here used be not common, yet
the practice of these rules in the questions of conscience will not be
difficult if we shall but with some diligence observe but the differ-
ence of external actions, and be able to discern what outward actions
are the elicit or proper, and which are the imperate and instrumental
acts of virtue; because these being to give place to other acts by
the events and constitution of their own nature, and the other never
but when they are hindered from without, our duty will be easy when
we once understand of what nature the outward action is. The rule
therefore for the direction of our conscience in this affair is this;

526 OE THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

Those actions which either are commanded by name and in particu-
lar, or by direct and proper consequence from the general, they are
the elicit and proper actions of a virtue. Thus to give alms is a
proper and elicit act of charity ; to condemn the criminal is a proper
act of justice ; to speak well of all men behind their backs, so far as
we can with truth, is an elicit act of equity. But whatever is of that
nature that it can be done innocently and yet not be an act of virtue
properly, that only is instrumental to a virtue, and is an imperate
action. Thus to invite rich men to a feast may be done prudently
and without scruple, but he that does so and no more shall have no
reward in heaven for it : but yet to invite rich men to a banquet may
minister to friendships or peace, or it may obtain relief to a poor
oppressed brother, and then it may be a good instrument of that
virtue to which by accident or the personal intention of the man (not
the natural order or intention of the thing) it does minister.

By the serious observation of this difference of acts we may be
guided in many cases of conscience, aud in the interpretation of some
of the laws of our religion.

KULE VII.

WHEN ANY THING IS FORBIDDEN BY THE LAWS OF CHRIST, ALL THOSE THINGS
ALSO BY WHICH WE COME TO THAT SIN ARE UNDERSTOOD TO BE FORBIDDEN
BY THE SAME LAW.

§ 1. In this there is one great difference between positive and
negative laws : when any thing is commanded or enjoined, to take
or use any instrument to it is left to our choice, and is matter of
prudence and not duty. As when we are commanded to mortify the
lusts of the body, we are not commanded to lie upon the ground, or
to masticate rhubarb, or to go barefoot, or to put on S. Francis his
girdle upon the bare body : as we find these actions aptly instru-
mental to the duty, and fitted to the person, so we may use them ;
but if the fear of hell or the hopes of heaven can mortify us suffici-
ently to all the purposes of the Spirit, or if he who is married be not
tempted, or he who is unmarried be by nature abstinent, or by dis-
ease and imperfection, these instruments are out of use as to these
purposes. For here nothing is under command but the duty itself ;
and if by any good instrument it be done, it is all one as to the law.
But in negative precepts the case is otherwise ; for the crime is
not only to be abstained from, but every instrument of it, every path
that leads to it, whatsoever can begin or promote it : and the reason

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 527

is, because all these things are of the same nature with the sin, and
therefore although every thing that is or may be good is not com-
manded, yet every evil is forbidden. One fly can spoil a pot of oint-
ment : but this we are plainly taught by our blessed Saviour's ser-
mon in the mount, where He expounded the precepts of the ancients
not only to signify the outward act, but the inward desire : and in
this our blessed Master's law is much more perfect than the digest of
Moses; for although there also God forbad concupiscence, yet it was
only instanced in the matter of covetousness, and was not extended
to the other instances of duty ; but in Christ's law, Non concupisces
is the apex juris, it is the conservatory and the last duty of every
commandment.

Nam scelus intra se taciturn qui cogitat ullum
Facti crimen habet8.

He that thinks a lustful thought hath broken a commandment; and
if the eye be full of adultery, or the mouth be impure, or the hand
be unclean, the whole man is polluted before God, and stands guilty
of the breach of the main law. Exercetur atque aperilur opere ne-
qnitla, non incipit. The deed tells the heart, and opens the shop of
crimes, but they begin in the heart, and end in the outward work.

§ 2. a) But in this there is no difficulty; for God being Lord of
all our faculties, and the searcher of hearts, and the judge of our
thoughts, He must be served by all, and He searches that He may
judge all, and judges that He may punish or reward all. But the
rule is only thus to be limited, that in those sins whose being criminal
is wholly relative to persons with whom we converse, every thought
is not a sin unless that thought also be relative : as he sins not that
thinks a lie, if he resolves not to abuse any body with it ; and a man
may love to please himself with false news, and put on a fantastic
confidence and persuasion of the truth of what he would fain have
to be true, though to his reason it seem improbable. In this there
is some folly, but no malice : but to lie is a relative action, and if he
have but a thought or purpose to abuse the credulity of any one,
then that thought or purpose is a lie ; that is, it is of the same nature
with a lie, and therefore of the same condemnation. The case is the
same in all things which are forbidden only because they are un-
charitable, or unjust to my brother, but are permitted when they are
otherwise.

§ 3. fi) But the intention of the rule is more, for it means that
all the addresses and preparations to criminal and forbidden actions
are also forbidden. Thus because Christ gave a law against fornica-
tion, He hath also forbidden us to tempt any one to it by words, or
by wanton gestures, or lascivious dressings, and she fornicates that
paints her face with idle purposes.

* [Juv. sat xiii. 209.]

528 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

§ 4. y) It is also meant concerning temptations to a forbidden
instance, for they also are forbidden in the prohibition of the crime :
which is to be understood with these cautions :

§ 5. 1) If the temptation be in a natural and direct order to the
sin, it is forbidden where the sin is. Thus because lusts of the flesh
are prohibited, it is also our duty that we do not make provision for
the flesh to fulfil the lusts of it. Eating high and drinking deep are
actions of uncleanness, as well as of intemperance : and in the same
proportion also is every thing that ministers directly to the lusts of
the lower belly though in a less degree, as lying soft, studying the
palate, arts of pleasure and provocation, enticing gestures ; with this
caution,

§ 6. 2) If the effect be observed in these less and lower instances
then they are directly criminal ; for whatsoever did bring a sin and
is still entertained knowingly and choosingly, is (at least by interpre-
tation) chosen for the sin's sake : but at first and before the observa-
tion it may enter upon another account, which if it be criminal, to
that these instances are to be reckoned, and not to that sin to which
they minister unknowingly.

§7.3) Every temptation is then certainly to be reckoned as a sin
when it is procured by our own act, whether the temptation ministers
to the sin directly or accidentally j for if we chose it, it can have no
excuse : tide quod intristl till comedendum, estb : and unless the man
be surprised, his choosing of an instrument to sin withal is not for the
sake of the instrument, but for its relation ; and this is true, although
the usual effect does not follow the instrument. For there is some-
times a fantastic pleasure in the remembrances of sin, in the ap-
proaches of it, in our addresses to it : and there are some men who
dare not act the foul crime, who yet love to look upon its fair face ;
and they drive out sin as Abraham did Ismael, with an unwilling-
willingness (God knows), and therefore give it bread and water
abroad though no entertainment at home, and they look after it,, and
are pleased with the stories of it, and love to see the place of its

acting.

Hie locus, haec eadem sub qua requiescimus arbor
Scit quibus ingemui curis, quibus ignibus arsi.

And they roll it in their minds : now they that go but thus far, and
love to tempt themselves by walking upon the brink of the river, and
delight themselves in viewing the instrument of their sin, though
they use it no further, they have given demonstration of their love
of sin when they make so much of its proxy.

§ 8. But there are others who have great experience of the vanity
of all sin, and the emptiness and dissatisfaction that is in its fruition ;

b [Tute hoc intristi, tibi omne est exedendum :— Terent. Phorm., act. ii. sc. 2. 4.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 5£i)

and know as soon as ever they have enjoyed it, it is gone, and that
there is more pleasure in the expectation than in the possession : and
therefore they had rather go towards it than arrive thither, and love
the temptation hetter than the sin. These men sin with an excellent
philosophy and wittiness of sinning ; they love to woo always and
not to enjoy, ever to be hungry and sitting down to dinner, but are
afraid to have their desires filled ; but if we consider what the secret
of it is, and that there is in these men an immense love to sin, and a
perfect adhesion to the pleasure of it, and that they refuse to enter
lest they should quickly pass through, and they are unwilling to taste
it lest they should eat no more, and would not enjoy because they
will not be weary of it, and will deny any thing to themselves, even,
that which they most love, lest for a while they should loathe their
beloved sin ; we shall see reason enough to affirm these men to be
the greatest breakers of the laws of Jesus Christ ; though they only
tempt themselves, and handle the instruments of sin, and although
these instruments serve nothing but the temptation, and the tempta-
tion does not serve the sin, whither in its own nature it is designed.
§ 9. 4) If the temptation be involuntary, then it is not imputed :
and yet this is to be understood with this provision, that it be
neither chosen directly nor by interpretation ; that is, that it be not
entered into by carelessness, or confidence, or choice. If it be by
choice, then it is directly against that law of Christ which forbids
that sin whither the temptation leads ; but if it enter by carelessness
or confidence, it belongs not to this rule, for although every such
temptation is against the laws of Christ, yet they are not under the
same law by which the effect is prohibited, but unlawful because
they are against christian prudence and christian charity.

ETJLE VIII.

THE SUPPOSITIVE PROPOSITIONS WITH THE SUPERVENING ABVICES OF OUR
BLESSED SAVIOUR ARE ALWAYS EQUIVALENT TO MATTER OF DUTY, AND ARE
BY INTERPRETATION A COMMANDMENT.

§ 1. This rule is intended as an explication of the precepts of prayer,
alms, and fasting : all which our blessed Saviour in His sermon upon
the mount expressed by way of supposition ; which way of expression
although it be not a positive and legal expression of a commandment,
yet it either supposes a preceding law or a confirmed practice, or at
least that those to whom such words are directed are willing and
loving and obedient people, understanding the intimations and secret
significations of the divine pleasure. 'When ye give alms do not blow

ix. m m

530 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

a trumpet/ said our blessed Saviour : ' when ye pray stand not in the
corners of the streets : when you fast do not disfigure your faces/
Now concerning prayer and alms there is no difficulty, because our
blessed Lord and His apostles have often repeated the will of God in
express commandments concerning them ; but because of fasting He
hath said much less, and nothing at all but these suppositive words,
and a prophecy that His disciples should fast in the days of the
bridegroom's absence, and a declaration of the blessed effects of fast-
ing ; this hath a proper enquiry and a special difficulty, whether or
no these words have the force of a commandment.

§ 2. Concerning which we may take an estimate by those other
expressions of our lawgiver concerning alms, which we without fur-
ther scrutiny know to be commandments, because in other places
they are positively expressed; and therefore if we can find it so con-
cerning fasting, this enquiry will be at an end. Now concerning
this I will not only observe that the three great heads and repre-
sentatives of the law, the prophets, and the gospel, Christ, Moses, and
Elias, who were concentred and inwrapped in one glory upon mount
Tabor, were an equal example of fasting, which in their own persons
by a miracle was consigned to be an example and an exhortation to
fasting to all ages of religion ; and each of them fasting forty days
upon great occasions told to them who have ears to hear what their
duty is in all the great accidents of their life : but that which is very
material to the present enquiry is, that this supposition of our blessed
Lord, " when ye fast," was spoken to a people who made it a great part
of their religion to fast, who placed some portions of holiness in it,
who had received the influence of their greatest, their best, their
most imitable examples for religious fasting ; and the impression of
many commandments not only relative to themselves as bound by
such a law, but as being under the conduct of religion in general.
Such was the precept of the prophet Joelc, "Thus saith the Lord,
turn ye even to Me, with all your heart, with fasting and with weep-
ing and with mourning." Now whatever the prophets said that re-
lated to religion abstractedly, or morality, all that is evangelical (as
I proved formerly in this bookd.) Besides there was an universal
solemn practice of this exercise, under Joshua at Ai, under the
judges at Gibeah, under Samuel at Mizpah, under David at He-
bron ; fasts frequently proclaimed, frequently instituted ; at the preach-
ing of Jeremy and Daniel, of Joel and Zechary ; before the captivity,
under it, and after it ; in the days of sorrow and in the days of danger,
in their religion solemn and unsolemn, after they had sinned and
when they were punished; at Jerusalem among the Jews, and at
Nineveh amongst the gentiles. Now because it is certain that all
this could not be confined to the special religion of the Jews, but
was an expression and apt signification and instrument of a natural
religion, our blessed Saviour needed not renew this and efform it

■ [Joel ii. 12.] d Chap. ii. Rule 5. [p. 411.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 531

over again into the same shape, but had reason to suppose the world
would proceed in an instance whose nature could not receive a new
reason and consequent change in the whole.

§ 3. This heap of considerations relates to that state of things in
which our blessed Saviour found this religious exercise at His coining.
Now if wc consider what our blessed Saviour did to it in the gospel,
we shall perceive He intended to leave it no less than He found it :
for first, a) He liked it and approved it, He allowed a time to it, a por-
tion of that by which God will be served ; and He that gave us time
only to serve Him and in that to serve ourselves, would not allow
any time to that by which He was no way served. /3) We cannot
tell why Christ should presuppose that a thing was to be done, which
God did not require to be done : such things Clirist used to reprove,
not to recommend ; to destroy, not to adorn by the superfetation of a
new commandment, y) These words He speaks to His disciples in
the promulgation of His own doctrine, in His sermon upon the
mount, which is the great institution and sanction of the evangelical
doctrine ; and therefore left it recommended and bound upon them
by a new ligature, even by an adoption into the everlasting covenant.
8) He represents it equally with those other of prayer and alms, which
in this excellent digest of laws He no otherwise recommends, but as
supposing men sufficiently engaged to the practice of these duties;
'when ye pray enter into your chamber, and when ye pray say Our
Father, and when ye fast, be sincere and humble/ e) He that pre-
supposes does also establish ; because then one part of the duty is a
postulate and a ground for the superstructure of another, and is suf-
ficiently declared by its parallels in the usual style of scripture : " My
son, when thou servest the Lord prepare thy soul for temptation/'
so the son of Sirache : and again, "When Thou hearest forgivef :"
and again, " When thou art afflicted call upon Him :" which forms
of expression suppose a perfect persuasion and accepted practice of
the duty, and is more than a conditional hypothetic. Si jejunatis
hath in it more contingency, but cum jejunatis is an expression of
confidence and is gone beyond a doubt. () That exercise which
Christ orders and disposes, which He reforms and purges from all evil
superinduced appendage is certainly dressed for the temple and for
the service of God ; now this of fasting Christ reforms from its being
abused, as He did prayer and alms, and therefore left it in the first
intention of God and of a natural religion, to be a service of God, like
that of bowing the head, or going to worship in the houses of prayer.
7]) To this duty He promises a reward j ■ Our heavenly Father that
seeth thy fasting in secret shall reward thee openly:' that is, its
being private shall not hinder it from being rewarded, for God sees
it, and likes it, and loves it, and will reward it.

§ 4. Now for confirmation of all this, and that this was to this
purpose so understood by the disciples and followers of our Lord :

e [Ecclus. ii. ].] f [1 Kings viii. 30.]

m m 2

53£

OP THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

S. Paulg was "in fastings often;" and this was a characteristic
note of the ministers of the gospel h : " In all things approving our-
selves as the ministers of God ; in much patience, . . in watchings,
in fastings :" and when Paul and Barnabas were ordained apostles of
the uncircurncision, they fasted and prayed and laid their hands on
them, and so sent them away'; and esteemed this duty so sacred,
that S. Paul-* permitted married persons o-xoAa£eii; ' to appoint vacant
times' from their endearments, that they may give themselves to fast-
ing and prayer : and the primitive Christians were generally such
ascetics in this instance of fasting, that the ecclesiastical story is
full of strange narratives of their prodigious fastings.

§ 5. Lastly, fasting is an act of many virtues : it is an elicit and
proper act of temperance, and of repentance, and of humiliation, and
of mortification of the flesh with its affections and lusts ; it is an im-
perate and instrumental act ministering to prayer, and is called a
service of God. So the good old prophetess served God night and
day in fasting and prayerk : and that which serves God, and ministers
so much to religion, and exercises so many graces, and was practised
by the faithful in both testaments, and was part of the religion of
both Jews and gentiles, and was the great solemnity and publication
of repentance, and part of a natural religion, and an endearment of
the divine mercy and pity ; that which was always accounted an in-
strument of impetration or a prevailing prayer, which Christ recom-
mended and presupposed, and adorned with a cautionary precept,
and taught the manner of its observation, and to which He made
promises, and told the world that His heavenly Father will reward
it ; certainly this can be no less than a duty of the evangelical or
christian religion.

§ 6. But yet although it be a duty, yet it is of a nature and ob-
ligation different from other instances. When it relates to repent-
ance, it is just a duty, as redeeming captives is commanded under
the precept of mercy ; that is, it is the specification or positive exer-
cise and act of an affirmative duty : it is a duty in itself, that is, an
act whereby God can be served ; but it becomes obligatory to the
man by other measures, by accidental necessities and personal capaci-
ties, in time and place, by public authority and private resolution.
Not that a man cannot be said to be a true penitent unless he be a
faster : but that fasting is a proper, apt, natural, usual, approved
expression, and an exercise of repentance; it is more fitted to the
capacities of men and usages of religion than any other outward act,
it hath some natural and many collateral advantages more than
other significations of it ; and it is like bowing the head or knee in
prayer, and is to repentance the same outwardly as sorrow is inwardly,
and it is properly the penance or repentance of the body, which be-
cause it hath sinned must also be afflicted, according to that of

e [2 Cor. xi. 27.] h [2 Cor. vi. 4.] ' [Actsxiii. 3, 4.]

i [1 Cor. vii. 5.] k [Luke ii. 37.]

CHAP. 111.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. ,'joo

S. James1, "Be afflicted, and mourn and weep, let your laughter be
turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness ; humble yourselves
in the sight of the Lord :" that is, repent ye of your sins : for all
these expressions signify but this one duty ; and this great exercise
and signification of it is so much a duty in the general, that it can-
not be omitted without good reason, nor then neither unless it be
supplied by something else, in its just time and circumstances.

§ 7. In order to other ends fasting is to be chosen and preferred
before instruments less apt, less useful, less religious ; that is indeed,
before the imperate and ministering acts of any kind whatsoever ;
for it is the best in many respects, and remains such unless it be
altered by the inconveniences or healthlessness of the person.

BT7LE IX.

THE institution op a rite or sacrament by our blessed saviour is a

DIRECT LAW, AND PASSES A PROPEB, OBLIGATION IN ITS WHOLE INTEGRITY.

§ 1. This rule can relate but to one instance, that of the holy
sacrament of Christ's body and blood ; for although Christ did insti-
tute two sacraments, yet that of baptism was under the form of an
express commandment, and therefore for its observation needs not
the auxiliaries of this rule. But in the other sacrament the institu-
tion was by actions, and intimations of duty, and relative precepts,
and suppositions of action, as quoties feceritis, and the like. Nov/
whether this do amount to a commandment or no is the enquiry ;
and though the question about the half-communion be otherwise de-
terminable, yet by no instrument so certain and immediate as this.

§ %. In order therefore to the rule of conscience in this instance,
I consider, that an institution of a thing or state of life by God and
by His Christ, is to be distinguished from the manner of that thing
so instituted. When a thing is instituted by God it does not equal
an universal commandment, but obtains the force of a precept accord-
ing to the subject matter and to its appendent relations. Thus when
God instituted marriage, He did not by that institution oblige every
single person to marry ; for some were eunuchs from their mothers'
wombs, and some were made eunuchs by men, and some made them-
selves eunuchs for religious and severe ends, or advantages of retire-
ment and an untroubled life. But by this institution (say the doctors
of the Jews) every man was at first obliged, and so they are still, if
they have natural needs or natural temptations : but because the in-

1 [Chap. iv. 9, 10. ]

534 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

stitution was relative to the public necessities of mankind, and the
personal needs of a man, therefore it was not an universal or un-
limited commandment; but only so far as it did minister to the
necessary end, so far it was a necessary commandment. It was not
instituted for eunuchs ; but for whom it was instituted, to them it
was a remedy against sin, and the support of the world, and the
original of families, and the seminary of the church, and the endear-
ment of friendships, and the parent of societies : and until the neces-
sities of the world were abated, and the needs of single persons were
diverted, or broken in pieces by the discipline of a new institution, it
was esteemed infamous and it was punishable not to marry.

§ 3. But then if we consider the manner of this thing so instituted,
it is certainly a perfect, unalterable, and universal commandment.
For although every man in every circumstance be not by virtue of
the institution obliged to marry ; yet if he does marry, by the insti-
tution he is tied up strictly that at no hand he must prevaricate the
measures and limits of the institution. He that marries must marry
by that rule and by no other. He must marry one woman only
while she is alive ; he must leave father and mother and adhere to
her, he must treat her with charity and honour, he must use her by
the limits of nature and sobriety ; he must make her the mother of
his family, he must make her serve no desire but what is natural,
and so in every thing is he limited to the first institution.

§ 4. The reason is, because a divine institution is the whole cause,
and the entire beginning, and the only warranty and legitimation of
the state or of the action; and therefore whatsoever is otherwise
than the institution, is not from God, but from ourselves. So that
although the institution does not oblige us in all cases to do the
thing at all, yet in all cases it obliges us to do it in the manner it is
appointed : and in this sense the word is used in good authors. Nam
is quanquam triennium nutrieibus dederit, iamen ab tills quoque jam
formandam quam optimis institutis mentem infantium judical, said
Quintilian1", 'the understanding even of infants is from the very
beginning with the best institutions ;' that is, with the best laws and
precepts of manners. Institutiones sunt prceceptiones quibus institu-
untur et docentur homines, said Laurentius Valla"; 'the precepts by
which men are taught what to do are called institutions :' so Quin-
tilian inscribed his books, De institutione oratoria, and Lactantius
wrote Institutions, that is, commentaries on the precepts and laws
of Christianity. But in it hath it this peculiarity of signification,
that the word ' institution' does signify properly rules and precepts
of manners ; properly the measures of practice, or rules teaching us
what we are obliged to do. So that institution does not directly
signify a commandment, but it supposes the persons obliged; only
it superadds the manner and measures of obedience. Cum ad litems

m Inst, orat, lib. i. ['-'ap. 1. § 16.] n [Elegant. Lat. cap. xi.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 535

non perl meat alas, qua ad mores jam pertinet, 8fc, says Quintilian0;
' since that age is not capable of letters, but is capable of manners/
they are to be efformed by the best and noblest institutions.

§ 5. And thus it is in the matter of the sacrament as it is in the
matter of marriage. All men are not always obliged to receive the
sacrament; for the institution of it being in order to certain ends,
and in the recipients certain capacities and conditions required by
way of disposition, there can be but a relative and therefore a limited
commandment of its reception : but to them who do receive it, the
institution is a perfect indispensable commandment for the manner
in all the essential parts, that is, in all which were intended in the
institution. Now whence I argue,

Whatsoever is a part of Christ's institution of the sacrament is
for ever obligatory to all that receive it :

But the sacrament in both kinds is a part of the institution of
the sacrament ; therefore,

It must for ever oblige all that communicate or receive it.
The first proposition relies upon the nature of divine institutions,
which giving all the authority and warranty to the whole action, all
its moral being and legitimation must be the measure of all the
natural being, or else it is not of God, but of man. Iudignum dicit
esse Domino qui aliter mysterium celebrat, quam ab eo traditum est.
Non enim potest devotus esse qui aliter prasumit quam datum est ab
auctore, saith S. Ambrose p, ' S. Paul saith, he is unworthy of the
Lord who celebrates the mystery otherwise than it was delivered by
Him : he cannot be devout who presumes otherwise than it was
given by the Author :' and to this purpose are those severe words of
the apostle*), Si quiz evangelizaverit prater quod accepistis, ' if any
man preach any other gospel than what ye have received, let him be
anathema ;' that is, from Christ we have received it, and so as we
received it so we deliver it, and so it must descend upon you without
the superfetation of any new doctrine.

§ 6. And indeed how is it possible to pretend a tradition from
Christ by the hands of His apostles, and the ministry of the church,
if we celebrate it otherwise than Christ delivered it ? Religioni no-
stra congruit, et timori, et ipsi loco, et officio sacerdotii nostri . .
custodire traditionis dominica veritatem ; et quod prius apud quos-
dam videtur errattim, Domino monente corrigere, ut cum, in claritate
sua et majestate ccelesti venire cosperit, inveniat nos tenere quod mon-
uit, observare quod docuit,facere quod fecit ; they are the excellent
words of S. Cyprian r, and perfectly conclusive in this article. For
there were some who out of an impertinent pretension of sobriety
would not use wine but water in the sacrament ; the instrument by
which S. Cyprian confutes their folly is a recourse to the institution.

° [Cur autem non pertineat ad litte- 149 E.]
ras aetas, quae ad mores jam pertinet? 1 [Gal. i. 9.]

— Ubi supra.] r Ad Csecil., lib. ii. ep. 3. [al. epi?t

«■ In 1 Cor. xi. [torn, ii. append, ool. lxiii. p. 1.57.]

536 OE THE IxNTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

See, how did Christ deliver it : Invenimus non observari a nobis quod
mandatum est, nisi eadem qua Dominus fecit, nos quoque facidmus* ;
•unless we do what Christ did we do not observe what He com-
manded/ plainly implying that the institution itself was a com-
mandment : f we must hold what He admonished, we must observe
what He taught, we must do what He did/ Not every thing done
at the time of the institution, but every thing of it. f For/ says he*,
' Christ did institute it after supper, but we in the morning : but
every thing by which He did signify what He did exhibit, and ex-
hibit what He did promise, every such thing was a part of the insti-
tution, and cannot be changed/ And therefore S. Paulu, when he
instructs the Corinthians in the mystery of the holy eucharist, uses
no demonstration of the rites but this; "I have received this of the
Lord :" and " this I have delivered unto you : other things I will set
in or-cler when I come ;" that is, whatsoever I did not receive from
the Lord Jesus, whatsoever was not of His institution, I have power
to dispose of; but not of any thing which He appointed.

§ 7. 1) Now there is no peradventure but the apostles understood
this institution to be a commandment, Ovtcos irapihaiKav hTtraXOai
avroh tov 'hiarovv' said Justin Martyrv, speaking of the distribution
of the bread and wine, e/cacrrw t&v irapopToav, 'to every one that
was present,5 he says that ' the apostles did deliver that Jesus so com-
manded them.' For what commandment have we to consecrate in
bread and wine ? what precept is there that the consecration should
be by a priest? Nothing but the institution. For if it be said
that Christ added the preceptive words of hoc facite, ' this do in re-
membrance of Me ;' I reply, He did so, but hoc facite is no com-
mandment of itself, but when it is joined with, in mei commemora-
tionem, fin remembrance of Me/ that is, when ye remember Me,
then do thus. So S. Pauly more expressly, "this do as often as ye
drink it in remembrance of Me." Therefore hoc facite will be but
ill expounded to be a commandment for the priest's consecration,
unless it borrow all its force from the whole institution : for it
plainly says only this, When ye remember Me, then do this which
ye see Me do. But hoc facite does not signify any particular com-
mandment, but that which is relative to the whole action ; and all
the discourses of mankind can never extract any other signification.

§ 8. 2) But secondly, the apostles received an express command-
ment, "drink ye all of this." If therefore Christ instituted the
sacrament for the whole church, and that they were the representa-
tives of the whole body of Christ, then all the whole church when
they communicate are bound by the commandment to receive the
chalice. But if they did not represent the whole church, then
where shall we find a warranty that the people may receive at all ?

• [ibid., p. 152.] ' Apol. ii. [al. i. § 66, p. 83 B.]

t [ibid., p. 150.] z [ibid. § 65. p. 83 A.]

u [1 Gor. xi. 23, 3 1.] 7 [1 Cor. xi. 25.]

CHAP. 111.] 01?' THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 537

Por if they received only in the capacity of clergymen, then the in-
stitution extends no further; and it is as much sacrilege for the
people to eat and drink the symbols as to offer at the consecration.
But if they received in the capacity of Christians only, then they re-
ceived the commandment of drinking in the chalice for themselves
and for all Christians.

§ 9. And indeed the apostles were not then priests. True, say
they of the church of Rome, they were not ; but James Payva a Por-
tuguese in the council of Trent* talked merrily, and said that the
apostles as laics received the bread, but then when Christ said, hoc
facile, 'this do/ He made them priests; and then gave them the
chalice as representatives of the clergy, not of the people. But as
merry a fancy as this seemed then, it was found to be the best shift
they had, and therefore upon better advice it was followed by Cani-
sius, Suarez, Bellarmine, and divers others. But if this be stood
upon, besides that it must be crushed to nothing by the preceding
argument, the pretence itself crosses their own devices. For if it be
said that the apostles were made priests by hoc facite, spoken before
the institution of the chalice, then hoc facite does not signify
offerte sacrijicium, and consequently cannot make them priests, that
is (with them) sacrificers ; for by their own doctrine to offer both
kinds is necessary to its being a sacrifice. Since therefore the first
hoc facite (which indeed is the only one mentioned by the evangelists)
can but relate to the consecrating of the bread, as the second (men-
tioned by S. Paul) does to the consecrating of the chalice, either they
are priests without a power of sacrifice, or the sacrifice is complete
without the chalice, or else they were not then made priests when
Christ first said hoc facite ; and if they were by the second, besides
that a reason cannot be fancied why the same words should and
should not effect so differing changes without difference in the voice,
or in the action, or in the mystery, besides this I say, it is plain,
that Christ reached the cup to them commanding them all to drink
before He made them priests, that is, they received the chalice as
representatives of the people; for being laics, at least till all that
ceremony was done, they did represent the people, and consequently
as such received a commandment to drink. Let them choose by
what part they will be reproved : every one of these overthrows their
new doctrine, and all of them cannot be escaped. But let it be con-
sidered whether it be likely that Christ should at one time institute
two sacraments (for they pretend ordination to be as very a sacra-
ment as the Lord's supper) of so different natures, and yet speak
nothing of the use, or the reason, the benefit or the necessity of one
of them ; nor tell them that He did so, nor explicate the mystery,
nor distinguish the rite or the words, but leave it to be supposed or
conjectured by the most imperfect and improbable construction in
the world. But suppose it, yet at least it must be confessed that
* [Sarpi, lit), vi. cap. 30. torn. ii. \>. 206. cd. fol. Lond. 1736.]

538 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

the words which Christ used, and the same ritual, must in the apo-
stles' ministry be able to effect the same grace, and if so, then a priest
hath power to ordain priests ; for he hath power to say hoc facite,
in all the same meanings which Christ had when He used them :
and if this be not accepted, yet at least a bishop may ordain all the
congregations priests if he please, by saying of one mass ; which are
pretty fancies, and rare propositions in our divinity.

§ 10. To which I add this consideration, that if our blessed Lord
did by those words of hoc facite make His disciples priests, then
they were priests before the Lord himself; for although He was de-
signed for ever, yet He was consecrated on the cross, there He
entered upon His priestly office ; but officiates in that office not on
earth but in heaven, Tor if He were on earth He should not be
a priest/ saith S. Paul3, therefore being consecrate on the cross, He
ascended into heaven to be there ' our priest for ever, there making
intercession for us/ Now it were strange if the apostles should be
declared priests before the consecration, or first sacerdotal action of
their Lord ; or that they should be priests without the power of the
keys, without the commission to baptize in the name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, for these were given afterwards. But this
device is so very a dream, so groundless and airy a phantasm, so
weakly laid and employed to such trifling purposes, that it needs no
further an enquiry into it: it was raised to serve the end of this
question, to answer an objection, and pretends no strength of its own,
neither can it weaken that which hath ; and that it is indeed only
pretended for a shift, and intended to operate no further, appears in
this manifestly, because if the apostles did drink of the chalice in the
capacity of being priests, then it ought to be followed at least so far,
and all the priests that are present ought to receive the chalice, which
because they do not in the church of Bome, it is apparent they pre-
varicate the institution, and that they may exclude the laity from the
cup, they use their clergy as bad, when themselves do not officiate.

§ 11. 3) This trifling pretence being removed, it remains that the
words of institution, " Drink ye all of this," be also the words of a
commandment; and although they were spoken to the apostles only,
as being only present, yet the precept must equally concern all Chris-
tians and disciples of Christ. Just like those of " Watch and pray
lest ye fall into temptationb ;" and "Unless ye be converted and
become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of
Godc;" which were spoken only in the presence of the apostles.
But as these precepts and moral rules concern all Christians, so do
the words of institution of the holy sacrament and commandment of
"Drink ye all of this.'" For, Oportet coznam dominicam esse com-
munem, quia tile omnibus discijmlis suis qui aderant aqua-liter tra-
didit sacramenta, said S. Hieromed ; ' the Lord's supper is common to

» [Heb. viii. 4.] c [Matt, xviii. 3.]

>> [Matt. xxvi. 41.] d In 1 Cor. xi. [torn. v. col. 997.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 5.')9

all, and so ought to be ; because our Lord did equally deliver it to
all that were present :' and upon this very account Duranduse affirms,
/// primitiva ecclesia singulis cliebus omnes qui celebrationi missartim
intererant eommunicare solebant, eo quod apostoli omnes tie calice bi-
berunt, Domino dicente, Bibite ex eo omnes: ' in the primitive church
all that were present did every day receive, because the apostles did
all drink of the chalice, and the Lord said, " Drink ye all of this." '

§ 12. And this appears beyond all contradiction to have been so
intended. So S. Ignatius', 'There is one bread broken to all/ /ecu
'iv TroTijptov rois oAot? biave^rjOev, 'and one chalice distributed to
all/ and 'There is no difference in this between the priest and the
people/ said S. Chrysostom&; and it is evident that S. Paul gives the
same commandment of drinking the chalice as of eating the bread ;
six times distinctly mentioning both the symbols, and directing the
rule and the precepts of eating and drinking " to all that are sancti-
fied in Christ Jesus11," even to all who are to examine themselves ;
for " let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and
drink of that cup' :" and that it was so the custom of the church, and
their doctrine that all are to receive the chalice, that there was no
scruple made by the church concerning it, we are fairly induced to a
belief by the addition made to the Greek text of 1 Cor. x. 17 by
the vulgar Latin ; for whereas it is in the Greek ' we all partake of
the same bread' the vulgar Latin adds et de uno calice, 'and of the
same cup/ This I the rather note because the Jesuits of Colein did
use this for an argument of the half communion j because when S.
Paul had spoken of the consecration he mentions breaking bread,
and drinking the cup, but when he speaks of sumption or participa-
tion, he only mentions the bread : now supposing that, yet that de-
fect is supplied by the vulgar Latin, the author of which knowing
the universal custom of the church and the doctrine of it, supplied
that out of the sentence of the church which is not in the Greek
text. Though if it had not been yet the argument would have been
just nothing, as being a conclusion drawn from a particular negative
in one place, and against his custom in other places, and besides the
institution.

§ 13. For the doctrine and practice of the church is so notorious
in this article that in the Greek church there was never any variety
in it, and to this day it is used as it was in the beginning and in all
the intermedial acjes ; and in the Latin church for a thousand vears
it was not altered J. Nay to this day the church of Rome sings m
the hymn upon Corpus Christi day,

Dedit fragilibus corporis ferculum ;
Dedit et tristibus salutis poculum,

Ration., 1. iv. [vid. cap. 1.] sup. 2 Cor. hom. xviii. [p. 568 B.]

f Ep. ad Fhiladelph. [interpol. cap. iv. h [1 Cor. i. 2.]

p. 77.] ' [1 Cor. xi. 28.]

t Sup. 1 Cor. xi. [torn. x. p. 246.] et ' [Cassand. consult., art. 22. p. 081.]

5-AO OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II,

Dicens, accipite quod trado vasculum :
Omnes ex eo bibitek.

' He gave His body to be the food of the weak, and the cup of sal-
vation to the sorrowful, saying, Take this vessel that I reach unto
you ; drink ye all of this/ Indeed it was often attempted to be
changed upon the interest of divers heresies and superstitious fan-
cies, and rare emergencies. For,

§ 14. 1) It was attempted to be omitted in the time of S. Cyprian,
when some impertinent people would have water only, but not the
chalice of the Lord's institution in the fruit of the vine : but these
men's folly went not far, for being confuted and reproved by S. Cy-
prian1 in a letter to his brother Ccecilius, I find no mention of them
afterwards.

§ 15. 2) It was attempted to be changed upon occasion of the
eremites, who coming but seldom to church could but seldom re-
ceive the chalice, but desiring more frequently to communicate they
carried the consecrated bread with them into their cells, and when
they had a mind to it, in that imperfect manner did imitate the
Lord's supper. That they did so is certain, that they had no war-
rant for so doing is as certain j and therefore their doing so can be
no warrant to us to do as they did, much less ought it to be pre-
tended in justification of the denying the chalice to the Avhole laity,
when they desire it and may have it. However, this unwarrant-
able custom of the eremites was taken away by the first council
of Toledo in the year cccxc, and afterwards again forbidden in
the year D.m, by the fathers met in council at Caesar Augusta. The
words of the council of Toledo are these", Si quis autem acceptam a
sacerdote eucharistiam non sumpserit, vehit sacrilegus propettatnr :
but this is fuller explicated in that of Caesar Augusta0, Eucharistiee
gratiam si quis probatur acceptam non cotisumpsisse in ecclesia, ana-
thema sit in perpetuum : so that under the pain of a perpetual curse,
and under the crime of sacrilege, they were commanded to spend the
eucharistical symbols in the church ; and this took from them all
pretence of. the necessity in some case of not receiving the chalice.

§ 16. 3) In the time of P. Leo? the first, the Manichees, who
abstained from wine as an abomination, would yet thrust themselves
into the societies of the faithful, and pretend to be right believers •
but S. Leo discovered them by their not receiving the chalice in the
holy eucharist ; and whereas they would have received in one kind
only, he calls it sacrilege, and reproves them with the words of S.
Paul0-, "Mark them which cause divisions amongst you, and offences
contrary to the doctrine which ye have received." This was about
the year ccccxlix.

[Thomas Aquinas, so Cassander, " Can. xiv. [torn. i. col. 991.]

hymn, eccles., p. 247.] ° [Can. iii. torn. i. col. 806.]

1 Lib. ii. ep. 3. [al. ep. lxiii. p. 148 p Serm. iv. quadragesim. [p. 38 C]

sqq.] * [Rom. xvi. 17-]

'" [ccclxxx., Harduin.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHltlST. 5 11

§17. 4) A while after, about the year ccccxc, some had gotten
some superstitious fancy by the end, and out of reverence to the holy
sacrament, or some other device of their own, they thought it fit to
abstain from the consecrated chalice : but P. Gelasiusr made short
work with them; he condemned their superstition and gave sen-
tence, Aut Integra sacramenta percipiant, aid ab integris arceanlm- ;
'either all or none: drive them from the II. bread, if they refuse
the sacrament of the Lord's blood/

§ 18. 5) The church had sometime in extraordinary cases, as in
communicating infants or dying people, dipped the holy bread into the
chalice, and so ministered the sacrament; upon occasion of which
some fell in love with the trick, and would have it so in ordinary
ministrations : we find it mentioned in the history of Serapion in
Eusebiuss, and in S. Cyprian*, de lapsis, and in Prosper11. But against
this breach P. Juliusx opposed himself, and stood in the gap, de-
claring it to be against the divine order and apostolical institutions,
and contrary to the doctrine of the gospel and of the apostles, and
the custom of the church; and his words are remarkable to shew
from whence this article is to be adjusted and determined : Non dif-
Jieile 7ioc ab ipso fonte veritatis probatur, in qua orcllnata ipsa sacra-
mentorum mysteria processerunt, ' the very ordination or institution
of the sacrament is the fountain from whence we are to derive the
truth in this enquiry/ But when this superstition was again revived,
about the year dlxxx., the now mentioned degree of P. Julius was
repeated in the third council of Braccaray, and all set right again ac-
cording to the perpetual custom of the church, and the institution of
our B. Lord, and their pretence (which was lest they should spill
any thing of the holy chalice) laid aside as trifling and superstitious.

§ 19. 6) And yet after all these motions made by heretics and
superstitious persons, and so many cautions, suppressions, and decrees
against them, about the year dccccxx. the order of Cluniac monks
did communicate with the bread dipped in the chalice, as Cassander2
reports : and about the year mcxx. it was permitted in some churches
so to do. Por by this time the world was so rude and ignorant that
they knew little of the mysteries of religion, and cared less ; so that
for the danger of effusion of the holy wine they in some places chose
that expedient : which, although it was upon great reason condemned
by P. Julius and the council of Braccara, yet it is a great argument
that they still believed it necessary to communicate under both
symbols.

r Can. ' Comper.,' de consecrat. dist. ii. 1604.]

[can. 12. col. 2087.] » Ep. ad episc. ^Egypt. — De consecrat.

■ [H. E., lib. vi. cap. 44.] dist. ii. can. ' Cum onine.' [can. vii. col.
t De lapsis. [p. 132.] 2083.]

■ [Pseudo-Prosper.] de promiss., cap. * [Can. ii. torn. iii. col. 1033.]

6. [dimid. temp. col. 193. ad calc. opp. ' [De communione sub utraque spe-

Prosperi, fol. Par. 1711.] et xxvi. qu. G. cie, p. 1027.]
c. 8. in decret. [Gratian. part. 2. col.

512 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

§ 20. 7) But about the time that the schoolmen began to rule the
chair, this danger of spilling the chalice wrought so much in their
wise heads that they began about the year mccl. in some churches
to leave out all use of the chalice, excepting to the priests and some
great men who would be careful not to spill. This was but ' in some
churches/ said Aquinas3, and it was permitted to all the priests pre-
sent, de quibus prammitur quod magis sint cauti : and to some
graTide.es of the people too for the same reason, as we find in Richard
Middletonb, Innocent the fourth0, and Petrus de Tarantasia0.

§ 21. 8) But by little and little the abuse went further, and grew
confirmed, and miracles pretended and invented, as Alexander of Ales
reports, to stop the outcries of certain religious who were extremely
troubled at the loss of the chalice : and now at last it became the
general custom of the western churches, and it grew scandalous to
desire it; and it was established into a doctrine in the council of
Constance d, and the institution of Christ and the custom of the
primitive church were openly defied, taken notice of, and so laid
aside, and anathema pronounced on them that should insist upon
their right, or deny whole Christ to be under each kind, in the coun-
cil of Trent e ; and so it abides at this day.

§ 22. The question being now reduced to this short issue, whether
under each kind whole Christ be received ; it is not unworthy a short
enquiry, concerning the truth and concerning the consequence of it.

§ 23. 1) For the truth. I consider that the effect of external
rituals and ceremonials cannot be disputed philosophically, as we
enquire into the portions of effect which every herb hath in an infu-
sion ; but we are to take and use them in the simplicity of their
institution, leaving them under that secrecy of their own mysterious-
ness in which they were left in their first appointment and publica-
tion. The apostlef explicating the mysteries of our religion, saith,
that " Christ was delivered" (meaning unto death) " for our sins,
and was raised again for our justification •" and yet that " we are
justified by His bloods." Upon these accounts we can say that by
Christ's death and by His resurrection we are justified, and therefore
we are to be partakers of both ; but because we are justified by faitli
in His blood, it wiD at no hand follow we may let alone our faitli, or
neglect to procure our part in His resurrection. So it is in the sym-
bols eucharistical : supposing it had been said of the bread, ' This is
Christ/ or ' This is the death of Christ/ and the same said of the
chalice ; yet one alone is not sufficient to be received when both are

* 3 part. sum. q. 80. art. 12. [torn. xii. ii. coll. 99, 203, ed. fol. Rom. 1677 ; Va-

fol. 267 b.J lentiii. Forster, hist. jur. civ. Rom., lib.

b 4. 1. sent. (list. xi. [art. 4. q. 6. fol. iii. cap. 14.]

50. ed. fol. Ven. 1509.] d [Sess. xiii. torn. viii. col. 381.]

c [From Cassander, p. 1043 ; who how- e [Sess. xx. can. 3. torn. x. col. 121.]

ever, erroneously identifies Innocent iv. f [Rom. iv. 25.]

with Peter de Tarantasia, subsequently 8 [Rom. v. 9.]
Innocent v. See Ciacon. vit. pontiff-., torn.

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OP JBSTTS CHRIST. 548

instituted : for as all the mysteries of our redemption are effective to
our pardon and salvation, so are both the symbols of the eucharist to
our reception of Christ ; and baptism or absolution may better be
pretended to the exclusion of the whole eucharist, than the sufficiency
of bread to the exclusion of the chalice : for remission of sins is per-
fectly the grace of baptism, and those sins return not, but in the case
of apostasy ; but what is the effect of bread alone is no where told,
but that it is the commemoration or remembrance of the broken
body of Christ, and the communication of that body. But then the
chalice is also the remembrance of Christ's blood poured forth, and
the exhibition of that which is for the remission of sins : and how
these two do work that in us which we hope for, we know not, but
that they work as mysteries and sacraments do work, but not as
herbs, or natural agents, that we may believe.

§ 24. 2) I consider that when Christ appointed to the two sym-
bols two distinct significations, and that we believe that the sacra-
ments exhibit to worthy communicants what they represent to all, it
must be certain that all Christ, that is, that all the benefits of Christ,
are not conveyed by each which are conveyed by both, because as
they signify so they exhibit ; but they do not each signify what both
together do. The breaking of the body does not signify the effusion
of the blood, neither does the shedding of the blood signify the
breaking the body ; and to think that the reduplication of the sym-
bols is superfluous, is to charge Christ with impertinency : and if it
be not superfluous, then there is something of real advantage by
both that is not in each. I will not venture to assign to each their
portion of effect, for what they have they have not naturally, but by
divine donation and appointment ; and therefore I will not take
notice that the same chalice is representative and effective of union
and charity, (though that is usual enough in societies and friend-
ships,

Pylades, Marce, bibebat idem11 :)

but this I shall observe, that the whole effect of the sacrament is
equally attributed to the worthy receiving the chalice as to that of
the bread ; and therefore S. Eemyi caused these verses to be written
on the chalice,

Hauriat hinc populus vitam de sanguine sacro,
Inflicto aeternus quem fudit vulnere Christus ;

' Let the people from hence draw life issuing from the wounds of
Christ :' now whatsoever effect is attributed to one is not in exclu-
sion of the other, but in concomitance with it ; and therefore as it
would be a strange folly to dispute what benefit we receive by Christ's
flesh distinctly, and how much of our redemption is wrought by His
blood, and it could have no use and no certainty ; so it would be

" [Martial., lib. vi. epigr. 11.]

1 [Hincinar. in vit. S. Kemigii, apud Cassand. liturg., cap. xxxi. p. 75.]

544 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

as strange to say there is so much distinctly in the H. bread, so
much in the wine ; and it is worse to attribute to one that which can
be employed to exclude the other, and it is certain there can be
nothing said Of advantage that either one or the other hath; and
therefore the chalice may exclude the bread as well as the H. bread
the chalice, both alike, that is, indeed, neither.

§ 25. But it is to be observed, that in this enquiry the question
cannot be concerning the receiving Christ, but of receiving the sacra-
ments of Christ, of His body and of His blood. Tor we receive
Christ in baptism, and we receive Christ by faith, and yet never-
theless we are to receive the sacraments of Christ's body and blood ;
and therefore suppose we did receive Christ in the holy bread, yet
that bread is but the sacrament of His broken body, and therefore
we must also receive the sacrament of His blood spilt for us, or else
we omit to receive the one half of the sacrament : and if the ques -
tion were only about receiving Christ, we might pretend the whole
sacrament to be needless, because a spiritual communion and faith
alone will do that work ; but yet faith alone or the spiritual commu-
nion does not give us the sacrament, nor obey Christ in this instance,
nor commemorate and represent His death, which is the duty here
enquired of and here enjoined.

26. And therefore the dream of the church of Rome, that he that
receives the body receives also the blood, because by concomitance
the blood is received in the body, is neither true nor pertinent to this
question. Not true, because the eucharist being the sacrament of
the Lord's death, that is, of His body broken and His blood poured
forth, the taking of the sacrament of the body does not by con-
comitance include the blood, because the body is here sacramentally
represented as slain and separate from blood : and that is so notori-
ous that some superstitious persons, A.D. ccccxc, refused the chalice,
because, said they, the body of Christ represented in the holy sacra-
ment ewsanffue est, fit is without bloodk;' but now the Romanists
refuse the chalice because the body is not without blood : they were
both amiss, for it is true the body is represented sacramentally as
killed, and therefore without blood, which had run out at the wounds,
and therefore concomitance is an idle and impertinent dream ; but
although the body is without blood in His death, yet because the
effusion of the blood is also sacramentally to be represented, there-
fore they should not omit the chalice.

§ 27. But to them of the Roman church, if the blood be in the
body by concomitance, and therefore they who receive the body re-
ceive also the blood, then they who sacrifice the body do also sacrifice
the blood ; and then it will be no more necessary to celebrate in both
kinds than to communicate in both, and indeed though the Roman
schools will not endure that the sacrifice (as they call it) or the con-

k [See p. 541, above.]

CHAP. III.] OP THE LAWS OF JESUS CHEIST. 545

secration should be in one kind, yet Volaterranusk says that P. Inno-
cent the eighth gave leave to the Norvegians to sacrifice in bread
only : certain it is the priest may as well do so, as the people receive
in one kind, for the people do in their manner as much celebrate the
death of Christ as the priest, nor he alone nor they alone, but the
whole action is the due celebration : however the argument of con-
comitance concludes equally against the celebration in both kinds,
as against the participation; and why the priest should be obliged
to drink the chalice and cannot be excused by concomitance, and
yet the people are not obliged but are excused by that pretension,
abating the reasons of interest, cannot easily be imagined.

§ 28. Certain it is they had other thoughts in the council of
Turon1 ; for when they considered the necessities of sick and dying
people, they appointed the consecrated bread to be sopped in the
consecrated chalice ; adding this reason, Ut veraciter presbyter di-
cer e possit, Corpus et sanguis Domini nostri Jesu Christi projiciat
tibi in remissioncm peccatorv.m et vitam aeternam ; ' that the priest
may say truly, the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ be pro-
fitable unto you for the remission of your sins and unto life eternal/
If they had then understood the device of concomitance, they would
have known that the priest might have said so truly without sop-
ping the holy bread in the chalice : but the good fathers had not
yet learned the metaphysics.

§ 29. 2) Now for the consequence of this pretension : I consider
that let the thing be as true as the interested persons would have it,
yet it is not well that we should dispute against a divine institution
upon a pretence of our vain arguings. The apostles with great sim-
plicity took in both kinds at that time in which only the device of
concomitance was or could be true, for then when they received it
the blood was in the body of Christ, but it was sacramental of the
blood to be poured out the next day; however they obeyed with
simplicity and without enquiry, and never feared spilling, nor argued,
nor sought excuses : such simplicity would equally become us ; and
as to the usefulness of receiving in both kinds, although it will ill
become any man to argue concerning the usefulness of a divine in-
stitution, and to pretend excuses against Christ, upon the account of
a philosophy of their own invention, is very much unlike the spirit
of humility and wisdom and obedience which ought to be the inves-
titure of a christian's heart and the tiar of his head, yet I observe
that even in this particular the disadvantage is not little.

§ 30. Tor if receiving the sacrament be of any advantage to souls,
then it is certain he that does not receive it is a loser ; and yet he
that does not receive the chalice does not receive the sacrament, but
a piece of it only. Now in sacraments half is as good as none ; as
he who should only dip a child in pure water, and yet not invocate
the Trinity, should do nothing at all with his half-baptism, so it is

k [Comment, urban., lib. vii. col. 210.] ' [Ivo, decrct., part. ii. cap. 19."]

IX. N 11

54-6 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

certain that the effect of a sacrament is not imparted by a half-com-
munion. And therefore Alexander of Ales'" said well, Sumpto hoc
sacramento digne in utraque specie major est effectus unius corporis
my slid cum capite, quam sumpto sub altera : and in another place11 he
says to receive under both kinds is majoris meriti turn ratione aug-
mentationis devotionis, turn ratione fidei dilatationis actualis, turn
ratione sumptionis completions: 'it is of greater merit or value,
there is a greater mystical union between the head and the members,
a greater increase of devotion, a larger and more actual extent of
faith, and a more complete sacramental reception of Christ himself/
To the same purpose there are good things spoken in Albertus Mag-
nus0, and in Thomas Aquinas p, Bonaventureq, and Petrus de Palude1-
and divers others, all agreeing that one alone does not make a sacra-
ment, but a piece of one, and that there is advantage by both kinds
which is not to be had in one ; which advantage if it be spiritual (as
it is, if it be at all) then he that robs the people of a spiritual good
which our blessed Lord hath designed for them and left unto them,
is sacrilegious and profane; it is uncharitable and it is impious. I
say it is impious :

§ 31. Eor it is not to be despised that our blessed Lord gave this
sacrament as His last will and testament ; and though He gave it in
His body and blood, yet He expressed only 'the new testament in
His blood :' and for any church to violate the testament of our
blessed Lord, however men may make no great matter of it, yet it
will receive a punishment according as God sets a value upon it;
and he that shall pluck one seal from a testament, and say that one
is as good as two, when two were put to it by the testator, cannot be
excused by saying it was nothing but a formality and a ceremony.
God's ceremonies are bound upon us by God's commandment, and
what He hath made to be a sign does signify and exhibit too : and
as the brazen serpent though it was but a type or shadow of the
holy crucifix, yet did real cures ; so can the symbols and sacraments
of the crucifixion, being hallowed by the divine institution, and con-
firmed by His power : and therefore a violation here is not to be
called only a question in a ceremony ; it is a substantial part of the
christian religion, it is the sanction of the new testament, the last
will of our dying Lord. " Now if it be but a man's testament," saith S.
Pauls, " yet no man disannulled or addeth thereto :" and therefore
to disannul or lessen a portion of the testament of the Son of God
must needs be a high impiety. Testamentum quia individimm est
pro parte agnosci et pro parte repudiari nonpossit, says the law, L. 7.

m [Summ. part, iv.] Quaest 32. memb, P 3 part. summ. quaest. lxxvi. art. 2.

1. art. 2. [al. quaest. 10. memb. 4. art. 1. [torn. xii. fol. 245, 6.]

p. 234.] i [In 4 sent.] clist. viii. fpart. 2. art.

n Quaest. 53. [al. 11. memb. 2. art. 5. 2.] quaest. 2. [torn. v. p. 97.]

p. 406.] r [In 4 sent.] dist. xi. [quaest. !•] art.

° In 4 sent, dist. viii. art. 13. [tun. 1. [fol. 42 b.]

xvi. p. 117.] ' [Gal. iii. 15.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OP JESUS CHRIST. 547

'Jus nostr.' D. de reg.jur.x If you repudiate a part of the will, you
must renounce it all ; if you permit not to the people the blood of
Christ, you hinder them from having a part in the death of Christ,
so far as lies in you. Add to this, that this holy mystery being ac-
knowledged by all to be the most mysterious solemnity of the re-
ligion, and by the church of Rome affirmed to be a proper sacrifice,
and so contended for; it would be remembered that our blessed
Saviour did adapt and fit this rite to the usages and customs both
of Jews and gentiles, amongst whom laws, and societies, and con-
tracts, and sacrifices wTere made solemn by effusion and drinking of
blood ; and instead of blood (amongst the more civil nations) they
drank wine, and by that were supposed partakers even of the blood
of the sacrifice; airb tovtov ye rot (pacrl [xedveiv u>pop,da-6ai, says Philo",
on p-era to Oveiv £6os rjv tois irporepov olvovcrOai. To be drunk, viz.
in the Greek hath its name from their drinking wine after their sacri-
fices : and with this custom among the gentiles, and with the paschal
ceremony of this nature amongst the Jews our blessed Jjord comply-
ing loses the wisdom and prudence of it, if the priest shall sacri-
fice, and the people drink none of the blood of the sacrifice, or that
which ritually and sacramentally represents it. The covenant of the
gospel, the covenant which God made with us, our blessed Saviour
established and ratified with blood; wine was made to represent and
exhibit it : he therefore that takes this away, takes away the very
sacramentality of the mystery, and 'without blood there is no re-
mission/ For as he that gives bread and no water does not nourish
the body but destroy it, so it is in the blessed sacrament : for (that
I may use S. Austin's* expression which Paschasius and Algerus in
this article did much insist upon) Nee caro sine sanguine, nee sanguis
sine came jure commwiieahir ; totus enim homo ex duabus constans
substantiis redtmitur, et ideo came simul et sanguine saginatur :
' neither the flesh without the blood, nor the blood without the flesh
is rightly communicated ; for the whole man consisting of two sub-
stances is redeemed, and therefore nourished both with the flesh and
the blood/ Kat ov nadairep iirl rrjs 7raAata?, ra p.ev 6 lepei/s ?/o-0te
ra 5e 6 ap^op-evos, /cat 0qxt? ovk i)v toS Aaco per^eiv u>v /xeret^ev 6
Up€vs . . aXka ttcktiv kv crcojua Trpo'Ketrai /cat TrorrjpLov 'kv^' cit is
not now as it was in the Old testament where the priest eat one por-
tion, the prince another, and the people another ; here it is alike to
all, the same body and the same chalice is to all/ I end this en-
quiry with the saying of S. Cyprian2, Si ne uuum quidem ex minimis

1 [Digest., lib. 1. tit. 17. 1. 7. col. tation is Paschasius, de corp. et sang.

1851.] Dom., cap. 19, max. bibl. vet. patr., torn.

" [De plant. Noe, torn. iii. p. 158. — cf. xiv. p. 74k]

Aristot. apud Athen. ii. 11. p. 93.] y Chrysost. horn, xviii. in 2 Cor. [torn.

x [The first clause of this passage is x. p. 568 B.]

cited by Algerus (de sacram. corp. et z Vid. lib. ii. ep. 3. [al. ep. lxiii. p.

sang. Dom., lib. ii. cap. 8.) as from Au- 155.]
gustine ; but the real author of the quo-

x n 2

548 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

mandatis legis solvere debet, mtdto minus ex Jus magnis mandatis
pertinentibus ad ipsim dominicce passionis et nostra, redemptionis
sacr amentum fas est ullum inf ring ere, vel humana traditione mu-
tare : 'if it be not permitted to break one of the least command-
ments of the law, much less is it to be endured to break any one, or
by human tradition to change any belonging to the sacrament of our
Lord's passion and of our redemption :' and therefore if ever any sect
or any single person was guilty of the charge, it is highly to be im-
puted to the church of Eome, that they teach for doctrine the com-
mandments of men, and make the commandment of God of none
effect by their tradition

EULE X.

IF THE SENSE OF A LAW BE DUBIOUS, WE ARE SOMETIMES TO EXPOUND IT BY
LIBERTY, SOMETIMES BY RESTRAINT.

§ 1. Although all the laws of Jesus Christ are so legible in the
sense intended that all good men being placed in their proper cir-
cumstances, conducted by the divine providence, making use of all
their prepared and ready instruments, can certainly read the prime
intention and design of God ; yet because some laws are so combined
with matter and twisted with material cases, so intricated by the ac-
cidents of men and the investiture of actions, that they cast a cloud
upon the light of God's word, and a veil upon the guide of our lives,
and because the sense of words do change, and very often words can-
not be equal with things ; it comes to pass that the laws are capable
of differing senses : when therefore any thing of this nature happens,
the first sense of the words is either to be enlarged or restrained ac-
cording to the following measures.

IN WHAT CASES THE STRICTER SENSE OP THE LAWS OP CHRIST
IS TO BE FOLLOWED.

§ 2. 1) "When the duty enjoined by the law is in deliberation, and
is to be done, we are to use restraint, and take the severer sense of
the law. The reason is because that is the surer way, and hath in
it no inconvenience or impossibility ; but being it is the matter of
choice, in all deliberation for the future we must give sentence for
God, and for the interest of religion. Thus when it is commanded
we should 'judge ourselves that we be not judged of the Lord/ in
the enquiry which every penitent man makes concerning the exten-
sion of the duty of judging ourselves, if the question be whether
judging ourselves means only to condemn ourselves for having sinned,
and to confess ourselves justly liable to the divine judgment; or
does it also mean to punish ourselves, and by putting our own sen-

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 549

tence against our sin into a severe execution of that sentence upon
ourselves by corporal inflictions; he that can no otherwise be de-
termined in the question can safely proceed by choosing the severer
side ; for there is no loss in it, no omission, it contains all that any
man can think to be required, and therefore hath in it prudence and
charity, caution and regard, to God and to himself.

§ 3. 2) This is not to be understood only in case there is a doubt
no otherwise to be resolved but by the collateral advantage of the
surer side ; but this severer sense of the law is of itself most reason-
able to be chosen, as being the intended sense and design of the law-
giver, who certainly puts no positive measures to his own laws of love
and duty. For since the great design of the law is such a perfection
which must for ever be growing in this world, and can never here
arrive to its state and period, that sense which sets us most forward
is the most intended ; and therefore this way is not only to quiet the
doubt, but to govern and to rule the conscience. This is not only the
surer way, but the only way that is directly intended : it is agreeable
to the measures of charity, or the love of God, which is to have no
other bounds, but even the best we can in the measures of God
and the infirmities and capacities of man.

§ 4. 3) In the interpretation of the laws of Christ, the strict sense
is to be followed when the laws relate to God and to religion, and
contain in them direct matter of piety and glorifications of God, or
charity to our neighbour ; because in them the further we go the
nearer we are to God, and we are not at all to be stopped in that
progression till we are at our journey's end, till we are in the state of
comprehension. To this purpose are those words of Ben-Siracha,
" When you glorify the Lord, exalt Him as much as you can, for even
yet will He far exceed, and when you exalt Him put forth all your
strength, and be not weary, for you can never go far enough. Who
hath seen Him that he might tell us, and who can magnify Him as
He is ? There are hid greater things yet than these be, for we have
seen but a few of His works •" meaning, that although we cannot
glorify God sufficiently for the works of power and mercy which we
see and feel, yet because there are very many works which we see
not, and infinite numbers and seas of glories above the clouds, which
we perceive not and cannot understand, the only measures of religion
and the love of God which we are to take, is to pray continually, to
love God always, to serve Him without end, to be zealous beyond all
measures, excepting those of duty and prudence, to be religious with-
out a limit, always to desire, always to endeavour, never to rest as
long as we can work, never to give over as long as any thing is un-
finished ; and consequent or symbolical to all this, that in all dis-
putes of religion we choose the sense of love, not of weariness, that
we do not contend for the lesser measures, but strive in all our facul-
ties and desire beyond their strength ; and propound Christ for our

a [Ecclus. xliii. 30—32.]

550 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

precedent, and heaven for our reward, and infinity for our measures
toward which we are to set forth by our active and quick endea-
vour, and to which we are to reach by our constancy and desires,
our love and the divine acceptance.

WHEN THE LAWS OP CHRIST ARE TO BE EXPOUNDED TO A SENSE
OP EASE AND LIBERTY.

§ 5. If to the sense of the duty there be a collateral and indirect
burden and evil appendage, and the alleviating of that burden is to
be an ingredient into the interpretation of the law, and the direct
duty is to be done in such measures as may do the most good with
suffering the least evil. This happens in two cases :

§ 6. 1) If the strict and severer sense of the law be too great for
the state and strength of the man, that is, if it be apt to make him
despair, to make him throw away his burden, to make him tire, to be
weary of and to hate religion, his infirmities are to be pitied, and the
severest sense of the law is not to be exacted of him. Apices juris
non stmt jus, say the lawyers, ' the little punctilios and minutes of
law are not law/ because if our duty be extended to every little
tittle of duty, it were necessary that our observation and attendance
should be as particular and punctual ; but because that cannot al-
ways be actual and intent, particular and incumbent, those things
which insensibly pass by the observation of a diligent watchful per-
son, do also inculpably pass by the man. But of this I have al-
ready given accounts in another place b. For the present I further
consider that charity being the great end of the law, and every law
being a design of making a man happy, every commandment of God
is then best understood when it is made to do most good, and res-
cued from being an occasion of evil. The government of Jesus
Christ is most paternal and serene, His rod is not heavy, His com-
mandments are not grievous, His bands are not snares ; but they are
holiness and they are liberty, they are ' glory to God and good will
towards men.'

§ 7. But this at no hand means that any material or integral part
of duty can be omitted, and the omission indulged in compliance
with any man's infirmity or danger ; for the law is to be our mea-
sure, our weaknesses cannot be the measure of the integrity of the
law. That infirmity by which we omit any part of duty is a state of
sin, and God who knew all our infirmities and possibilities or impos-
sibilities of obedience, complied sufficiently in the sanction of the law,
and imposed no more burden than was even with our powers ; and
therefore for what remains we must stoop our shoulder and bear the
burden which God's wisdom made reasonable and tolerable, and our
necessity and interest makes unavoidable, and love will make easy
and delectable.

b 'Doctrine and practice of repentance,' c. 3. [vol. vii. p. 83 sqq.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OB JESUS CHRIST. 551

§ 8. But the burden which can be lessened is the burden of de-
grees of intension, or any thing which consists not in a mathematical
point, but is capable of growth ; whatsoever is of such a nature as is
always to increase in this life, in that such abatements may be made
as will fit the person and the state ; and no man is to be quarrelled
at for degrees in the beginnings or in the first progressions of his
piety, only he is to be invited on by proper and fair inducements ;
and if he stands still always, as he is to be suspected for want of love,
so he is to be warned of his danger and thrust forward by the
memory of the best examples. Thus it may not upon any terms be
permitted to any weak person to do an act of injustice, to blaspheme
Cod, to reproach his father, to be wanton; he may not be allowed
to slander his brother, to neglect his children, to despise his wife, to
part from her because he is weary of her, for fear the not indulging
any thing of this nature to him should provoke him to anger against
the religion. We may not give easy answers in cases of conscience,
or promise heaven to them that live evil lives, for fear that our
severity should make them forsake our communion and go to the
Roman church ; that is, we must not allow any man to do one evil
to hinder him from another, or give leave to him to break one com-
mandment that we may preserve another. But of this I have
already given more particular accounts0. That which at present I
intend is, that no sin or omission of duty is to be permitted, no law
of Christ is to be expounded to comply with us against God; but)
when a less severe sense is within the limits of duty, that our weak- 1
nesses are to be complied withal is affirmed as being most charitable
and necessary. Thus if it be enquired whether our sorrow for our
sins ought to be punitive and vindictive, sharp and sensible as the
perception of any temporal evil, as the sorrow of a mother for the
death of her only child, this being a question of degrees which can-
not consist in an indivisible point, is never limited and determinate ;
any degree that can consist with the main duty may be permitted to him
whose necessity requires such indulgence, and if he be sorrowful in
such a degree as to move him to pray passionately and perseveringly for
pardon, to beget in him a wise and a wary caution against temptation,
to produce in him hatred against sin, and dereliction of it, a war ami
a victory, the death of sin and the life of righteousness, the penitent
is not to be prejudiced by the degree of his sorrow, or the thickness
of its edge, and the commandment is so to be expounded as to secure
the duty and secure the man too : and if he be told that a less degree
of sorrow than the supreme will not serve his turn, and that the com-
mandment is to be expounded in the greatest and severest measures,
he that finds this impossible to him will let it all alone, for as good
never a whit as never the better ; but then he that tells him so hath
laid a snare for his brother's foot, and binds upon his shoulder a bur-
den too heavy for him. For to what purpose can we imagine that

c Vide book i. chap. 5. rule S. § 1*;. &c. usque ad finem. [p. 246 iq. J

552 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

there should be a latitude in the commandment, and yet no use to be
made of the least degree ? and if God cherishes the babes in Christ,
and is pleased in every step of our progression, then it is certain that
they who are but babes are to be treated accordingly, and the com-
mandment is to be acted by the proportions of the man. But then
if the question be concerning the integrity of the repentance, he that
is troubled at heart because he is told that a resolution to leave sin
is not enough, that without restitution there is no repentance; he
that will kick at religion because it requires all the duties which in-
tegrate the commandment, is not to be complied with, nor permitted
to his folly. I have read of a gentleman who being on his deathbed
and his confessor searching and dressing of his wounded soul, was
found to be obliged to make restitution of a considerable sum of
money, with the diminution of his estate. His confessor found him
desirous to be saved, a lover of his religion, and yet to have a kind-
ness for his estate, which he desired might be entirely transmitted to
his beloved heir : he would serve God with all his heart, and re-
pented him of his sin, of his rapine and injustice, he begged for
pardon passionately, he humbly hoped for mercy, he resolved in case
he did recover to live strictly, to love God, to reverence His priests,
to be charitable to the poor ; but to make restitution he found im-
possible to him, and he hoped the commandment would not require
it of him, and desired to be relieved by an easy and a favourable inter-
pretation ; for it is ten thousand pities so many good actions and
good purposes should be in vain, but it is worse, infinitely worse,
if the man should perish. What should the confessor do in this
case ? shall not the man be relieved, and his piety be accepted ? or
shall the rigour and severity of the confessor, and his scrupulous fears
and impertinent niceness cast away a soul either in future misery, or
present discomfort ? Neither one nor other was to be done, and the
good man was only to consider what God had made necessary, not
what the vices of his penitent and his present follies should make so.
Well ! the priest insists upon his first resolution, Non dimittitur pec-
catum nisi restituatur ablatum : the sick man could have no ease by
the loss of a duty. The poor clinic desires the confessor to deal
with his son, and try if he could be made willing that his father
might go to heaven at the charge of his son, which when he had
attempted, he was answered with extreme rudenesses and injurious
language, which caused great trouble to the priest and to the dying
father. At last the religious man found out this device, telling his
penitent, that unless by corporal penances there could be made satis-
faction in exchange for restitution, he knew no hopes, but because
the profit of the estate which was obliged to restitution was to de-
scend upon the son, he thought something might be hoped if by way
of commutation the son would hold his finger in a burning candle
for a quarter of an hour. The glad father being overjoyed at this
loophole of eternity, this glimpse of heaven, and the certain retain-

CHAP. III.] OP THE LAWS OP JESUS CHRIST. 533

ing of the whole estate, called to his son, told him the condition and
the advantages to them both, making no question but he would
gladly undertake the penance. But the son with indignation replied
he would not endure so much torture to save the whole estate. To
which the priest espying his advantage made this quick return to the
old man, Sir, if your son will not for a quarter of an hour endure the
pains of a burning ringer to save your soul, will you to save a portion
of the estate for him endure the names of hell to eternal ages ? The
unreasonableness of the odds, and the ungratefulness of the son, and
the importunity of the priest, and the fear of hell, and the indis-
pensable necessity of restitution, awakened the old man from his
lethargy, and he bowed himself to the rule, made restitution, and
had hopes of pardon and present comfort.

§9.2) The other case in which the law is to be expounded to the
sense of ease and liberty is when the question is concerning outward
actions, or the crust and outsides of religion. For the christian re-
ligion being wholly spiritual, and being ministered to by bodily ex-
ercises, and they being but significations of the inward, not at all
pleasing to God for themselves, but as they edify, instruct, or do
advantages to men, they are in all cases to be exacted ; but in such
proportions as can consist with charity, which is the life of religion :
and therefore if a soul be in danger to be tempted, or overburdened
with a bodily exercise, if there be hazard that all religion will be
hated, and that the man will break the yoke if he be pinched in his
skin, it is better to secure the great and internal principle of obedi-
ence, than the external instance and expression. This caution is of use
in the injunction of fasting days, and external acts of mortification,
which are indeed effects of the laws of Christ, but the measures of
these laws are to be such as consist with the great end of the laws,
that is, mercy and internal religion. And the great reason of this is,
because all external actions are really such as without our fault they
may be hindered ; there may be some accidents and causes by which
they shall not be at all, and there may be many more by which they
may be eased and lessened. An external accident or a corporal in-
firmity is to be complied withal in the matter of external ministries,
that is, when there is mercy in it ; and so must every virtue and in-
ward grace, because it is for the interest of religion. Now what must
be permitted in the action ought to be so in the sentence, and that is
the meaning of the law which is either commanded to the strong or
indulged to the weak. Add to this, that outward actions of religion
are for the weak, not for the strong ; they are to minister to weakness
and infirmities, and by bodily expressions to invite forward, to enter-
tain, to ferment, to endear the spirit of a man to the purposes of
God ; but even the body itself shall be spiritual, and it is intended
that it shall wholly minister to God in spiritual services hereafter.
In the mean time, by outward acts it does something symbolical, or
at least expressive of the inward duty. But therefore if the external

554 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

do disserve the spirit of God by oppressing the spirit of the man ; that
whose nature and institution is wholly instrumental must be made to
comply with the end, and therefore must stand there when it is apt
to minister to it, but must go away if it hinders it.

§ 10. 3) In the interpretation of the laws of Christ to a sense of
ease and liberty, there must be no limits and lessenings described
beforehand or in general ; because any such proceeding would not
only be destitute of that reason which warrants it in some cases, but
would evacuate the great purpose of the law in all : that is, it would
be more than what is necessary to comply with new and accidental
necessities, and to others it would be less than what is intended in
the law ; it would either tie the weak to impossibilities, or give leave
to the strong to be negligent and unprofitable ; it would command
too much or permit too much ; it would either hold the bridle too
hard, or break it all in pieces. But the interpretation and ease must
be as accidental as the cause that enforces it, or the need that invites
it ; that is, every law of Christ intends that we should obey it in the
perfection, that we should do it in the best way we can, and every
man must do so : but because all cannot do alike, every man's best
is alike in the event, but not in the action ; and therefore the law
which is made for man must mean no more than every man can do ;
but because no man is to be supposed to be in disorder and weak-
ness till he be found to be so, therefore beforehand no compliance
or easy interpretation is to be made of the degrees of duty.

§ 11. 4) No laws of Christ are to suffer diminution of interpreta-
tion in the degrees to persons that make themselves weak that they
may bear but a little burden, but the gentler sentence and sense of
laws is to be applied to ease the weary and the afflicted, him that
desires much and can do but little ; to him that loves God and loves
religion, to him that endeavours heartily, and enquires diligently, and
means honestly ; to him that hath every thing but strength, and wants
nothing but growth and time, and good circumstances and the pros-
perities of piety. The best indications of which state of persons are
these :

WHO ARE TRULY AND INNOCENTLY WEAK AND TO BE
COMPLIED WITH?

§ 12. 1) They are to be complied with who are new beginners in
religion, or the uninstructed ; they who want strengths not by reason
of any habitual sin, but by the nature of beginnings and new changes ;
for none can more innocently pretend to a forbearance and suffer-
ance, than those who have the weakness of infancy. But I added
also that the uninstructed have the same pretension, for according as
their degrees of ignorance are, so are the degrees of their excusable
infirmity. But then by uninstructed is only meant such who have
not heard, or could not learn, not such who are ever learning and

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 555

never sufficiently taught; that is, such who love to hear but not to
be ' doers of the word/ such who are perverse and immorigerous,
such who serve a humour or an interest, an opinion or a peevish sect
in their learning. Tor there are some who have spent much time in
the enquiries of religion, whom if you call ignorant they suppose
themselves injured, and yet will require the privileges and compli-
ances of the weak : these men trouble others, and therefore are not
to be eased themselves; their weakness of state is the impotency of
passion, and therefore they must not rejoice in that by which they
make others grieved.

§ J 3. 2) They are to be complied with according to the foregoing
measures, who in all things where they know and can, do their hearty
endeavours, and make no abatement to themselves, but with diligence
and sincerity prosecute their duty. For this diligence and sincerity
is a competent testimony that the principle of their necessity is not-
evil, but innocent and unavoidable. Whatsoever is not an effect of
idleness or peevishness may come in upon a fair, but always comes in
upon a pitiable account ; and therefore is that subject which is capa-
ble of all that ease of rigour and severity which the wise masters of
assemblies and interpreters of the divine laws do allow to any persons
in any cases.

§ 14. 3) The last sign of subjects capable of ease is infirmity of
body ; and that is a certain disposition to all the mercies and remis-
sions of the law in such cases as relate to the body and are instanced
in external ministries. To which also is to be referred

4) Disability of estate in duties of exterior charity ; which are to be
exacted according to the proportions of men's evil power, taking in the
needs of their persons and of their relations, their calling and their
quality ; and that God intends it should be so appears in this, because
all outward duties are so enjoined that they can be supplied, and the
internal grace instanced in other actions, of which there are so many
kinds that some or other can be done by every one ; and yet there is
so great variety that no man or but very few men can do all. I in-
stance in the several ways of mortification, viz. by fastings, by watch-
ings and pernoctations in prayer, lyings on the ground, by toleration
and patience, laborious gestures of the body in prayer, standing with
arms extended, long kneelings on the bare ground, suffering contra-
diction and affronts, lessenings and undervaluings, peevish and cross
accidents, denying ourselves lawful pleasures, refusing a pleasant
morsel, leaving society and meetings of friends, and very many things
of the like nature ; by any of which the body may be mortified and
the soul disciplined, or the outward act may be supplied by an active
and intense love which can do every thing of duty. So also it is in
alms, which some do by giving money to the poor, some by com-
forting the afflicted, some by giving silver and gold, others which
have it not do yet do greater things : but since it matters not what
it is we are able to do, so that we do but what we arc able, it matters

556 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

not how the grace be instanced, so that by all the instances we can
we do minister to the grace, it follows, that the law can be made to
bend in any thing of the external instance so that the inward grace
be not neglected ; but therefore it is certain that because every thing
of matter can by matter be hindered, and a string or a chain of iron
can hinder all the duty of the hand and foot, God who imposes and
exacts nothing that is impossible is contented that the obedience of
the spirit be secured, and the body must obey the law as well as
it can.

But there are some other considerations to be added to the main
rule.

§ 15. 5) When the action is already done, and that there is no fur-
ther deliberation concerning the direct duty, yet the law is not at all
to be eased and lessened, if there be a deliberation concerning the colla-
teral and accidental duty of repentance ; and this is upon the same rea-
sons as the first limitation of the rule : for when a duty is to be done,
and a deliberation to be had, we are in perfect choice, and therefore
we are to answer for God and for religion ; and this is all one, whether
the enquiry be made in the matter of innocence or repentance, that
is, in the preventing of a sin or curing of it. For we are in all things
lied to as great a care of our duty after we have once broken it as be-
fore, and in some things to a greater ; and repentance is nothing but
a new beginning of our duty, a going from our error, and a recovery
of our loss, and a restitution of our health, and a being put into the
same estate from whence we were fallen ; so that at least all the same
severities are to be used in repentance, as great a rigour of sentence,
as strict a caution, as careful a walking, as humble and universal an
obedience, besides the sorrow and the relative parts of duty which
come in upon the account of our sin.

§ 16. 6) But if the enquiry be made after the sin is done, and that
there is no deliberation concerning any present or future duty, but
concerning the hopes or state of pardon, then we may hope that God
will be easy to give us pardon, according to the gentlest sense and
measures of the law. For this, provided it be not brought into
evil example in the measures of duty afterwards, can have in it no
danger : it is matter of hope, and therefore keeps a man from despair;
but because it is but matter of hope, therefore it is not apt to abuse
him into presumption, and if it be mistaken in the measures of the
law, yet it makes it up upon the account of God's mercy : and it will
be all one ; either it is God's mercy in making an easy sense of the
law, or God's mercy in giving an easy sentence on the man, or God's
mercy in easing and taking off the punishment, and that will be all
one as to the event, and therefore will be a sufficient warrant for our
hope, because it will some way or other come to pass as we hope. It
is all alike whether we be saved because God will exact no more of
us, or because though He did exact more by His law yet He will
pardon so much the more in the sentence. But this is of use only

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHIUST. 557

to them who are tempted to despair, or oppressed by too violent fears ;
and it relies upon all the lines of the divine mercy, and upon all the
arguments of comfort by which declining hopes use to be supported :
and since we ourselves by observing our incurable infirmities espy
some necessities of having the law read in the easier sense, we do in
the event of things find that we have a need of pardon greater than
we could think we should in the heats of our first conversion and
the fervours of our newly returning piety; and therefore God does not
only see much more reason to pity us upon the same account, but
upon divers others, some whereof we know and some we know not ;
but therefore we can hope for more than we yet see in the lines of re-
velation, and possibly we may receive in many cases better measure
than we yet hope for : but whoever makes this hope to lessen his
duty will find himself ashamed in his hope ; for no hope is reason-
able but that which quickens our piety, and hastens and perfects
our repentance, and purifies the soul, and engages all the powers of*
action, and ends in the love of God, and in a holy life.

§ 17. 7) There are many other tilings to be added by way of as-
sistance to them who are pressed with the burden of a law severely
apprehended, or unequally applied or not rightly understood j but
the sum of them is this.

a) If the sense be hidden or dubious, do nothing till the cloud be
off, and the doubt be removed.

/3) If the law be indifferent to two senses, take that which is most
pious and most holy.

y) If it be between two, but not perfectly indifferent, follow that
which is most probable.

h) Do after the custom and common usages of the best and wisest
men.

e) Do with the most, and speak with the least.

C) Ever bend thy determination to comply with the analogy of
faith, and the common measures of good life, and the glorifications
and honour of God, and the utility of our neighbour.

rj) Then choose thy part of obedience, and do it cheerfully and con-
fidently, with a great industry and a full persuasion.

6) After the action is done, enter into no new disputes whether it
was lawful or no, unless it be upon new instances and new arguments
relating to what is to come, and not troubling thyself with that which
with prudence and deliberation thou didst (as things were then re-
presented) well and wisely choose.

558 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

EULE XI.

THE POSITIVE LAWS OF JESUS C1IMST CANNOT BE DISPENSED WITH BY ANY

HUMAN POWER.

§ 1. I have already in tins bookd given account of the indis-
pensability of the natural laws which are the main constituent parts
of the evangelical ; but there are some positive laws whose- reasonjs
not natural nor eternal, which yet Christ hath superinduced; con-
cerning which there is great question made whether they be dis-
pensable by human power. Now concerning these I say that all laws
given by Christ are now made for ever to be obligatory, and He is
the King of heaven and earth, the Head and Prince of the catholic
church, and therefore hath supreme power, and He is the ' wonderful
Counsellor, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace, and His
wisdom is supreme, He is ' the wisdom of the Father, and therefore
He hath made His laws so wisely, so agreeably to the powers and
accidents of mankind, that they can be observed by all men and all
ways where He hath passed an obligation. Now because every dis-
pensation of laws must needs suppose an infirmity or imperfection in
the law or an infirmity in the man, that is, that either the law did
infer inconvenience which was not foreseen, or was unavoidable ; or
else the law meets with the changes of mankind with which it is not
made in the sanction to comply, and therefore must be forced to
yield to the needs of the man, and stand aside till that necessity be
past : it follows that in the laws of the H. Jesus there is no dis-
pensation, because there is in the law no infirmity, and no incapacity
in the man, for every man can always obey all that which Christ
commanded and exacted ; I mean he hath no natural impotency to
do any act that Christ hath required, and he can never be hindered
from doing of his duty.

§ 2. 1) And this appears in this, because God hath appointed a
harbour whither every vessel can put in when he meets with storms
and contrary winds abroad : and when we are commanded by a per-
secutor not to obey God, we cannot be forced to comply with the
evil man; for we can be secure against him by suffering what he
pleases, and therefore disobedience to a law of Christ cannot be made
necessary by any external violence : I mean every internal act is not
in itself impedible by outward violence, and the external act which is
made necessary can be secured by a resolution to obey God rather
than men.

§ 3. 2) But there are some external actions and instances of a
commandment which may accidentally become impossible by sub-

rt Chap. i. rule 10. [p. 340.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 559

traction of the material part ; so for want of water a child cannot be
baptized, for want of wine or bread we cannot communicate ; which
indeed is true, but do not infer that therefore there is a power of dis-
pensing left in any man or company of men, because in such cases
there is no law, and therefore no need of dispensation. Tor affirma-
tive precepts, in which only there can be an external impediment, do
not oblige but in their proper circumstances and possibilities : and
thus it is even in human laws; no law obliges beyond our power;
and although it be necessary sometimes to get a dispensation even in
such cases, to rescue ourselves from the malice or the carelessness,
the ignorance or the contrary interests of the ministers of justice,
who go by the words of the law, and are not competent or not in-
structed judges in the matter of necessity or excuse, yet there is no
such need in the laws of God. Eor God is always just and always
wise, He knows when we can and when we cannot, and therefore as
He cannot be deceived by ignorance, so neither can He oppress any
man by injustice, and we need not have leave to let a thing alone
which we cannot do if we would never so fain; and if we cannot
obey, we need not require of God a warrant under His hand or an
act of indemnity, for which His justice and His goodness, His wisdom
and His very nature are infinite security : and therefore it cannot be
necessary to the church that a power of dispensing should be intrusted
to men, in such cases where we cannot suppose the law of God to
bind. That's our best security that we need no dispensation.

§ 4. 3) In external actions and instances of virtue or of obedience
to a commandment of Jesus Christ, wherever there can be a hin-
drance, if the obligation does remain, the instance that is hindered can
be supplied with another of the same kind. Thus relieving the poor
hungry man can be hindered by my own poverty and present need,
but I can visit him that is sick, though I cannot feed the hungry,
or I can give him bread when I cannot give him a cloak ; and there-
fore there can need no dispensation when the commandment if it be
hindered in one instance can as perfectly and to all the intentions of
our lawgiver be performed in another.

§ 5. 4) In external actions which can be hindered and which
cannot be supplied by the variety of the instances in the same kind,
yet if the obligation remains, they may be supplied with the internal
act, and with the spiritual. Thus if we cannot receive actual baptism
the desire of it is accepted ; and he that communicates spiritually,
that is, by faith and charity, by inward devotion and hearty desire,
is not guilty of the breach of the commandment if he does not com-
municate sacramentally, being unavoidably and inculpably hindered.
For whatsoever is not in our power cannot be under a law, and
where we do not consent to the breach of a commandment, we can-
not be exposed to the punishment. This is the voice of all the
world, and this is natural reason, and the ground of justice, with-
out which there can be no government but what is tyrannical and

560 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

unreasonable. These things being notorious and confessed the con-
sequents are these :

§ 6. That there is no necessity that a power of dispensing in the

positive laws of Christ should be intrusted to any man, or to any

society. Because the law needs it not, and the subjects need it not:

and he that dispenses must either do it when there is cause, or when

there is none. If he dispenses when there is no cause, he makes

I himself superior to the power of God by exercising dominion over

! His laws ; if he dispenses when there is cause, he dispenses when

| there is no need. Eor if the subject can obey, lie must obey, and

man cannot untie what God hath bound ; but if he cannot obey, he

is not bound, and therefore needs not be untied ; he may as well go

about to unbend a strait line, or to number that which is not, as to

dispense in a law to which in such cases God exacts no obedience.

§ 7. Panormitane affirms that the pope hath power to dispense
in all the laws of God, except in the articles of faith ; and to this
purpose he cites Innocentius in c. ' Cum ad monasterium' de statu
monackorumf. Felinuss affirms that the pope can change the form
of baptism, and that he can with one word, and without all solemnity
consecrate a priest, and that he can by his word alone make a bishop :
and though these pretences are insolent and strange, yet in fact he
does as much as this comes to ; for the pope gives leave sometimes
to a mere priest to give confirmation, which by divine right is only
belonging to bishops by their own confession. That the blessed
" eucharist is to be consecrated in both kinds is certainly of divine
right, and so confessed by the church of Rome ; but the pope hath
actually dispensed in this article and given leave to some to conse-
crate in bread only, and particularly to the Norvegians a dispensa-
tion was given by Innocent the eighth, as I have already noted out
of Volaterranus.

§ 8. There are some learned men amongst them who speak in this
question with less scandal, but almost with the same intentions and
effects. Some of their divines, particularly the bishop of the Cana-
ries h, says that the pope hath not power to dispense in the whole, or
in all the laws of God, but in some only ; namely where the observa-
tion of the law is impeditiva majoris boni, ' a hindrance or obstruc-
tion to a greater spiritual good/ as it may happen in oaths and vows;
and (Sanchez adds) in the consecration of the blessed sacrament in
both kinds : in these, say they, the pope can dispense. But where
the observation of the laws in the particular brings no evil or incon-
venience, and does never hinder a greater good, there the laws are
indispensable ; such as are confession, baptism, using a set form of
words in the ministration of the sacraments. So that the meaning

e C. ' Proposuit.' de concess. praebend., 8 In c. ' CJuse in eccles.,' in const, n. 19,

iu 20. [part. iii. fol. 57 a.] 20. [in decret.part.l.fol.25. Lugd. 1587.]

' [Greg. ix. decret., lib. iii. tit. 35. h Canus, relect. de poenitent., part. vi.

cap. 6. col. 1198.] ad fiiieni. Lp. 971.]

CHAP. III.] OV THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 5G1

is, the pope never wants a power to do it, if there be not wanting
an excuse to colour it : and then in effect the divines agree with the
lawyers ; for since the power of dispensing is given in words inde-
finite and without specification of particulars (if it be given at all)
the authority must be unlimited as to the person, and can be limited
only by the incapacity of the matter ; and if there could be any in-
convenience in any law, there might be a dispensation in it. So
that the divines and the lawyers differ only in the instances ; which
if we should consider, or if any great interest could be served by any,
there can be no doubt but it would be found a sufficient cause of
dispensation. So that this is but to cozen mankind with a distinc-
tion to no purpose, and to affirm that the pope cannot dispense in
such things which yield no man any good or profit ; such as is the
using a set form of words in baptism, or the like ; and they may at
an easy rate pretend the pope's power to be limited, when they only
restrain him from violating a divine law, when either the observation
of it is for his own advantage, as in confession (meaning to a priest)
or when it serves the interest of no man to have it changed, as in
the forms of sacraments.

§ 9. But then, that I may speak to the other part; to say that
the pope may dispense in a divine law when the particular observa-
tion does hinder a greater spiritual good, and that this is a sufficient
cause, is a proposition in all things false, and in some cases, even in
those where they instance, very dangerous.

It is false, because if a man can by his own act be obliged to do
a thing which yet is impeditive of a greater temporal good, then God
can by His law oblige his obedience, though accidentally it hinder a
greater spiritual good. Now if a man have promised, he must keep
it ' though it were to his own hindrance/ said David' ; and a man
may not break his oath though the keeping of it hinder him from
many spiritual comforts and advantages ; nay a man may neglect a
spiritual advantage for a temporal necessity ; and in the Bohemian
wars, the king had better been at the head of his troops than at
a sermon when Prague was taken.

But I consider (for that is also very material) that it is dangerous.
For when men to justify a pretence, or to verify an action, or to
usurp a power, shall pretend that there is on the other side a greater
spiritual good, they may very easily deceive others, because either
voluntarily or involuntarily they deceive themselves : for when God
hath given a commandment, who can say that to let it alone can do
more good to a man's soul than to keep it ? I instance in a particu-
lar which is of great interest with them. If a man have vowed to a
woman to marry her, and contracted himself to her per verba de prce-
senti ; she according to her duty loves him passionately, hath mar-
ried her very soul to him, and her heart is bound up in his : but he
changes his mind, and enters into religion, but stops at the very gate

[Psalm xv. 4.]
IX. O 0

502 OP THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

and asks who shall warrant him for the breach of his faith and vows
to his spouse ? The pope answers he will, and though by the law of
God he be tied to that woman, yet because the keeping of that vow
would hinder him from doing God better service in religion, this is
a sufficient cause for him to dispense with his vow. This then is
the case concerning which I enquire : a) How does it appear that
to enter into a monastery is absolutely a greater spiritual good than
to live chastely with the wife of his love and vows ? /3) I enquire
whether to break a man's vow be not of itself (abstracting from all
extrinsical pretensions and collateral inducements) a very great sin ?
and if there were not a great good to follow the breach of it, I de-
mand whether could the pope dispense or give leave to any man to
do it ? If he could, then it is plain he can give leave to a man to
do a very great evil ; for without the accidentally consequent good
it is confessed to be very evil to break our lawful vows. But if he
cannot dispense with his vow unless some great good were to follow
upon the breach of it, then it is clear he can give leave to a man to
do evil that good may come of it. For if without such a reason or
such a consequent good the pope could not dispense, then the con-
sequent good does legitimate the dispensation, and either an evil act
done for a good end is lawful and becomes good, or else the pope
plainly gives him leave to do that which is still remaining evil, for a
good end : either of which is intolerable, and equally against the
apostle's rule, which is also a rule of natural religion and reason, * no
man must do evil for a good end/ But then, y) who can assure me
that an act of religion is better than an act of justice ? or that God
will be served by doing my wife an injury ? or that He will accept
of me a new vow which is perfectly a breaking of an old ? or that
by our vows to our wives we are not as much obliged to God as by
our monastical vows before our abbot ? or that marriage is not as
great an act of religion if wisely and holily undertaken (as it ought
to be) as the taking the habit of S. Francis ? or that I can be capa-
ble of giving myself to religion when I have given the right and
power of myself away to another ? or that I may not as well steal
from a man to give alms to the poor, as wrong my wife to give my-
self to a cloister ? or that he can ever give himself to religion who
breaks the religion of vows and promises, of justice and honour, of
faith and the sacramental mystery, that he may go into religion ? or
that my retirement in a cloister, and doing all that is there intended
can make recompense for making my wife miserable, and it may be
desperate and calamitous all her life time ? Can God be delighted
with my prayers which I offer to Him in a cloister, when it may be
at the same time my injured spouse is praying to God to do her
justice and to avenge my perjuries upon my guilty head, and it may
be, cries loud to God and weeps and curses night and day ? who can
tell which is better, or which is worse ? For marriage and single
life of themselves are indifferent to piety or impiety, they may be

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 5G3

used well, or abused to evil purposes ; but if they take their estimate
by the event, no man can beforehand tell which would have been the
greater spiritual good. But suppose it as you list, yet,

§ 11. I consider that when God says that 'obedience is better
than sacrifice,' He hath plainly told us that no pretence of religion,
or of a greater spiritual good, can legitimate vow-breach, or disobedi-
ence to a divine commandment : and therefore either the pope must
dispense in all laws of Christ, and without all reason, that is, by his
absolute authority and supereminency over the law and the power
that established it, or else he cannot dispense at all; for there is
no reason that can legitimate our disobedience.

§ 12. But then if we consider the authority itself, the considera-
tions will be very material. No man pretends to a power of dis-
pensing in the law of God but the pope only; and he only upon
pretence of the words spoken to S. Peter j, "Whatsoever thou shalt
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Now did ever any of the
apostles or apostolical men suppose that S. Peter could in any case
dispense with vow-breach, or the violation of a lawful oath ? Was
not all that power which was then promised to him wholly relative
to the matter of fraternal conception ? and was it not equally given
to the apostles ? for either it was never performed to S. Peter, or else
it was alike promised and performed to all the apostles k, in the dona-
tion of the Spirit, and of the power of binding, and the words of
Christ to them before and after His resurrection : so that by certain
consequence of this, either all the successors of the apostles have the
same power, or none of the successors of S. Peter. Or if the suc-
cessors of S. Peter only, why not his successors at Antioch as well as
his successors at Borne ? since it is certain that he was at Antioch,
but is not so certain that he was at all at Borne, for those things that
Ulrichus Velenus says against it in a tractate on purpose on that sub-
ject, and published by Goldastus1 in his third tome, are not incon-
siderable allegations and arguments for the negative, but I shall give
account of that enquiry in some of the following pages. And yet
suppose he was, yet it is as likely, that is, as certain as the other,
that after the martyrdom of S. Peter and S. Paul there were two
bishops or popes of Bome ; as it is conjectured by the different
catalogues of the first successions, and by their differing presidencies
or episcopacies, one being over the circumcision and the other over
the uncircumcision (if I say they were at all, concerning which I
have no occasion to interpose my sentence) . But if either this gift
was given in common to all the apostles, or if it was given personally
to S. Peter, or if it means ouly the power of discipline over sinners
and penitent persons, or if it does not mean to destroy all justice and
human contracts, to rescind all the laws of God and man, to make
Christ's laws subject to Christ's minister, and Christ's kingdom to be

> [Matt. xvi. 19.] k [Matt, xviii. 18 ; John xx. 23.]

1 [Monarch. S. Rom. imp., tom. iii. fol. Francof. 1613.]

O O 2

564 OP THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

the pope's inheritance and possession in alto dominio ; if those words
of Christ to S. Peter are so to be understood as that His subjects and
servants shall still be left in those rights which He hath given and
confirmed and sanctified ; then it follows undeniably that S. Peter's
power of the keys is not to be a pick-lock of the laws of his master,
but to bind men to the performance of them, or to the punishment
of breaking them; and if by those words of "Whatsoever thou shalt
loose" it be permitted to loose and untie the band of oaths and vows,
then they may also mean a power of loosing any man's life, or any
man's right, or any man's word, or any man's oath, or any man's
obligation solemn or unsolemn, when he hath really an interest or
reason so to do, of which reason himself only can be the warrantable
judge : which things because they are unsufferably unreasonable, that
pretence which infers such evils and such impieties must be also un-
sufferable and impossible.

§ 13. I conclude therefore with this distinction. There is a
proper dispensation, that is, such a dispensation as supposes the
obligation remaining upon that person who is to be dispensed with ;
but no man or society of men can in this sense dispense with any
law of Christ. But there is a dispensation improperly so called,
which does not suppose a remanent obligation, and therefore pretends
not to take away any, but supposes only a doubt remaining whether
the law does by God's intention oblige or no : he that hath skill and
authority and reason to declare that in such special cases God in-
tended not to oblige the conscience, hath taken away the doubt,
and made that to become lawful which without such a declaration by
reason of the remaining doubt was not so. This is properly an in-
terpretation ; but because it hath the same effect upon the man
which the other hath directly upon the law, therefore by divines and
lawyers it is sometimes also called a dispensation, but improperly.

§ 14. But the other consequent arising from the first observations
which I made upon this rule is this, that as there is no necessity that
there should be any dispensation in the laws of Jesus Christ, so in
those cases where there may be an improper dispensation, that is, an
interpretation or declaration that the law in this case does not bind
at all, no man must by way of equity or condescension and expedient
appoint any thing that the law permits not, or declare that a part of
the law may be used, when the whole is in the institution. For ex-
ample, the Norvegians™ complained that they could very seldom get
any wine into their country, and when it did come it was almost
vinegar or vapp ; he who had reason and authority might then
certainly have declared that precept of consecrating did not oblige
when they had not matter with which they were to do it; because
no good law obliges to impossibilities. But then no man of his own
head might interpose an expedient, and say, though you have no
wine to consecrate and celebrate withal, yet you may do it in ale or

m [See p. 545 above.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 565

mead; nor yet might he warrant an imperfect consecration and
allow that the priests should celebrate with bread only. The reason
is, because all institutions sacramental and positive laws depend not
upon the nature of the things themselves, according to the extension
or diminution of which our obedience might be measured ; but they
depend wholly on the will of the lawgiver, and the will of the
supreme, being actually limited to this specification, this manner,
this matter, this institution; whatsoever comes besides it hath no
foundation in the will of the legislator, and therefore can have no
warrant or authority. That it be obeyed or not obeyed is all the
question and all the variety. If it can be obeyed it must, if it
cannot it must be let alone. The right mother that appeared before
Solomon demanded her child ; half of her own was offered, but that
was not it which would do her any good, neither would she have
been pleased with a whole bolster of goat's hair, or with a perfect
image of her child, or with a living lamb; it was her own child
which she demanded : so it is in the divine institution ; whatsoever
God wills that we must attend to ; and therefore whatsoever depends
upon a divine law or institution, whatsoever is appointed instru-
mental to the signification of a mystery, or to the collation of a grace
or a power, he that does any thing of his own head, either must be
a despiser of God's will, or must suppose himself the author of a
grace, or else to do nothing at all in what he does, because all his
obedience and all the blessing of his obedience depends upon the
will of God, which ought always to be obeyed when it can, and when
it cannot nothing can supply it, because the reason of it cannot be
understood, for who can teil why God would have the death of His
Son celebrated by bread and wine ? why by both the symbols ? why
by such? and therefore no proportions can be made, and if they
could yet they cannot be warranted.

§ 15. This rule is not only to be understood concerning the
express positive laws and institutions of our blessed Lawgiver, but
even those which are included within those laws, or are necessary
appendages to those institutions, are to be obeyed, and can neither
be dispensed withal nor diverted by any suppletory or expedient.
Thus to the law of representing and commemorating the death of
our dearest Lord by the celebration of His last supper it is neces-
sarily appendent and included that we should come worthily pre-
pared, lest that which is holy be given to dogs, and holy things be
handled unholily. In this case there can be no dispensation ; and
although the curates of souls having the key of knowledge and un-
derstanding to divide the word of God rightly, have power and
warrant to tell what measures and degrees of preparation are just
and holy, yet they cannot give any dispensation in any just and
required degree, nor by their sentence effect that a less degree than
God requires in the appendent law can be sufficient to any man;
neither can any human authority commute a duty that God requires,

566 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

and when He demands repentance no man can dispense with him, that
is, to communicate, or give hiin leave to give alms instead of re-
pentance. But if in the duty of preparation God had involved the
duty of confession to a priest, this might have in some cases been
wholly let alone ; that is, in case there were no priest to be had but
one, who were to consecrate and who could not attend to hear my
confessions ; and the reason is, because in case of the destitution of
any material or necessary constituent part of the duty, there is no
need of equity or interpretation, because the subject matter of
degrees of heightenings and diminutions being taken away, there can
be no consideration of the manner or the degrees superstructed.
When any condition intrinsically and in the nature of the thing
included in an affirmative precept is destituent or wanting, the duty
itself falls without interpretation.

§ 16. Lastly, this rule is to be understood also much more con-
cerning the negative precepts of the religion, because there can be
no hindrance to the duties of -a negative precept; every man can let
any thing alone, and he cannot be forced from his silence or his
omission, for he can sit still and die; violence can hinder an action,
but cannot effect it or express it : and therefore here is no place for
interpretation, much less for dispensation, neither can it be supplied
by any action or by any omission whatsoever.

But upon the matter of this second consequent remarked above
(§ 14) it is to be enquired whether in no case a supply of duty
is to be made, or whether or no it is not better in some cases, that
is, when we are hindered from doing the duty commanded, to do
something when we cannot do all; or are we tied to do nothing
when we are innocently hindered from doing of the whole duty.

WHEN WE MAY BE ADMITTED TO DO PART OP OUR DUTY, AND
WHEN TO SUPPLY IT BY SOMETHING ELSE.

§ 17. 1) Negative precepts have no parts of duty, no degrees of
obedience, but consist in a mathematical point ; or rather in that
which is not so much, for it consists in that which can neither be
numbered nor weighed. No man can go a step from the severest
measure of a negative commandment ; if a man do but in his thought
go against it, or in one single instance do what is forbidden, or but
begin to do it, he is entirely guilty. f He that breaks one is guilty
of all/ said S. James"; it is meant of negative precepts, and then it
is true in every sense relating to every single precept, and to the
whole body of the negative commandments. He that breaks one
hath broken the band of all, and he that does sin in any instance or
imaginary degree against a negative hath done the whole sin that is
in that commandment forbidden.

[chap. ii. 10.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS Of JESUS CHRIST. 567

§ 18. 2) All positive precepts that depend upon the mere will of
the lawgiver (as I have already discoursed) admit no degrees, nor
suppletory and commutation ; because in such laws we see nothing
beyond the words of the law, and the first meaning and the named
instance, and therefore it is that in individuo which God points at,
it is that in which He will make the trial of our obedience ; it is that
in which He will so perfectly be obeyed, that He will not be disputed
with, or enquired of why and how, but just according to the mea-
sures there set down ; so, and no more, and no less, and no other-
wise. For when the will of the lawgiver is all the reason, the first
instance of the law is all the measures, and there can be no product
but what is just set down. No parity of reason can infer any thing
else, because there is no reason but the will of God; to which
nothing can be equal, because His will can be but one. If any man
should argue thus, Christ hath commanded us to celebrate His death
by blessing and communicating in bread and wine ; this being plainly
His purpose, and I finding it impossible to get wine, consider that
water came out of His side as well as blood, and therefore water will
represent His death as well as wine, for wine is but like blood, and
water is more like itself, and therefore I obey Him better, when
in the letter I cannot obey Him ; he, I say, that should argue thus,
takes wrong measures, for it is not here to be enquired which is
most agreeable to our reason, but which complies with God's will,
for that is all the reason we are to enquire after.

§ 19. 3) In natural laws and obligations depending upon true and
proper reason drawn from the nature of things, there we must do
what we can, and if we cannot do all that is at first intended, yet it
is secondarily intended that we should do what we can. The reason
is, because there is a natural cause of the duty, which like the light
of the sun is communicated in several days according as it can be
received ; and therefore whatever partakes of that reason is also a
duty of that commandment. Thus it is a duty of natural and essen-
tial religion that we should worship God with all the faculties of the
soul, with all the actions of the body, with all the degrees of inten-
sion, with all the instances and parts of extension. For God is the
Lord of all ; He expects all, and He deserves all, and will reward all,
and every thing is designed in order to His service and glorification :
and therefore every part of all this is equally commanded, equally re-
quired, and is symbolical to the whole ; and therefore in the impos-
sibility of the performance of any one, the whole commandment is
equally promoted by another ; and when we cannot bow the knee, yet
we can incline the head, and when we cannot give, we can forgive,
and if we have not silver and gold, we can pay them in prayers and
blessings; and if we cannot go with our brother two mile, we can (it
may be) go one, or one half; let us go as far as we can, and do all
that is in our power and in our circumstances. For since our duty
here can grow, and every instance does according to its portion do in

568 OP THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

its own time and measures the whole work of the commandment, and
God accepts us in every step of the progression, that is, in all de-
grees ; for He breaks not the bruised reed, and He quenches not the
smoking flax ; it follows, that though we are not tied to do all, even
that which is beyond our powers, yet we must do what we can towards
it ; even a part of the commandment may in such cases be accepted
for our whole duty.

§ 20. 4) In external actions which are instances of a natural or
moral duty, if there be any variety one may supply the other ; if there
be but one, it can be supplied by the internal only and spiritual.
But the internal can never be hindered, and can never be changed or
supplied by any thing else ; it is capable of no suppletory, but of de-
grees it is : and if we cannot love God as well as Mary Magdalene
loved Him, let us love Him so as to obey Him always, and so as to
superadd degrees of increment to our love, and to our obedience; but
for this or that expression it must be as it can, and when it can, it
must be this or another ; but if it can be neither upon the hand, it
must be all that is intended upon the heart ; and as the body helps
the soul in the ministries of her duty, so the soul supplies the body
in the essentialities of it and indispensable obedience.

EXILE XII.

NOT EVERY THING THAT IS IN THE SERMONS AND DOCTRINE OF JESUS CHRIST
WAS INTENDED TO BIND AS A LAW AND COMMANDMENT.

§ 1. Every thing that is spoken by our blessed Saviour is to be
placed in that order of things where Himself was pleased to put it.
Whatsoever He propounded to us under the sanction of love, and by
the invitation of a great reward, that is so to be understood as that it
may not become a snare, by being supposed in all cases and to all
persons to be a law. For laws are established by fear and love too,
that is, by promises and threatenings ; and nothing is to be esteemed
a law of Christ but such things which if we do not observe we shall
die, or incur the divine displeasure in any instance or degree. But
there are some things in the sermons of Christ which are recom-
mended to the diligence and love of men ; such things whither men
must tend and grow. Thus it is required that we should love God
with all our heart, which is indeed a commandment and the first and
the chiefest ; but because it hath an infinite sense, and is capable of
degrees beyond all the actualities of any man whatsoever, therefore
it is encouraged and invited further by a reward that will be greater
than all the work that any man can do. But yet there is also the
minimum morale in it, that is, that degree of love and duty, less than

CHAP.

HI.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 569

which is bv interpretation no love, no duty at all j and that is, that
we so love God, that we love nothing against Him, that we love no-
thing more than Him, that we love nothing equal to Him, that we
love nothing disparately and distinctly from Him, but in subordina-
tion to Him; that is, so as to be apt to yield and submit to His
love, and comply with our duty. Now then, here must this law
begin, it is a commandment to all persons and at all times to do
thus much ; and this being a general law of which all other laws are
but instances and specifications, the same thing is in all the parti-
cular laws which is in the general : there is in every one of them
a minimum morale, a legal sense of duty, which if we prevaricate or
go less than it, we are transgressors ; but then there is also a lati-
tude of duty, or a sense of love and evangelical increase, which is
a further pursuance of the duty of the commandment, but is not
directly the law, but the love ; to which God hath appointed no mea-
sures of greatness, but hath invited as forward as the man can go.

§ 2. For it is considerable that since negative precepts include
their affirmatives, and affirmatives also do infer the negatives (as I
have already discoursed), and yet they have differing measures and
proportions, and that the form of words and signs negative or
affirmative are not the sufficient indication of the precepts, we can
best be instructed by this measure ; There is in every commandment
a negative part and an affirmative : the negative is the first, the least
and the lowest sense of the law and the degree of duty ; and this is
obligatory to all persons and cannot be lessened by excuse, or hindered
by disability, or excused by ignorance ; neither is it to stay its time
or to wait for circumstances, but obliges all men indifferently. I
do not say that this is always expressed by negative forms of law or
language, but is by interpretation negative ; it operates or obliges as
do the negatives. For when we are commanded to love our neigh-
bour as ourself, the least measure of this law, the legal or negative
part of it is, that we should not do him injury ; that we shall not do
to him what we would not have done to ourselves. He that does
not in this sense love his neighbour as himself hath broken the
commandment ; he hath done that which he should not do, he hath
done that which he cannot justify, he hath done that which was for-
bidden : for every going less than the first sense of the law, than the
lowest sense of duty, is the commission of a sin, a doing against a
prohibition.

§ 3. But then there are further degrees of duty than the first and
lowest, which are the affirmative measures ; that is, a doing excellent
actions and instances of the commandments, a doing the command-
ment with love and excellency, a progression in the exercise and
methods of that piety, the degrees of which because they are affirma-
tive therefore they oblige but in certain circumstances ; and are under
no law absolutely, but they grow in the face of the sun, and pass on to
perfection by heat and light, by love and zeal, by hope and by reward.

570 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

§ 4. Now concerning these degrees it is that I affirm that every
thing is to be placed in that order of things where Christ left it :
and he that measures other men by his own stature, and exacts of
children the wisdom of old men, and requires of babes in Christ the
strengths and degrees of experienced prelates, he adds to the laws of
Christ ; that is, he ties where Christ hath not tied, he condemns
where Christ does not condemn. It is not a law that every man
should in all the stages of his progression be equally perfect ; the na-
ture of things hath several stages, and passes by steps to the varieties
of glory. For so laws and counsels differ, as first and last, as be-
ginning and perfection, as reward and punishment, as that which is
simply necessary, and that which is highly advantageous ; they differ
not in their whole kind, for they are only the differing degrees of the
same duty. He that does a counsel evangelical does not do more
than his duty, but does his duty better : he that does it in a less de-
gree shall have a less reward, but he shall not perish if he does obey
the just and prime or least measures of the law.

§ 5. Let no man therefore impose upon his brother the heights

and summities of perfection under pain of damnation or any fearful

evangelical threatening j because these are to be invited only by love

and reward, and by promises only are bound upon us, not by threat-

enings. The want of the observing of this hath caused impertinent

disputes and animosities in men, and great misunderstandings in this

question. For it is a great error to think that every thing spoken in

Christ's sermons is a law, or that all the progressions and degrees of

christian duty are bound upon us by penalties as all laws are. The

commandments are made laws to us wholly by threatenings ; for

when we shall receive a crown of righteousness in heaven, that is by

way of gift, merely gratuitous; but the pains of the damned are due

to them by their merit and by the measures of justice, and therefore

it is remarkable that our blessed Saviour ° said, " when ye have done

all that ye are commanded, ye are unprofitable servants;" that is,

the strict measures of the laws or the commandments given to you

are such which if ye do not observe ye shall die according to the

sentence of the law ; but if ye do, ye are yet unprofitable, ye have

not deserved the good things that are laid up for loving souls : but

therefore towards that we must superadd the degrees of progression

and growth in grace, the emanations of love and zeal, the methods

of perfection and imitation of Christ. For by the first measures we

escape hell ; but by the progressions of love only and the increase

of duty, through the mercies of God in Christ we arrive at heaven.

Not that he that escapes hell may in any case fail of heaven ; but

that whosoever does obey the commandment in the first and least

sense, will in his proportion grow on towards perfection. For he

fails in the first, and does not do that worthily, who if he have time

does not go on to the second.

[Luke xvii. 10.]

CHAP. III.] 0E THE LAWS 01-' JESUS CHRIST. 571

§ 6. But yet neither are these counsels of perfection left wholly
to our liberty so as that they have nothing of the law in them ; for
they are pursuances of the law, and of the same nature, though not
directly of the same necessity, but collaterally and accidentally they
are. For although God follows the course and nature of things,
and therefore does not disallow any state of duty that is within His
own measures, because there must be a first before there can be a
second, and the beginning must be esteemed good, or else we ought
not to pursue it and make it more in the same kind ; yet because
God is pleased to observe the order of nature in His graciousness,
we must do so too in the measures of our duty. Nature must begin
imperfectly, and God is pleased with it, because Himself hath so
ordered it ; but the nature of things that begin and are not perfect,
cannot stand still. God is pleased well enough with the least or the
negative measure of the law, because that is the first or the begin-
ning of all ; but we must not always be beginning, but pass on to
perfection, and it is perfection all the way, because it is the proper
and the natural method of the grace to be growing : every degree of
growth is not the perfection of glory, but neither is it the absolute
perfection of grace, but it is the relative perfection of it ; just as corn
and flowers are perfectly what they ought to be when in their several
months they are arrived to their proper stages : but if they do not
still grow till they be fit for harvest, they wither and die and are
good for nothing. He that does not go from strength to strength,
from virtue to virtue, from one degree of grace to another, he is not
at all in the methods of life, but enters into the portion of thorns
and withered flowers, fit for excision and for burning.

§ 7. Therefore 1) no man must in the keeping the commandments
of Christ set himself a limit of duty, hither will I come and no fur-
ther : for the tree that does not grow is not alive, unless it already
have all the growth it can have ; and there is in these things thus
much of a law. Evangelical counsels are thus far necessary, that
although in them, that is, in the degrees of duty, there are no certain
measures described ; yet we are obliged to proceed from beginnings
to perfection.

§ 8. 2) Although every man must impose upon himself this care,
that he so do his duty that he do add new degrees to every grace ;
yet he is not to be prejudiced by any man else, nor sentenced by
determined measures of another man's appointment. God hath
named none, but intends all; and therefore we cannot give certain
sentence upon our brother, since God hath described no measures,
but intends that all, whither no man can perfectly arrive here, and
therefore it is supplied by God hereafter.

§ 9. 3) But the rule is to be understood in great instances as well
as in great degrees of duty : for there are in the sermons of Christ
some instances of duties, which although they are pursuances of laws
and duty, yet in their own material natural being are not laws, but

572 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

both in the degree implied and in the instance expressed are counsels
evangelical ; to which we are invited by great rewards, but not obliged
to them under the proper penalties of the law. Such are making our-
selves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven, selling all and giving it to
the poor. The duties and laws here signified are chastity, charity,
contempt of the world, zeal for the propagation of the gospel : the
virtues themselves are direct duties, and under laws and punishment,
but that we be charitable to the degree of giving all away, or that we
act our chastity by a perpetual celibate, are not laws ; but for the
outward expression we are wholly at our liberty ; and for the degree
of the inward grace, we are to be still pressing forwards towards it,
we being obliged to do so by the nature of the thing, by the excel-
lency of the reward, by the exhortations of the gospel, by the example
of good men, by our love to God, by our desires of happiness, and by
the degrees of glory. Thus S. Paul took no wages of the Corinthian
churches ; it was an act of an excellent prudence and great charity,
but it was not by the force of a general law, for no man else was
bound to it, neither was he ; for he did not do so to other churches ;
but he pursued two or three graces to excellent measures and de-
grees ; he became exemplary to others, useful to that church, and did
advantage the affairs of religion : and though possibly he might, and
so may we, by some concurring circumstances be pointed out to this
very instance and signification of his duty, yet this very instance, and
all of the same nature are counsels evangelical ; that is, not imposed
upon us by a law, and under a threatening, but left to our liberty,
that we may express freely what we are necessarily obliged to do in
the kind, and to pursue forwards to degrees of perfection.
« § 10. These therefore are the characteristic notes and measures,
to distinguish a counsel evangelical from the laws and commandments
of Jesus Christ.

THE NOTES OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COUNSELS AND COMMANDMENTS

EVANGELICAL.

1) Where there is no uegative expressed nor involved, there it
cannot be a law; but it is a counsel evangelical. Eor in every law
there is a degree of duty so necesssary, that every thing less than it
is a direct act or state of sin, and therefore if the law be affirmative
the negative is included, and is the sanction of the main duty.
"Honour thy father and mother," that is a law; for the lowest step
of the duty there enjoined is bound upon us by this negative, "thou
shalt not curse thy father or mother ;" or, thou shalt not deny to give
them maintenance. Thou shalt not dishonour them, not slight, not
undervalue, not reproach, not upbraid, not be rude or disobedient to
them : whenever such a negative is included, that is the indication
of a law. But in counsels evangelical there is nothing but what is

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 57

affirmative. There are some who make themselves eunuchs for the
kingdom of heaven ; that is the intimation of a religious act or state :
but the sanction of it is nothing that is negative, but this only, " He
that hath ears to hear let him. hear," and Qui potest capere capiat9,
' he that can receive it let him receive it :' and " he that hath power
over his will, and hath so decreed in his heart, does wellq." In com-
mandments it is, fhe that does the duty does well, he that does
not does ill :' but in counsels it is, ' he that does not may do well,
but he that does does better/ as S. Paul discourses in the question
of marriage ; in which instance it is observable that the comparison
of celibate and marriage is not in the question of chastity, but in
the question of religion ; one is not a better chastity than the other.
Marriage is Kotnj aixtavros, an ' undefiled' state ; and nothing can be
cleaner than that which is not at all unclean ; but the advantages of
celibate above marriage as they are accidental and contingent, so they
are relative to times and persons and states, and external ministries ;
for to be made an " eunuch for the kingdom of heaven T," is the same
that S.Paul5 means by, "the unmarried careth for the things of the
Lord ;" that is, in these times of trouble and persecution, they who
are not entangled in the affairs of a household can better travel1 from
place to place in the ministries of the gospel, they can better attend to
the present necessities of the church, which are called ' the things of
the Lord/ or the affairs of ' the kingdom of heaven :' but at no hand
does it mean that the state of single life is of itself a counsel evan-
gelical, or a further degree of chastity; but of an advantageous
ministry to the propagation of the gospel. But be it so or be it
otherwise, yet it is a counsel and no law, because it hath no negative
part in its constitution, or next appendage.

§ 11. 2) When the action or state is propounded to us only upon
the account of reward, and there is no penalty annexed, then it is a
counsel and no law : for there is no legislative power where there is
no coercitive; and it is but a precarious government, where the
lawgiver cannot make the subject either do good or suffer evil : and
therefore the jus gladii and the merum hnperium are all one; and
he that makes a law and does not compel the involuntary does but
petition the subject to obey, and must be content he shall do it when
tie hath a mind to it. But therefore as soon as men made laws, and
lived in communities, they made swords to coerce the private, and
wars to restrain the public irregularities of the world.

dehinc absistere bello,

Oppida coeperunt munire, et ponere leges,
Ne quis fur esset, neu latro, neu quis adulter u.

For it was impossible to preserve justice, or to defend the innocent,

p [Matt. xix. 12.] ' [1 Cor. vii. 34.]

i [1 Cor. vii. 37.] ' ['travail,' A.]

r [Matt. xix. 12.] u [Hor. sat. i. 3. 104.]

574 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

or to make obedience to laws, if the consuls lay aside their rods and
axes : and so it is in the divine laws ; the divine power and the
divine wisdom makes the divine laws, and fear is the first sanction
of them : it is ' the beginning of all our wisdom / and all human
power being an imitation of and emanation from the divine power is
in the sum of affairs nothing but this, habere poiestatem glaclii ad
animadvertendum in facinorosos homines, and therefore we conclude
it to be no law, to the breaking of which no penalty is annexed :
and therefore it was free to S. Paul to take or not to take wages of
the Corinthian church ; for if he had taken it, it had been nothing
but the ' making of his glorying voidv ;' that is, he could not have
had the pleasure of obliging them by an uncommanded instance and
act of kindness. Hope and reward is the endearment of counsels,
fear and punishment are the ligatures of laws.

§ 12. 3) In counsels sometimes the contrary is very evil. Thus to
be industrious and holy, zealous and prudent in the offices ecclesi-
astical, and to take holy orders in the days of persecution and dis-
couragement, is an instance of love (I doubt not) very pleasing and
acceptable to God ; and yet he that suffers himself to be discouraged
from that particular employment, and to divert to some other
instance in which he may well serve God, may remain very innocent
or excusable. But those in the primitive church who so feared the
persecution or the employment that they cut off their thumbs or ears
to make themselves canonically incapable, were highly culpable;
because he that does an act contrary to the design of a counsel
evangelical, is an enemy to the virtue and the grace of the intend-
ment : he that only lets it alone does not indeed venture for the
greater reward, but he may pursue the same virtue in another
instance or in a less degree, but yet so as may be accepted. He
that is diverted by his fear and danger, and dares not venture, hath
a pitiable but in many cases an innocent infirmity : but he that does
against it hath an inexcusable passion ; and is so much more blame-
able than the other, by how much a fierce enemy is worse than a
cold friend, or a neuter more tolerable than he that stands in open
hostility and defiance. But in laws not only the contrary, but even
the privative is also criminal ; for not only he that oppresses the poor
is guilty of the breach of charity, but he that does not relieve them ;
because there is in laws an affirmative and a negative part, and
both of them have obligation; so that in laws both omissions and
commissions are sins, but where nothing is faulty but a contrariety
or hostility, and that the omission is innocent, there it is only a
counsel.

§ 13. 4) In internal actions there is properly and directly no
counsel, but a law only. Counsels of perfections are commonly the
great and more advantageous prosecutions of an internal grace or
virtue : but the inward cannot be hindered by any thing from with-

T [1 Cor. ix. 15.]

CHAP. III.] OP THE LAWS OP JESUS CHRIST. 575

out, and therefore is capable of all increase and all instances only
upon the account of love; the greatest degree of which is not
greater than the commandment, and yet the least degree if it be
sincere is even with the commandment, because it is according to
the capacity and greatness of the man. But the inward grace in all
its degrees is under a law or commandment ; not that the highest is
necessary at all times, and to every person, but that we put no
positive bars or periods to it at any time, but love as much as we
can to-day, and as much as we can to-morrow, and still the duty
and the words to have a current sense ; and ' as much as we can'
must signify still more and more. Now the using of direct and in-
direct ministries for the increasing of the inward grace, this I say
because it hath in it materiality and an external part, and is directly
subjicible to the proper empire of the will, this may be the matter of
counsel in the more eminent and zealous instances, but the inward
grace directly is not. To be just consists in an indivisible point, and
therefore it is always a law ; but if to signify and act our justice we
give that which is due, and a great deal more to make it quite sure,
this is the matter of counsel ; for it is the external prosecution of the
inward grace, and although this hath no degrees, yet that hath;
and therefore that hath liberty and choice, whereas in this there is
nothing but duty and necessity.

EULE XIII.

SOME THINGS MAY BE USED IN THE SERVICE OF GOD WHICH ABE NOT COM-
MANDED IN ANY LAW, NOB EXPLICITLY COMMENDED IN ANY DOCTRINE OF
JESUS CHRIST.

§ 1. This rule is intended to regulate the conscience in all those
questions which scrupulous and superstitious people make in their
enquiries for warranties from scripture in every action they do ; and
in the use of such actions in the service of God, for which parti-
culars because they have no word they think they have no warrant,
and that the actions are superstitious. The enquiry then hath two
parts ;

1) Whether we are to require from scripture a warrant for every
action we do in common life ?

2) Whether we may not do or use any thing in religion, con-
cerning which we have no express word in scripture, and no
commandment at all ?

1) Concerning the first the enquiry is but short, because there is
no difficulty in it but what is made by ignorance and jealousy ; and

576 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

it can be answered and made evident by common sense, and the per-
petual experience and the natural necessity of things. For the laws
of Jesus Christ were intended to regulate human actions in the great
lines of religion, justice, and sobriety, in which as there are infinite
particulars which are to be conducted by reason and by analogy to the
law's and rules given by Jesus Christ, so it is certain that as the general
lines and rules are to be understood by reason how far they do oblige,
so by the same we can know where they do not. But we shall quickly
come to issue in this affair. For if for every thing there is a law or
an advice, let them that think so find it out and follow it. If there
be not for every thing such provision, their own needs will yet be-
come their lawgiver, and force them to do it without a law. Whether
a man shall speak Trench or English ; whether baptized persons are
to be dipped all over the body, or will it suffice that the head be
plunged ; whether thrice or once, whether in water of the spring, or
the water of the pool ; whether a man shall marry or abstain ; whe-
ther eat flesh or herbs ; choose Titius or Caius for my friend ; be a
scholar or a merchant, a physician or a lawyer ; drink wine or ale ;
take physic for prevention, or let it alone ; give to his servant a great
pension or a competent; what can the holy scriptures have to do
with any thing of these, or any thing of like nature and indifferency ?
§ 2. For by nature all things are indulged to our use and liberty;
and they so remain till God by a supervening law hath made restraints
in some instances to become matter of obedience to him, and of
order and usefulness to the world ; but therefore where the law does
not restrain, we are still free as the elements, and may move as freely
and indifferently as the atoms in the eye of the sun. And there is
infinite difference between law and lawful ; indeed there is nothing
that is a law to our consciences but what is bound upon us by God,
and consigned in holy scripture (as I shall in the next rule demon-
strate), but therefore every thing else is permitted or lawful that is
not by law restrained : liberty is before restraint, and till the fetters
are upon us we are under no law and no necessity but what is natural.
But if there can be any natural necessities, we cannot choose but
obey them, and for these there needs no law or warrant from scrip-
ture. No master needs to tell us or to give us signs to know when
we are hungry or athirst ; and there can be as little need that a law-
giver should give us a command to eat when we are in great neces-
sity so to do. Every thing is to be permitted to its own cause and
proper principle. Nature and her needs are sufficient to cause us to
do that which is for her preservation ; right reason and experience
are competent warrant and instruction to conduct our affairs of
liberty and common life ; but the matter and design of laws is
honeste vivere, alterum non laclere, suum cuique tribuere ; or as it
is more perfectly described by the apostle x, that we should 'live a
godly, a righteous, a sober life •' and beyond these there needs nq

1 [Tit. ii. 12.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 577

law : when nature is sufficient Jesus Christ does not interpose, and
unless it be where reason is defective or violently abused, we cannot
need laws of self-preservation, for that is the sanction and great band
and endearment of all laws : and therefore there is no express law
against self-murder in all the New testament, only it is there and
every where else by supposition, and the laws take care to forbid
that, as they take care of fools and madmen ; men that have no use
or benefit of their reason or of their natural necessities and inclina-
tions must be taken under the protection of others ; but else when a
man is in his wits, or in his reason, he is defended in many things,
and instructed in more without the help or need of laws : nay it was
need and reason that first introduced laws; for no law but necessity
and right reason taught the first ages,

Dispersos trahere in populum, migrare vetusto
De nemore, et proavis habitatas linquere sylvas ;
./Edificare domos, laribus conjungere nostris
Tectum aliud, tutos vicino limine somnos
Ut collata daret fiducia ; protegere armis
Lapsum, aut ingenti nutantem vulnere civem,
Communi dare signa tuba, defendier iisdem
Turribus, atque una portarum clave teneri ?.

To meet and dwell in communities, to make covenants and laws, to
establish equal measures, to do benefit interchangeably, to drive away
public injuries by common arms, to join houses that they may sleep
more safe : and since laws wrere not the first inducers of these great
transactions, it is certain they need not now to enforce them, or be-
come our warrant to do that without which we cannot be what we
cannot choose but desire to be.

§ 3. But if nothing were to be done but what we have scripture
for, either commanding or commending, it were certain that with a
less hyperbole than S. John2 used, " the world could not contain the
books which should be written ;" and yet in such infinite numbers
of laws and sentences no man could be directed competently, because
his rule and guide would be too big, and every man in the enquiry
after lawful and unlawful would be just so enlightened as he that
must for ever remain blind unless he take the sun in his hand to
search into all the corners of darkness ; no candlestick would hold
him, and no eye could use him. But supposing that in all things
we are to be guided by scripture, then from thence also let us enquire
for a conduct or determination even in this enquiry, whether we may
not do any thing without a warrant from scripture ? and the result
will be that if we must not do any thing without the warrant of
scripture, then we must not for every thing look in scripture for a
warrant; because we have from scripture sufficient instruction that
we should not be so foolish and importune as to require from thence

» Juv. sat., lib. xv. [151.] J [chap. xxi. 5.]

IX. P p

578 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

a warrant for such things in which we are by other instruments com-
petently instructed, or left at perfect liberty.

§ 4. Thus S. Paula affirms, "All things are lawful for me;" he
speaks of meats and drinks, and things left in liberty, concerning which
because there is no law, and if there had been one under Moses it was
taken away by Christ, it is certain that every thing was lawful, be-
cause there was no law forbidding it : and when S. Paulb said, " This
speak I, not the Lord," he that did according to that speaking did
according to his own liberty, not according to the word of the Lord ;
and S. Paul's saying in that manner is so far from being a warranty
to us from Christ, that because he said true, therefore we are certain
he had no warranty from Christ, nothing but his own reasonable
conjecture. But when our blessed Saviour said, " And why of your-
selves do ye not judge what is right0?" He plainly enough said that
to our own reason and judgment many things are permitted which
are not conducted by laws or express declarations of God.

Add to this, that because it is certain in all theology, that " what-
soever is not of faith is sind," that is, whatsoever is done against our
actual persuasion becomes to us a sin, though of itself it were not ;
and that we can become a law unto ourselves by vows and promises,
and voluntary engagements and opinions, it follows that those things
which of themselves infer no duty, and have in them nothing but a
collateral and accidental necessity, are permitted to us to do as we
please, and are in their own nature indifferent, and may be so also in
use and exercise : and if we take that which is the less perfect part
in a counsel evangelical, it must needs be such a thing as is neither
commanded nor commended, for nothing of it is commanded at all,
and that which is commended is the more not the less perfect part ;
and yet that we may do that less perfect part, of which there is
neither a commandment nor a commendation, but a permission only,
appears at large in S. Paul's discourse concerning virginity and mar-
riage, 1 Corinth, vii. 6 — 37. But a permission is nothing but a not
prohibiting, and that is lawful which is not unlawful, and every
thing may be done that is not forbidden : and there are very many
things which are not forbidden nor commanded ; and therefore they
are only lawful and no more.

§ 5. But the case in short is this; in scripture there are many
laws and precepts of holiness, there are many prohibitions and severe
cautions against impiety ; and there are many excellent measures of
good and evil, of perfect and imperfect : whatsoever is good we are
obliged to pursue, whatsoever is forbidden must be declined, what-
soever is laudable must be loved and followed after. Now if all
that we are to do can come under one of these measures, when we
see it, there is nothing more for us to do but to conform our actions
accordingly. But if there be many things which cannot be fitted by

a [] Cor. vi. 12; x. 23.] c [Luke xii. 57.]

b [1 Cor. vii. 12.] <> [Rom. xiv. 23.]

CHAP. III.] OP THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 579

these measures, and yet cannot be let alone, it will be a kind of
madness to stand still, and to be useless to ourselves and to all the
world, because we have not a command or a warrant to legitimate
an action which no lawgiver ever made unlawful.

§ 6. But this folly is not gone far abroad into the world ; for the
number of madmen is not many, though possibly the number of the
very wise is less : but that which is of difficulty is this,

Quest.
Whether in matters of religion we have that liberty as in matters
of common life? or whether is not every thing of religion determined
by the laws of Jesus Christ ; or may we choose something to worship
God withal, concerning which He hath neither given us command-
ment or intimation of His pleasure ?

OF WILL WORSHIP.

To this I answer by several propositions.

§ 7. 1) All favour is so wholly arbitrary, that whatsoever is an act
of favour is also an effect of choice and perfectly voluntary. Since
therefore that God accepts any thing from us is not at all depending
upon the merit of the work, or the natural proportion of it to God,
or that it can add any moments of felicity to Him, it must be so
wholly depending upon the will of God that it must have its being
and abiding only from thence. He that shall appoint with what
God shall be worshipped, must appoint what that is by which He
shall be pleased; which because it is unreasonable to suppose, it
must follow that all the integral, constituent parts of religion, all
the fundamentals and essentials of the divine worship cannot be
warranted to us by nature, but are primarily communicated to us
by revelation e. Deum sic colere oportet quomodo ipse se colend/um
pracepit, said S. Austin f. Who can tell what can please God, but
God himself ? for to be pleased, is to have something that is agree-
able to our wills and our desires : now of God's will there can be
no signification but God's word or declaration ; and therefore by no-
thing can He be worshipped, but by what Himself hath declared
that He is well pleased with : and therefore when He sent His eter-
nal Son into the world, and He was to be the great mediator between
God and man, the great instrument of reconciling us to God, the
great angel that was to present all our prayers, the only beloved by
whom all that we were to do would be accepted, God was pleased
with voices from heaven and mighty demonstrations of the Spirit to
tell all the world that by Him He would be reconciled, in Him lie

e Non sit nobis religio in phantasma- relig., c. 55. [torn. i. col. 786 A.]
tibus nostris. Melius est enim quale- f [Socrates apud S. Aug.] li!>. i. de

cunque verum quam omne quicquid pro consens. evang., cap. 18. [torn. iii. part,

arbitrio cogi potest. — S. August, de vera 2. col. 12 A.]

p p 2

580 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

would be worshipped, through Him He would be invocated, for His
sake He would accept us, under Him He would be obeyed, in His
instances and commandments He would be loved and served; say-
ing, " This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased."

§ 8. 2) Now it matters not by what means God does convey the
notices of His pleasure ; 7rotKtAa)? kcu TtokyTpoircas, ' in sundry ways
and in sundry manners' God manifests His will unto the world. So
we know it to be His will, it matters not whether by nature or by
revelation, by intuitive and direct notices, or by argument or conse-
quent deduction, by scripture or by tradition, we come to know
what He requires and what is good in His eyes ; only we must not
do it of our own head. To worship God is an act of obedience and
of duty, and therefore must suppose a commandment ; and is not of
our choice, save only that we must choose to obey. Of this God
forewarned His people : He gave them a law, and commanded them
to obey that entirely, without addition or diminution, neither more
nor less than it, " Whatsoever I command you, observe to do it ;
thou shalt not add thereto nor diminish from it;" and again, "Ye
shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man
whatsoever is right in his own eyess;" that is, this is your law that
is given by God ; make no laws to yourselves or to one another, be-
yond the measures and limits of what I have given you : nothing
but this is to be the measure of your obedience and of the divine
pleasure. So that in the Old testament there is an express prohibi-
tion of any worship of their own choosing ; all is unlawful, but what
God hath chosen and declared.

§ 9. 3) In the New testament we are still under the same charge;
and eQeXodprjcTKda or ' will-worship' is a word of an ill sound amongst
Christians most generally, meaning thereby the same thing which
God forbad in Deuteronomy, viz., eKaorros to apecrrbv Zva>Tuov avrov
TrpaTTti, as the LXX. expresses it, when every man does that (not
which God commands or loves but) which men upon their own
fancies and inventions think good, that " which seems good in their
own eyes," or as our blessed Saviour h more fully, "teaching for doc-
trines the traditions, the injunctions or commandments of men :"
the instance declares the meaning. The pharisees did use to wash
their hands before meat, cleanse the outside of cups and dishes, they
washed when they came from the judgment hall ; and these they
commanded men to do, saying that by such things God was wor-
shipped and well pleased. So that these two together, and indeed
each of them severally, is will-worship in the culpable sense. He
that says an action which God hath not commanded is of itself neces-
sary, and he that says God is rightly worshipped by an act or cere-
mony concerning which Himself hath no way expressed His pleasure,
is superstitious, or a will-worshipper. The first sins against charity,
the second against religion : the first sins directly against his neigh-

e [Deut. xii. 32, 8.] h [Matt. xv. 8,9; Mark vii. 7.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 5S1

hour, the second against God : the first lays a snare for his neigh-
bour's foot, the second cuts off a dog's neck1 and presents it to God :
the first is a violation of christian liberty, the other accuses Christ's
law of imperfection. So that thus far we are certain, a) that no-
thing is necessary but what is commanded by God; /3) nothing is
pleasing to God in religion that is merely of human invention ;
y) that the commandments of men cannot become doctrines of God,
that is, no direct parts of the religion, no rule or measures of con-
science.

§ 10. But because there are many actions which are not under
command, by which God in all ages hath been served and delighted,
and yet may as truly be called efleAofynjcnceia or will-worship as any
thing else ; and the name is general and indefinite, and may signify
a new religion, or a free will-offering, an uncommanded general or
an uncommanded particular, that is, in a good sense, or in a bad :
we must make a more particular separation of one from the other,
and not call every thing superstitious that is in any sense a will-
worship, but only that which is really and distinctly forbidden, not
that which can be signified by such a word which sometimes means
that which is laudable, sometimes that which is culpable : therefore,

WHAT VOLUNTARY OR UNCOMMANDED ACTIONS ARE LAWFUL OR

COMMENDABLE.

§ 11. 1) Those things which men do or teach to be done by a
probable interpretation of what is doubtful or ambiguous, are not
will-worship in the culpable sense. God said to the Jews that they
should rest or keep a sabbath upon the seventh day. How far this
rest was to be extended, was to be taught and impressed not by the
law, but by the interpretation of it ; and therefore when the doctors
of the Jews had rationally and authoritatively determined how far a
sabbath day's journey was to extend, they who strictly would observe
that measure which God described not, but the doctors did interpret,
all that while were not to be blamed, or put off with a quis requi-
sivit, ' who hath required these things at your hands ?' for they
were all that while in the pursuance and in the understanding of a
commandment. But when the Jew in SynesiusJ who was the pilot
of a ship, let go the helm in the even of his sabbath, and did lie
still till the next even, and refused to guide the ship though in dan-
ger of shipwreck, he was a superstitious fool, and did not expound
but prevaricate the commandment. This is to be extended to all
probable interpretations so far that if the determination happen to
be on the side of error, yet the consecjuent action is not supersti-
tious if the error itself be not criminal. Thus when the fathers of
the primitive church did expound the sixth chapter of S. John's
1 [Is. Ixvi. 3.] i [Epist. iv. p. 164.]

582 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

gospel of sacramental manducation, though they erred in the expo-
sition, yet they thought they served God in giving the holy commu-
nion to infants : and though that was not a worship which God had
appointed, yet it was not superstition, because it was (or for ought
we know was) an innocent interpretation of the doubtful words of a
commandment. From good nothing but good can proceed, and from
an innocent principle nothing but what is innocent in the effect. In
fine, whatsoever is an interpretation of a commandment is but the
way of understanding God's will, not an obtruding of our own;
always provided the interpretation be probable, and that the gloss do
not corrupt the text.

§ 12. 2) Whatsoever is an equal and reasonable definition or de-
termination of what God hath left in our powers, is not an act of a
culpable will- worship or superstition. Thus it is permitted to us to
choose the office of a bishop, or to let it alone ; to be a minister of
the gospel, or not to be a minister. If a man shall suppose that by
his own abilities, his inclination, the request of his friends, the desires
of the people, and the approbation of the church, he is called by God
to this ministry, that he should please God in so doing, and glorify
His name, although he hath no command or law for so doing, but is
still at his liberty, yet if he will determine himself to this service, he
is not superstitious or a will-worshipper in this his voluntary and
chosen service, because he determines by his power and the liberty
that God gives him, to a service which in the general is pleasing to
God ; so that it is but voluntary in his person, the thing itself is of
divine institution.

§ 13. 3) Whatsoever is done by prudent counsel about those
things which belong to piety and charity, is not will-worship or su-
perstition. Thus when there is a commandment to worship God
with our body, if we bow the head, if we prostrate ourselves on the
ground, or fall flat on our face, if we travel k up and down for the
service of God, even to weariness and diminution of our strengths, if
we give our bodies to be burned, though in these things there is no
commandment, yet neither is there superstition, though we design
them to the service of God ; because that which we do voluntarily is
but the appendage, or the circumstance, or the instance of that which
is not voluntary but imposed by God.

§ 14. 4) Every instance that is uncommanded, if it be the act or
exercise of what is commanded, is both of God's choosing and of
man's ; it is voluntary and it is imposed ; this in the general, that in
the particular. Upon this account, the voluntary institution of the
Rechabites in drinking no wine and building no houses, but dwelling
in tents, was pleasing to God; because although He nowhere required
that instance at their hands, yet because it was an act or state of that
obedience to their father Jonadab which was enjoined in the fifth
commandment, God loved the thing, and rewarded the men. So

" ['travail,' A.]

CHAP. ITT.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CTITUST. 583

David poured upon the ground the waters of Bethlehem, which were
the price of the young men's lives; 'he poured them forth unto the
Lord1 :' and though it was an uncommanded instance, yet it was an
excellent act, because it was a self-denial and an act of mortification.
The iTTL/xeTpa tov voyt-ov, the abundant expressions of the duty con-
tained in the law, though they be greater than the instances of the
law, are bat the zeal of God and of religion ; the advantages of laws,
and the enlargements of a loving and obedient heart. Charity is a
duty, and a great part of our religion. He then that builds alms-
houses, or erects hospitals, or mends highways, or repairs bridges,
or makes rivers navigable, or serves the poor, or dresses children, or
makes meat for the poor, cannot (though he intends these for re-
ligion) be accused for will-worship ; because the laws do not descend
often to particulars, but leave them to the conduct of reason and
choice, custom and necessity, the usages of society and the needs of
the world. That we should be thankful to God is a precept of natu-
ral and essential religion ; that we should serve God with portions of
our time is so too : but that this day, or to-morrow, that one day in a
week, or two, that we should keep the anniversary of a blessing, or
the same day of the week, or the return of the month, is an act of
our will and choice ; it is the worship of the will, but yet of reason
too and right religion. Thus the Jews kept the feast of Purim, the
feast of the fourth, the fifth, the seventh, the tenth month, the feast
of the dedication of the altar ; and Christ observed what the Macca-
bees did institute : and as it was an act of piety and duty in the Jews
to keep these feasts, so it was not a will-worship or superstition in
the Maccabees to appoint it, because it was a pursuance of a, general
commandment by symbolical but uncommanded instances. Thus it
is commanded to all men to pray : but when Abraham first instituted
morning prayer"1, and Isaac appointed in his family the evening
prayer"1, and Daniel prayed three times a day, and David seven times,
and the church kept her canonical hours, nocturnal and diurnal of-
fices, and some churches instituted an office of forty hours, and a
continual course of prayer, and Solomon the perpetual ministry of
the Levites, these all do and did respectively actions which were not
named in the commandment; but yet they willingly and choosingly
offered a willing but an acceptable sacrifice, because the instance was
a daughter of the law, encouraged by the same reward, serving to
the same end, warranted by the same reason, adorned with the same
piety, eligible for the same usefulness, amiable for the same excel-
lency, and though not commanded in the same tables, yet certainly
pleasing to Him who as He gave us laws for our rule, so He gives us
His Spirit for our guide, and our reason as His minister.

§ 15. 5) Whatsoever is aptly and truly instrumental to any act of
virtue or grace, though it be nowhere signified in the law of God,

1 [2 Sam. xxiii. 16 ; 1 Chron. xi. IS.] text, capp. 1 19, 31. pp. 403, 33. cd. Svo.

"' Vide Fabric, cod. pseudepigr. vet. Hamb. Hi 13.]

584 OP THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

or in our religion, is not will-worship in the culpable sense. I
remember to have read that S. Benedict was invited to break his
fast in a vineyard : he intending to accept the invitation betook
himself presently to prayer; adding these words, 'Cursed is he who
first eats before he prays.' This religion also the Jews observed in
their solemn days ; and therefore wondered and were offended at the
disciples of Christ because that early in the morning of the sabbath
they eat the ears of corn. This and any other of the like
nature may be superadded to the words of the law, but are no
criminal will-worship, because they are within the verge and limits
of it ; they serve to the ministries of the chief house. Thus we
do not find that David had received a commandment to build a
temple; but yet the prophet Nathan"1 told him from God, that
' he did well because it was in his heart to build it/ It was there-
fore acceptable to God, because it ministered to that duty and reli-
gion in which God had signified His pleasure. Thus the Jews
served God in building synagogues or places of prayer besides their
temple ; because they were to pray besides their solemn times, and
therefore it was well if they had less solemn places. So Abraham
pleased God in separating the tenth of his possessions for the service
and honour of God ; and Jacob pleased the Lord of heaven and
earth by introducing the religion of vows ; which indeed was no
new religion, but two or three excellencies of virtue and religion
dressed up with order and solemn advantages, and made to minister
to the glorification of God. Thus fasting serves religion, and to
appoint fasting days is an act of religion and of the worship of God,
not directly, but by way of instrument and ministry. To double
our care, to intend our zeal, to enlarge our expense in the adorning
and beautifying of churches is also an act of religion or of the
worship of God; because it does naturally signify or express one
virtue, and does prudently minister to another ; it serves religion,
and signifies my love.

§ 16. 6) To abstain from the use of privileges and liberties, though
it be nowhere commanded, yet it is always in itself lawful, and may
be an act of virtue or religion if it be designed to the purposes of
religion or charity. Thus S. Paul" said 'he would never eat flesh
while he did live rather than cause his brother to offend :' and he
did this with a purpose to serve God in so doing ; and yet it
was lawful to have eaten, and he was nowhere directly commanded
to have abstained ; and though in some cases it became a duty, yet
when he extended it or was ready to have extended it to uncom-
manded instances or degrees, he went not back in his religion by
going forwards in his will. Thus not to be too free in using or
requiring dispensations, is a good handmaid to piety or charity, and
is let into the kingdom of heaven by being of the family and
retinue of the king's daughters, the glorious graces of the spirit of
"> [1 Kings viii. 18.] n [1 Cor. viii. 13.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 585

God. Thus also to deny to ourselves the use of things lawful
in meat and drink and pleasure, with a design of being exemplar
to others and drawing them to sober counsels, the doing more than
we are commanded that we be not tempted at any time to do less,
the standing a great way off from sin, the changing our course
and circumstances of life that we may not lose or lessen our state of
the divine grace and favour, these are by adoption and the right
of cognation accepted as pursuances of our duty and obedience to
the divine commandment.

§ 17. 7) Whatsoever is proportionable to the reason of any
commandment and is a moral representation of any duty, the ob-
servation of that cannot of itself be superstitious. For this we
have a competent warranty from those words of God by the prophet
Nathan to David0, "Thou shalt not build a house to the honour
of My name, because thou art a man of blood." In prosecution
of this word of God, and of the reasonableness of it, it is very
warrantable that the church of God forbids bishops and priests
to give sentence in a cause of blood ; because in one case God did
declare it unfit that he who was a man of blood should be employed
in the building of a house to God. Upon this account all undecen-
cies, all unfitting usages and disproportionate states or accidents are
thrust out of religion. A priest may not be a fiddler, a bishop must
not be a shoemaker, a judge must religiously abstain from such
things as disgrace his authority, or make his person and his minis-
try contemptible; and such observances are very far from being
superstitious, though they be under no express commandment.

§18. 8) All voluntary services, when they are observed in the
sense and to the purposes of perfection, are so far from being dis-
pleasing to God, that the more uncommanded instances and degrees
of external duty and signification we use, the more we please Godp.

Ol TTVeVlACLTLKOL TTaVTCL TTpOLTTOVCTLV €TTL0VfJLLq KGU TTodti), KOL TOVTO

br]\ovat tw kclI vixepfiaiveiv ra eTTLTa.yp.aTa, ' spiritual men do their
actions with much passion and holy zeal, and give testimony of it
by expressing it in the uncommanded instances/ And Socrates q
speaking of certain church offices and rituals of religion, says, 'Eirei-
bij oiibels irepl tovtov eyypatyov e^et Set£cu irapayyeXjxa, bijXov cos kcli
TTepl tovtov tt\ eKa<TTOv yvdp.j] nal Trpoaipicrei eireTpeyj/av ol 0.770-
oroAot, iva CKaarros /xr/ </)o/3co /sx?]8e e£ avayKi]? to ayaOov KaTepydCotTO'
1 since no man hath concerning this thing any written command-
ment, it is clear that the apostles permitted it to the choice of every
one, that every one may do good not by necessity and fear/ but by
love and choice. Such were the free-will offerings among the
Jews, which always might expect a special reward, a yap i-ep t]\v
ivTok^v yiveTai ttoXvv e^et \xia6ov kclto. tovto, h be iv eyroA?/s rcifei

0 [2 Sam. 7. 5 ; 1 Clivon. xxii. 8, 14. torn. ix. p. 578 C]
xxviii. 3.] « [lib. v. cap. 22. p. 295.]

'' S. Chrysost. in Rom. viii. [hom.

586 OF THE INTEKPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

ov toiovtov ' those things which are in the tables of the command-
ment shall be rewarded, but those which are more than these shall
have a greater :' the reason is, because they proceed from a greater
intension of the inward grace; and although the measures of the
commandment were therefore less because they were to fit all capaci-
ties, yet they who go further shew that they are nearer to the per-
fections of grace than the first and lowest measures of the command-
ment, and therefore are disposed to receive a reward greater than
they shall have who are the least in the kingdom of heaven. But of
this I have already given accounts in the foregoing rule, and other-
where1.

§ 19. 9) The circumstance of a religious action may be under-
taken or imposed civilly without being superstitious. As to worship
God is a duty which can never be a superstitious will-worship, so to
worship God by bowing the head or knee towards the east or west is
a circumstance of this religious worship ; and of this there may be
laws made, and the circumstance be determined, and the whole action
so clothed and vested, that even the very circumstance is in some
sense religious, but in no sense superstitious; for some way or other
it must be done, and every man's act is determined when it is vested
with circumstances, and if a private will may determine it, so may a
public law, and that without fault : but of this in the sequel.

10) The sum is this : though the instance, the act or state be un-
commanded, yet it is not a culpable will-worship, if either it be a pro-
bable interpretation of a divine commandment, or the use of what is
permitted, or the circumstance or appendage to a virtue, or the par-
ticular specification of a general law ; or is in order to a grace in-
strumental and ministering to it, or be the defalcation or the not
using of our own rights, or be a thing that is good in the nature of
the thing, and a more perfect prosecution of a law or grace, that is,
if it be a part or a relative of a law : if a law be the foundation,
whatsoever is built upon it grows up towards heaven, and shall have
no part in the evil rewards of superstition.

But that what of itself is innocent or laudable may not be spoiled
by evil appendages, it is necessary that we observe the following
cautions.

§ 20. 1) Whatsoever any man does in an uncommanded instance,
it must be done with liberty and freedom of conscience ; that is, it
must not be pressed to other men as a law which to ourselves is only
an act of love, or an instrument of a virtue, or the appendage and
relative of a grace. It must, I say, be done with liberty of con-
science, that is, without imposing it as of itself necessary, or a part
of the service of God : and so it was anciently in the matter of wor-
ship towards the east ; for though generally the Christians did wor-
ship toward the east, yet in Antioch they worshipped toward the

r ' Doctrine and pract. of Repentance,' cap. i. [vol. vii. p. 36 sqq.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 5S7

west3. But when they begin to have opinions concerning the cir-
cumstance, and think that abstracting from the order or the acci-
dental advantage, there is some religion in the thing itself, then it
passes from what it ought to what it ought not, and by degrees
proves folly and dreams. For then it comes to be a doctrine and
injunction of men, when that is taught to be necessary which God
hath left at liberty, and taken from it all proper necessity ; it then
changes into superstition and injustice; for it is an invading the
rights of God and the rights of man ; it gives a law to him that is
as free as ourselves, and usurps a power of making laws of con-
science, which is only God's subject and God's peculiar. Dog-
matizing and censoriousness makes a will-worship to be indeed su-
perstition.

In prosecution of this it is to be added, it is as great a sin to
teach for doctrines the prohibitions of men as the injunctions and
commandments ; to say that we may not do what is lawful, as that it
is necessary to do that which is only permitted, or is commended.
He that imposes on men's conscience an affirmative or a negative that
God hath not imposed, is equally injurious, and equally supersti-
tious ; and we can no more serve or please God in abstaining from
what is innocent than we can by doing what He hath not com-
manded. He that thinks that he serves God by looking to the east
when he prays, and believes all men and at all times to be obliged
to do so, is a superstitious man : but he who believes this to be
superstition, and therefore turns from the east, and believes it also
to be necessary that he do not look that way, is equally guilty of the
same folly ; and is like a traveller that so long goes from the east,
that he comes to it by his long progression in the circle. If by the
law of God it be not sinful, or if by the law of God it be not neces-
sary, no doctrines of men can make it so ; to call good evil, or evil
good, is equally hateful to God : and as every man is bound to pre-
serve his liberty, that a yoke be not imposed upon his conscience,
and he be tied to do what God hath left free, so he is obliged to
take care that he be not hindered, but still that he may do it if he
will. That this no way relates to human laws I shall afterwards
discourse : I now only speak of imposition upon men's understand-
ings, not upon their wills or outward act. He that says that with-
out a surplice we cannot pray to God acceptably, and he that says
we cannot well pray with it, are both to blame; but if a positive law
of our superior intervenes, that's another consideration : for Qutedam
qua licent, tempore et loco vmtato non licent, said Seneca ; and so on
the contrary, that may be lawful or unlawful, necessary or unneces-
sary, accidentally, which is not so in its own nature and the inten-
tions of God.

§ 21. 2) Whatsoever pretends to lawfulness or praise by being an
instrument of a virtue and the minister of a law, must be an apt in-

' Socrat , lib. v. cap. 22. [p. 297-1

588 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

strument, naturally, rationally, prudently, or by institution such as
may do what is pretended. Thus although in order to prayer I may
very well fast, to alleviate the body and make the spirit more active
and untroubled ; yet against a day of prayer I will not throw all the
goods out of my house, that my dining-room may look more like a
chapel, or the sight of worldly goods may not be in my eye at the
instant of my devotion : because as this is an uncommanded instance,
so it is a foolish and an unreasonable instrument. The instrument
must be such as is commonly used by wise and good men in the like
cases, or something that hath a natural proportion and efficacy to the
effect.

§ 22. 3) Whatsoever pretends to be a service of God in an un-
commanded instance, by being the specification of a general com-
mand, or the instance of a grace, must be naturally and univocally
such, not equivocally and by pretension only : of which the best sign
is this, if it be against any one commandment directly or by con-
sequent, it cannot acceptably pursue or be the instance of any other.
Thus when the Gnostics abused their disciples by a pretence of humi-
lity, telling them that they ought by the mediation of angels to pre-
sent their prayers to God the Father, and not by the Son of God, it
being too great a presumption to use His name and an immediate
address to Him, (as S. Chrysostom, Theophylact, and (Ecumenius re-
port of them;) this was a culpable will-worship, because the relation
it pretended to humility was equivocal and spurious ; it was expressly
against an article of faith and a divine commandment4. So did the
Pythagoreans in their pretensions to mortification ; they commanded
to abstain from marriages, from flesh, from fish, as unclean, and min-
istries of sin and productions of the devil. Both these the apostle
reproves in his epistle to the Colossians ; and therefore condemns all
things of the same unreasonableness.

§ 23. 4) All uncommanded instances of piety must be represented
by their own proper qualities, effect, and worthiness; that is, if all
their worth be relative, they must not be taught as things of an ab-
solute excellency, or if it be a matter of abstinence from any thing
that is permitted, and that abstinence be by reason of danger or
temptation, error or scandal, it must not be pressed as abstinence
from a thing that is simply unlawful, or the duty simply necessary.
Thus the Encratites and Manichees were superstitious persons, be-
sides their heresy; because although they might lawfully have ab-
stained from all ordinary use of wine, in order to temperance and
severe sobriety, yet when they began to say that such abstinence
was necessary, and all wine was an abomination, they passed into a
direct superstition, and a criminal will-worship. While the Nova-
tians denied to reconcile some sort of lapsed criminals, they did it
for discipline and for the interests of a holy life ; they did no more
than divers parts of the church of God did; but when that discipline

t [John xvi. 23.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 589

which once was useful became now to be intolerable, and that which
was only matter of government became also matter of doctrine, then
they did that which our blessed Saviour reproved in the pharisees,
'they taught for doctrines the injunctions of men11/ and made their
will-worship to be superstition.

§ 24. 5) When any uncommanded instance relative to a com-
mandment is to be performed, it ought to be done temperately and
according to its own proportion and usefulness : for if a greater zeal
invites us to the action, we must not give the reins and liberty to
that zeal, and suffer it to pass on as far as it naturally can, but as far
as piously and prudently it ought. He that gives alms to the poor,
may upon the stock of the same virtue spare all vain or less necessary
expense, and be a good husband to the poor, and highly please God
with these uncommanded instances of duty : but then he must not
prosecute them beyond the reason of his own affairs, to the ruin of
his relations, to the danger of temptation. To pray is good ; to keep
the continual sacrifice of morning and evening devotions is an ex-
cellent specification of the duty of ' pray continually :' now he that
prays more frequently does still better, but there is a period beyond
which the multiplication and intension of the duty is not to extend.
For although to pray nine times is more than is described in any
diurnal or nocturnal office ; yet if a man shall pray nine and twenty
times, and prosecute the excess to all degrees which he naturally can,
and morally cannot, that is, ought not, his will- worship degenerates
into superstition; because it goes beyond the natural and rational
measures, which though they may be enlarged by the passions of re-
ligion, yet must not pass beyond the periods of reason, and usurp the
places of other duties civil and religious.

§ 25. If these measures be observed, the voluntary and uncom-
manded actions of religion, either by their cognation to the laws, or
adoption into obedience, become acceptable to God ; and by being a
voluntary worship, or an act of religion proceeding from the will of man,
that is, from his love and from his desires to please God, are highly
rewardable : Ei yap e/cwy tovto Trpdcrau), p,tcr6bv e'x&>, said S. Paulv ;
' If I do this thing with a voluntary act or free choice, then I have a
reward/ And that no man may be affrighted with those words of God
to the Jewsx, "Who hath required these things at your hands?" as
if every thing were to be condemned concerning which God could
say Quis reqidsivit ? meaning, that He never had given a command-
ment to have it done; it is considerable, that God speaks not of
voluntary, but of commanded services ; He instances in such things
which Himself had required at their hands, 'their sacrifices of bulls
and goats/ ' their new moons and solemn assembliesy/ ' their sabbaths
and oblations :' but because they were not done with that piety and

u [Matt xv. 9; Mark vii. 7.] * [Isa. i. 12.]

v [1 Cor. ix. 17.] y [vers. 11,13.]

590 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

holiness as God intended, God takes no delight in the outward
services : so that this condemns the unholy keeping of a law, that
is, observing the body, not the spirit of religion; but at no hand
does God reject voluntary significations of a commanded duty, which
proceed from a well-instructed and more loving spirit, as appears in
the case of vows and free-will-offerings in the law ; which although
they were will-worshippings, or voluntary services, and therefore the
matter of them was not commanded, yet the religion was approved.
And if it be objected that these were not will-worshippings because
they were recommended by God in general, I reply, though they were
recommended, yet they were left to the liberty and choice of our will,
and if that recommendation of them be sufficient to sanctify such
voluntary religion, then we are safe in this whole question; for so
did our blessed Saviour in the gospel, as His Father did in the law,
Qui potest capere capiat z ; and " He that hath cars to hear, let him
hear;" and so saith S. Paula, "He that standeth fast in his heart,"
that is, hath perfectly resolved and is of a constant temper, " having
no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath judged in
his heart that he will keep his virgin, doth well." But the ground
of all is this ; all voluntary acts of worship or religion are therefore
acceptable quiafunclamentum habent in lege divina ; ' God's law is the
ground of them/ that's the canon, and these will-worshippings are
but the descant upon the plain song : some way or other they have
their authority and ground from the law of God ; for

§ 26. Whatsoever hath its whole foundation in a persuasion that
is merely human, and no ways relies upon the law or the expressed
will of God, that is will-worship in the criminal sense, that is, it is
superstition. So the vulgar Latin and Erasmus render the word
k6z\o6pr)<TKda, or will- worship ; and they both signify the same
thing, when will-worship is so defined: but if it be defined by ' a
religious passion or excess in uncommanded instances relating to
or being founded in the law and will of God/ then will-worship
signifies nothing but what is good, and what is better ; it is a free-
will-offering, aKptfitcrTaTii alpecns rrjs 6py](TKdas' like the institution
under which S. Paul was educated, ' the strictest and exactest sect
of the religion15/ and they that live accordingly are kKovo-ia.C6p.evoi
t<2 vofxcd, ' the voluntary and most willing subjects of the law/ So
that although concerning some instances it can be said, to p,iv kvriv
iiTLTayixa, ' this is directly a commandment / and concerning others,
to Se ti]s e/xT/s irpoaipio-eoos KaropdutpLa, ' this is a virtuous or a right
action of my choice / yet these are no otherwise opposed than as in
and super, for the one are iv rfjs ivroXrjs ra£ei, fin the order and
constitution of the commandment/ the other virep ti}v ivToXrjv (as
S. Chrysostom expresses it) are ' above the commandment / yet all
are in the same form or category : it is within the same limits and of
the same nature, and to the same ends, and by the same rule, and of
2 [Matt. xix. 12.] a [i Cor. vii. 37.] b [Acts xxvi. 5.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OP JESUS CI1K1ST. 51)1

the same holiness, and by a greater love ; that's all the difference :
and thus it was from the beginning of the world, in all institutions
and in all religions which God ever loved.

§ 27. I only instance in the first ages and generations of man-
kind, because in them there is pretended some difficulty to the
question. Abel offered sacritice to God, and so did Cain ; and in
the days of Enoch men began to call upon the name of the Lordc :
and a priesthood was instituted in every family, and the major-domo
was the priest, and God was worshipped by consumptive oblations :
and to this they were prompted by natural reason, and for it there
was no command of God. So S. Chrysostomd, Ov yap irapa tlvos
p.a6(j>v, ovbe vop.ov irepl airapyjxiv biakeyop.£vov Tore ixKovcras, aAA'
o'UoOtv Kal irapa tov crvvuboTos bibaxQtls, Ti]v dvcriav Ik(.'ivt\v avr\-
vtyKC ' Abel was not taught of any one, neither had he received
a law concerning the oblation of first- fruits, but of himself and
moved by his conscience he offered that sacrifice :' and the author
of the answers eul orthocloxos in the works of Justin Martyre affirms
Ovbels toov 6vaavT(av ra akoya Ovcriav ro> 6e(3 irpo tov vop.ov Kara
Ti)v Oelav hiara^tv tOvcre, Kav (paiveTai 6 debs Tavrr]v irpoabe£ap.ei>os
rfj Tavrrjs anohoyy) beinvvcov tov dvaavra evdpecrTov airy, ' they who
offered to God before the law the sacrifice of beasts did not do it
by a divine commandment, though God by accepting it gave testi-
mony that the person who offered it was pleasing to Him/ What
these instances do effect or persuade we shall see in the sequel ; in
the mean time I observe that they are by men of differing persua-
sions used to contrary purposes. Some there are that suppose it to
be in the power of men to appoint new instances and manners of
religion, and to invent distinct matters and forms of divine worship ;
and they suppose that by these instances they are warranted to say
that we may in religion do whatsoever by natural reason we are
prompted to ; for Abel, and Cain, and Enoch, did their services
upon no other account. Others that suspect every thing to be
superstitious that is uncommanded, and believe all sorts of will-
worship to be criminal, say that if Abel did this wholly by his

c Multi commentariorum et contro- Enoch natus esset homines profanasse

versiarum scriptores ex his verbis eli- nomen Domini invocando nomen ejus

ciunt, homines illius saeculi novos ritus, super creaturas, sic enini verbuni ^rtfn>

novas caeremonias etreligionis formas in- /, ■ . ., „ ,. .

stituisse ; quia scil. certum est, ab ex- }■ N e . . . ,. ' " ,e* PJC0~

,. , l ■ - , • r. tana) protanasse mterpretati sunt : ho-

ordio humani generis homines JJeum co- • -i . ■ i. .,.

, • . 6] -r, mines scil. tunc coepisse appellare fihos

luisse. atnue adeo invocasse nomen Do- . • ,'. . , ', .

• • tj -j hommum, et ammaha, et herbas nomine

mini. Hoc ergo quod quasi de novo t-> • ji ,. ,. '.,

c . \. • . • . i- Dei sancti benedicti. Abenezra autem et

factum recensetur, est institutio novorum , , , , . ,. . .

•i -i • t> Abrabaneel simphciorem horum verbo-

rituum, quibus quasi de propno Deura J . "I""1 ,HU"

i i * a* * l t ■ rum sensum retinuerunt : coeperunt scil.

colere voluerunt. At notandum est in ' ,

horum verborum sensu nihil esse certum ™m™mo™™ creatorem suum, et ad

quod ad hanc rem possit pcrtinere. Nam "Tu eJUS °Per£J et ^ationes du-.gere.

• • tt i. — a Hum. xn. de statuis. torn. n. p.

passim in Hebraeorum commentarns sae- .,,„ , -, L *

culum Enoch tanquam impium memo- e <-» .. i ••• r .t.> i> t

ratnr: et HebnJi exponere solebant Quaest. lxxxui. [p. 478 B.]

hunc locum quasi sensus esset, tunc cum

.592 OE THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

natural reason and religion, then this religion being by the law of
nature was also a command of God; so that still it was done by
the force of a law, for a law of nature being a law of God, what-
soever is done by that is necessary, not will-worship, or an act
of choice and a voluntary religion.

§ 28. Now these men divide the truth between them. For it is
not true that whatsoever is taught us by natural reason is bound
upon us by a natural law : which proposition although I have already
proved competently, yet I shall not omit to add some things here to
the illustration of it, as being very material to the present question
and rule of conscience. Socinus the lawyer affirmed reason to be
the natural law, by which men are inclined first, and then deter-
mined to that which is agreeable to reason. But this cannot be
true, lest we should be constrained to affirm that God hath left the
government of the world to an uncertain and imperfect guide ; for
nothing so differs as the reasonings of men, and a man may do
according to his reason, and yet do very ill. Sicut omnis citharoedi
opus est citharam jmlsare, periti vero ac probe docti recte pulsare ;
sic hominis cujuscunque est agere cum ratione, prodi vero hominis
est recte cum ratione operari; so Aristotle f: cit is the work of
every musician to play upon his instrument; but to play well
requires art and skill : so every man does according to reason ;
but to do righteous things, and according to right reason, must
suppose a wise and a good man/ The consequent of this is, that
reason is not the natural law, but reason when it is rightly taught,
well ordered, truly instructed, perfectly commanded ; the law is it
that binds us to operate according to right reason, and commands
us we should not decline from it. He that does according to the
natural law, or the law of God, does not, cannot do amiss : but
when reason alone is his warrant and his guide, he shall not always
find out what is pleasing to God. And it will be to no purpose
to say that not every man's reason, but right reason shall be the
law. For every man thinks his own reason right, and whole nations
differ in the assignation and opinions of right reason ; and who shall
be judge of all but God ? and He that is the judge must also be the
lawgiver, else it will be a sad story for us to come under His judg-
ment, by whose laws and measures we were not wholly directed.
If God had commanded the priest's pectoral to be set with rubies,
and had given no instrument of discerning His meaning but our
eyes, a red crystal or stained glass would have passed instead of
rubies : but by other measures than by seeing we are to distinguish
the precious stone from a bright counterfeit. As our eyes are
to the distinction of visible objects, so is our reason to spiritual,
the instrument of judging, but not alone : but as reason helps our
eyes, so does revelation inform our reason; and we have no law
till by revelation or some specific communication of His pleasure

f [Ethic. Nic, lib. i. cap. 6. torn. ii. p. 1098.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 593

God hath declared and made a law. Now all the law of God
which we call natural is reason, that is, so agreeable to natural and
congenite reason, that the law is in the matter of it written in our
hearts before it is made to be a laws. Lex est natura vis, . . ratio
prudentis, juris atque injuria regula, so Cicero, lib. i. de leg.*- But
though all the law of nature be reason, yet whatsoever is reason is
not presently a law of nature. And therefore that I may return to
the instances we are discoursing of, it follows not that although
Abel, and Cain, and Enoch, did do some actions of religion by the
dictate of natural reason, that therefore they did it by the law of
nature : for every good act that any man can do is agreeable to
right reason, but every act we do is not by a law, as appears in all
the instances I have given in the explication and commentaries on
these two last rules. Secondly, on the other side it is not true
that we may do it in religion whatsoever we are prompted to by
natural reason. For although natural reason teaches us that God
is to be loved, and God is to be worshipped ; that is, it tells us He
is our supreme, we His creatures and His servants; we had our
being from Him, and we still depend upon Him, and He is the
end of all who is the beginning of all, and therefore whatsoever
came from Him must also tend to Him ; and whosoever made every
thing must needs make every thing for Himself, for He being the
fountain of perfection, nothing could be good but what is from, and
for, and by, and to that fountain, and therefore that every thing
must in its way honour, and serve, and glorify Him ; now I say,
although all this is taught us by natural reason, by this reason
we are taught that God must be worshipped, yet that cannot
tell us how God will be worshipped. Natural reason can tell us
what is our obligation, because it can discourse of our nature
and production, our relation and minority; but natural reason
cannot tell us by what instances God will be pleased with us, or
prevailed with to do us new benefits; because no natural reason

s Lex Dei mentem nostram incendens, tenet sensum ad delendam vim irrationa-

eam ad se pertrahit, conscientiamque nos- lem. Hoc dixit imperfeete, quia ratio

tram vellicat qua; et ipsa mentis nostrae naturalis tantum est materia legis natu-

lexdicitur. — Damasoen.lib.iv.cap.22.de ralis. Rectius autem S. Augustinus, J. ii.

fide orthodoxa. [torn. i. p. 292. C.J Ubi de sermone Domini in monte, [vide cap.

Clichtovaeus sic exponit, Lex mentis nos- v. torn. iii. part. 2. col. 201.] nullam ani-

trse est ipsa naturalis ratio Dei legem ha- mam esse quae ratiocinari possit, in cujus

bens sibi inditam, impressamque et insi- conscientia non loquatur Deus : quis

tarn, qua bonum a malo interno lumine enim legem naturalem in cordibus homi-

dijudicamus. S. Hieronymus epist. cli. num scribit nisi Deus 1 hoc soil, innuens

ad Algasi. q. 8. [torn. iv. part, l.col. 200, non rationem solam, sed Deum loquen-

1.] banc legem appellat legem intelligen- tern ex principiis nostra; rationis sanxisse

tise, quam ignorat pueritia, nescit infantia, legem. Idem dixit explicatius, 1. xxii.

tunc autem venit et prsecipit, quando in- contr. Faustum, c. 27. [torn. viii. col. 378.

cipit intelligentia. B. Maximus, [de vir- F.] legem asternam esse divinam ratio-

tute et vitio,] centur. v. c. 13. [max. nem vel voluntatem ordinem naturalem

bibl. vet. pan-., torn. xii. p. 472 E.J Lex conservari jubentem, perturbari vetantcm.

naturae est ratio naturalis, quas captivum h [cap. 6. § 19. J

ix. q q

594 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

can inform us of the will of God, till Himself hath declared that
will. Natural reason tells us we are to obey God; but natural
reason cannot tell us in what positive commandments God will be
obeyed, till He declares what He will command us to do and
observe. So though by nature we are taught that we must wor-
ship God; yet by what significations of duty, and by what actions of
religion this is to be done, depends upon such a cause as nothing
but itself can manifest and publish.

§ 29. And this is apparent in the religion of the old world, the
religion of sacrifices and consumptive oblations ; which it is certain
themselves did not choose by natural reason, but they were taught
and enjoined by God : for that it is no part of a natural religion to
kill beasts, and offer to God wine and fat, is evident by the nature of
the things themselves, the cause of their institution, and the matter
of fact, that is the evidence that they came in by positive consti-
tution. Tor blood was anciently the sanction of laws and covenants;
Sanctio a sanguine say the grammarians1; because the sanction or
establishment of laws was it which bound the life of man to the law,
and therefore when the law was broken, the life or the blood was for-
feited : but then as in covenants, in which sometimes the wilder
people did drink blood, the gentler and more civil did drink wine,
the blood of the grape ; so in the forfeiture of laws they also gave the
blood of beasts in exchange for their own. Now that this was less
than what was due is certain, and therefore it must suppose remis-
sion and grace, a favourable and a gracious acceptation ; which be-
cause it is voluntary and arbitrary in God, less than His due, and
more than our merit, no natural reason can teach us to appease God
with sacrifices. It is indeed agreeable to reason that blood should
be poured forth, when the life is to be paid, because the blood is the
life ; but that one life should redeem another, that the blood of a
beast should be taken in exchange for the life of a man, that no
reason naturally can teach us. Ego vero destinavi eum vobis in
altari ad expiationem faciendam pro animis vestris ; nam sanguis est
qui pro anima exjriationem facit, said God by Moses J : 'the life of
the flesh is in the blood ; and I have given it to you upon the altar
to make an atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that maketh
an atonement for the soul :' according to which are those w7ords of
S. Paulk, " without shedding of blood there is no remission •/' mean-
ing that in the law all expiation of sins was by sacrifices, to which
Christ by the sacrifice of Himself put a period. But all this religion
of sacrifices, was (I say) by God's appointment ; Ego vero destinavi,
so said God, ' I have designed' or decreed it : but that this was no
part of a law of nature, or of prime essential reason appears in this,
a) Because God confined it among the Jews to the family of Aaron,
and that only in the land of their own inheritance, the land of pro-

1 [Servius in jEneid. xii. 200.] j [Levit. xvii. 11.] k [Heb. ix. 22.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 595

mise ; which could no more be done in a natural religion than the
sun can be confined to a village chapel. /3) Because God did ex-
press oftentimes that He took no delight in sacrifices of beasts; as
appears in Psal. xl. and Psal. 1. and Psal. li. Isai. i. Jerem. vii.
Hosea vi. Micah vi. y) Because He tells us in opposition to sacrifices
and external rites, what that is which is the natural and essential
religion in which He does delight; the 'sacrifice of prayer and
thanksgiving/ ' a broken and a contrite heart;' that we should ' walk
in the way He hath appointed;' that we should 'do justice and
judgment, and walk humbly with our God :' He desires ' mercy
and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt-
offerings.' 6) Because Gabriel the archangel foretold that the
Messias should make the daily sacrifice to cease1, e) Because for
above sixteen hundred years God hath suffered that nation to whom
He gave the law of sacrifices to be without temple, or priest, or
altar, and therefore without sacrifice.

§ 30. But then if we enquire why God gave the law of sacrifices,
and was so long pleased with it, the reasons are evident and con-
fessed, a) Sacrifices were types of that great oblation which was
made upon the altar of the cross. /3) It was an expiation which
was next in kind to the real forfeiture of our own lives : it was
blood for blood, a life for a life, a less for a greater; it was that
which might make us confess God's severity against sin, though not
feel it; it was enough to make us hate the sin, but not to sink
under it ; it wras sufficient for a fine, but so as to preserve the stake m ;
it was a manuduction to the great sacrifice, but suppletory of the
great loss and forfeiture ; it was enough to glorify God, and by it to
save ourselves ; it was insufficient in itself, but accepted in the great
sacrifice ; it was enough in shadow, when the substance was so cer-
tainly to succeed, y) It was given the Jews oVco? -meCoixevoi, kcu vtto
tov k\olov ayyofxtvoi, rrjs TrokvOcov irXavris eKo-rGxriv, as the author
of the apostolical constitutions" affirms, 'that being loaden with the
expense of sacrifices to one God, they might not be greedy upon the
same terms to run after many :' and therefore the same author affirms,
' before their golden calf and other idolatries, sacrifices were not com-
manded to the Jews, but persuaded only;' recommended, and left
unto their liberty. By which we are at last brought to this truth, that
it was taught by God to Adam, and by him taught to his posterity,
that they should in their several manners worship God by giving to
Him something of all that He had given us, and therefore something
of our time, and something of our goods : and as that was to be spent
in praises and celebration of His name, so these were to be given in
consumptive offerings ; but the manner and the measure was left to
choice, and taught by superadded reasons and positive laws : and in
this sense are those words to be understood which above I cited out

1 [Dan. ix. 27-] m [Compare vol. vii. p. 139. J

n [lib. vi. cap. 20. [p. 353.]

Q q 2

596 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

of Justin Martyr and S. Chrysostom0. To this purpose Aquinas cites
the gloss upon the second of the Colossians, saying, Ante tempus
legis justos per interior em instinctum instructos fuisse cle modo colendi
Deum, quos alii sequebantur ; postmodum vero exterioribus praceptis
circa hoc homines fuisse instructos, qua praterire pestiferum est : ' be-
fore the law the righteous had a certain instinct by which they were
taught how to worship God, to wit in the actions of internal religion ;
but afterwards they were instructed by outward precepts :' that is,
the natural religion consisting in prayers and praises, in submitting
our understandings and subjecting our wills, in these things the wise
patriarchs were instructed by right reason and the natural duty of men
to God : but as for all external religions, in these things they had a
teacher and a guide ; of these things they were to do nothing of their
own heads. In whatsoever is from within there can be no will-wor-
ship, for all that the soul can do is God's right ; and no act of faith
or hope in God, no charity, no degree of charity, or confidence, or
desire to please Him can be superstitious. But because in outward
actions there may be undecent expressions or unapt ministries, or
instances not relative to a law of God or a counsel evangelical, there
may be irregularity and obliquity, or direct excess, or imprudent ex-
pressions : therefore they needed masters and teachers, but their great
teacher was God. Deum docuisse Adam cultum divinum quo ejus
benevolentiam recuperaret quam per peccatum transgressionis ami-
serat, ipsumque docuisse flios suos dare Deo decimas et prinnlias,
said Hugo de rS. Yictore : ' God taught Adam how to worship Him,
and by what means to recover His favour, from which he by trans-
gression fell' (the same also is affirmed by S. Athanasiusp) : but that
which he adds, that ' Adam taught his children to give first-fruits and
tenths/ I know not upon what authority he affirms it. Indeed Jose-
pirns'1 seems to say something against it: 'O 0eos be Tavrrj fxaWov
i)'8ercu ttj OvcrCq rots avTOjx&Tois k<u Kara (pvcnv yeyovocrtv ri/xw^ez'o?,
aAA' ov rois kolt l-nivoiav avdpcoirov irkeoveKTOv Kara /3tav -netyvKoo-L,
' God is not pleased so much in oblation of such things which the
greediness and violence of man forces from the earth, such as are
corn and fruits ; but is more pleased with that which comes of itself
naturally and easily, such as are cattle and sheep/ And therefore
he supposes God rejected Cain and accepted Abel, because Cain
brought fruits which were procured by labour and tillage ; but Abel
offered sheep, which came by the easy methods and pleasing minis-
tries of nature. It is certain Josephus said not true, and had no
warrant for his affirmative : but that which his discourse does morally
intimate is very right, that the things of man's invention please not
God ; but that which comes from Him we must give Him again, and
serve Him by what He hath given us, and our religion must be of

o r^ 27. p. 591.] super illud, 'Omnia mihi tradita sunt.'

p In epist. de perfidia Eusebii. [al. [torn. i. p. 1(H.]
de cone. Nic, torn. i. p. 212 A.] et libro q Antiq. Jud., lib. i. c. 3. [al. 2. p. 7.]

CHAP. III.] • OP THE LA.WS OF JESUS CHRIST. 597

such things as come to us from God : it must be obedience or com-
pliance; it must be something of mere love, or something of love
mingled with obedience : it is certain it was so in the instance of
Abel.

§ 81. And this appears in those words of S. Paulq, 'by faith Abel
offered sacrifice :' it was not therefore done by choice of his own
head, but by the obedience of faith, which supposes revelation and
the command or declaration of the will of God. And concerning
this, in the traditions and writings of the easterlings we find this
story r. — In the beginning of mankind, when Eve for the peopling
of the world was by God so blessed in the production of children
that she always had twins before the birth of Seth, and the twins
were ever male and female, that they might interchangeably marry,
ne gens sit unius atatis popidas rirorum, lest mankind should expire
in one generation; Adam being taught by God did not allow the
twins to marry, ofo ?/ \tkv (fyucris afxa rfj yevecrei 8i?/pr7]cre kcu 5ie-
Cet>£es, 'whom nature herself by their divided birth had separated
and divided :' but appointed that Cain should marry the twin-sister
of Abel, and Abel should marry Azron the twin-sister of Cain. But
Cain thought his own twin-sister the more beautiful, and resolved to
marry her : Adam therefore wished them to enquire of God by sacri-
fice, which they did : and because Cain's sacrifice was rejected, and
his hopes made void, and his desire not consented to, he killed his
brother Abel; whose twin-sister afterwards fell to the portion of
Seth, who had none of his own. Upon this occasion sacrifices were
first offered. Now whether God taught the religion of it first to
Adam, or immediately to Cain and Abel, yet it is certain from the
apostle (upon whom we may rely, though upon the tradition of the
easterlings we may not) that Abel did his religion from the prin-
ciple of faith, and therefore that manner of worshipping God did
not consist only in manners, but in supernatural mystery; that
is, alL external forms of worshipping are no parts of moral duty,
but depend upon divine institution and divine acceptance : and al-
though any external rite that is founded upon a natural rule of vir-
tue may be accepted into religion, when that virtue is a law ; yet
nothing must be presented to God but what Himself hath chosen
some way or other. Superstitio est quando traditioni humana reli-
gionis nomen applicatur, said the gloss in Coloss. ii. ' when any tradi-
tion or invention of man is called religion, the proper name of it is
superstition ;' that is when any thing is brought into religion and is
itself made to be a worship of God, it is a will-worship in the crimi-
nal sense. Hanc video sapnentissimorum faisse sententiam, legem ne-
que homitium ingeniis excogitatam, neque scitum aliquod esse populo-
rum, sed aternum quiddam, quod universum mundum regeret, impe-

i [Heb. XL 4.] cap. 8.1

r [Saidus Batricides apud Selden. de * [Philo, de leg. special., torn. ii. p.

jur. nat. et gent., lib. iii. cap. 2, et v. 303. ed. Mangey.]

598 OE THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

rancli prohibendique sapieniia : ita principem legem illam et ultimam
mentem esse dicebant omnia ratione aut cogentis aut vetantis Dei, said
Cicero* : ' neither the wit of man nor the consent of the people is a
competent warranty for any prime law j for law is an eternal thing,
fit to govern the world, it is the wisdom of God commanding or for-
bidding/ Reason indeed is the aptness, the disposition, the capacity
and matter of the eternal law ; but the life and form of it is the com-
mand of God. " Every plant which My heavenly Father hath not
planted shall be rooted upu." Some plants arise from seed, some
from slips and suckers, some are grafted, and some inoculated, and
all these will grow, and bring forth pleasing fruit ; but if it grows
wild, that is, of its own accord, the fruit is fit for nothing, and the
tree is fit for burning.

RULE XIV.

THE CHRISTIAN LAW BOTH OF FAITH AND MANNERS IS FULLY CONTAINED IN
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES ; AND FROM THENCE ONLY CAN THE CONSCIENCE HAVE
DIVINE WARRANT AND AUTHORITY.

§ 1. Of the perfection and fulness of the christian law I have
already given accounts ; but where this law is recorded, and that the
holy scriptures are the perfect and only digest of it, is the matter of
the present rule, which is of great use in the rule of conscience : be-
cause if we know not where our rule is to be found, and if there can
be several tables of the law pretended, our obedience must be by
chance or our own choice, that is, it cannot be obedience, which
must be voluntary in the submission, and therefore cannot be chance,
and it must be determined by the superior, and therefore cannot be
our own antecedent choice, but what is chosen for us.

§ 2. That the holy scriptures of the Old and New testament do
contain the whole will and law of God is affirmed by the primitive
fathers, and by all the reformed churches ; that the scriptures are not
a perfect rule of faith and manners, but that tradition is to be added
to make it a full repository of the divine will, is affirmed by the church
of Rome. For the establishing of the truth in this great rule and
directory of conscience, I shall 1) first shew as matter of fact, that
the church of God in all the first and best ages, when tradition could
be more certain, and assent to it might be more reasonable, did never-

* Lib. i. de legibus. [cap. 4.] Vide 473 sqq.]
Platon. dial. x. de legibus. [torn. viiL p. u [Matt. xv. 13.]

CHAP. ITI.] OF THE LAWS OP JESUS CHRIST. 599

theless take the holy scriptures for their only rule of faith and man-
ners. 2) Next, I shall shew what use there was of traditions. 3) That
the topic of traditions, after the consignation of the canon of scripture,
was not only of little use in any thing, but false in many things, and
therefore unsafe in all questions ; and as the world grew older, tra-
ditions grew more uncertain, and the argument from tradition was in-
tolerably worse.

§ 3. 1) That the first ages of the church did appeal to scripture
in all their questions, I appeal to these testimonies. S. Clemens of
Alexandria* hath these excellent words, Ov yap aTrk&s airo(paLvo\x£-
vois av9[>a>TTOLs Trpoo-e.yoip.ev, °^> Kat avTairo(pal.veo-Oai eV ten)? e£eo~Tiv
el b' ovk. apKel p,6vov cnrkws elirelv to bo^av, akka TncrTucracrQai bei to
keyOev, ov tijv e£ avOpwiroiv avap.evop.ev p.apTvpiav, akka t[] tov Kv-
plov (poivf] TTto-Tovpeda to (i]Tovp.evov, rj Traawv airobei^eajv eyeyyva-
T€pa, p,akkov be rj p.6vr] cnTo'Sei^i? ovaa Tvyyavei' fit is not fit that
we should simply attend to the affirmatives of men, for our nay may
be as good as their yea : but if the thing be matter of faith, and not
of opinion only, let us not stay for a testimony of man, but confirm
our question by the word of God ; which is the most certain of all,
or is indeed rather the only demonstration/ Now that there may be
no starting-hole from these words of the saint, I only add this, that
it is plain from the whole order of his discourse that he speaks only
of the word of God written. For the words before are these, ' Do
they take away all demonstration, or do they affirm that there is
any? I suppose they will grant there is some; unless they have
lost their senses. But if there be any demonstration, it is necessary
that we make enquiry / <al bC avr&v tS>v ypacp&v eKpavOavetv airo-
b€iKTiK&sy, ' and from the scriptures to learn demonstratively/ And
a little after he adds, ' they that employ their time about the best
things, never give over their searching after truth/ -nplv hv tt)v cltto-
bei^iv air' avT&v kaficocri tQ>v ypa$G>vz, 'until from the scriptures
they have got a demonstration/ He speaks against the gnostics,
who pretended to secret traditions from I know not who : against
them he advises Christians KaTay^paaai rat? ypaabals, . . cra-oSeifeis
eTTLCrjTelv3; ' to wax old in the scriptures/ thence 'to seek for de-
monstrations/ and by that rule to frame our lives.

§ 4. S. Basil b in his Ethics, dejhiit. 26, Aei itav prjp.a i) irpaypa
7TLo-Tovcr0at Trj p.apTvp[q ttjs OeonvevcrTov ypaqjijs, els Trki]po(popLav
p.ev tu>v ayadcov, evTpoir^v be tQ>v Trovqpcov, ' whatsoever is done or
said ought to be confirmed by the testimony of the divinely-inspired
scripture; both for the full persuasion of the good, as also for the
condemnation of the evil / ttolv pfjpa ?} -npayp.a, that is, ' every thing
that belongs to faith and manners/ not every indifferent thing, but
every thing of duty ; not every thing of a man, but every thing of a

• Clem. Alex, stromat., lib. vii. [cap. z [cap. 16. p. 889.]

16. p. 891.] a [p. 896.]

y [cap, 15. p. 888.] * [torn. ii. p. 256 B.]

600 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION" [BOOK II.

Christian ; not things of natural life, but of the supernatural. Which
sense of his words clearly excludes the necessity of tradition, and yet
intends not to exclude either liberty, or human laws, or the conduct
of prudence.

§ 5. To the like purpose is that of Origenc : Bebemus ergo ad
testimonium verborum quce prqferimus in doctrina, proferre sensum
scriptures, quasi confirmantem quem exponimus sensum; 'we ought
to bring scripture for the confirmation of our exposition :' which
words of his are very considerable to those who are earnest for our
admittance of traditive interpretation of scriptures. Concerning which
in passing by (because it will be nothing to the main enquiry, which
is not how scripture is to be understood, but whether being rightly
understood it be a sufficient rule of faith and manners) I shall give
this account : that besides there are (I mean in matters of faith, not
in matters ritual and of government) no such traditive commen-
taries; there being no greater variety and difference amongst the
ancient and modern writers commonly and respectively in any thing
than in their expositions of scripture; no where so great liberty,
no where so little agreement; besides this, I say, that they are in
commentaries of scripture to be looked upon as so many single per-
sons, because there was no public authentic commentary any where,
no assemblies in order to any such expositions, no tradition pretended
for the sense of controverted places ; but they used right reason, the
analogy of faith, the sense of the words, and the notice of the originals,
and so they expounded certainly or probably according as it hap-
pened, according to that of S. Athanasiusd, Sunt vero etiam multi
sanctorum magistrorum libri, in quos si quis incurrat assequetur quo-
dammodo scripturarum interpretationem ; 'there are many books of
the holy doctors, upon which if one chance to light, he may in some
measure attain to the interpretation of the scriptures/ But when
they (according to Origen's way here described) confirmed an expo-
sition of one place by the doctrine of another, then and then only
they thought they had the airobei^Ls ypafyiia], ' the scripture-demon-
stration/ and a matter of faith and of necessary belief : and that this
was the duty of the christian doctors, Origene does expressly affirm ;
' Afterwards as Paul's custom is he would verify from the holy scrip-
tures what he had said ; so also giving an example to the doctors of
the church, that what they speak to the people should not be of their
own sense, but confirmed by divine testimonies. For if he, such and
so great an apostle, did not suppose his own authority sufficient war-
rant to his sayings, unless he make it appear that what he says is
written in the law and the prophets ; how much more ought we little
ones observe this, that we do not bring forth ours, but the sentences
of the Holy Spirit;' viz. from scripture, for that was the practice of
S. Paul, whom he in this place for that very thing propounds as imit-

c In Matt, [tract, xxiii. torn. iii. p. d Orat. contra gentes. [torn. i. p. 1 B.]

842 D.] e InRom.iii. [lib. iii. torn. iv. p. 504 C]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 601

able. And in pursuance of this example and advice, S. Cyrilf expresses
himself perfectly, /x?/ reus ep.ah evpemoAoyicus irpoaexe, ' attend not to
my inventions, for you may possibly be deceived ; but trust no words/
eav jur/ /xdfy/? €k t&v Odcav ypacp&v, ' unless thou dost learn it from
the divine scriptures/ And more fully yet he speaks in another
place g; speaking of faith in the holy Trinity, he advises them to 're-
tain that zeal in their mind, which by heads or summaries is already
lightly expounded to you, but if God grant, shall according to my
strength be demonstrated to you by scripture/ Aet yap irepl tot
deicov kclI ayioiv TT)S ttl(tt€oo$ pLVcmipioov ju,?]8e to tvx?>v avev tcov 6dwv
Trapabtboa-6at ypacp&v ' for it behoves us not to deliver so much as the
least thing of the holy mysteries of faith without the divine scriptures,
not to be moved with probable discourses : neither give credit to
me speaking, unless what is spoken be demonstrated by the holy
scriptures / f) au>Trjp(a yap avrrj r?)? ttlo-t€oos ^\xS>v ovk e£ evpecnoko-
yias, aAA' ef arrobeCtjtcos tcov 6eia>v eort ypa<pwv, ' for that is the
security of our faith which is derived not from witty inventions, but
from the demonstration of divine scriptures/ Omne quod loquimur
debemus affinnare de scripturis Sanctis, said S. Hieromeh ; ' every
thing that we speak we must prove it from the holy scriptures / not
every thing absolutely, but every thing of religion, every thing of
faith and manners : and if all this be not in the scriptures, it can
have no just authority. Hoc, quia de scripturis non habet atictori-
tatem, eadem facilitate contemnitur qua probatur1 ; 'it it have not its
warrant from scripture, it may with as much ease be despised as it
was offered/ Where though S. Hierome speaks of a particular ques-
tion, viz. whether Zecharias the son of Barachias were the father of
John the baptist; yet it could not have been applied to this parti-
cular if it had not been true in the general, that every thing of re-
ligion may be rejected that is not proved from scripture. But this is
expressly affirmed by S. Chrysostomk; Nam si quid dicitur absque
scriptura, auditorum cogitatio claudicat, 8fc., ' if any thing be spoken
without scripture the thought of the hearers is lame; sometimes
inclining to assent, sometimes declining; sometimes rejecting the
opinion as frivolous, sometimes receiving it as probable : but when
a testimony of the divine voice proceeds from scripture, it confirms
the speech of him that speaks, and the mind of him that hears/
And upon this account it was S. Cyril of Alexandria1, being to dis-
pute with Theodoret concerning some mysterious questions of re-
ligion, refused to confer but from the fountains of scripture. ' It
became him/ says he, ' being exercised in scriptures, since his desire
was to confer with me about divine mysteries, to speak with us only

f S. Cyril. Hierosol., catech. xii. illu- col. 113.]
minatorum. [§ 5. p. 165 B.] k Homil. in Psal. xcv. [torn. v. p.

s Catech. iv. illuminat. [§ 17. p. 60 636 B.J
A.] ' Ad Euoptium. [pro xii. capp. advers.

h [In Psal. xcviii. torn. ii. col. 384.] Theod., torn. vi. p. '205.]

1 Idem in Matt, xxiii. [torn. iv. part. i.

602 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

out of the holy scriptures, and so to frame his discourse as becomes
holy things/ And I should wonder if Theodoretm should do other-
wise : for he himself brings in the orthodox Christian saying to Era-
nisfces, Mr? fxot Aoyicr/xoi/s kcu cruAAoyicr/^ovs avOpomivovs irpocrcviy-
kj]s, eyw yap p.6vj] -neL6op.ai rjj 6dq ypatyfj, ' tell not me of your logisms
and syllogisms, I rely upon scripture alone :' in which short sen-
tence he makes provision against all devices of man's inventing ; but
he establishes a remedy and an affirmative that is equally strong
against all pretension of traditions besides scripture, by saying that
scripture alone is the ground of his confidence, the argument of his
persuasion in matters of religion. But S. Austin11 establishes the
same sufficient and only rule of scripture, and by way of instance ex-
cludes the authority of councils. Sed nunc nee ego Niccenum nee tu
debes Ariminense tanquam prajudicaturus prqferre concilium. Ne-
que ego hujus auctoriiate neque tu illius detineris : scripturarum
auctoritatibus, non quorumcunque propriis, sed utrisque communibus
testibus, res cum re, causa cum causa, ratio cum ratione concertet;
' I ought not to urge the Nicene council, nor you that of Ariminum,
as prejudging the question on either side ; but let the causes be Con-
fronted, argument against argument, matter against matter, thing
against thing by the authorities of scripture, which are the witnesses
common to us both/ By which words if S. Austin's affirmative can
prevail, it is certain that nothing ought to be pretended for argument
but scripture in matters of religion. For if a general council, which
is the best witness of tradition, the best expounder of scripture, the
best determiner of a question, is not a competent measure of deter-
mination, then certainly nothing else can pretend to it, nothing but
scripture. And if it be replied that this is only affirmed by him in
case that two councils are or seem contrary : I answer that if councils
can be or seem contrary, so that wise and good men cannot compe-
tently insist upon their testimony, it is certain a man may be deceived,
or cannot justly be determined by any topic but the words and conse-
quences of scripture ; and if this be the only probation, then it is suffi-
cient, that's certain. But that will be a distinct consideration. In
the mean time that which I intend to persuade by these testimonies,
is, that the fathers of the primitive church did in all their mysterious
enquiries of religion, in all matters of faith and manners, admit no
argument but what was derived from scripture0.

§ 6. 2) Next to this and like it is that the primitive doctors did

Dialog, i. cap. 6. [torn. iv. p. 18.] utraque parte dari non possunt, quia

n Contra Maximum, lib. ii. cap. 14. studiis Veritas impeditur. De foris quce-

[ torn. viii. col. 704 F.] rendus est judex: si paganus, non po-

Vos dicitis, Licet; nos dicimus, Non test Christiana nosse secreta ; si Judania,

licet. Inter licet vestrum, et non licet inimicus est christiani baptismatis. Ergo

nostrum, nutant et remigant anima9 po- in tern's de hac re nullum poterit reperiri

pulorum. Nemo vobis credat, nemo no- judicium: de ccelo quaerendus est judex,

bis; omnes contentiosi homines sumus: Sed ut quid pulsamus ad caelum, cum

quserendi sunt judices ; si christiani, de habeamus hie in evangelio testamentum?

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. G03

confute all heresies from scripture j which could no way be done, but
that because rectum est index sui et obliqui, ' that which is straight
will demonstrate its own straightuess and the crookedness of that
which is crooked/ Scripture must be a rule of all religion and all
faith, and therefore sufficient to reprove all vice and every heresy.
So Tertullianp discourses, Aufer hareticis quce cum et/inicis sapiunt,
ut de script/iris soils qucestiones suas sistant, 'take from heretics
their ethnic learning, that they may dispute their questions out of
scripture only;' To this purpose Origeni brings in the precedent
of our blessed Lord from scriptures confuting the heresy of the
sadducees about the resurrection. As Christ did, sicfacient et Christi
imltatores exemplis scripturarum, quibus oportet secundum sanam doc*
trinam omnem vocem obmutescere Pharaonis, ' so will the followers of
Christ do by the examples of scriptures, which will put to silence
every voice of Pharoah ;' that is, every doctrine of the adversaries.
Plainer yet are those excellent words of S. Athanasiusr, speaking
but of a small part of scripture, even so much as was sufficient to
prove the articles of the Nicene creed : 'H yap kv avrfj irapa tow
TraTtpoov Kara tcls Betas ypacpas 6\xoKoyi]6eiaa hiutis avTapKr\$ ean,
irpbs avaTpoTTi]v \xkv Trao">]s d(re/3etas, irpbs avcrraatv 8e rrjs evcrefiovs
kv XpuTTu tti(tt€g)s' he says, ' that faith which the fathers confessed
at Nice, according to the holy scriptures, was sufficient to reprove
all heretical impiety, and to establish our religion or faith in Christ.'
And therefore S. Chrysostom8 compares the scriptures to a door : Av-
ral yap fifxas irpocrayovcri, t<2 Oeu, Kal Ti]v Oeoyvuxriav avoiyovenv. .
ovtoos airoKXeUi rols alptriKois ri]v elcrobov' ' for they lead us to God,
and open to us the knowledge of God, and keep heretics from enter-
ing in/ The metaphor is dogmatical and plain enough without a
commentary : the scripture must be the port at which every article of
faith must go forth, and by which every heresy can be kept from the
fold of Christ. Qua ignoramus ex ea discimus, so Theodoret1;
'whatsoever we are ignorant of we learn from thence.' Nihil est

— Optat. lib. v. contr. Parmen. [cap. 3. Aliis vero testibus vel testimoniis quibus

p. 81.] aliquid credendum esse suadetur, tibi

Ego solis eis scripturarum libris qui credere vel non credere liceat, &c. — Idem

jam canonici appellantur, didici hunc epist. cxii. [al. cxlvii. torn. ii. col. 475

timorem bonoremque deferre, ut nullum A.] Vide eundem libr. ad Donatistas

eorum auctorem aliquid scribendoerrasse post collationem, cap. 15. [torn. ix. col.

firmissime credam : alios autem ita lego, 592 F.] et lib. de unitate ecclesiae,

ut quantalibet sanctitate doctrinaque [al. epist. contr. Donatist.] capp. 18, 9.

polleant, non ideo verum putem quia [torn. ix. coll. 371, 2.] et lib. ii. de bap-

ipsi ita senserunt, sed quia mihi vel per tismo contra Donatistas, cap. 3. [torn,

illos auctores canonicos, vel probabili ix. col. 98.]

ratione, quod a vero non abborreat, per- p Be resur. carnis, cap. 3. [p. 227 C]

suadere potuerunt. — S. August, ep. xix. q Tract, xxiii. in Matt. [torn. iii. p.

ad Hieronymum. [al. lxxxii. torn. ii. col. 830 B]

190 F.] • Epist. ad Epict. [torn, i p. 901 A.]

Si divinarum scripturarum, earum " Homil. lviii. in Joban. [al. lix. torn.

scil. quae canonical in ecclesia nomi- viii. p. 346 D.]

nantur, perspicua firmatur auctoritate, ' Ad illud ' ad docendum,' in 2 Tim.

sine ulla dubitatione credendum est iii. [torn. iii. p. 691.]

604 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

quod nequeat scripturis dissolvi, so Theophylactu; 'there is no diffi-
culty but may be untied by the scriptures/

§ 7. The author of the imperfect work upon S. Matthew, usually
attributed to S. Chrysostom*, discourses pertinently and extreme fully
to this article. ' Then " when ye shall see the abomination of deso-
lation standing in the holy place," that is, when ye shall see impious
heresy, which is the army of antichrist, standing in the holy places
of the church, in that time " he which is in Judea let him flee to the
mountains," that is, they who are in Christianity let them run to
the scriptures. And why does he command all Christians in that
time to run to the scriptures ? Because ever since heresy did infest
those churches, there can be no proof of true Christianity, nor any
other refuge for Christians who would know the truth of faith, but
that of the divine scripture/ And a little after, ' Now by no means
can he that desires come to know which is the true church of Christ,
but only by the scriptures . . Our Lord therefore knowing that
there would be so great a confusion in the last days, commands that
all Christians who would be established in the truth of faith should
fly to nothing but to the scriptures/ These words in some editions
of the works of S. Chrysostom are scratched out by a Roman hand,
to the regret of some of his own party, and the shame of them that
suffered it or are pleased with it. All that I shall say to the book
is this, that it is very often urged by the greatest patrons of tradition
to serve their ends in many other questions, and therefore cannot be
rejected upon pretence of not being S. Chrysostom's ; much less
upon pretence that it was written or interpolated by an Arian ; be-
cause the Arians called for scripture in the use of the word 6\xoov<tlos,
but for the thing itself they offered to be tried by tradition : and so
did the catholics, as it happened, or as the peevishness of their ad-
versaries or the advantages of the question did prompt them ; but
the catholics and the Arians never did differ upon the question of
the sufficiency of scripture. But as for the book, it is liber doctus
minime spemendus, says Bellarminey ; and so is this testimony, and
the rather because it is perfectly agreeing with the doctrine of the
other fathers.

§ 8. So S. Augustine2, Contra insidiosos errores Deus voluit po-
nere frmamentum in scripturis, contra quas nullus audet loqui qui
quoquo modo se vult videri christiannm ; ' against treacherous errors
God would place our strength in the scriptures, against which none
that would any way seem a Christian dares to speak/ And a little
after he adds this example, ' When Christ offered Himself to Thomas
to be handled/ non Mi suffecit nisi de scripturis confirmaret cor cre-
dentium, ' Christ thought it not enough unless out of the scriptures
He had confirmed the heart of the believers / prospiciebat enim nos

" Ibidem, [p. 825.] [torn. vii. col. 78 G._]

x [Hom. xlix. tom. vi. p. 204.] z Tract, ii. in epist. Johan. [torn. iii.

» De script, eccl. de S. Joh. Chrysost. part. 2. col. 836 B.]

CHAP. III.] OP THE LAWS OP JESUS CHRIST. 605

futuros, ' He foresaw that we should come after : for if they there-
fore believed because they held and handled Him, what do we ? Christ
is ascended into heaven, not to return but at the end of the world,
that He may judge the quick and the dead : whence shall we believe
but by that by which He confirmed them who handled Him? He
opened unto them the scriptures/ The scriptures therefore are the
great repository and the great security of faith. They are also the
great and the only deletery of heresies. So Justus Orgilitanusa ex-
pounds that of the Canticles " take the little foxes," that is, convin-
cite hareticos, eorumque versutias sanctaru?n scripturarum concludite
testimoniis ; ' convince heretics, and restrain their subtleties and crafts
with the testimonies of holy scriptures/ And thus in fact the fathers
did conclude against the Gnostics, the Valentinians, the Marcionites,
the Manichees, the Photinians, the Arians, the Novatians, Eutychi-
ans, Eunomians, Nestorians, Macedonians, and all the pests of
Christendom. Hos percussit gladius. The word of God is "sharper
than a two-edged sword b ;" and the magazines of scripture were the
armories of the Church.

§ 9. 3) The fathers did reject whatsoever was offered as an article
of faith or a rule of manners, that was not in or could not be proved
from scriptures. So Tertullianc, Sed quoniam uwum aliquod attigi-
mus vacua observation, is, non pigebit catera qnoque denotare, quibus
merito vanitas exprobranda est, siquidem sine ullius aut dominici aut
apostolici pracepti auctoritate jiunt ; hujusmodi enim non religioni,
sed stiperstitioni deputantur, affectata et coacta, et curiosi potius
quam rationalis officii : ' if you cannot shew the authority of a divine
or apostolical precept, your office is not religion, but superstition,
not a reasonable service, but curiosity coaction or affectation/ Pame-
lius supposed these words to be very dangerous against ecclesiastical
traditions. They are indeed against all such traditions as either
were mere matters of fact without command, or were postnate to the
days of the apostles, of which nature are almost all now in reputation
and practice amongst the Romanists. But more full yet and expli-
cative of the former are those other words of Tertullian against
Hermogenesd : 'Whether all things were made of pre-existing mat-
ter, I have no where read, let the school of Hermogenes shew where
it is written/ Si non est scriptum, timeat Vce iliud adjicientibus aut
detrahentibus destinatum, ' if it be not written, let him fear the curse
of them that add or detract to or from what is written in the scrip-
tures/ But S. Basile is yet more decretory, <i>av€pa eicnTUMns
tiictt^oos, koX inT€prj<f)avias Karr]yopta, ?} adereu' tl tS>v yeypaiJ.peva>v, ?/
iireuTayeiv t&v pi) yeypappircov, 'it is a manifest defection from the
faith, and a conviction of pride, either to reject any thing of what is
written, or to introduce any thing that is not/ And therefore in

* [InCant.ii.15.— Max. bibl. vet.patr., c De orat., cap. 12. [p. 133 D.]

torn. ix. p. 734 C] fl Cap. 22. [p. 241 D.J

b [Hebr. iv. 12.] e Homil. de fide. [torn. ii. p. 224 D.]

606 OP THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

pursuance of this great truth and measure of conscience, he gives
this rule f, irav to e/cros rrjs deoirvevo-Tov ypatfiijs ovk. ck Trio-Teas ov
hjxapTia icrrlv, ' whatsoever is without scripture, not derived from
thence, is not of faith, and therefore is a sin / and therefore every
such thing S. Austin & accurses ; Provide sive de Christo sive de ejus
ecclesia, sive de quacunque alia re qua pertinet adjidem vilamque
nostram, non dicam si nos, sed, quod Paulus adjecit, si angelus de coelo
vobis annunciaverit preeterquam quod in scripturis legalibus et evan-
gelicis accepistis, anathema sit, ' if any of us I will not say, but if
any angel (for that S. Paul added) shall say any thing of Christ or of
His church, or of any other thing pertaining to faith and our life,
except what we have received from the scriptures of the law and the
gospels, let him be anathema/ Scripturis non loquentibus quis loque-
tur, ' if the scriptures speak not, who will speak V said S. Prosper h.
' All things which are delivered to us by the law and the prophets and
the apostles, we receive acknowledge and confess, neither do we
enquire after any thing else : for it cannot be that beside those tilings
which are divinely spoken by the divine oracles of the Old and New
testament, we should say or at all think any thing of God :' so
S. Cyril '. These fathers speak dogmatically, generally, and per-
emptorily : nothing but what is in scripture, nothing of God, nothing
of Christ, nothing of His church, nothing of any thing else. Add
to these, that by their doctrine of the sufficiency and sole use and
necessity of scripture in matters of religion they do exclude by name
every thing that pretends against scripture. So Theophilus Alexan-
drinusk; Damoniaci spiritus est insiinctus sophismata humanarum
mentium sequi, et aliquid extra scripturarum auetoritatem sequi,
'it is the instinct of the devil to follow the inventions of men's
minds, and to follow any thing without the authority of the scrip-
tures/ No device, no wit, no argument or invention of man is to
be admitted into religion; nothing but scriptures: but neither may
traditions be received. Qua absque auctoritate et testimonies scrip-
turarum quasi traditione apostolica sponte reperiunt et confingunt,
percutit gladius, so S. Hierome x ; ' these things which they feign
as if they were traditions apostolical, the sword shall smite, if they
be without authority and testimonies from scripture/ And so

5. Basil m, to the question whether new converts are to be accus-
tomed to the scriptures, he answers, ' It is fit that every one should
out of the holy scriptures learn what is for his use ; yea it is neces-
sary/ et? re Trkrjpcxpopiav rrjs 0eoo-e/3etas, kclI inrep rod /u.t) irpocreOLo--

f In asceticis, reg. lxxx. [cap. 22. k [Dasmoniaci . . . auetoritatem pu-

tom. ii. p. 317 D.] tare divinum.] — Paschal, ii. [interpr.

S Lib. iii. contra liter. Petiliani, cap. Hieron. in max. bibl. vet. patr., torn. v.

6. [torn. ix. col. 301 E.] p. 850 F.]

h Ue vocat. gentium, [lib. ii. cap. 9. ' In Agge. c. i. [torn. iii. col. 1690.]

p. 176 F.] m In regul. brev., reg. xcv. [torn. ii.

' Lib. de Trinit. et persona Christi. p. 449 A.]
[torn. vi. p. 2 A.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 607

6yvcu avOpooTTLvaL'i napahoaecnv, ' both for the full certainty of god-
liness, and also that they may not be accustomed to human tradi-
tions/ Where it is observable, he calls all 'human traditions' that
are not in scripture ; for if there were any divine traditions which
are not in scripture, he ought to have advised the learning of them
besides scripture, for the avoiding of traditions which are not divine :
but the scripture being sufficient for all, whatsoever is besides it is
human, and to be rejected. I sum up this particular with an excel-
lent discourse of the same saint to the same purpose. He asks a
question", 'whether it be lawful or profitable to any one to permit
himself to do or to speak what himself thinks right, without the
testimony of the holy scriptures/ He answers (after the quotation
of many places of scripture,) ' Who therefore is so mad, that of him-
self he dare so much as in thought to conceive any thing, seeing he
Wants the holy and good Spirit for his guide, that he may be directed
both in mind in word and in action into the way of truth, or that
he would remain blind without our Lord Jesus Christ who is the sun
of righteousness, &c. ? But because of those things which are dis-
puted amongst us some are determined by the commandment of God
in holy scripture, others are passed over in silence ; as for those
things which are written, there is absolutely no power at all given
to any one, either to do any of those things which are forbidden, or
to omit any of those things which are commanded : since our Lord
hath at once denounced and said, " Thou shalt keep the word which
I command thee this day, thou shalt not add to it, nor take from it."
For a fearful judgment is expected and a burning fire to devour them
who dare any such thing. But as for those things which are passed
over in silence, the apostle Paul hath appointed us a rule, saying,
" All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient ; all
things are lawful, but all things do not edify :" " Let no man seek
to please himself, but every one another's good." So that it is alto-
gether necessary to be subject to God according to His command-
ment/ The sum is this, nothing is matter of duty either in word
or deed, in faith or manners, but what is written in the scriptures :
whatsoever is not written there it is left to our liberty, and we are to
use it as all indifferent things are to be used, that is, with liberty
and with charity. Now if concerning such things as these there be
any traditions, it matters not ; they are no part of our religion, but
to be received like laws of man, or customs, of which account is to
be given in the proper place.

§ 10. 4) The fathers of the church did affirm the holy scriptures
to be a sufficient and a perfect rule of faith and manners. Adoro
script 'ur<e plenitudinem, said Tertullian0, qua mild etfactorem mani-
festat el facta: 'I adore the fulness of scripture, which declares
God and God's works/ His instance is in one article, but that
without the rest can be no fulness ; as Virgil's Georgics cannot be

" In reg. brev., reg.i. [p. 414.] ° Advers. Hermogen., cap. xxii. [p. 241 D.]

608 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

full, because he tells a few things well of bees and tillage. But I
will not choose any authorities concerning which I need to argue ;
there are enough that are extremely plain, affirmative and conclud-
ing. I instance in Irenreusp. Credere* kcec talia debemus Deo qui
et nos fecit, rectissime scientes quia scripturce quidem perfects sunt,
quippe a verbo Dei et spiritu ejus dicta, ' we know assuredly that
the scriptures are perfect, for they are the word of God, and spoken
by the Spirit of God.' But therefore he advisesr, Legite diligen-
tius id quod ab apostolis est evangelium nobis datum, et legite dili-
gentius prop/ietas, et invenietis universam actionem, et omnem doctri-
nam, et omnem passionem Domini nostri pradicatam* in ipsis ; 'read
the gospel which the apostles left us more diligently, read the pro-
phets more diligently, and you shall find declared in them all the
doctrine of Christ, all His action and all His passion/ By univer-
sam actionem he means His life indefinitely, and in 'general : and
certainly the New testament needs nothing to its being a perfect
rule, when it contains all Christ's doctrine, and all His story, viz., so
far as concerns us. Ei/ayyeAi/cai yap /3t/3Aoi koX amoaroKiKoX, kcu
tGjv TtaXaiGiv TTpofprjT&p ra 6ea-nicrp.aTa crcup&s ?//xa? airep xpr)
irepl tov Oetov cppovelv kKTtaibevovcn, said Constantine* the emperor :
1 the evangelical books, and those of the apostles, and the oracles of
the old prophets, do evidently teach us to believe those things which
we ought to believe concerning that which is divine.' And there-
fore S. Athanasius, or whoever is the author of the exhortation to
the monks u, Cur a in canonicis ponenda est salubriter monumentis, non
quod apocrypha debeamus pnesertim ignorata damnare, sed quod ad
scientiam Dei digestam canonis seriem putemus posse sufficere : fbe
careful in reading the canonical scriptures ; not that the apocryphal
(especially before they are known) ought to be rejected, but that we
suppose the canon is sufficient to the knowledge of God.' The
same with Constantine's irepl Oeiov, ' that which is concerning God •'
that is, the religion. But more full is that short sentence of S. Atha-
nasius^ AvTa.pK.eis p*v yap elcriv al hyiai kol deoTTvevcrToi ypacpal
Trpos T7\v rfjs a\.r]d€tas airayyeXiav, ' the holy and divinely-inspired
scriptures are in themselves sufficient for the preaching or enuncia-
tion of the truth.' To the same purpose are the words of S. Chry-
sostomy ; ' If there be need to learn any thing, or to be ignorant of
any thing, thence we learn; if we would reprove falsehood, thence
we draw ; if any thing be wanting to correction, to castigation, to
comfort, and that we ought to get it, from thence we learn it :' jouySe
7repip,eun]s erepov bcbdcrKaXov' ^x€LS ™ Ao'yia tov 6eov, oibeis ere

p Lib. ii. cap. 47. [al. 28. p. 156.] cill., torn. i. col. 381 D.]

i [al. 'cedere.'] " [Inter opera Athanasii, torn. ii. p.

Lib. iv. cap. 66. [al. 34. p. 274.] 709 B.]
8 [al. ' prsedictam.'] « Orat. contra gentes, in initio, [torn. i.

A pud Theodoret, hist, eccles., 1. i. p. 1 B.]
[c. 6.] et apud Gelasium Cyzieenum in i Homil. ix. in 1 Tim. [torn. xi. p.

actis concil. Nicsen., lib. ii. cap. 7. [con- 714 E.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OK JESUS CHRIST. 609

8t8a'(TKet m tKtlvaV, 'look for no other teacher, thou hast the ora-
cles of God ; none teaches thee like them/ He that uses not the
scriptures, but comes into the fold of Christ some other way, that is,
appoints a way to himself which the law of God hath not established,
he is a thief. ' For the scriptures are like a most strong gate, and
keep out heretics from entering, and make us altogether sure of all
things whatsoever we will2/ 'of all things/ that is, of all things of
religion ; for that is the subject of the discourse, and explicitly de-
livered by him in another placea; Quicqidd quaritur ad saint em
totumjam adimpletum est in scripturis, 'in the scriptures fully there
is whatsoever is looked for unto salvation/ And this is so expressed
in an excellent place of S. Austin b, In Us qua aperte in scripturis
posita sunt inveniuntur ilia omnia qua continent Jidem Moresque
vivendi, spern soil, atque charitatem. More fully yet was that of
abbot Odiloc of the Cluniac order, Omnis ratio qua vel Deutn vel
nos cognoschnns, divinis librls continetur, 'in those things which are
openly or plainly placed in the scriptures all things are to be found
which contain faith, and the manners of life, viz., hope and charity /
' every measure or manner by which we know God or ourselves is
contained in the divine books/ What can be more plain or more
affirmative? But S. Austin d says the same thing over and over;
Legite sacram scripturam, in qua quid tenendum quid fugiendum plenee
invenietis ; ' read the holy scriptures ; in which ye shall (perfectly,
or) fully find what is to be held, what is to be avoided/ And
again f, Sancta seriptura nostra doctrina regulam figit, ' the holy
scripture fixes or limits the rule of our doctrine/ In hoc volumine
cuncta qua adificant, omnia qua erudiunt, scripta continentur, saith
S. Gregory bishop of Romeg, 'in this volume whatsoever can instruct
us, whatsoever can edify us is contained/ Yldvra ra -napabtbop.£va
fjfuv bid re vop.ov Kal Trpocpriroov Kal diToa-Tokcov Kal tvayytXiarGiv
be\6p.eda Kal yiv(i><TKop.tv Kal ae(3op.ev} ovbev Trepairepu) tovtchv eni-
(i]tovvt€<>, said S. Damascene11 ; ' all things delivered to us by the
law and the prophets, the apostles and evangelists, we receive and
know and reverence, looking for nothing beyond these/ 'And to
bring in any thing that is a stranger to scripture/ Theodoret1 calls it
' an extinguishing of the Spirit ; something contrary to that duty
whereby we are obliged to stir up the grace of God we have received/
' For the church of Christ dwells in and possesses assemblies in all

y Homil. ix. in ep. ad Coloss. [torn. d Serm. xxxviii. ad fratres in eremo.

xi. p. 391 B.] [torn. vi. append, col. 345 G.]

* Homil. lviii. in Joaun. [al. lix. torn. e [' plane' edd.]

viii. p. 346 D.] ' De bono viduit., cap. 1. [torn. vi.

a Homil. xli. op. imperf. in Matt. col. 369 D.]

[torn. vi. append, p. 174 B.] s []jb. i.] homil. ix. in Ezck. [torn. i.

b Lib. ii. c. 9. de doctrina Christiana. col. 1264 A.]

[torn. iii. part. 1. col. 24 D.] h Lib. i. de orthod. fide, c. 1. [torn. i.

c Collat., lib. i. cap. 1. [in biblioth. p. 123 E.]

Cluniac. per Mart. Marrier, col. 161 D. « In Levit. quxst. ix. [torn. i. p. IS?.]
fol. Par. 1614.]

ix. R r

610 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

the world, being joined by the unity of the Spirit, and hath cities of
the law and the prophets, of the gospel and apostles; she departs
not out of her own bounds, that is, from the holy scriptures, but
retains her first possession/ so S. Hieromej. And in his commen-
tary on Psal. lxxxvi., (if he be the author of it, as Rupertus affirms,)
expounding those words, Dominus narrabit in scriptura populorum
et principum liorum qui fuenint in ea, he says k, ' Et principum,' hoc
est apostolorum et evangelistarum : ' horum quifuerunt in ea,' videte
quid dicat, ' quifuerunt,' non ' qui sunt,' tit exceptis apostolis, quod-
cunque aliud postea dicitur, abscindatur, non habeat postea auclori-
tatem. Quamvis ergo sanctus sit aliquis post apostolos, quamvis
disertus sit, non habet auctoritatem, quoniam Dominus narrat in
scriptura populorum et principum qui fuenint in ea : ' The princes
of the people, that is, the apostles and evangelists : Of them which
have been in her, which have been, not which are in her ; that ex-
cepting what the apostles say, every thing after them may be cut off,
it hath after them no authority. For if there be any wise man, any
saint after the apostles, he hath no authority ; because our Lord
saith, in the scripture or writing of the princes that have been in her/
Sufficit divina scriptura ad faciendum eos qui in ilia educati sunt
sapientes, et probatissimos, et sufficientissimam habentes intelligen-
iiam; indigemusque ad hoc prorsus nihil externis magistris ; so
S. Cyril of Alexandria1 : ' the divine scripture is sufficient to make
them who are educated in it wise and most approved, and having a
most sufficient understanding, and besides this we need no external
masters/ To the same purpose is that of Anastasius m of Antioch,
Quod qua silentio prceteriit scriptura divina non sint scrutanda, est
perspicuum : omnia enim qucefaciunt adnostram utilitatem dispensavit
et administravit Spiritus sanctus : ' it is manifest that those things
are not to be enquired into which the scripture hath passed over with
silence : for the holy Spirit hath dispensed to us and administered
all things which conduce unto our profit/ Quicquid est de verbo
Dei, quicquid sciri vel pradicari oporiet, de incamatione, de vera
divinitate et humanitate filii Dei, duobus ita continetur testamen-
tis, ut extra hac nihil sit quod annunciari debeat atit credi. Totum
in his comprehenditur cceleste oraculum, quod tarn jirmiter scire debe-
mus, ut extra hac audire neque hominem nobis liceat, neque ange-
lumn : 'whatsoever is of the word of God, whatsoever ought to be
known or preached of the incarnation, of the true divinity and
humanity of the son of God, is so contained in both the testaments,
that besides these there is nothing that may be believed or preached.
All the whole celestial oracle is comprehended in these, which we

i In Michas. i. [torn. iii. col. 1503.] Hexaemeron. [max. bibl. vet. patr., torn.

" [tom. ii. col. 350.] ix. p. 89fi F.]

1 Lib. vii. contra Julian, [tom. vi. n Rupert, abbas Tuitiensis, comment.

p. 230 B.] in lib. Ilegum, lib. iii. cap. 12. [tom. i.

m Lib. viii. anagogicae contempl. in p. 477.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. Gil

must so firmly believe, that besides these it is not lawful for us to
hear either man or angel/ And indeed it were not to be imagined
how the scripture should be a canon or rule to Christians, if it were
so imperfect that it did not contain the measures of faith and man-
ners. Kavcav ecrTL . . p.erpov ahid^evcrTOV iraaav TrpoaOecnv nal acjxxi-
peatv puibapius eirtbexop-^vos, said Varinus11, ' a rule or canon is an
unerring measure, which at no hand can receive addition or sutler
diminution/ And S. Basil0 reproved the heretic Eunomius for folly
besides his false doctrine, because that he affirmed tradition of the
fathers to be the gnomon or canon of faith, and yet said ny)oo-0?/Kr/s
aKpLf3€(TT€pas bdaOat, ' that it wanted some additament to make it
exact;' one part contradicts "the other. cO kolvo>v ovt€ irpocrOeo-Lv ovre
aipaipeaiv Several, €7ret to kclvuv elvai cnroXXva-i,, saith S. Chryso-
stomP, ' if any thing be put to it, or taken from it, it ceases to be a
canon/ And therefore scriptures are not the christian canon, they
are not canonical, if they need to be supplied by traditions. The
same is also affirmed by (Ecumenius, and the very words of Chryso-
stom are transcribed by Theophylact.

§ 11. 5) Whatsoever Christ taught to His apostles by His ser-
mons and by His spirit, all that the apostles taught to the church,
and set it down in writing.

This we learn from S. Irenseusq, Non per alios dispositionem salu-
tis nostra cognovimus quam per eos per quos evangelkim pervoiit ad
nos, quod quidem hinc praconiaverunt, postea vero per Dei volunta-
tem in scripturis nobis tradiderunt,fundamentum et columnam fidei
nostra futurum : c we have known the economy of our salvation by
no other but by those by whom the gospel came to us ; which truly
they then preached, but afterwards by the will of God delivered to
us in the scriptures, which was to be the pillar and ground to our
faith / viz., what the church was afterwards to minister the scrip-
tures did consign, and both of them were pillars and grounds of
faith ; the church Aeiroupyi/coos, the scriptures avdevTLK&s, the
church by way of ministry, the scriptures by their authority. To
this purpose are those words of S. Austin1", Cum mnlta fecisset Do-
minus Jesus, non omnia scripta sunt, sicut idem ipse sanctus Joannes
evangelista testatur, mtdta Domimim Christum et dixisse et fecisse
qua scripta non sunt ; electa sunt autem qua scriberentur qua saluti
credentium sufficere videbantnr : ' Our Lord Jesus did do many
things which are not written ; and the holy evangelist does witness
that He both did and spake many things which are not written : but
those things which were seen to suffice to the salvation of believers
were chosen to be written/ And therefore S. Austins and Optatus*

n [al. Phavorinus, in lexic. ad voc] r Tract, xlix. in Joann. [torn. iii. part. 2.

° Lib. i. contr. Eunomium. [torn. i. col. 619 A.]

p. 213 E.] " Exposit. ii. in psalm. 21. [toni. iv.

» Homil. xii. in 3 Philipp. [torn. xi. p. col. 101 F.]

293 D.] l Contr. Parmtn., lib. v. [cap. 3. p.

i Lib. iii. cap. 1. [p. 173.] 82.]

itr 2 '

612 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

compare the scriptures to the will of the testator : concerning his
goods the kindred may strive, one affirming this and another that ;
hut proferte tabulas, shew the will, peruse the writings ; then the
judge listens, the advocates are silent, the people are in suspense,
the litigants wait : let the testator's words be read, that must end
all contention. Now this will was therefore consigned in writing,
that when our testator was gone from us we might not doubt con-
cerning His legacies and His commandments. The same is by Nice-
phorus" particularly affirmed of S.Paul, Qua prasens oratione sua
dilucide docuerat, eadem per compendium absens in memoriam revo-
cans per epistolas dedit : ' the things which he plainly and explicitly
preached, he being absent, to recall into their memory what he had
delivered, set them down in his epistles as in a summary.'' And
S. Peter having (as appears in his epistle) promised to do something
to put them in mind after his decease (meaning to remind them of
the doctrine delivered) caused S. Mark to write his gospel .

§ 12. Thus I have sufficiently demonstrated the rule so far as this
topic can extend ; that is, by matter of fact, and the doctrine of the
church. For if tradition be regardable, then that the scriptures are
a sufficient and a perfect rule of faith and manners is competently
proved by that which our adversaries in this question pretend to
regard : but if tradition be not considerable, then the scriptures
alone are ; and there is indeed no tradition so clear, so regular, so
unreprovable as those which are concerning scripture. That these
books are scripture, that is, the written word of God, and that the
written word of God is all that we have of God's will, is universally
delivered by the Christian, and of that which of late is questioned I
have given a specimen, for if the concurrent testimony of so many
fathers cannot persuade this article, then the topic of tradition will
be wholly useless in all questions ; but if they can, as indeed they
ought in this question, then we are fixed upon this great rule of
conscience ; the holy scriptures are the great rule of conscience both
in doctrines of faith and in doctrines of manners.

§ 13. The next enquiry is what use there is of traditions, and if
they cannot be a part of the rule, what aids do they bring to the con-
science in faith or manners.

§ 14. 1) To this I answer, that tradition is of great use for the
conveying of this great rule of conscience, the holy scriptures of the
Old and New testament. For when I affirm that the holy scriptures
are a perfect rule of faith and manners, that is, that they contain all
the word of God ; it is to be understood, that it is a rule, a perfect
rule to them who believe them to be the word of God. For the
question is not whether the scriptures be a rule, but whether they be
a perfect rule ; not whether they be the word of God, but whether
they be all the word of God that is of necessity to be preached to the

u Lib. ii. hist. [cap. 34.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 013

church. So that the traditions concerning scripture itself being ex-
trinsical to scripture, are also extrinsical to the question : and sup-
posing that tradition were the only instrument of conveying scripture
to us ; yet that tradition must not, cannot possibly be any part of the
question, for scripture must be supposed as delivered to us and ac-
cepted for the word of God, before we can enquire whether this scrip-
ture so delivered be all the word of God or no. And indeed tradi-
tion of scripture is the hand that reaches forth this repository of the
divine word, but itself is not directly any part of it; it ministers to
the will of God, but is no part of the matter of it : and therefore the
common pretence for the necessity of tradition besides scripture (be-
cause by universal tradition we understand these to be the books of
scripture) will come to nothing, because the question of the plenitude
of scripture is after the admission of that tradition which reports scrip-
ture to us to be the word of God : but it matters not how or why
we believe it, whether by universal or particular tradition, whether
because my priest tells me so or my father, whether I am brought
into it by reason or by education, by demonstrative or by probable
inducements : if it be believed heartily it is sufficient ; and then it is
that we affirm the scriptures so believed to be the word of God, to be
a perfect rule of all that we are to think or speak or do in order to
salvation

§ 15. 2) Besides this, to enquire of wrhat use traditions are, is to no
purpose for us, for there is no tradition of any doctrine of faith or
rule of life but what is in scripture; but if there were, traditions
would be of the same use as scripture is, if the tradition were from
Christ and His apostles, and were as certain, as universal, as credible
as that is by which we are told that scripture is the word of God.
For the word which is now written was first delivered, that which is
now scripture was at first tradition ; and because it was afterwards
called so, it hath been made use of by these persons, who, knowing
that the change of words in descending ages is least discerned by
mankind, and that from words which are fewer than things most
advantages can be made by them who love every thing better than
truth, have pretended every saying of the scripture and fathers, in
which tradition is used, to be a competent argument of the imper-
fection of scripture, and of the necessity of a supply to be made by
tradition.

§ 16. Ylapabocns, 'tradition/ is any way of communicating the
notice of a thing to us : YlapebooKa vpZv on Xpioros a-neOavtv vircp
tG)v hfxapTL&v i)p.<x>v, ' I have delivered to you that Christ died for our
sins/ But this tradition is also in scripture : so S. Paul* adds that
Christ died for our sins, Kara ras ypafyas, 'according to the scrip-
tures/ and he commands the Thcssalonians to 'preserve the tradi-
tions which they had learned from his mouth or from his hand,
from his preaching or his writings :' and this use of the word con-

1 fl Cor. xv. 3.]

614 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

tinued in the church for divers ages, even till all traditions that were
not in scripture were lost, or made uncertain. Si ergo aut in evan-
gelio prcecipitur, aut in apostolorum epistolis aut actibus continetar
. . observetur divina hac et sancta traditio, so S. Cyprian y: 'if this
be commanded in the gospel, or be contained in the epistles or acts
of the apostles, let this divine and holy tradition be observed/ Such
was that which S. Basil2 calls irapabocnv tov /3a.TTTLo-}j.aTo$, ' the tra-
dition of baptism/ clvtov tov Kvpiov kv rfj Trapabocrei tov crcorrjptou
/3aTrrtcr/xaro? irapah'tbooKOTos ti]v tol^iv, ' our Lord himself liaving
delivered or given the order in the tradition of baptism/ And
S. Ireneeusa calls it a tradition apostolical, Christum accepisse cali-
cem, et dixisse sanguinem suum esse, 8fc, ' that Christ took the cup,
and said it was His blood/ andb that 'the barbarians did diligently
keep the tradition/ credentes in unum Deum et in Christum qui hia-
tus est ex virgine, 'believing in one God and in Christ who was
born of a virgin/ Such traditions as these the whole church had
before the consignation of scripture-canon, and she retained them
better by help of the scriptures. Tradition is a giving or delivering
of it ; and so long as it is a tradition of God, it is well enough : but
if it comes to be 'your traditions/ there is in them nothing of
divinity, nothing of that authority which is to prescribe in faith and
holiness. So that in short the thing is this ;

If God by His Son or by His apostles, or any way else, hath taught
His church, there is no disputing of it ; let it be made appear that it
is a tradition of God, whether written or unwritten, it matters not.
If it cannot be made to appear, then idem est non esse et non ap-
parere, it is not obliging to us : we cannot follow the light of a
candle that is hid in a dark lantern, or thrust into a bushel. But
that there is nothing of faith and manners which the church of God
ever did hold necessary, or ought to have held necessary, but what
is in the scriptures, I have already largely proved, and shall in the
consequents illustrate with other collateral lights.

§ 17. In the mean time it ought to be known that in the first
ages of the church the fathers disputing with heretics did oftentimes
urge against them the constant and universal tradition of the church ;
and it was for these reasons.

1) Because the heretics denied the scriptures : so did the Mani-
chees reject the four gospels; Ebion received only S. Matthew's
gospel, Cerinthus only S. Mark, Marcion only S. Luke, and not all
of that, Valentinus none but S. John, but the Alogi received all
but that; Cerdo, Cerinthus, Tatianus and Manichseus rejected the
Acts of the apostles, the Ebionites all S. Paul's epistles ; the church
of Rome for a long time rejected the epistle to the Hebrews, so did
Marcion ; others also refused to admit the epistles of S. James and

y Epist. lxxiv. ad Pompei. [p. 211.] a [lib. iv. cap. 17. p. 249.]

■ Lib. iii. contra Eunom. [torn. i. p. b Lib. iii. cap. 4. [p. 178.]

273 D.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. (315

S. Jude, the second of S. Peter, the second and third of S. John, as
we learn from Eusebiusc and S. Hieromed. Now to such men as these,
and in all the interval till the whole canon was consigned and ac-
cepted, it was of great use to allege tradition, especially because the
doctrine of the scriptures was entirely and holily preached in all the
apostolical churches, and by the known and universally preached
doctrines they could very well refute the blasphemies of wicked
and heretical persons. But in all this here is no objection, for
all this tradition was nothing else but the doctrine of the holy
scriptures.

§ 18. 2) The heretics did rely upon this topic for advantage, and
would be tried by tradition, as hoping because there were in several
churches contrary customs, there might be differing doctrines, or
they might plausibly be pretended; and therefore the fathers had
reason to urge tradition, and to wrest it from their hands, who would
fain have used it ill. Thus did the Carpocratians in Irenseus6, ' When
they are reproved from scripture they accuse the scriptures, as if they
were not right, as if they had no authority, as if from them truth
could not be found by them that know not tradition :; for they affirm
thatf ' Jesus spake some things in mystery to His disciples apart, and
that they required that they might deliver them to the worthy, and
to them that would assent to them.'' Upon this pretence Artemon
exposed his errors, saith Eusebius^, and Papias introduced the mil-
lenary heresy; and by tradition the Arians would be tried, and
S. Basil11 was by them challenged in an appeal irpos r?/y <jvvr\-
Qeiav, ' to custom' or tradition, and by this Eunomius did suppose
he had prevailed ; and S. Austin { affirms that all the most foolish
heretics pretend for their most senseless figments those words of our
blessed Saviour, " I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye
cannot hear them now." And to this purpose was that which the
Basilidians did affirm, that the mysteries of their sect were no things
of public notice, but conveyed in secret. Now to such as these there
were but two ways of confutation : one was, which they most insisted
upon, that the holy scriptures were a perfect rule of faith and man-
ners, and that there was no need of any other tradition ; the other,
that the traditions which they pretended were false, and that the
contrary was the doctrine which all the churches of God did preach
always. Now thus far tradition was useful to be pleaded ; that is,
though the heretics would not admit the doctrine of Christianity as it
was consigned in scripture, yet they might be convinced that this
was the doctrine of Christianity because it was also preached by all
bishops and confessed by all churches. But in all these contests the

c Lib. iii. hist. [cap. 25.] g Hist, eccles., lib. v. [cap. 28.]

u Lib. de viris illustr. [al. catal. script. h S. Basil., lib. ii. contr. Eunom. [torn.

eccles., torn. iv. part. 2. coll. 101, 2, 5.] i. p. 200 C]

8 Lib. iii. cap. 2. [p. 174.] ' Trad, xcvii. in Joann. [torn. iii. part.

r Lib. i. cap. 24. [al. 25. p. 104. ] 2. col. 737.]

616 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

fathers did not pretend to prove by tradition what they could not
prove by scripture ; but the same things were preached which were
written, and no other articles of faith, no other rules and measures
of good life : only because they did not consent in the authority of
one instrument, they ought to be convinced by the other.

§ 19. 3) There is yet one use more of traditions, but it is in
rituals, and in such instances concerning which S. Paul wrote to the
Corinthiansk these words, " The rest will I set in order when I come."
Such are, a) the observation of the Lord's day solemnly once a year,
and less solemnly once a week, that is, the feast of Easter and the
weekly sunday ; /3) the government of the church by bishops, which
is consigned to us by a tradition greater than some books of scrip-
ture, and as great as that of the Lord's day : and that so notorious,
that thunder is not more heard than this is seen in all the monu-
ments of antiquity; y) offices ecclesiastical to be said and done by
ecclesiastical persons : such as are the public prayers of the church,
the consecration of the blessed eucharist, the blessing of the married
pairs and joining them in the holy and mysterious rite of marriage,
the consecration of bishops by bishops only, and of priests by bishops
and presbyters ; though for this last there is not so universal tradi-
tion ; that every where requiring the imposition of the bishop's hand,
and but in some places requiring the assistance of the presbyters.
These three are the most universal and apostolical traditions, which
although they also have great grounds in scripture, yet because the
universal practice and doctrine of the church of God in all ages and
in all churches primitive is infinitely evident and notorious, less liable
to exception, and an apt commentary upon the certain but less evi-
dent places of scripture; therefore these may be placed under the
protection of universal tradition, for they really have it beyond all
exception. And although in these the scripture is sufficient to all
wise and good men, to all that are willing to learn and obey, and
not desirous to make sects and noises ; yet because all men are not
wise and good and disinteressed, tradition in these things is to scrip-
ture as a burning glass to the sun ; it receives its rays in a point,
and unites their strength, and makes them burn as well as shine,
that is, it makes them do that which in their own nature they are
apt to do, and from doing which they are only hindered acci-
dentally.

§ 20. By these instances it is evident that we ought not to refuse
tradition when it is universal, nor yet believe that in any thing of great
concernment, though it be but matter of rite and government, the
scripture is defective; for in these things we admit tradition to be
the commentary, but scripture to be the text : navra av^cpodva reus
ypafyais, as Irenreus in Eusebius l expresses it, all must be ' agree-
able to scripture/ And although a tradition so absolutely universal
as these were a warranty greater than any objection can be against
k [ 1 Cor. xi. 34.] ' Lib. v. cap. 20. [p. 23!).]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OP JESUS CHRIST. G17

them, and were to be admitted though they had not express autho-
rity in scripture, as all these have ; yet that even these things also
are in scripture, is a very great argument of the perfection of it.

§ 21. For all other things the scripture is abundant, and what-
ever else is to be used in the externals and appendages of religion,
the authority of the church is a sufficient warranty, as I shall prove
in its proper place. But if in these externals there be a tradition,
according to the degree of its antiquity and universality, so it puts
on degrees of reasonableness, and may be used by any age of the
church : and if there be nothing supervening that alters the case, it
is better than any thing that is new j if it be equally fit, it is not
equally good, but mucli better.

§ 22. This is all the use which is by wise and good men made
of traditions, and all the use which can justly be made by any man ;
and besides the premises this will be yet further apparent, that
although there are some universal practices which ever were and still
are in all churches, which are excellent significations of the meaning
of these scriptures, where the practices are less clearly enjoined, yet
there are no traditive doctrines distinct from what are consigned in
scripture. And this I shall represent in the third particular which
I promised to give account of, viz.

§ 23. That the topic of tradition, after the consignation of the
canon of scripture, was not only of little use in any question of faith
or manners, but falsely pretended for many things, and is unsafe in
all questions of present concernment.

§ 24. In order to the proof of this, I divide the great heap of
traditions, which are shovelled together by the church of Rome, into
three little heaps :

1) Of things necessary or matters of faith,

2) Of things impertinent to the faith and unnecessary,

3) Of things false.

§ 25. 1) The traditions of things necessary are, the Trinity of per-
sons, the consubstantiality of the eternal Son of God with His Father,
the baptism of infants, the procession of the holy Ghost from the
Son, and original sin, that the Father was not begotten, that the
holy Ghost is God and to be invocated, that baptism is not to be
reiterated, that in Christ there are two natures and one person. Now
that these be appertaining to the faith I easily grant ; but that the
truth of these articles and so much of them as is certain or necessary
is also in scripture, I appeal to all the books of the fathers and of all
moderns who do assert them by testimonies from scripture. Quic-
quicl sciri vel prcedicari oportet de incur natione, de veru divinitate
atrjue humunitate filii Dei, duobus itu continetur testamentis, tit ex-
tru hac nihil sit quod unnunciuri debeut uut credi, said Rupert us
Abbas, as I before quoted himm. All the mysteries of Christ's nature

nl [p. CIO above]

618 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

and person, of His humanity and divinity, are clearly set down in
both testaments. But they are not clearly reported in tradition, the
fathers having sometimes spoken in these articles more in the Arian
than in the catholic style, say Hosius", Gordon Huntly0, Gretser,
Tannerp, Perronq, and Eisherr. By scriptures therefore the church
confuted the Arians, the Eutychians, the Nestorians, the Monothe-
lites, the Photinians and the Sabellians. The other articles are also
evidently in the words of scripture or in the first consequences and
deductions s. And when we observe the men of the church of Rome
going about with great pretensions to confirm all their articles by
scriptures, they plainly invalidate all pretence of necessity of tradi-
tions. If they say that all the articles of Trent are not to be found
in scripture, let them confess it plainly, and then go look out for
proselytes. If they say there are scriptures for all their articles,
then scripture is sufficient, or else their faith is not. For all these
I before reckoned, it is certain both they and we have from scripture
many proofs, and if there were not, I believe tradition would fail us
very much; for the heresies which oppugned them were very early,
and they also had customs and pretences of customs to prescribe for
their false doctrines; as I shall make appear in the following periods.
§ 26. 2) There are also traditions pretended of things which are
not necessary, such as are the fast of Lent, godfathers and god-
mothers in baptism, the mixture of wine and water in the eucharis-
tical chalice, the keeping of Easter upon the first day of the week,
trine immersion in baptism, the apostles' creed, prayer for the dead,
the Wednesday and the friday fast, unction of sick people, canon of the
scripture, the forms of sacraments, and the perpetual virginity of the
virgin Mary. Now that these are not divine traditions nor aposto-
lical appears by the destitution of their proper proof. They are
ecclesiastical traditions and of several ages, and some of them of very
great antiquity ; but of what obligation they are I shall account in
the chapter of ' laws ecclesiastical.'' In the mean time they neither
are of the necessity of faith, or the essential duty of christian religion;
and therefore as a Christian can go to heaven without the observation
of them in certain circumstances, so is the scripture a perfect canon
without giving rules concerning them at all.

n De author, s. script, lib. iii. p. 53. 106. fin. ed. 4to. 1625.] Epiphan. haeres.

[torn. i. p. 543. ed. fol. Col. Agr. 1584.] lxix. [vol. i. p. 727 sqq.]

° Tom. i. contr. 1. de verbo Dei, cap. ' S. Ambros., lib. i. cap. 5. de fide

19. [cap. 28. p. 105 sqq. ed. 8vo. Col. contra Arianos. [torn. ii. col. 450.] S.

Agr. 1620.] Aug. tract, xcvii. in Joann. [torn. iii.

p In colloq. Ratisbon. [passim, e. g. part. 2. col. 738.] et epist clxxiv. [al.

sess. xiv. fol. 155 sqq. ed. 4to. Monach. ccxxxviii. torn. ii. col. 857.] et clxxviii.

1602.] [al. xx. append, col. 41 sqq.] S. \thanas.

q Lib. iii. cap. 3. contre le roi Jacques, in libell. de decret. synod. Nicsen. [torn.

[?] et lib. ii. cap. 7. de euchar. contr. Du i. p. 219 A.] Tertull. adv. Praxeam. [cap.

Plessis. [p. 219. ed. fol. Par. 1622.] et 4 sqq. p. 502 sqq.] Theodoret, dial,

cap. 5. observ. 4. [' Replique,' &c. p. ii. [torn. iv. p. 113.] Salmero, disp.

729.] iv. in 2 ad Timoth. [cap. iii. torn. xv.

r Resp. ad qusest. 9 Jacobi regis, [p. p. 6(6, 7.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 619

§ 27. 3) But then as for others, there are indeed a great many
pretended to be traditions, but they are false articles, or wicked
practices, or uncertain sentences at the best. I reckon some of those
which the Roman church obtrudes : such as are invocation of saints
and angels, adoration of them, and worshipping of images, the doc-
trine of purgatory, prayer in the unknown tongue, the pope's power
to depose kings, and to absolve from lawful and rate oaths, the pic-
turing of God the Father and the holy Trinity, the half communion,
the doctrine and practice of indulgences, canon of the mass, the doc-
trine of proper sacrifice in the mass, monastical profession, the single
life of priests and bishops. Now these are so far from being aposto-
lical traditions, that they are some of them apparently false, some of
them expressly against scripture, and others confessedly new, and
either but of yesterday, or, like the issues of the people, born where
and when no man can tell. Concerning indulgences, Antonius the
famous archbishop of Florence l says that we have nothing expressly
recited in holy scripture, nor are they found at all in the writings of
the ancient doctors. The half-communion is by the council of Con-
stance u affirmed to be different from the institution of Christ and the
practice of the primitive church. Concerning invocation of saints,
cum scriberentio' scriptura nondum cceperat vsus vovendi sane/ is :
Bellarmine v confesses that ' in the age in which the scriptures were
written the use of making vows to saints was not begun •' and car-
dinal Perron x excludes the next ages from having any hand in the
invocation of them. Et quant aux autheurs plus proches du siecle
apostol'ique, encore qu'il ne s'y trouve pas des vestiges de ceste coustume,
Sfc. : ' in the authors more near the apostolical age no footsteps of
this custom can be found/

§ 28. Concerning making an image of the Father or of the holy
Trinity, Baronius cites an epistle of Gregory the second, An. Dom.
dccxxvi, in which he gives a reason why the church did not make
any picture of the Father ; which forces him to confess that the
beginning of the custom of painting the Father and the holy Ghost
postea nsu venit in ecclesia, ' came into use afterward in the church.''

The doctrine of purgatory is not only expressly against scripture,
saying, " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, even so saith
the Spirit, that they rest from their laboursy;" but it is also certain
that it was not so ancient as the canon of the Roman mass, the age
of which no man can tell any more than they can tell the age of a
flock of sheep, or a company of men and children together ; for one

1 Summa thcol., p. i. tit. 10. c. 3. de compare ' Dissuasive from popery,' vol.

indulg. [fol. 202. Venet. 1582.] Vide vi. p. 208.]

etiam Cajetan., cap. 2. de indulgent. ' De cultu sanctorum, lib. iii. cap. 9.

[fol. 46. ed. fol. Ven. 159 k] Navar. §' Prceterea.' [torn. ii. col. 1090.]
comment, de jubil. et indulgent. [§ vii. x Contre le roi de la Grande Bre-

p. 14. ed. 4to. Rom. 1585.] Biel, lect. 57. tagne. [lib. v. cap. 19. p. 1009.]
in can. missae. [fol. 136 sqq.] y [Rev. xiv. 13.]

u [Sess. xiii. torn. vii!. co!. 381 : —

620 OP THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

piece is old, and another is late, and another of a middle age. But
the prayer which in the canon is for the dead supposes that they are
not in purgatory, but prays for them which are asleep in rest and
quietness.

§ 29. I shall not instance in any more, because I shall in other
places meet with the rest : but these are a sufficient indication how
the church hath been abused by the pretence of tradition, and that
a bold man may in private confidently tell his parishioner that any
doctrine is a tradition ; and he is the more likely to prevail because
he cannot be confuted by his undiscerning hearer, since so great
parts and so many ages of the church have been told of things that
they were traditions apostolical, when the articles themselves are
neither old nor true. Is it imaginable by a man of ordinary under-
standing, or that hath heard any thing of antiquity, that the apostles
should command their followers to worship the relics of S. James
or S. Stephen ; or that S. Peter did ever give leave to a man that
had sworn to go from his oath, and not to do what he had sworn he
would ? Is it likely that S. Peter or S. Paul should leave secret in-
structions with S. Clement or S. Linus that they might depose kings
lawfully when it was in their power, and when kings did disagree in
opinion from them ? Is there any instance, or precept, or line, or
doctrine, or history, that ever any apostle or apostolical man conse-
crated the holy communion where there was none to communicate ?
It was never heard that a communion could be single till the catho-
lic church came to signify the Eoman ; and yet if scripture will not
prove these things tradition must. The experience and the infinite
unreasonableness of these things does sufficiently give a man warning
of attending to such new traditions, or admitting the topic in any
new dispute, it having been so old a cheat : and after the canon of
scripture was full, and after that almost the whole church had been
abused by the tradition of Papias in the millenary opinion, which for
three hundred years of the best and first antiquity prevailed, all the
world should be wiser than to rely upon that which might introduce
an error, but which truth could never need, it being abundantly pro-
vided for in scripture.

§ 30. Sometimes men have been wiser, and when a tradition apo-
stolical hath been confidently pretended, they would as confidently
lay it aside when it was not in scripture. Clemens Alexandrin.us
reckons many traditions apostolical, but no man regards them. Who
believes that the Greeks wrere saved by their philosophy, or that the
apostles preached to dead infidels, and then raised them to life, al-
though these were by S. Clement affirmed to have been traditions
apostolical z ? Did the world ever the more believe that a council
might not be called but by the authority and sentence of the bishop
of Rome, though Marcellus2 was so bold to say it was a canon apo-
stolical? And after S. Hierome3 had said these words, pracepta

z [See vol. v. p. 437.] a [Epist. Hi. torn. iv. part. 2. col. 579.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CIIIUST. 021

majorunt apodottcas tradiliones quisque exislimat, ' that what their
fathers commanded, all men were wont to call them traditions apo-
stolical/ no man had reason to rely upon any thing which by any
one or two or three of the fathers was called tradition apostolical,
unless the tiling itself were also notorious or proved by some other
evidence. But this topic of tradition is infinitely uncertain, and
therefore if it be pretended new, it can be of no use in any of our
questions. For if in the primitive church tradition was claimed by
the opposite parties of a question, who can be sure of it now ? Arte-
mon pretended it to be an apostolical tradition that Christ Avas
\}/ikos apOpcoTTos, 'a mere man/ and the Nicene fathers proved it
was not so, but much rather the contrary : but that topic would not
prevail for either side. In the question of rebaptization of persons
baptized by heretics both sides pretended tradition ; so they did in
that impertinent, but (as they then made it) great question of the
time of keeping Easter. Clemens Alexandrinus b said it was an
apostolical tradition that Christ preached but one year; but Ire-
na3usc said it was an apostolical tradition that Christ was about fifty
years old when He died, and consequently that He preached almost
twenty years. But if they who were almost at the fountain were
uncertain of the river's head ; how shall we know it who dwell where
the waters are ready to unbosom themselves into the ocean ? And
to pretend an apostolical tradition in matters of faith, now that the
books of the fathers have been lost, and yet there are a very great
many to be read for the proving of tradition, that is, that there are
too many and too few, that in the loss of some of them possibly we
have lost that light which would have confuted the present pretences
of tradition, and the remaining part have passed through the limbecs
and strainers of heretics and monks and ignorants and interested
persons, and have passed through the corrections and deturpations
and mistakes of transcribers, (a trade of men who wrote books that
they might eat bread, not to promote a truth,) and that they have
been disordered by zeal and faction and expurgatory indices, and
that men have been diligent to make the fathers seem of their side,
and that heretics have taken the fathers' names and published books
under false titles, and therefore have stamped and stained the cur-
rent ; is just as if a Tartar should offer to prove himself to have
descended from the family of king David, upon pretence that the
Jews mingled with their nation, and that they did use to be great
keepers of their genealogies.

§ 31. But after all this, the question of tradition is wholly useless
in the questions between the church of Rome and the other parts of
Christendom. Not only because there are many churches of differ-
ing rites and differing doctrines from the Roman, who yet pretend a
succession and tradition of their customs and doctrines per tempus
immemoriale, they know not when they began, and for aught they
b Strom., lib. i. [cap. 21. p. 407.] c Lib. ii. cap. 39. [al. 22. p. 148.]

622 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

know they came from the apostles, and they are willing to believe it,
and no man amongst them questions it, and all affirm it ; particularly
the Greek church, the Russians, the Abyssines : but also because those
articles which they dispute with the other churches of the west can-
not be proved by tradition universal, as infinitely appears in those
pitiful endeavours and attempts which they use to persuade them to
be such ; which if they did not sometimes confute themselves, the
reader may find confuted every where by their learned adversaries.

§ 32. Therefore although the perfection of scripture be abundantly
proved, yet if it were not, tradition will but make it less certain, and
therefore not more perfect. For besides that nuncupative records
are like diagrams in sand and figures efformed in air, volatile and
soon disordered, and that by the words and practice of God, and all
the world, what is intended to last was therefore written, as appears
in very many places in scripture d ; and therefore Job calls out, " O
that my words were now written, 0 that they were- printed in a book,
that they were engraven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for
ever •" upon which words the Greek catena says, ' He draws a simi-
litude from them who put^ those things in writing which they very
greatly desire should remain to the longest posterity/ and that the
very nature of things is such that a tradition is infinitely better pre-
served in writing than in speaking ; and besides all those very many
weak and uncertain and false traditions with which several men, and
several ages, and several churches have abused others, or been abused
themselves, I instance in two great things, by the one of which we
may see how easily the church may be imposed upon in the matter
of tradition ; and by the other, how easily those men impose upon
themselves whose faith hath a temporal bias and divertisement.
I § 33. The first is, that very many epistles of popes, viz., from
S. Clement to S. Gregory, that is, for above five hundred years, were
imposed upon the church as the genuine writings of those excellent
men who governed the church of Rome in all her persecutions and
hardnesses ; and of these epistles the present church of Rome makes
very great use to many purposes, and yet no imposture could be
greater than this.

§ 34. Tor 1) they are patched up of several arguments and mate-
rials not at all agreeing with the ages in which they were pretended
to be written, but are snatched from the writings of other men and
latter times. 2) They were invented after S. Hierome's time, as
appears in the citation of the testimonies of scripture from S.
Hierome's translation, and the author cited S. Hierome's version of
the Hebrew psalter. 3) They were not known in Rome for eight ages
together, which were a strange thing, that the records of Rome
should have no copies of the epistles of so many of the bishops of
Rome. 4) They are infinitely false in their chronology, and he that

d [Exod. xvii. 14, xxxiv. 27; Job xix. 23,4; Psalm cii. 18; Isa. xxx. 8; Jer.
xxx. 2 ; Rev. i. 11, 19, xxi. 5.]

CHAP. III.] OP THE LAWS OP JESUS CHRIST. 023

invented them put the years of false consulse to their date, as Baro-
nius himself confesses, quite reckoning otherwise, and in the epistles
of the whole five and forty the decrees of councils and the words of
ecclesiastical writers are cited, who yet were not at all in their ages,
but wrote after the death of those popes who are pretended to have
quoted them, or something is said that could not be done or said by
them or in their times. 5) They are written with the same style ;
and therefore it is no more probable that they should be the genuine
epistles of so many popes than that so many men in several ages
should have the same features in their faces : but these epistles say
over the same things several times, even unto tediousness, and yet
use the very same words without any differing expressions. G) And
sometimes these words were most intolerably barbarous, neither ele-
gantly fine nor elegantly plain, but solecisms, impure words, and
the most rude expressions, not unlike the friars' Latin or the epi-
stoke olscuronim virorum. 7) None of the ancient writers of the
church did ever cite any testimony from these epistles for eight
hundred years together, only one part of one of the epistles of
S. Clement was mentioned by Ruffinus and the council of Vase. 8)
None of those who wrote histories ecclesiastical, or of the church-
writers, made mention of them ; but all that do were above eight
hundred and thirty years after the incarnation of our blessed Lord.
9) And all this beside the innumerable errors in the matter which
have been observed by the centuriators of Magdeburg, David Blon-
del, and divers others. And a more notorious cheat could never
have been imposed upon the world ; but that there are so many
great notorieties of falsehood that it is hard to say which is greater,
the falsehood of the Pontifical book or the boldness of the compiler.
Now if so great a heap of records can at once be clapped upon the
credulity of men, and so boldly defended as it is by Turrian and
liinius, and so greedily entertained as it is by the Roman confidents,
and so often cited as it is by the Roman doctors, and yet have in it
so many strange matters, so disagreeing to scripture, so weak, so im-
pertinent, and sometimes so dangerous ; there is very great reason
to reject the topic of traditions, which can be so easily forged, and
sometimes rely upon no greater foundation than this, whose founda-
tion is in water and sand, and falsehood that is more unstable.

§ 35. The other thing is, that heretics and evil persons, to serve
their ends, did not only pretend things spoken by the apostles and
apostolical and primitive men, (for that was easy,) but even pretended
certain books to be written by them, that under their venerable names
they might recommend and advance their own heretical opinions.
Thus some false apostles (as Origen relates) wrote an epistle and
sent it to the church of Thessalonica under S. Paul's name, which
much troubled the Thessalonians, and concerning which, when S.
Paul had discovered the imposture, he gives them warning that they
e ['counsels' B. — 'councils' C, D.]

624 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

should not be troubled about any such epistle, as if he had sent it.
Thus there was a book published by an Asian priest under S. Paul's
name (as S. Hierorae reports) containing the vision of Paul and Tecla,
and I know not what old tale of the baptizing Leo. Some or other
made S. Clement an Eunomian, and Dionysius of Alexandria an
Arian, and Origen to be every thing, by interpolating their books,
or writing books for them. Ruffinus tells that the heretics en-
deavoured to corrupt the gospels : and that they did invent strange
acts of the apostles, and make fine tales of their life and death, we
need no better testimony than Tertullian's instances in his books
against Marcion : and for this reason Origen e gives caution, Oportet
cante considerare, ut nee omnia secreta qua feruwtwr nomine sancto-
rum suscipiamus ; ' we must warily consider, and not receive all
those secret traditions which go up and down under the names of
saints/ viz., of the holy apostles. And of the same nature is that
famous cheat that usurps the name of Dionysius the Areopagite,
called the Passion of Peter and Paul, as who please may see in
Laurentius Valla and Erasmus. And such is the book of the same
passions attributed to Linus, which was invented so foolishly and
carelessly that it contradicts the scriptures most apparently ; as every
one that reads it may without difficulty observe. Now the observa-
tion from these things is plain : in the matter of traditions as they
are now represented there is so much of human failings, and so little
of divine certainty, they are often falsely pretended, and never truly
proved, and if they should need to be proved, were therefore not to
be accepted ; because no particular proofs can make them universal,
and if they be not universal, of themselves they cannot be credible,
but need something else to make them so ; they are (whether true
or false) so absolutely now to no purpose, because it is too late to
prove them now, and too late to need them, the church having so
long accepted and relied upon the canon of scripture, that we are
plainly, and certainly, and necessarily devolved upon scripture for
the canon of our faith and lives. For though no man ought to
reject tradition if he did need it, and if he could have it, yet because
he neither can want it (because scripture is a perfect rule) nor can
have it (because it cannot in any of our questions be proved) we
must rely upon what we have. It is in the matter of traditions as
in the epistle of S. Paul to Laodicea : if this or those were extant
and sufficiently transmitted and consigned to us, they would make
up the canon as well as those we have ; but there is no such thing
as the Laodicean epistle, and there is no such thing as tradition of
doctrines of faith not contained in scriptures. The fathers that had
them, or thought they had them, might call upon their churches to
make use of them ; but we that cannot have them must use what
we have ; and we have reason to give thanks to God that we have
all that God intended to be our rule. God gave us in scripture all

e Homil. xxvi. in Matt. [torn. iii. p, 848.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAAVS OF JESUS CIIKIST.

that was necessary, it was a perfect rule ; and yet if it had not, it
must become so when we have no other.

§ 36. But upon the matter of this argument, there are three
questions to be considered in order to faith and conscience.

I. Whether there be not any rules and general measures of dis-
cerning tradition, by which although tradition cannot be proved the
natural way, that is, by its own light, evidence of fact and notoriety,
yet we may be reasonably induced to believe that any particular is
descended from tradition apostolical, and consequently is to be taken
in, to integrate the rule of conscience ?

II. How far a negative argument from scripture is valid and ob-
ligatory to conscience?

III. Whether there may be any new articles of faith, or that the
creed of the church may so increase that what is sufficient to salva-
tion in one age cannot serve in another ?

I. The first question is concerning the indirect ways of discerning
tradition.

§ 37. In vain it is to dispute whether traditions are to integrate
the canon of scripture, when it cannot be made to appear that there
are any such things as apostolical traditions of doctrines not con-
tained in scripture. Tor since the succession in all the chairs hath
been either interrupted or disordered by wars or heresies, by interest
or time, by design or by ignorance, by carelessness or inconsidera-
tion, by forgetfulness or unavoidable mistake, by having no necessity
of tradition, and by not delivering any ; it is in vain to dispute con-
cerning the stability of atoms, which as of themselves they are vo-
latile and unfixed, so they have no basis but the light air : and so
are traditions ; themselves are no argument, and there are no tradi-
tions ; they are no necessary or competent stabiliinent of doctrine or
manners, or if they were, themselves have no stabiliment.

§ 38. For it is certain there can be no tradition received for apo-
stolical at a less rate than the rule of Vincentius Lirinensis. For to
prove by scripture that there are any traditions not written in scrip-
ture is a trifling folly ; since there might be necessity of keeping tra-
ditions before all that which is necessary was set down in writing. So
that all the pretensions taken from scripture in behalf of traditions
are absolutely to no purpose, unless it were there said, there are
some things which we now preach to you which shall never be writ-
ten ; keep them : but the naming of traditions in some books of
scripture, and the recommending them in others, is no argument to
us to enquire after them, or to rely upon them ; unless that which
was delivered by sermon was never to be delivered by writing, and
that we knew it as certainly as that which is. And the same is to
be said of the sayings of fathers who recommend traditions: for al-
though the argument lessened every year, yet it was better then than

IX. s s

626 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

it can be now; it could serve some uses then, it can serve none now;
it might in some instances be certain, and safe in many, but now it
cannot be either, neither certain, nor safe, nor necessary, nor of any
use at all : which having made to appear in the preceding numbers,
it must follow that there can be no doctrinal traditions besides the
matters of scripture; because there are none such recommended to
the church by the measures of Yincentius Lirinensis. There is no
doctrine, no rule of faith or manners, which is not in the holy scrip-
tures, and yet which was ' believed always, and in all churches, and
of all men in those churches.' Tor although it is very probable that
Vincentius by this rule intended to reprove the novelties and unusual
doctrines which S. Austin by his great wit and great reputation had
brought into the church, contrary to the sentiments and doctrines
of the fathers which were before him; yet it will perfectly serve to
reprove all our late pretensions to traditions. For by this measure
we find it not to be enough that a doctrine hath been received for
a thousand years together by the catholic church, reckoning from
this period upwards ; unless it were also received by the apostolical
ages and churches throughout the world, it is nothing : and if it
were received by all the apostolical churches, and all good and wise
men in those churches, and so downwards ; wherever any church
failed it was to their own prejudice, not to the prejudice of the doc-
trine; for that was apostolical which was from the beginning, and
whatsoever came after could not change what was so before ; and the
interruption of an apostolical truth, though for a thousand years to-
gether, cannot annul the obligation, or introduce the contrary. So
that if we begin to account by this rule of Vincentius and go back-
wards, it is nothing unless we go back as far as to the apostles in-
clusively ; but if we begin there, and make that clear, it matters not
how little a way it descends : and therefore although it is an excellent
rule to reprove vain and novel pretensions, yet there is nothing to be
proved by it practicably; for we need not walk along the banks and
intrigues of Volga, if we can at first point to the fountain, it is that
whither the long progression did intend to lead us. If any thing fails
in the principle it is good for nothing; but if the tradition derive from
the fountain, and the head be visible, though afterwards it ran under
ground, it is well enough. Eor if a doctrine might invade the whole
church which was not preached by the apostles, or if the doctrine
might to many good and wise persons seem to have possessed the
whole church, that is, to be believed by all those that he knows, or
hears of, or converses with, and yet not have been the doctrine of the
apostles ; it is certain that this universality, and any less than that
which takes in the apostles, can never be sufficient warranty for an
article of faith or a rule of life, that is, the instance and obligation of
a duty necessary to salvation. But how shall we know concerning
any doctrine, whether it be a tradition apostolical ? Here the rule of
Vincentius comes in. If it can be made to appear that all churches

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 627

and all men did from the apostles' times down to the time of enquiry
accept it as true, and report it from the apostles, then it is to be so
received and continued. Indeed a less series and succession will
serve : for if we can be made sure that the age next to the apostles
did universally receive it as from the apostles, then we may not reject
it. But what can make faith in this? Certainly nothing; for there
is no doctrine so delivered but what is in scripture. Indeed some
practices and rituals are, because the public exercise and usages of
the church being united and notorious, public and acted, might make
the rite evident as light ; but in doctrines (besides scriptures) we
have not records enough to do it : and therefore this general rule of
Vincentius not being practicable, and the other lesser rules or conjec-
tures rather being incompetent, fxivafiev uxrirep e<r\x\v, we must 're-
main as we are/ and give God thanks for the treasures of holy scrip-
ture, and rejoice and walk in the light of it.

§ 39. But let us try a little.

(1) The first rule which is usually given is this, 'That which the
catholic church believes as an article of faith, which is not found in
scriptures, is to be believed to descend from apostolical tradition/ —
This rule is false and insufficient upon many accounts.

1) For if the church can err, then this rule can have no firmament
or foundation. If she cannot err, then there is no need either of
scriptures or tradition ; and there is no use of any other argument to
prove the truth of an article or the divinity of a truth, but the pre-
sent belief and affirmation of the church, for that is sufficient whether
it be written or not written, whether it be delivered or not. — But

2) Supposing the church could not err in matters of faith, yet
no man says but she may err in matter of fact : but whether this
thing was delivered by the apostles is matter of fact ; and therefore
though the church were assisted so that she could not mistake her
article, yet she may mistake her argument and instrument of proba-
tion : the conclusion may be true, and yet the premises false ; and
she might be taught by the Spirit, and not by the apostles.

3) No man now knows what the catholic church does believe in
any question of controversy; for the catholic church is not to be
spoken with, and being divided by seas, and nations, and interests,
and fears, and tyrants, and poverty, and innumerable accidents, does
not declare her mind by any common instrument, and agrees in
nothing but in the apostles' creed, and the books of scripture; and
millions of Christians hear nothing of our controversies, and if they
did, would not understand some of them.

4) There are thousands that do believe such an article to be
taught by the catholic church, and yet the catholic church with them
is nothing but their own party; for all that believe otherwise they
are pleased to call heretics. So that this rule may serve every party
that is great, and every party that is little, if they will add pride and
contumacy to their article : and what would this rule have signified
amongst the Donatists, to whom all the world was heretic but them-

s s 2

G:iS OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

selves ? and what would it signify amongst those peevish little sects
that damn all the world but their own congregations ? even as little
as it can to the church of Borne, who are resolved to call no church
catholic but their own.

5) The believing of such an article of faith could not be indica-
tion of a true catholic, that is, of a true member of the catholic
church; because if the article is to be proved to be apostolical by
the present belief of the catholic church, either the catholic church
is the whole christian church, and then we can never tell what she
believes in a particular question (and indeed she believes nothing in
the cpiestion, because if it be a question, the catholic church is di-
vided in her sense of it ;) or else the catholic church is some body
or church of Christians separate from the rest, and then she must by
other means be first known that she is the catholic church, before we
can accept her belief to be an argument that the article is an aposto-
lical tradition. Add to this, that the church's believing it, is not,
cannot be an argument that the doctrine is apostolical ; but on the
contrary, it ought to be proved to be apostolical before it is to be
admitted by the churches. And if it be answered, that so it was to
those churches who admitted it first, but to us it ought to be suffi-
cient that the church received it, and we ought therefore to conclude
it to be apostolical : I reply, that it is well if it was first proved to
the church to be apostolical ; but then if the primitive church would
not receive the doctrine without such evidence, it is a sign that this
was the right way of proceeding, and therefore so it ought to be with
us; they would not receive any doctrine unless it were proved to
come from the apostles, and why should we? and to say that because
they received it, we ought to suppose it to have been apostolical, 1
say that is to beg the question : for when we make a question whether
the church did well to receive this doctrine, we mean whether they
did receive it from the apostles or no. And therefore to argue from
their receiving it that it was apostolical, is to answer my question by
telling me that I ought to suppose that, and to make no question of
it. But if this rule should prevail, we must believe things which even
to affirm were impudent. The church of Rome, calling herself the
catholic church, affirms it to be heresy to say that it is necessary to
give the communion under both kinds to the laity : but he that will
from hence, though he believe that church to be the catholic, con-
clude that doctrine to be the apostolic, must have a great ignorance
or too great a confidence. Nay, this rule is in nothing more appa-
rently confuted than in this instance ; for the canon in the council
of Constance which establishes this for catholic doctrine, by confess-
ing it was otherwise instituted by Christ, and otherwise practised at
the beginning, confesses it not to be apostolic. So that upon this
account it is obvious to conclude that either the universal church can
err, or else the same thins can come and cannot come from tradition
apostolical. For the half-communion is nowhere commanded in
scripture : therefore either the ancient catholic church did err in

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS <>1 JESUS CHRIST. 620

commanding the whole communion, or the modern catholic church
(I mean the Roman, which pretends to the name) docs err in forbid-
ding it: or else, if neither does err, then the communion under both
kinds did come and did not come from tradition apostolical. — But

G) Suppose it were agreed that one congregation is the catholic
church, and resolved upon which is that congregation, yet if it be
but a part of Christians, and that interested, it is not in the nature
of the thing to infer, that because this interested divided part be-
lieves it, therefore the apostles taught it : this consequent is not in
the bowels of that antecedent, it cannot be proved by this argument.
Tf it can be proved by revelation that what the present church be-
lieves was a tradition apostolical, let it be shewn, and there's an end
of it; in the mean time this rule is not of itself certain, or fit to bo
I he proof of what is uncertain, and therefore not a good rule, till it
be proved by revelation.

7) It is evidently certain that what one age believes as a necessary
doctrine, another age (I mean of the catholic church) did not believe
for such; and it is not sufficient for the making of a catholic doctrine
that it be iMque, believed 'every where/ unless it be also semper el
ah omnibus, ' always and by all men/ I instance in the communi-
cating of infants, which was the doctrine of S. Austin and of pope
Innocentius, and prevailed in the church for six hundred years (says
Maldonat the Jesuit f), that it was necessary to the salvation of infants
that they should receive the holy sacrament of the Lord's supper.
Now it is also as certain that for six hundred years more, the church
which calls herself catholic believed the contrary. Which of these
can prove apostolical tradition ? For if it be objected that this was
not the doctrine of the catholic church in those ages in which the
most eminent fathers did believe and practise it, besides that it is not
probable that they would teach it to be necessary, and generally prac-
tise it in their churches, if the matter had been nothing but their
own opinion, and disputed by others ; I add this also, that it was as
much the doctrine of the catholic church that it was necessary, as it
is now that it is not necessary : for it is certain the holy fathers did
believe and teach and practise it, and the contrary was not disputed ;
but now, though it be condemned by some, it is still practised by
very great parts of the catholic church, even by all the Greek church £,
and by those vast numbers of Christians in Ethiopia. So that al-
though no doctrinal tradition is universally received but what is
contained in scriptures ; yet those that have been received as uni-
versally as any other matter of question is, have been and have not
been believed by the church in several ages: and therefore if this
rule be good, they must prove that the same doctrine was and was
not a tradition apostolical.

f In cap. vi. Johan. n. 11(5. [col. I486.] et patriarchas Constantinopolitani ]). Ili-

s VideHierem. Patriar. C. P. doctr. el i remiae, respons. i. cap, 9. p. 89. ed. fo),

exhort, ad Germanos. [Apud acta el Witeberg. 1584.]

scripta theologorum Wirl ium

630 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

8) This rule were good (and then indeed only) if there were no
way to make an opinion to be universally received but by derivation
from the apostles. But a) there are some which say every age hath
new revelations : where this is believed, it is apparent an opinion
which the apostles never heard of may be adopted into the faith
and universally received. But besides this there are more ways of
entry for a popular error than any man can reckon or any experience
can observe. /3) It is not impossible that some leading man be
credulous and apt to be imposed upon by heretics and knaves ; but
when he hath weakly received it, it shall proceed strongly upon his
authority : the matter of Papias about the doctrine of the Ohiliasts
is notorious in this particular, y) It is also very possible that what
is found at first to be good, shall be earnestly pressed by a zealous
man, and he may over-express himself, and consider not to what
consequence it may afterwards be extended ; and then following
ages may observe it, and make a logical conclusion from a rhetorical
expression ; and then what only good men had entertained when it
was called useful, all men shall receive when it is called necessary ;
and it is no great progression from what all men believe good, that
some men should believe necessary, and from them others, and from
others all men : it was thus in many degrees in the matter of con-
fession and penance. 8) It is not very unlikely, certainly it is no
way impossible, but that the reputation of some great man in the
church may prevail so far by our weaknesses and his own accidental
advantages, that what no man at first questions, very many will
afterwards believe, and they introduce more ; and from more to most,
and from most to all men, are no impossible progressions, if we con-
sider how much mankind (especially in theology) have suffered the
authority of a few men to prevail upon them, e) Does not all the
world see that zeal makes men impatient of contradiction, and that
impatience makes them fierce in disputing, and fierce in fighting, and
ready to persecute their enemies ? and what that unity and univer-
sality is which can be introduced by force, a great part of the world
hath had too long an experience to be ignorant. () Beyond all
this, a proposition may be supposed to follow from an apostolical
tradition, and prevail very much upon that account; and yet it
would be hard to believe the scholar's deduction equally with the
master's principle, and a probable inference from tradition equal to
the very affirmative of the apostles. A man may argue, and argue
well too, and yet the conclusion will not be so evident as the princi-
ple : but that it may equally prevail is so certain, that no man can
deny it but he that had never any testimony of the confidence of a
disputing man, and the compliance of those who know not so well, or
enquire not so strictly, or examine not suspiciously, or judge not wisely.

§ 40. (2) The next rule which is pretended for the discovery of an
apostolical tradition is this, 'That which the universal church observes,
which none could appoint but God, and is not found in scripture, it

CHAP. HI.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. ( '» 3 1

is necessary to say that it was delivered by Christ and His apostles/
— This rule must needs be false, because it does actually deceive them
that rely upon it. Because their church, which they will fondly sup-
pose to be the catholic, uses certain sacramcntals to confer grace,
(which none could institute but Christ, who alone is the fountain of
grace) and the holy Spirit to His servants : but yet to pretend that
1 1 icy are traditions apostolical were the greatest unreasonableness in
the world. I instance in holy water, baptizing of bells, hallowing of
agnns Dei's, roses, swords, hats, chrism and the like, which no man
can fairly pretend to be traditions apostolical, but yet they are prac-
tised by all their catholic church, and they are of such things as no
man but God could be the author of, if they were good for any
thing ; but then to conclude from hence that they are traditions
apostolical, were just as if one were to give a sign how to know
whether lying were lawful or Unlawful, and for the determination of
this question should give this rule, Whatsoever mankind does univer-
sally which they ought not to do without God's law, that certainly
they have a law from God to do; but all mankind are given to
lying, and yet nothing can make it lawful to lie, unless there be a
warranty or no prohibition from God to lie; therefore certain it is
that a lie descends from the authority of God. Indeed if the catho-
lic church could not be uncharitable, if they could not sin against
God, then it were certain, if they all did it, and it were not warranted
in scripture, it must be from God : but it«floes not follow it would
be by tradition ; because it may be by the dictate of right reason, by
natural principles, or it would be a thing indifferent; but that it
must be by tradition, if it were not by scripture, or by the church,
were as if we should say, if Leelapsh be not a horse, or begotten by a
lion, he must needs be a bear : but these rules are like dead men's
candles, they come from no certain cause, and signify no determined
effect, and whether they be at all, we are no surer than the reports
of timorous or fantastic persons can make us. But this rule dif-
fers not at all from the former, save only that speaks of doctrinal,
and this of ritual traditions : but both relying upon the same reason,
and that reason failing (as I have proved) the propositions them-
selves do fail. But then as to rites, it is notorious beyond a denial,
that some rites used in the universal church, which are also said to
be such which none ought to appoint but God, were not delivered
by the apostles. I instance in the singularity of baptism of heretics,
which the whole church now adheres to, and yet if this descended
from apostolical tradition, it was more than 8. Cyprian or the Afri-
can churches knew of, for they rebaptized heretics, and disputed il
very earnestly, and lived in it very pertinaciously, and died in the
opinion.

§ 41. (3) The third rule is, 'Whatsoever the catholic church hath
kept in all ages bygone, may rightly be believed to have descended

h [Ovid mi tarn. vii. 771.]

632 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

from the apostles, though it be such a thing which might have been
instituted by the church/ — This rule is the same with that of Liri-
nensis, of which I have already given account : and certainly in those
things in which it can be made use of (which are extremely few) it is
the best, and indeed the only good one. But then this can relate
only to rituals, not to matter of doctrine; for nothing of this can
be of ecclesiastical institution and appointment : it cannot be a doc-
trine of faith unless it be of divine tradition ; for Christ is the author
and finisher of our faith, which the church is to preach and believe,
not to enlarge or shorten, not to alter or diversify. But then as to
rituals, the keeping of Easter on the first day of the week by this
rule cannot be proved to be an apostolical tradition ; because the
Asian churches kept it otherwise : and by this rule the keeping of
Lent fast for forty days will not be found to be an apostolical tradi-
tion ; because the observation of it was very full of variety ; and
some kept it forty hours, some a day, some a week, as I shall after-
wards in its proper place make to appear. But by this rule the dis-
tinction of bishops and presbyters is an apostolical tradition (besides
the scriptures, by which it appears to be divine) ; by this the conse-
cration of the blessed eucharist by ecclesiastical persons, bishops and
priests, is certainly a tradition apostolical ; by this the Lord's day is
derived to us from the apostles ; and by this the baptism of infants
is much confirmed unto the church : and whatsoever can descend to
us and be observed in this channel, there is no sufficient reason to
deny it to be apostolical : but then how far it can be obligatory to all
ages and to all churches will be another consideration ; it being on
all hands confessed that some rituals which were observed in the
apostles' times are with good cause and just authority laid aside by
several churches. But of this I shall give particular accounts.

§ 42. (4) ' When all the doctors of the church by common consent
testify concerning any particular that it descends from apostolical
tradition, we are to hold it for such : whether they affirm this in all
their writings, or together in a council/ — To this rule I answer, that
where it would do good there it is not practicable, and where it is
practicable there it is not true. Tor it is indeed practicable that a
council may give testimony to a particular that it came from the
apostles ; but it does not follow that they are not deceived ; for it
never was, and it never will be, that all the doctors of the church
shall meet together in council, and unless they do their testimony is
not universal. But if all the fathers should write in their books that
such a thing was delivered by the apostles, unless it were evidently
against scripture or right reason, there could be no sufficient cause to
disbelieve it ; and it were the best way we have of conveying and
handing the tradition to us, next to the universal practice of the
church in her rituals. But there is no such thing so conveyed to
us : and therefore Bellarmine plays at small game with this rule, and
would fain have the world admit tradition for apostolical, if some

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. (>:>-">

fathers of great name say so, and others that speak of the same thing
contradict it not. But this is a plain begging, that when he cannot
prove a thing to be tradition apostolical by a good argument and
sufficient, we will be content to take it without proof, or at least to
be content with such as he hath, and believe his own word for the
rest, though he knows nothing of it. If it fails or goes less than
omnibus, and semper, and ubique, which is Vincentius his measure, it
cannot be warranted, and he that allows it is more kind than wise.
S. Basil' proves the perpetual virginity of the blessed Virgin Mary
by a tradition that Zechary was slain by the Jews between the porch
and the altar for affirming her to be a virgin after the birth of
her most holy Son : but S. HieromeJ says it is apocryphorum som-
nium, 'a dream of apocryphal persons/ But it was a long time
before the report of the millenary tradition was contradicted, and yet
in that interval, in which many of the most eminent fathers attested
it to have descended from the apostles, it was neither true nor safe
to have believed it. But then as to the particular and more practi-
cable part of this rule, that if a general council affirms it to be tradi-
tion apostolical it is so to be accepted, it is evidently fallacious and
uncertain ; for the second council of Nice affirmed the veneration of
images to be an apostolical tradition : but it is so far from being
true that it was so as they affirmed, that not only the apostolical but
divers of the following ages hated all images, and did not think it
lawful so much as to make them; of which I have already given a
large account in this bookk.

§ 43. (5) 'When the apostolical churches, which from the apostles
have had uninterrupted succession, do witness concerning any thing
that it is apostolical tradition, it is to be admitted for such.' — This
rule was good before the channels were mingled with impure waters
entering in. It was used by Irenreus, Tertullian, S. Augustine, and
others ; and it was to them of great advantage. But although it was
good drinking of Euphrates when it newly ran from the garden of
Eden, yet when it began to mingle with the borborus it was not
good : and who durst have trusted this rule when Dioscorus was
bishop of Alexandria, who yet was lineally descended from S. Mark ?
And who durst have relied upon this rule when pope Julius absolved
the Sabellian heretics, and communicated with Marcellus Ancyranus ?
and when S. Basil1 complains of the western bishops, and particularly
the Roman, quod veritatem neque norunt, neque discere su-stinent . .
cum Us qui veritatem ipsis annuueiaut contendentes, lueresin autem
per se ipsos stabilieutes : ' that they neither know the truth, nor care
to learn it; but' they contend with them who tell them the truth,
and by themselves establish heresy/ Quia multi priueipes et summi

1 Serm. de S. nativitat. [torn. ii. p.

* Chap. ii. rule 6. [p. 428.]

600.]

1 Epist. x. [al. cexxxix. torn

j In Matt, xxiii. [torn. iv. part. 1. col.

368 E.]

112.]

634 OK THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

pontifices et alii inferiores inventi sunt apostatasse a fide, propterea
, ecclesia consistit in illis personis in quibus est notitia vera, et con-
fessio fidei et reritatism. How can this rule guide any man when
all the apostolical churches have fallen into error, and many popes
have been apostates from the faith, and the church consisted not of
prelates, but indifferently of all that believed and professed the truth
which the popes and princes and prelates did deny ? The apostolical
church of Antioch is not; and the patriarchal church of Alexandria
is accused by the Latins of great errors, and the mother church of
Jerusalem hath no succession, but is buried in ruins ; and the church
of Borne is indeed splendid, but he that will take her word for tradi-
tion is sure to admit many false ones, but not sure of any true, but
such as she hath in common with all the churches of the world.

§ 44. I conclude therefore this question, that amongst those rules
of discerning traditions truly apostolical from them that are but
pretended such, there is no rule competent but one, which is scarcely
practicable, which indeed transmits to the church a few rituals, but
nothing of faith or rule of good life ; and therefore it is to no pur-
pose to look any where else for the divine rule of conscience but in
the pages of the Old and New testament : they are sufficient, because
they were intended by God to be our only rule ; and yet if God had
intended traditions to be taken in, to integrate the rule and to oblige
our conscience, it is certain that God intends it not now, because
the traditions are lost if there were any, and if they be now, they do
not appear, and therefore are to us as if they were not.

§ 45. II. The second question also does very nearly relate to con-
science and its conduct, viz. Since the scripture is the perfect rule
of conscience, and contains in it all the will of God, whether or no,
and how far is a negative argument from scripture to prevail ?

§ 46. The resolution of this depends upon the premises. For if
scripture be the entire rule of faith and of manners, that is, of the
whole service and worship of God, then nothing is an article of faith,
nothing can command a moral action, that is not in its whole kind
set down in scripture. This I proved by direct testimonies of Ter-
tullian, S. Basil, S. Austin, S. Cyril, Theophilus Alexandrinus, and
S. Hierome, in the foregoing numbers". To which I add these ex-
cellent words of S. Cyril of Jerusalem0, speaking of the Jerusalem
creed, which he had recited and explicated and promised to prove
from scripture ; he gives this reason, Nam divinorum sanctorumque
fidei mysteriorum nihil, ne minimum quidem, absque divinis scripturis
tradi debet, neque simplici probabililate neque verborum omalu tra-
duci : ' not the least part of the divine and holy mysteries of faith
must be delivered without the divine scriptures. Believe not me

m Lyra in Matt. c. 16. [Biblia vulgata, n Vide num. 9. [pp. 605, 6 above.]

&c. torn. v. col. 280.] ° [Catech. iv. § 17. p. 60 A.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAW'S OF JKSUS CHRIST. 635

telling thee, unless I demonstrate what I say from the divine scrip-
ture : for the safety and conservation of our faith relies upon the
proof of the divine scriptures/ But because there are some parti-
culars and some variety in the practice of this rule, I am to consider
it now to other purposes.

§ 47. 1) Nothing is necessary either to be believed or done un-
less it be in scripture. Thus S. Gregory Nyssenp argues, Ubmam
dixit Dezis in evangeliis oportere credere in unum et solum verum
Beum ? Nonpossent ostendere nisi habeant ipsi novum aliquod evange-
lium. Qua enim ab antiquis per traditionem ad hac usque tempora
in ecclesiis leguntur, hanc vocem non continent qua. dicat, oportere
credere vel baptizare in unum solum verum Denm, quemadmodum
isti autumant, sed in nomen Patris et Filii et Spirilus sancti. I
have I confess something wondered at the matter of this discourse.
For either the Arians have infinitely imposed upon us, and inter-
polated scripture in a very material article ; or else S. Gregory forgot
the seventeenth of S. John and the third verse, or else he insisted
only upon the words Set Tno-reveLv, for the same sense is in the place
now cited. For if this be ' life eternal, to know Him the only true
God, and whom He hath sent, Jesus Christ V then also to believe in
them only is life eternal, and then we are tied to believe in none
else ; for we cannot believe in that we do not know. Indeed the
words are not there or any where else, that we ' ought to believe in
(God the Father) Him, the one, only true God, &c.' But certainly,
if we are to know Him only, then only to believe in Him seems to
be a very good consequent. But S. Basil therefore only insisted
upon the very words, and thought himself safe (as indeed he was)
upon the reverse of another argument. For since the words opor-
tere credere in unum solum verum Beum were not in S. John or any
where else, he concluded the contrary sense from a very good argu-
ment : we are commanded to be baptized into the faith of Father,
Son, and holy Ghost, therefore we are to believe in three : and be-
cause the word ( believe' was not set down expressly, where know-
ledge is confined to one or two, therefore it cannot be said that we
are tied to believe only in one or two : but because to believe in
three can be inferred as a duty from another place, therefore it can-
not be denied as a consequent from this ; and therefore he had rea-
son to insist upon his negative argument. Thus S. Austin^ also
argued, Pater enim solus nusquam legilur missus, ' the Father is
never in scripture said to be sent ; therefore no man must say it.'
So Epiphanius1", Ipsa dictio non omnino cog it me de Filio Dei dice re :
non enim indicavit scriptara, neque quisquam apostolorum memiui! ,
neque evangelium : ' the manner of speaking compels me not to un-
derstand it of the Son of God : for the scripture hath not declared

p Orat. ii. contra Eunomium. [torn. ii. col. 776 A.] et cap. 7. [col. 779 C]
p. 435.] r [Contr. haer., lib. ii. torn. 2. [ha^r.

'i Lib. ii. de Trinit., cap. 5. [torn. viii. lxix. § 71. vol. i. p. 798.]

636 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

it, neither the gospel nor any of the apostles hath made any mention
of it.'

§ 48. 2) A negative argument from the letter of scripture is not
good, if the contrary affirmative can be drawn by consequent from
any part of it. Thus our blessed Saviour confuting the sadducees
in the article of the resurrection hath given us a warranty for this
proceeding; "God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
These were the words of scripture. But these directly would not
do the work. But therefore He argues from hence, " God is not
the God of the dead, but of the living :" therefore these men are ,
alive. That the holy Ghost is God is no where said in scripture;
that the holy Ghost is to be invocated is no where commanded, nor
any example of its being done recorded. It follows not therefore
that He is not God or that He is not to be invocated, and the reason is,
because that He is God is a certain consequent from something that is
expressly affirmed ; and therefore the negative argument is imperfect,
and consequently not concluding, Qua neque a christianis dicun-
tur neque creduntur, neque ex consequents per ea qua! a/pud nos certa
sunt et concessa intelligunturs, 8fc, ' if Christians did never speak,
nor believe any such thing, nor can they be drawn from the conse-
quence of those things which are certain and granted amongst us,
(hen indeed it is to be rejected from our creed/ Now amongst
Christians this is believed as certain, that we may pray to Him in
whom we believe ; that we believe in Him into the faith of whom we
are baptized ; that we are commanded to be baptized into the belief
and profession of the Father, Son, and holy G host : from hence
Christians do know that they are to invocate the holy Ghost. For
S. Paul's argument is good, f How shall we call on Him on whom
we have not believed ?' therefore wc may call on Him if we believe
on Him : according to that rule of reason, Negatio unius dhersum
(iffinnat, l the denying of one is the affirmation of its contrary' in the
like matter. And something of this was used by Paschasius1 the
deacon : and the effect of it prevailed upon the account of a negative
from scripture ; In ntdl'is autem canonicis libris, de quibus si/mboli
textus peudet, accepimus, quia in ecctesiam credere sicut in Spiritum
sanctum Fitiumque ; rwe are taught in no scripture (from whence
the creed is derived) to believe in the church, as we believe in the
Son and in the holy Ghost :' and therefore we ought not to do it ;
but it being plain in the creed, and consequently in the scripture,
that we must believe in the holy Ghost, therefore also we may pray
to Him, and confess Him to be God. To the same purpose S. Basil"
argues concerning the holy Spirit; Bignitate namque ipsa secundum
esse a Filio pietatis sermo fortassis tradit : natura vero tertia uti nee
a divinis scripturis edocii sumus, nee ex antecedentibus possibile est
consequenter colligi ; ' that the holy Spirit is of a nature distinct from

6 S. Greg. Nyssen. ibid. [p. 439.] vet. patr., torn. viii. p. 808 D.]

1 Lib. de Spir. S. cap. i. [Max. bibl. " [ Vide epist. clxxxix. torn. iii. p. 279.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 637

the Father and the Son we neither are taught in scripture, neither
can it be drawn into consequence from any antecedent pretences x.

§ 49. 3) A negative argument of a word or an expression cannot
be consequently deduced to the negation of the mystery signified by
that word. The Arians therefore argued weakly : shew us in all the
scripture that the Son is called 6[j.oov<nos or ' consubstantial' to tin:
Father ; if you cannot, you ought not to affirm it. Tor we know
God is one ; if therefore we find in scripture that the Son is true
God, we know He must needs be of the same substance with His
Father, for two substances cannot make one God. So though the
blessed virgin Mary be not in scripture called Qzotokos, ' the mother
of God,' yet that she was the mother of Jesus, and that Jesus Christ
is God, and yet but one person, that we can prove from scripture,
and that is sufficient for the appellative : and if the church of Borne
could prove the mystery of transubstantiation from scripture, we
would indulge to them the use of that word, or any other aptly to
express the same thing.

§ 50. 4) A negative argument from scripture is sufficient to prove
an article not to be of necessary belief, but is not sufficient to prove
it not to be true : because although the scripture is the measure of
faith and of manners, yet it is not an adequate measure of all truth.
The meaning of which rule takes in all truths of art, of experience, of
prudence, of tradition and common report. Thus although it be no
where said in the scripture that our blessed Saviour said, Nimquam
hrt'i sitis nisi cum fratrem vestrum in charitate videritis, ' be never
very merry but when you see your brother in charity ;' yet S. Hie-
romey reports it of Him, and it is a worthy saying, and therefore may
very well be entertained, not only as true and useful, but as from
Christ. The scripture no where says that the blessed Virgin was a
virgin perpetually to the day of her death : but as therefore it cannot
be obtruded as an article of faith, yet there are a great many decen-
cies and probabilities of the thing, besides the great consent of almost
all the church of God, which make it very fit to be entertained.
There are some things which are pie credibilia, ' there is piety in
the believing them •' and in such cases it is not enough that there is

x Nonne perspicuum est, ista, tametsi minibus et rebus tautum discrimen repe-

non dicantur, tamen ex illis colligi quae riatur, quid causae est cur literoe tanto-

hsec necessario efficiant ac probent ? pere servias, judaicceque sapientiae teip-

Quse tandem? Ego sum primus, et post sum adjimgas, relictisque rebus syllabas

huec, et ante me non est alius Deus, et consecteris ? Quod si te bis quinque ant

post me non erit. Totum enim quicquid bis septem dieente, decern aut qualuor-

est, meum est, nee principium habens, decim ex verbis tuis colligerem, aut ex eo

nee finem babiturum. His a scriptura quod animal ratione prosditum et mor-

acceptis, illud quidem, quod ante euni tale diceres, hominem esse concluderem,

nili i i sit, nee antiquiorem causam habeat, an tibi vidercr delirare ? . . . Neque enim

Anarcbum et Ingenitum appellasti: quod verba magis sunt ejus qui loquitur quam

au tem nun quam desiturum sit, immortale, illius qui loquendi necessitatem simul

exitiique expers. — Nazianz., lib. v. theol. affert. [al. orat., xxxi. torn. i. p. 570 sq.J
interprete Jacobo Billio. — [ed. fol. Par. y [In Ephes. v. 4; torn. iv. part. 1.

1569. p. 376.] Et infra, Cum ergo in no- col. 380.]

638 OP THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

nothing in scripture to affirm it ; if there be any thing in any other
topic, it is to be entertained according to the merit of the thing.

§51.5) A negative argument from scripture does not1 conclude
in questions of fact : and therefore S. Hierome2 did not argue rightly,
Quanquam excepto apostolo non sit manifesto relatum de aliis aposto-
lis quod uxores habuerint, et cum de uno scriptum sit ac de cceteris
taciturn, inlelligere dehemus sine uxoribus eosfnisse, de quibus nihil
tale scriplura significat ; ' the scripture names only Peter's wife, and
does not say that any of the other apostles were married, therefore
we are to conclude that they were not/ For besides that the alle-
gation is not true, and S. Paul intimates that the other apostles as
well as Peter did lead about a sister, a wife ; and that from thence
the fathers did believe them all to have been married except S. John,
and some also except S. Paul ; yet the argument is not good : for it
may as well be concluded that S. Peter never had a child, or that
Christ did never write but once when He wrote upon the ground,
because the scripture makes no mention of either.

§ 52. 6) When a negative argument may be had from scripture
for both the parts of the contradiction, nothing at all can be con-
cluded thence, but it must be wholly argued from other topics. The
scripture neither says that Christ did ever laugh, nor it does not say
that He did never laugh ; therefore either of the contradicting parts
may be equally inferred, that is truly neither. And indeed this is of
itself a demonstration that in matters of fact and matters not neces-
sary a negative argument from scripture is of no use at all.

§ 53. 7) But when the question is of lawful or unlawful, then it
is valid. If it be not in scripture forbidden directly or by conse-
quent, then it is lawful ; it is not by God forbidden at all. And on
the other side, if it be not there commanded it is not necessary.
Lucentius thus argued in the council of Chalcedona, Dioscorus spw-
dum ausus estfacere sine auctoritate sedis apostolica, quod nunquam
licuit, nunquam factum est. That it was never done, proves not but
it may be done ; but if it was never lawful to be done, then it was
forbidden ; for whatsoever is not forbidden is not unlawful : but if it
was not in scripture forbidden, then aliquando licuit, ' it once was
lawful/ and therefore is always so, if we speak of the divine law ;
and if Lucentius speaks of that, he ought to have considered it in
the instance : but I suppose he means it of custom, or the ecclesias-
tical law ; and therefore I meddle not with the thing, only I observe
the method of his arguing.

§ 54. 8) An argument from the discourse of one single person
omitting to affirm or deny a thing relating to that of which he did
discourse, is no competent argument to prove that the thing itself
omitted was not true : and therefore Rumnusb had but a weak argu-

2 Lib. i. contr. Jovin. [torn. iv. part. 2. b Lib. de fide, n. 28. [in append, ad part.

co1- 1C7-J i. opp. Marii Mercat., p. 295. ed. Gar-

' [Aet. i. torn. ii. col. 67 B.J nier. fol. Par. 1673.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 639

meiit against the traduction of the soul when lie argued thus, Si
anima quoque esset ex aninia secundum illorum ranas opiniones, nun-
quam prqfecto hoc Adam prwleriisset. Nam slcut as ex ossibus meis,
et euro de came mea dicebat, sic etiam anima ex anima mea dicere
potuisset ; sed tanlum hoc dixit quod sibi videlicet sciebat ablai '/>,,/ :
'Adam seeing his wife, said, this is bone of my bone and flesh of my
ilcsh, for he knew what was taken from him ; but he could have said,
soul of my soul, if the soul had been derived from him/ This I say
is no good argument, unless every one must be supposed when lie
says any thing to say all that is true, and all that he knows : so that
Ruffiuus in this particular defended a good cause with a broken
sword.

§ 55. 9) But if that which is omitted in the discourse be perti-
nent and material to the enquiry, then it is a very good probability
that that is not true that is not affirmed. When the Jews asked our
blessed Saviour, ' Why do the disciples of John and of the pharisees
fast often, but Thy disciples fast not?' He gave an answer that re-
lated to the present state of things and circumstances at that time,
and said nothing of their not fasting in the time of the gospel : from
which silence we may well conclude that there is nothing in the re-
ligion disobliging Christ's disciples from fasting ; if it had, it is very
likely it would have been then expressed when there was so apt an
occasion, and the answer had been imperfect without it. S. Ilie-
romeV was also very good, but not so certain as the other, against
the tale of Leo baptized after his death, and the periods of Paul and
Tecla, Igitur periodos Pauli et Teclce et totam baptizati Leonis j'a-
bulam inter apocryphas scripturas computamus j quale enim est nt
individtms comes apostoli inter cceteras ejus res hoc solum ignoraverit ?
It is not likely that S. Luke, who continually attended on S. Paul,
observed all his actions, remarked his miracles, described his story,
should omit things so strange, so considerable, if they had been true.

§ 56. The reason of these things is, every thing is to be suspected
false that does not derive from that fountain whence men justly ex-
pect it, and from whence it ought to flow. If you speak of any
thing that relates to God, you must look for it there where God hath
manifested Himself; that is, in the scriptures. If you speak of any
human act or ordinance or story and matter of fact, you must look
for it in its own spring and original, or go the nearest to it you can.
And thus the bishops at the conference had with the acephali, here-
tics who had churches without bishops, refused their allegations of
the authority of Dionysius the Areopagite, upon this accountd, Ilia
teslimonia qua vos Dionysii Areopagila diciiis, unde potestis osten-
dere vera esse sicut suspicamini ? Si enim ejus essent, non potuissent
In/ere beatum Cyrillum. Quid autem de B. Cyrillo dico, quando et
B. Athanasius, si pro certo scisset ejus fuisse, ante omnia m Ni&

e Lib. de script, eccles., in Luca. [torn. d C. Pu. An. Dom. uxxxn. [Concil ,

iv. part. 2. col. 10L] torn. ii. col. 11G3.]

040 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

concilio de consubstantiali Trinitate eaclem iestimonia protulisset ad-
versus Arii diverse substantia blasp/temias ? Si autem nuttus ex an-
tiquis recordatus est ea, wide nunc potestis ostendere quia illins sunt,
nescio : ' if neither S. Cyril nor S. Athanasius, who were so diligent
to enquire, so skilful in knowing, so concerned that these books
should be the works of S. Dionys, did yet know nothing of them,
and if amongst the ancients they were not known, for you moderns
now to tell of antiquity, what by them who then lived was not told,
is a folly that can never gain credit amongst reasonable persons.' Let
every fruit proceed from its own root. We cannot say, because a
thing is not in scripture, therefore it is not at all ; but therefore it is
nothing of divine religion. So it is also in things relating to the
ancient church ; from thence only can we derive any notice of their
doctrine and of their practices. For if an article prevailed in S.
Austin's time, it was no argument that therefore it was believed in
S. Cyprian's time : but a negative argument from any age ought to
prevail in reference to that age ; and if there be in it nothing of an-
tiquity, no argument of the moderns can prove it to be ancient : and
Baronius said well, Quod a recentiori auctore de rebus antiquis sine
alieuj'us vetustioris auctoritate profertur, contemnitur, ' what the mo-
derns say of the ancients without warranty from themselves is to be
despised/ One thing only I am to add to this out of Vincentius
Lirinensise, Quicquid vero ab aliquo deinceps uno prater omnes vel
contra omnes sanctos novum et inauditum subinduci senserit, id non
ad religionem sed ad tentationem potius intelligat pertinere ; ' if one
of the fathers say a thing, and the others say it not, but speak di-
versely or contrarily, that pertains not to religion, but to temptation/
I doubt not but he intended it against S. Austin, who spake things
in the matter of predestination, and the damnation of infants, and
other appendant questions against the sense of all the fathers that
were before him ; one (it may be) or scarce one being excepted. And
to the same purpose Tertullian f argued against Marcion concerning
a pretended gospel of S. Paul, Etsi sub ipsms Pauli nomine evange-
lium Marcion intulisset, non svjficeret ad fidem singularilas instru-
menti destituta patrocinio antecessorum ; if you cannot bring testi-
mony from the fathers and ancient records, you must not receive it ;
one alone is not to be trusted. He that affirms must prove ; to him
that denies a negative argument is sufficient. For to a man's belief
a positive cause is required, but for his not believing it is sufficient
that he hath no cause. Thus S. Hieromeg argues well against the
rebaptizing of converted heretics, Ad eos venio hareticos qui evan-
gelia laniaverunt . . quorum plurimi vivente ad/iuc Johanne apostolo
eruperunt, et tamen nullum eorum legimus rebaptizatum ; ' of all the
heretics which appeared in S. John's time, we never read of any that

e Commonit. [cap. xxv. max. bibl. vet. 414 D.]
patr., torn. yii. p. 257 F.] s Dial. adv. Luciferianos. [torn. iv.

f Lib. iv. cap. 2. contr. Marcion [p. part. 2. col. 304.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 641

was rebaptized :' and therefore it is to be presumed they were not ;
for a thing so considerable and so notorious in all reason would have
given some signs, and left some indications of it. But then it is to
be observed,

§ 57. 10) A negative argument must not be nzaov ^eptKov, a par-
tial or a broken piece of a medium. You cannot argue rightly thus,
' S. John in his gospel speaks nothing of the sacrament of the Lord's
supper, therefore that sacrament is no part of the doctrine of salva-
tion/ For three evangelists had done it before him, and therefore he
did not ; and a negative argument only from one gospel cannot con-
clude rightly concerning any article of the religion. And this is very
evident in matters of fact also. For if it be argued thus, 'We do not
find in scripture nor in the days of the apostles any infant baptized,
therefore we conclude there was none/ this is ixiaov /xeptKov. It is
true, if there were no way else to find it but the practice of the apo-
stles, the negative argument had been very good ; but we derive it
from the force of Christ's words of institution, and of His discourse
with Nicodemus, and the analogy of circumcision, and the practice of
the Jews in baptizing their children, and many proprieties of scrip-
ture, and the effect of the sacrament, and the necessities of regenera-
tion. S. Irenseush his negative argument was good; Quod neque
prophetm prcedicaverunt, neque Dominiis docuit, neque apostoli tradi-
derunt, 8fc, ' if neither Moses nor the prophets, Christ nor His apo-
stles have taught it, it is not to be received as any part of christian
doctrine ;' for this negative is integral and perfect. But S. Cyril of
Alexandria1 disputed also well with his negative argument from an-
tiquity, Elenim nornen hoc OeoroKos nullns unquam ecclesiasticorum
doclorum repudiavit; qui autem illo subinde usi stmt, et rmtlti repe-
rhintur, et maxime celebres : ' many famous doctors used this word,
calling the Virgin Mary the parent of God, and none ever refused
it ; therefore it may safely be used.' If the negative argument from
scripture or antiquity respectively can run thus, ' It was not condemned
in scripture or antiquity, but it was used, therefore it is good •' the
argument concludes rightly in relation to scripture, and probably in
relation to antiquity. But if it be said only, the scripture condemns
it not, but neither does it approve it, then it cannot be concluded to
be laudable, but only not criminal. But if it be said of antiquity, it
was neither condemned nor used, it cannot be inferred from thence
that it is either laudable or innocent. The reason is, because scrip-
ture is the measure of lawful and unlawful, but the writings of the
doctors are not; and these may be deficient, though that be full.

§ 58. 11) In the mysteries of religion, and in things concerning
God, a negative argument from scripture ought to prevail both upon
our faith and upon our enquiries, upon our belief and upon our mo-
desty. For as S. Austin said well, De Deo etiam vera loqui pericu-

b Lib. i. cap. 1. [al. 8. p. 35.] parte concil. Ephes., cap. 25. [lege cap.

1 [Potius Joannes Antiocheiuis] Prima 15. torn. i. col. 1330 D.]
IX. T t

642 OP THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

losissimum, ' it is hard to talk many things of God / we had need
have good warranty for what we say ; and therefore it is very fit we
speak scripture in the discourses of God. And thus S. Austin* ar-
gued, Icleo nusquam seripium est quod Deus pater major sit Spiritu
sancto, vel Spiritm sanctus minor Deo patre : quia non sic assumpta
est creatura, in qua appareret Spiritus sanctus, sicut assumptus est
Films hominis: 'since it is nowhere written that the Father is greater
than the Spirit, we ought not to say He is/ But if it be objected
that neither does the scripture say that He is not greater, it does not
say that they are equal ; and therefore it will be hard to use a nega-
tive argument in such cases : and how shall we know which part of
the negative to follow ? I answer, it is very true according to the
sixth proposition (num. 52). But then in this case we must enquire
for other words of scripture by which we may be directed, and pro-
ceed accordingly, or enquire into the analogy of faith, or the mea-
sures of piety : but if there be nothing to determine to any side of
the negative, we must say nothing ; and if there be, yet we must say
but little, because the notice is not great.

§ 59. 12) Lastly, in matters of envy and burden, a negative argu-
ment even in matter of fact ought to prevail, unless the contrary
be proved by some other competent topic. That the clergy ought not
to marry is nowhere affirmed in scripture, and therefore it is per-
mitted ; and because it is agreeable to nature, and the laws of all
republics, their marriage is also holy and pleasing to God. A burden
must be directly imposed ; a man must not be frighted or scared
into it. When our blessed Saviour reproved the pharisees for im-
posing heavy burdens, such which God imposed not, He taught us
the value of this argument, Ubi seripium est ? ' shew us where it is
written' that this is displeasing to God : if it be nowhere forbidden,
prcesumitur pro libertate ; all men are as free as they were born.
How this can be altered by the laws of man will be afterwards con-
sidered. In the mean time God hath left us under no more restraints
than are described in scripture. This argument S. Chrysostomk urges
against the necessity of corporal afflictions to a contrite weeping peni-
tent. Lacrymas Petri lego, satisfactionem non lego : ' I read that
S. Peter wept ; I do not read that he imposed penances on himself/
The argument were good from this place, if the case be not special,
or if it be not altered by some other consideration. This is also to
be extended to such negative arguments as are taken from matter of
fact in accusations, and criminal proceedings : not that it can of itself
be great enough to prevail, but that the case is so favourable, that
every little thing ought to be strong enough. Thus S. Athanasius1
defended his decessor Dionysius, Et prius eorum auctorem Dionysium

> Lib. ii. de Trinit, cap. 6. [torn. viii. max. bibl. vet, patr., torn. vi. p. 23 G.]
col. 777 G.] ' Apud Facundum, lib. x. cap. 5. [pro

h [Tbe same words occur in a homily defensione trium capitulorum, in max.

of Maximus Taurinensis on the subject; bibl. vet. patr., torn. x. p. 86 G.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 643

per hoc voluit esse purgatum, atque ah Arianorimi crimine alienum,
quod ipse non sicut Arius cum viveret cle impietate fuerit accusat/is,
aut de episcopatu dejectus, neque velut hceresim defendens de ecclesia
sicut ille discesserit, sed in ejus permanserit imitate, 'Dionysius was
not accused while he was alive, he was not thrown from his bishopric,
he did not depart from the church, but remained in her communion ;
and therefore he was no Arian/ But arguments of this nature, when
the medium is so limited, and the instance so particular, have their
force only by accident. For this and the like negatives are good
arguments when they are the best light in the question, that is,
when nothing greater can be said against them, or when men are
easy and willing to be persuaded ; as in the questions of burden and
trouble all men ought.

§ 60. III. Question. Whether there may be any new articles of
faith ; or that the creed of the church may so increase that what is
sufficient to salvation in one age cannot serve in another.

§ 61. If this question were to be determined by witnesses, it were
very easy to produce many worthy ones. Theodoras, the bishop of
Borne, in his synodical epistle to Paul the patriarch of Constantino-
ple™, thus concludes against the Monothelites, Sufficit nobis fides
quam sancti apostoli pradicavermit, concilia firmaverunt, et sancti
patres consignaverunt, ' that faith which the apostles preached, which
the councils have confirmed, which the fathers have consigned, that
faith is sufficient for us •/ therefore nothing new can be superinduced ;
after the apostles had done preaching the faith was full and entire.
It was so long before they died; but after their death the instru-
ments were sealed and ratified, and there could be nothing put to
them but our obedience and consent. And therefore Victor, bishop
of Carthage, in his synodical epistle to Theodoras", gives caution
against any thing that is new. Vestrum est itaque, f rater sanclissime,
canonica discretione solite contrariis catholicce fidei obviare, nee per-
mittee noviter did quod patrum venerabilium auctoritas omnino non
censuit : ' you must not permit any thing to be newly said which the
authority of the venerable fathers did not think fit.5 If therefore the
fathers did not say it was necessary to believe any other articles than
what they put into their confessions of faith, he that says otherwise
now is not to be suffered. Excellent therefore is the counsel of
S. Cyprian0, f as it happens when the pipes of an aqueduct are broken
or cut off, the water cannot run, but mend them and restore the water
to its course, and the whole city shall be refreshed from the fountain's
head : Quod et nunc facere eportet Dei sacerdotes, pracejjta divina
servantes, ut si in aliquo nutaverit et vacillaverit Veritas, ad originem
dominicam et evangelicam et apostolicam traditionem revertamur, 'et
hide surgat actus nostri ratio, wide et ordo et origo surrexit : ' so

,n [Concill. Hard., torn. iii. col. 617 A.] " [ibid., col. 758 A.]

° Epist. lxxiv. ad Pompeium. [p. 215.]

T t %

644 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

must God's priests do, keeping the divine commandments : if the
truth be weakened or fail in any thing, let a recourse be made to the
original, to the fountain of Christ and His apostles, to what hath
been delivered in the gospel ; that thither our faith may return from
whence it did arise/

§ 62. Prom the simplicity, truth and ingenuity of this discourse it
will plainly follow, that what was the faith at first, the same is now
and no other : Sicut erat in jprmcipio, 8fc. ' As it was in the begin-
ning, so it is now, and so it shall be for ever/ For to what purpose
can it be advised that in all questions of faith or new springs of error
we should return to the fountains of our Saviour, and the first emana-
tions of the apostles, but because no divine truth is warrantable but
what they taught, no necessity is to be pretended but what they im-
posed ? If it was their faith, it is and must be ours, but ours it
ought not to be, if it was not theirs.

§ 63. Now concerning this there are very material considerations.

1 ) Whatsoever the apostles taught we must equally believe, if we
equally know it : but yet all that they taught is not equally necessary
to be taught; but only so much as upon the knowledge of which
good life is superstructed and our hopes of heaven depend. What-
soever is in the scripture is alike true, but whatsoever is there is not
alike necessary, nor alike useful, nor alike easy to be understood.
But whatsoever by reading or hearing or any other instrument we
come to learn to be the truth of God, that we must believe ; because
no man disbelieves any such thing, but he disowns God. But here
the question is not what we must believe when we know it to be the
word of God, for that is every thing ; but how much we are bound
to know, what must be taught to all Christians, how much their
memory and their hearts must be charged withal. For the faith of
a Christian is not made up of every true proposition ; but of those
things which are the foundation of our obedience to God in Jesus
Christ, and the endearment of our duty, and the stabiliment of our
hope. Faith, hope, and charity, are thefundamentum, paries, et tec-
tum, ' the foundation, the walls, and the roof of our building : now
this foundation is that necessary belief, without which nothing could
subsist in our religion.

§ 64. 2) This foundation was by Christ and His apostles laid
sure, but at first it was made but of a just latitude and evenness with
the intended building. It was a little enlarged and paraphrased by
the apostles and apostolical men in their days ; the faith of Christians
was the most easy and plain, the most simple and wise thing in tine
world; it was wholly an art of living well, and believing in God
through Jesus Christ. And what Senecap said of the wisdom of the
old men in infant Some, is very true of the aborigines in Christianity
in the first spring of our religion ; Antiqua sapientia nihil alhul qiiam
fdcienda et vitanda pracepit ; et turn longe meliores erant viri : jpost-

p Senec. ep. xcv, [torn. ii. p. 458.]

CHAP. III.] * OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. G 15

quam docti prodiermt, desunt boni: ' the ancient and primitive wis-
dom did only command virtue, and prohibit vice ; and then men
lived good lives : but when they became more learned they became less
virtuous.'' Simplex crat ex simplici causa valeludo ; multos mortis
fnulta fercula fecermt : 'the old world eat a simple and a natural
diet, and they had a simple and a natural religion : but when variety
of dishes were set upon the table, variety of diseases entered together
with them/ Now in what instance the simplicity of a Christian was
at first exercised we find in S. Irena3usq : Melius itaque est nihil om-
nino scientem quempiam, ne tinam quidem causam cvjuslibet eorum
qua facta sunt, cur far I urn sit, et credere Deo, et perseverare eos hi
dilectione . . qua. hominem vivificat, nee aliud inquirere ad scientiam
nisi Jesum Christum Ji I i inn Dei qui pro nobis crucifixus est, aut per
qn/cstionum subtililates et multiloquiwm,T in impietatem cadere : ' it is
therefore better for a man to know absolutely nothing of the causes
of things why any thing was done, (and to believe in God, and to
persevere in His love that makes a man to live, and to enquire after
no knowledge but to know Jesus Christ the Son of God who was
crucified for us) than by subtle questions and multitude of words to
fall into impiety/

§ 65. 3) If we observe the creeds or symbols of belief that are in
the New testament, we shall find them very short. " Lord, I believe
that Thou art the Son of God who was to come into the world," that
was Martha's creed\ " Thou art Christ the Son of the living God,"
that was Peter's creed1. " We know and believe that Thou art
Christ the Son of the living God," that was the creed of all the apo-
stles11. "This is life eternal, that they know Thee the only true
God, and whom Thou hast sent, Jesus Christ," that was the creed
which our blessed Lord himself propounded x. And again, " I am
the resurrection and the life : he that believeth in Me, yea though
he were dead, yet shall he live, and he that liveth and believeth in
Me shall not die for ever," that was the catechism that Ckristy made
for Martha, and questioned her upon the article, " believest thou
this ?" And this belief was the end of the gospel, and in sufficient
perfect order to eternal life. For so S. John2, "These things are
written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God, and that believing ye might have life through His name."
" Tor this is the word of faith which we preach, namely, if you with
the mouth confess Jesus to be the Lord, and believe in your heart
that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saveda:" that's the
Christian's creed. " For I have resolved to know nothing amongst
you, but Jesus Christ and Him crucified ; that in us ye may learn

1 Lib. ii. cap. 45. [al. 26. p. 154.] * [John xvii. 3.]

r [al. ' minutiloquium.'] * [John xi. 25.]

6 [John xi. 27.] 2 [John xx. 31.]

« | Matt. xvi. 1(3.] * [Rom. x. 8, 9.]
° [John vi. C9.]

646 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION ' [BOOK II.

not to be wise above that which is written, that ye may not be puffed
up one for another, one against another;" that was S. Paul's* creed;
and that which he recommends to the church of Rome, to prevent
factions and pride and schism. The same course he takes with the
Corinthian church c; "I make known unto you the gospel which I
preached unto you, which ye have received, in which ye stand, and
by which ye are saved, if ye hold what I delivered to you," &c. Well,
what is that gospel by which they should be saved ? It was but
this, " That Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, that He
rose again the third day," &c. So that the sum is this ; the gentiles'
creed, or the creed in the natural law, is that which S. Paul sets
down in the epistle to the Hebrews d, Deum esse, et esse remwnera-
torem, ' that God is, and that God is a rewarder.' Add to this the
christian creed, that Jesus is the Lord, that He is the Christ of God,
that He died for our sins, that He rose again from the dead ; and
there is no question but He that believes this heartily, and confesses
it constantly, and lives accordingly, shall be saved : we cannot be
deceived ; it is so plainly, so certainly affirmed in scripture, that there
is no place left for hesitation. " For this is His precept, that we
believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and that we love one
anothere;" so S. John. "This is His precept." True, and so there
are many more : but why is this so signally remarked, but because this
is the fundamental precept, that upon which all the rest are super-
structed ? that is the foundation of faith and manners, and he that
keeps this commandment shall never perish. " For other foundation
can no man lay than this which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. But
if any man shall build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious
stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest;
for that day shall declare it, because it is revealed in fire ; and every
one's work the fire shall prove what it is. If any man's work which
he hath superstructed shall remain, he shall receive a reward. But
if any man's work shall be burned, he shall receive loss, yet himself
shall be saved, but so as by firef." Nothing more plain than that the
believing in Jesus Christ is that fundamental article upon which
every other proposition is but a superstructure, but itself alone with
a good life is sufficient to salvation. All other things are advantage
or disadvantage according as they happen; but salvation depends
not upon them. For " every spirit which confesseth Jesus Christ to
have come in the flesh is of God," and " Whosoever shall confess that
Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him, and he in Gods :"
andh, "Every one that believeth that Jesus is Christ is born of
God :" and " Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that
believeth that Jesus is the Son of God ?"

6 [1 Cor. ii. 2; iv. 6.] f [1 Cor. Hi. 11—15.]

c [1 Cor. xv. 1.] 8 [1 John iv. 2, 15.]

d [Hebr. xi. 6.] h [1 John v. 1. 5.]
e [1 John iii. 23.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OP JESUS CHTtlST. 647

§ 66. In proportion to this measure of faith, the apostles preached
the doctrine of faith. S.Peter's first sermon was, that 'Jesus is
Christ, that He was crucified, and rose again from the dead1:' and
they that believed this were presently baptized. His second sermon
was the same ; and then also he baptized proselytes into that con-
fession. And when the eunuch had confessed that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God, Philip presently baptized him. And it is observa-
ble that when the eunuch had desired baptism, S. Philip told him
he might if he did believe : and was, when he made that confession;
intimating that this is the christian faith, which is the foundation of
all his hope, and the condition of his baptism, and therefore sufficient
for his salvation. For indeed that was the sum of all that Philip
preached ; for it is said of him, that ' he preached things concerning
the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ k/ And this was
the sum of all that S. Paul preached in the synagogues and assem-
blies of the people, this he disputed for, this he proved laboriously;
that Jesus is Christ, that He is the Son of God, that He did, that
He ought to suffer, and rise again the third day : and this was all
that new doctrine for which the Athenians and other Greeks won-
dered at him, and he seemed to them to be a setter forth of strange
gods, ' because He preached Jesus and the resurrection1/ This was
it into which the gaoler and all his house were baptized ; this is it
which is propounded to him as the only and sufficient means of sal-
vation ; ' Believe in the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved and all
thine house™/ This thing was illustrated sometimes with other
glorious things still promoting the faith and honour of Jesus, as that
He ascended into heaven and shall be the judge of all the world.
But this was the whole faith; ra irepl r?/s /SacriXeia? rod deov, /cat
■jrepl 6v6[xaros tov 'h]o-ov Xpiorou, ' the things which concerned the
kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ/ was the large cir-
cumference of the christian faith. That is, such articles which repre-
sent God to be our Lord, and Jesus Christ to be His Son, the Savi-
our of the world ; that He died for us, and rose again and was
glorified, and reigns over all the world, and shall be our judge, and
in the resurrection shall give us according to our works ; that in
His name only we shall be saved, that is, by faith and obedience in
Him, by the mercies of God revealed to the world in Jesus Christ :
this is all which the scripture calls necessary ; this is that faith alone
into which all the church was baptized : which faith, when it was
made alive by charity, was and is the faith by which ' the just shall
live/

§ 67. This excellent summary of faith we find also but with a very
little paraphrase propounded as sufficient by S. Polycarp in that ex-
cellent epistle of his to the Philippians", which S. Irenseus0 so much

i [Acts ii. 24; iii. 15.] m [Acts xvi. 31.]

k [Acts viii. 12, 37, 38.] n [cap. i. p. 186.]

1 [Acts ix. 20 ; xvii. 2.] ° [Contr. haer., lib. iii. cap. 3. p. 177.].

618 OP THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK It.

commends, Fidel vestra firmitas a principio usque nunc permanet,
et sanctificatur in Domino Jesu Christo ; ' this is the firmness of
your faith from the beginning, which remains unto this day, and
is sanctified in Jesus Christ/ This S. Ignatius p calls plenam de
Christo cognitionem, l a full knowledge concerning Christ :' then he
reckons the generation of the Son from God the Father before all
worlds, His^ being born of the Virgin Mary, His holy life, His work-
ing miracles. His preaching one God, even the Father, His passion
and crucifixion, His death and resurrection, His ascension and sitting
at the right hand of God, and that in the end of the world He shall
rise again to judge the quick and the dead, and to give to every one
according to their works. When he hath recited this, he adds,
TIcpc qui plane cognovit et crediderit, beatus est, ' he that plainly
knows these things and believes them is blessed ;' and in another
epistle q, after the recitation of such another creed, he adds, ' He that
believes these things, is blessed that ever he was born/ Justin
Martyr r affirms expressly, that if any man should even then live
according to the law of Moses (I suppose he means the law of the
ten commandments) so that he believe in Jesus Christ crucified,
and acknowledge Him for the Christ of God, to whom is given the
judgment of all the world, he also shall possess the eternal kingdom.

§ 68. The same creed in more words but no more articles is re-
cited by S. Irenseus in his second and third chapters of his first
books, saying that 'the church throughout all the world being
planted by the apostles to the ends of the earth, and by their dis-
ciples, hath received this faith. He of all the prelates that is most
powerful in speech cannot say any thing else, for no man is above
his master ; and he that is weak in speaking cannot say less. For
since the faith is one and the same, he that speaks much cannot say
more, and he that speaks little must not say less/ And afterwards'
speaking of some barbarous nations that had not the scriptures, yet
having this faith, which he there shortly recites, beginning with be-
lief in God the Father, the maker of the world, and in Jesus Christ,
repeating the usual articles of His being born of the Yirgin Mary,
His being the Son of God, His reconciling God and man, His suf-
fering under Pontius Pilate, His rising again and being received into
glory, and His last judgment, he adds, Hanc fidem qui sine Uteris
crediderunt quantum ad sermonem nostrum barbari sunt, quantum au-
tem ad sententiam et consuetudiuem et conversationem propter fidem
perquam sapientissimi sunt et placent Deo, conversantes in omnijus-
titia et castitate et sapientia ; ' they who believe this faith are most
wise in their sentence and custom and conversation through faith,
and they please God, living in all justice, chastity and wisdom/

§ 69. Here were almost two ages spent by this time, in which

p Ad Magnes. [interpol. cap. xi. p. r Coll. cum Trypli. [§ 47. p. 142 E.]

58.] * [al. cap. 10. pp. 48, 50.]

i Ad Philipp. [cap. iii. p. 113.] * Lib. iii. cap. 4. [p. 178.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. G It)

the most pestilent heresies that ever did trouble the church did
arise, in which some of the questions were talked of and disputed, and
which afterwards by the zeal of some that overvalued their own forms
of speaking, passed into a faction ; and yet in all this time, and during
all that necessity, there was no more added to the christian creed, no
more articles for the condemnation of any new heresy : whatsoever
was against this was against the faith ; but any thing else they re-
proved if it were false, but did not put any more into their creed.
And indeed they ought not. Regula quidem Jidei mm omnino est,
sola immob'dls et irreformabiUs, credendi sell, in unum Deum, fyc,
saith Tertullian" ; 'the rule of faith is altogether one, and immovable
and unalterable : this law of faith remaining other things may be en-
larged according as the grace of God multiplies upon us/ But for
the faith itself here consigned and summed up, the epistle of Celes-
tine to Nestoriusv is very affirmative and clear, 'H -niaris i) irapabo-
#eura irapa tcov airocrToXcov ovre irpo<j6i]Kriv, ovt€ /ixetcocrty airaiTtl,
'the faith or creed delivered by the apostles requires neither addition
nor defalcation/ Neque enim tdla extitit hceresis qua non hoc sym-
bolo damnari potuit, 'there was never any heresy but this creed was
sufficient for its condemnation/ said the catechism of the archbishop
of Triers.

§ 70. This faith passing into all the world was preserved with
great sacredness and great simplicity, no church varying from it at
all : some, indeed, put some great things into it which were appen-
dages to the former ; but the fullest and the most perfect were the
creeds of Jerusalem and Rome, that is, the same which the Greek
and Latin church use at this day. The first and the most simple
forms were sufficient ; but these fuller forms being compiled by the
apostles themselves or apostolical men, and that from the words of
scripture, made no great alteration : the first were not too little, and
these were not too much. The first was the thing itself, which was
of a declared sufficiency ; but when the apostles were to frame an
instrument of confession, tvttov Sibaxijs, ' a form of doctrine' by way
of art and method, they put in all that they directed by the holy
Spirit of God knew to contain the whole faith of a Christian. Now
of this form so described, so delivered, so received, the fathers of
the church affirm that it is entire and sufficient, and nothing is to be
added to it. Ergo et cunctis credentibns qua contiucntur in prafato
symbolo salus anlmarwm et vita perpetua bonis actibus prtvparatur,
said the author of the epistle to S. James, attributed to S. Clement",
' to all that believe those things contained in the foresaid symbol or
creed, and do good deeds, salvation of their souls and eternal life is
prepared/

§71. And therefore this summary of faith was called tvttos Siha-

u De veland. virgin., cap. i. [173 A.] x [Epist. i. in concill. Harduin., torn. i.

v [In concil. Ephes., part. i. cap. 8. col. 44 A.]
torn. i. col. Io03 A.]

650 OP THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

X>js> o kclvuv, viTOTViT(x>(n$ vytaLvovroiv Xoyoov, avaXoyia 7ncrreco?,
yaXaKroohrjs elcraycoyii, TrapaKaTadiJKr), aToiyjeia rrjs apxfis t<2v Xoyioov
rod 0€ov, TTapabodeiaa ttl(ttls' regula fidei, depositum, breve evan-
gel'mm, ' the form or exemplar of doctrine, the canon, a description
of sound words, the proportion or measure of faith, the milky way,
or the introduction of novices, the elements of the beginning of the
oracles of God, the repository of faith, the faith that was delivered to
the saints, the rule of faith, that which was entrusted to the church,
a short gospel/ These and divers other appellatives of the creed
were used by the ancient doctors, most of them taken out of scrip-
ture. For what the scriptures did affirm of the whole faith, that the
fathers did apply to this creed, as believing it to contain all that was
necessary. And as a grain of mustard seed in little contains in it
many branches, so also ' this faith in a few words involves all the
knowledge' (the necessary knowledge) ' of the Old and New testament/
saith S. Cyrily ; and therefore he calls this creed traditionem sancta
et apostolica, fidei, ' the tradition of the holy and apostolic faith.'
Cordis signaculum, et nostra militia sacr amentum, so S. Ambrose2
calls it, 'the seal of our heart and the sacrament of our warfare.'
S. Hierome3 yet more fully, ' the symbol of our faith and of our
hope, which being delivered by the apostles is not written with paper
and ink, but in the fleshy b tables of our hearts, after the confession of
the Trinity and unity of the church.' Omne christiani dogmatis sa-
cramentum carnis resurrectione concluditur, ' the whole sacrament of
the christian doctrine is concluded with the resurrection of the flesh
to eternal life/ Norma futura prcedicatiords, so Ruffinusc calls it,
' the rule of future preachings' appointed by the apostles ; et hanc
eredentibus esse regulam dandam statuunt, 'they appoint this to be
given as a rule to all believers •/ and again, ' this creed was the
token by which he should be known who did preach Christ truly
according to the rules of the apostles d ;' the indication of their faith
and unanimity. Comprehensio fidei nostra atque petfectio, so S.
Austin e calls it. Virtus est sacramenti, illuminatio anima, pleni-
tudo credentium*, ' the illumination of the soul, the fulness of be-
lievers, the comprehension and the perfection of our faith. By this
the knot of infidelity is untied, and by this the gate of life is opened,
by this the glory of our confession is manifested/ It is tessera et
signaculum quo inter fideles perfidosque secernitur, said Maximus
Taurinensisg. Basis quadam, et fundamentum immotum et incon-
cussum per nniversicm orbem jactum, so S. Cyril of Alexandria. ' It
is a badge and cognizance to distinguish the faithful from the per-

» Catech. v. [§ 12. p. 78 C] p. 17.]

z De virgin., lib. iii. [cap. 4. torn. ii. d [ibid.]

col. 179 B.] « Serm. cxv. de temp. [al. ccxli. torn.

a Epist. ad Pammach. [epist, torn. iv. v. append, col. 395 F.]

part. 2. col. 323.] f Serm. cxxxi. [al. ccxlii. col. 397 B.]

b ['fleshly' B, C, D.] g De tradit. symb. [Max. bibl. vet.

k c Expos, symbol, [ad calc. Cyprian., patr., torn. vi. p. 42 G.]

CFIAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CIIItTST. 651

fidious, an immovable foundation laid for all the world, a divine or
celestial armour, that all the opinions of heretics may be cut off with
this sword alone ;' so S. Leo bishop of Rome. I could add very many
more to this purpose ; who please to require more may see enough in
Lucifer Calaritanus, I. ii. ad Co?istantiumh, Paulinus bishop of Nola,
ep. i. ad A/rum, S. Austin his book Be symbolo ad catechumenos,
I. i. c. 1 !, in Ruffinus his excellent exposition of the creed, Eucherius,
bishop of Lyons, in his first homily upon the creed, Petrus Chrysolo-
gus in his sixty-second homily, Isidore of Seville, lib. vi. originum,
c. 9k, and in his Offices Ecclesiastical, I. i. c. 26, Be Bominica pal-
marwm\ Rabanus Maurus, /. ii. Be instil, clericorum, cap. 56.m, the
oration of Bernard Zanein the first session of the council of Lateran",
in the discourse of the Greeks at the council of Florence, sess. 10°,
Cassianus De incarnatione Domini, Eusebius Gallicanus in his homi-
lies on the creed published by Gaigneus, chancellor of Paris, in Ve-
nantius Eortunatus his explication of it ; and he may if he please add
the two homilies which S. Chrysostom made upon the creed, and the
great catechetical oration of S. Gregory Nyssen p.

§ 72. Now to what purpose is all this? The apostles compiled
this form of words, all churches received them, all catechumens were
baptized into this faith, in the Roman church they recited it pub-
licly before their immersion, to this salvation was promised ; this was
the sacrament of the christian faith, the fulness of believers, the cha-
racteristic of Christians, the sign of the orthodox, the sword of all
heresies and their sufficient reproof, the unity of belief, sufficient,
full, immovable, unalterable ; and it is that and that0' alone in which
all the churches of the world do at this day agree.

§73. It is true that the church of God did explicate two of the arti-
cles of this creed, that of the second, and that of the third Person of the
holy Trinity, the one at Nice the other at Constantinople ; one against
Arius, the other against Macedonius ; they did explicate, I say, but
they added no new matter but what they supposed contained in the
apostolical creed. And indeed the thing was very well done, if it had
not been made an ill example ; they had reason for what they did,
and were so near the ages apostolical that the explication was more
likely to be agreeable to the sermons apostolical : but afterwards the
case was altered, and that example was made use of to explicate the
same creed, till by explicating the old they have inserted new articles.

§ 74. But all the while it is consented to on all hands, that this
only faith is sufficient. What can certainly follow from these infalli-
ble articles is as certainly true as the articles themselves, but yet not
so to be imposed, because it is not certain that this or this explication
is right, that this consequent is well deduced ; or if it be certain to

h [In max. bibl. vet. patr., torn. iv. m [Concill., torn. vi. p. 31.]

p. 211 sq.] n [torn. ix. col. 1602.]

1 [torn. vi. col. 547.] ° [torn. ix. col. 124.]

k Cap. 19. § -u, 8. torn. iii. p. 288.] p [torn. iii. p. 43 sqq.]

1 [al. cap. 28. torn. vi. p. 393.] '' ['and that' deest— C, D.]

652 OP THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

you, it is not so to me ; and besides, it is more an instrument of
schism than of peace, it can divide more than it can instruct, and it
is plainly a recession from the simplicity of the christian faith, by
which simplicity both the learned and the ignorant are the more safe.
Tiirbam non intelligendi vivacitas, sed credendi simplicitas tutissi-
mamfacit i : and when once we come to have the pure streams pass
through the limbecs of human wit, where interest, and fancy, and
error, and ignorance, and passion are intermingled, nothing can be
so certain, though some things may be as true ; and therefore here
the church does rest, here she finds peace ; her faith is simple, easy
and intelligible, free from temptation, and free from intrigues ; it is
warranted by scripture, composed and delivered by the apostles,
entertained by all the world. In these they do agree, but in nothing
else but this, and in their fountain, the plain words of scripture.

§ 75. For all the rest, it is abundant to all excellent purposes. It
can instruct 'the wise, and furnish the guides of souls with treasures
of knowledge, and employ the tongues and pens of the learned ; it
can cause us to wonder at the immensity of the divine wisdom, and
the abyss of revelation ; it is an excellent opportunity for the exer-
cise of mutual charity in instructing and in forbearing one another,
and of humility and patience and prayer to God to help our infirmi-
ties, and to enlighten us more and more in the knowledge of God.
It is the great field of faith where she can enlarge herself; but this
is the house of faith where she dwells for ever in this world.

§ 76. So that for any other thing of the religion it is to be be-
lieved so far as it does appear to be the word of God, and by acci-
dents and circumstances becomes of the family or retinue of faith •
but it is not necessary to be believed for itself; unless it be for some-
thing else it is not necessary at all. A man may be saved without
knowing any thing else, without hearing of any thing, without enquir-
ing after any thing, without believing any thing else, provided that
in this faith he live a good life. But because sometimes a man is by
the interests of a good life required to know more, to enquire after
more, and to learn more, therefore upon the stock of obedience more
may be necessary ; but not upon the account of faith. So that if
some men do not read the scriptures, and study them, and search
into the hidden things of God, they sin against justice or charity,
but not against faith if they retain all the articles of the apostles'
creed : and a man may be extremely to blame if he disbelieve many
other things ; but it is because upon some evil account he disbelieves
it, and so is guilty of that sin which is his evil principle, as of pride,
ambition, lust, covetousness, idleness, fear or flattery ; but a man is not
in any such case guilty of heresy. For heresy being directly opposed
to faith, and faith being completed in the articles of the christian .
creed, it cannot be heresy unless it be a contradicting of one of those
articles, in the words or in the sense, in the letter or in the plain,

August, contra epist. Fundam., cap. 4. [torn. viii. col. 153 B.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 653

visible, certain, and notorious explication of it. In the apostolical
creed all the christian world is competently instructed j in these
there is no dispute, and if they be simply believed as they are plainly
delivered, it is the better. But in every thing else, every man accord-
ing to his calling and abilities is to grow as much as he can in
knowledge ; that is, in edifying and practical knowledge : but in all
things of speculation, he that believes what he sees cause for, as well
and as wisely, as heartily and as honestly as he can, may be deceived,
but cannot be a heretic, nor hazard his salvation. Salus ecclesice
non vert it ur in istis ; . . m shnplicitate fides est, in fide justitia ; . .
nee Deus nos ad beatam vitam per dijficiles quasi tones vocat : . . in
expediio etfacili nobis est caternitas, said S. Hilary k : ' faith is in sim-
plicity, and righteousness in faith ; neither does God call us to eter-
nal life by hard questions : eternity stands ready and easily prepared/

§ 77. For I consider, if any thing else were necessary to be be-
lieved unto salvation, this symbol could absolutely be of no use ; but
if any thing be added to it and pretended also to be necessary, it
cannot be entertained, unless they that add it and impose it be in-
fallible in their judgment and competent in their authority: they
must have authority equal to that of Christ, and wisdom equal to
that of the apostles. For the apostles in this summary of faith de-
clared all that was at that time necessary ; and if any man else makes
a new necessity he must claim Christ's power, for He only is our
lawgiver : and if any declares a new necessity, that is not sufficient,
unless he can also make it so, for declaring it supposes it to be so
already ; and if it was so at first the apostles were to blame not to
tell us of it, and if it was not so at first who made it so afterwards ?

§ 78. But it is infinitely necessary that for the matter of faith,
necessary and sufficient faith, we rest here and go no further. For
if there can be any new necessities, then they may for ever increase,
and the faith of a Christian shall be like the moon, and no man can
be sure that his faith shall not be reproved : and there shall be in-
numerable questions about the authority of him that is to add, of his
skill, of his proceeding, of the particular article, of our own duty in
enquiring, of our diligence, of our capacity, of the degrees of our
care, of the competency of instruments, of choosing our side, of judg-
ing of questions : and he that cannot enquire diligently, and he that
cannot judge wisely, and he that cannot discern spirits, and he that
fears and he that fears not, shall all be in danger, and doubt, and
scruple, and there shall be neither peace of minds nor churches, as
we see at this day in the sad divisions of Christendom ; and every
man almost damns all but his own sect, and no man can tell who is
in the right. Men dispute well on both sides, and just and good
and wise men are opposed to one another; and every man seems
confident, but few men have reason ; and there is no rest, and there
can be none, but in this simplicity of belief which the apostles recoin-

k De Tiin. [vid. lib. xi. col. 1080 E.]

654 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

mended to all the world, and which all the world does still keep in
despite of all their superinduced opinions and factions ; for they all
retain this creed, and they all believe it to be the summary of
faith.

§ 79. But the church of Rome pretends to a power of appointing
new articles of faith ; and for denying this pope Leo the tenth con-
demned Luther in his bull added to the last council in Lateran1.
For ad solam auctoritatem summi pontificis pertinet nova editio spn-
boli, ' a new edition of the creed belongs to the sole authority of the
pope of Rome/ so Aquinas™ : and Almain" most expressly, ' The
popes of Rome by defining many things which before lay hid, sym-
bolum fidei auger e consuevisse, are wont to enlarge the creed0/ For
doctrina fidei admittit additionem in essentialibus, saith Salmeronp,
' the doctrine of faith admits addition even in essential things.' And
in consequence to these expressions they did add the article of the
procession of the holy Ghost from the Son, in a synod at Gentilli in
I>anceq; and twelve articles to the creed in the council of Trent,
with the preface and postscript of the Athanasian creed, damning all
that do not equally believe the creed of Trent as the creed of the
apostles.

§ 80. What effect and impress the declaration of any article by
the church hath or is to have upon the conscience shall be discoursed
under the title of ecclesiastical laws; but that which is of present
enquiry is, whether any thing can be of divine faith in one age that
was not so in the age of the apostles : and concerning this it is that
I say that it is from the premises evident that nothing can make
any thing to be of divine faith but our blessed Lord himself, who is
therefore called f the author and finisher of our faith ;' He began it,
and He made an end. The apostles themselves could not do it, they
were only stewards and dispensers of the mysteries of God ; they did
rightly divide the word of life, separating the necessary from that
which was not so : so that their office in this particular was only to
declare what was necessary and what was not; no man, and no
society of men could do this but themselves, for none but they could
tell what value was to be set upon any proposition : they were to lay
the foundation, and they did so, and they built wisely upon it ; but
when they commanded that we should keep the foundation, they only
could tell us which was it, and they did so by their sermons, preach-
ing the same doctrine to the simple and the crafty, and by immuring

1 [Concil. Lat. V. torn. ix. col. 189k] pam spectat. . qui est caput fidei chris-

m 2 2*. q. i. a. 10. [torn. xi. fol.7 a.] tianse, cujus auctoritate omnia quae ad

■ [He however expressly denies such fid em spectant firmantur et roborantur.

a right to belong to the pope, — In 3 sent. Idem art. 2. [p. 310 E.] Sicut potest

dist. xxv. dub. 3. fol. 80, 1. et de auct. novum symbolum condere, ita potest no-

eccles., cap. 12. fol. 61.] vos articulos supra alios multiplicare.

° August. Triumph, de Ancona, p Tom. xiii. pant. 3. disp. 6. § 'Est

[summ. de potest, eccles.] quaast. lix. ergo.' [p. 208.]

art. i. [p. 309 A. ed. fol. Rom. 1582.] « [A.D. dcclxvii., concill., torn. iii.

Novum symbolum condere solum ad pa- col. 2011.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 655

the necessary doctrine in a form of words, and consigning it to all
the churches where they preached the gospel.

§ 81. For we see that all the world is not able to tell us how
much is necessary, and how much is not, if they once go beside the
apostles' creed : and yet it was infinitely necessary that at first this
should be told, because there were so many false apostles, and every
one pretended authority or illumination, and every one brought a
new word and a new doctrine ; and the apostles did not only foresee
that there would be, but did live to see and feel the heresies and the
false doctrines obtruded upon the church, and did profess it was
necessary that such false doctrines should arise : and against all this
that they should not provide an universal remedy, is at no hand
credible, and yet there was none but the creed ; this all the church
did make use of, and professed it to be that summary of faith which
was a sufficient declaration of all necessary faith, and a competent
reproof of all heresies that should arise.

§ 82. But then that after all this any one should obtrude new
propositions, not deducible from the articles of the creed, not in the
bowels of any article, neither actually expressed nor potentially in-
cluded, and to impose these under pain of damnation, if this be not
Kvpt€V€iv ttjs TuoTecos, which S. Paulr said he had no power to do,
f to have dominion or lordship over the faith/ and KaraKvpieveiv
T<x>v KXijpcov, ' to lord it over God's heritage/ which S. Peters forbad
any man to do, I confess I do not understand the words, nor yet
saw or ever read any man that did. I conclude this with those ex-
cellent words of Justinian which are in the code1, part of the im-
perial law by which almost all the world was long governed : 6p8i]
Kai d/xoj/xrjros tticttis, ijvirep Kr\p\nr(.i ?; ayia tov Qeov KaOokiKi]
K.al a7rocrroAtKT/ CK/cAr^crta, kcit ovbiva rponov Kaivi<y\iov ht^ap-km],
' this right and irreprehensible faith/ (speaking of the apostolical
creed, part of which he there recites,) ' which the holy catholic and
apostolic church of God does preach, can by no means receive any
innovation or change/

§ 83. I conclude therefore this question : in our enquiries of faith
no man's conscience can be pressed with any authority but of Christ
enjoining, and the apostles declaring what is necessary. I add also,
that the apostles have declared it in this form of words which they
have often set down in their writings, and which they more largely
described in their symbol of faith. For since, as Sixtus Senensis'1
says, omnes orthodoxi patres affirmant symbolum- ab ipsis apostolis
cond'itum, that ' all the orthodox fathers affirm the creed to be made
by the apostles/ and they also say this is a sufficient rule of faith for
all Christians ; here we ought to rest our heads and our hearts, and
not to intricate our faith by more questions. For as Tertullian x said

* [2 Cor. i. 24.] ■ [1 Pet. v. 3.] " Lib. ii. biblioth. [ad hoc, 'Aposto-

Cod. lib. i. de sum. Trinit. § 'Cum lorum symbolum,' torn. i. p. o'S.j
recta.' [lib. i. tit. 1. § 5. col. 4.] * Advers. haeret, cap. xiv. [p. 207 A.]

656 OP THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

well, Hac regula a Christo, ut prolabititr, insiituta, nullas habet
apud nos quastiones nisi quas hareses inferunt, et qua hareticos f ad-
mit ; ' heretics make disputes, and disputes make heretics, but faith
makes none/ Tor if upon the faith of this creed all the church of
God went to heaven, all I mean that lived good lives, I am sure
Christ only hath the keys of hell and heaven, and no man can open
or shut either but according to His word and His law ; so that to him
that will make his way harder by putting more conditions to his
salvation, and more articles to his creed, I may use the words of
S. Gregory Nazianzeny, Tit quid salute majus quaris ? gloriam nempe
qua illic est et splendorem : mild vero maximum est ut salver, et
futura effugiam tormenta. Tu per viam incedis minime tritam et
incessu difficilem : ego vero per regiam, et qua mnltos salvavit ;
1 what dost thou seek greater than salvation ?' (meaning by nice
enquiries and disputes of articles beyond the simple and plain faith
of the apostles' creed z) ' It may be thou lookest for glory and splen-
dor here. It is enough for me, yea the greatest tiling in the world,
that I be saved and escape the torments that shall be hereafter.
Thou goest a hard and an untrodden path : I go the king's highway,
.and that in which many have been saved.'

EULE XV.

IN TITE LAW OF CHRIST THERE IS NO PRECEPT THAT WHOLLY MINISTERS TO THE
LAW OF MOSES ; BUT FOR A TIME ONLY AND LESS PRINCIPALLY.

§ 1. This rule I received from S. IreiiEeus3, and they are his words
as near as I could translate them : 'In lege C/iristi non est ullum pra-
ceptum veleri tanttim legi inserviens, nisi ad horam et minus priuci-
paliter. For our blessed Saviour descended like rain upon a fleece
of wool, and made no violent changes, but retained all the morality
that He found amongst His countrymen ; He made use of their pro-
positions, spake their proverbs, united their ejaculations into a col-
lect of His own ; for almost every word of the Lord's prayer was taken
from the writings of the pious men of their nation; He changed
their rites into sacraments, their customs into mysteries, their wash-
ings He made our baptism, their paschal supper He converted into
the holy eucharist : and still because He would be understood by
them He retained the mosaic words when He delivered a christian
precept ; for He knew His Father would send His holy Spirit to be
an infallible interpreter; and when the types of Moses passed into

> [Orat. xxxii. § 25. torn. i. p. 596 C] [vol. v. p. 371 sqq.]

z See' Liberty of Prophesying,' sect. 1. a [vid. lib. iv. cap. 16. p. 247.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 657

the substance of Christ, then the typical words also would be ex-
pounded in the senses of the evangelical duties.

§ 2. For indeed it is not reasonable to suppose that our blessed
Saviour, who came to fulfil the law in His own person, and to abolish it
in His disciples, to change the customs of Moses, and to be an eternal
lawgiver in the instances of moral and essential natural rectitudes,
would give a new commandment to confirm an old precept which fli in-
self intended to extinguish. No man puts a piece of new cloth to an
old garment, nor a new injunction to an abrogated law ; that is, no
wise master-builder holds up with one hand what he intends to pull
down with both : it must therefore follow that whatever Christ did
preach and affirm and exhort, was always expressed in the words of
the law, yet wholly relative to the duty and signification of the
gospel. Eor that which S. Hilary b said of the words of scripture is
particularly true in the sense now delivered of the sermons of Christ :
Sermo enim divinus secundum intelligentia nostra consuetudinem
naturamque se temper at, communibus rerum vocabulis ad significa-
tionem doctrina sum et institutions aptatis : nobis enim non sibi lo-
quitur, atque ideo nostris utitur in loquendo : ' God speaks to us and
not to Himself; and therefore He uses words fitting to our under-
standings : by common and usual expressions, and such as were un-
derstood, He expressed precepts and mysteries which otherwise were
not to be understood.'

§ 3. Thus when our blessed Saviour delivers the precept of cha-
rity and forgiveness He uses this expression, " When thou bringest
thy gift unto the altar, and there rememberest that thou hast any
thing against thy brother, leave thy gift at the altar, go and be re-
conciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." If Christ
had said, 'When thou comest to the Lord's supper and hast any
thing against thy brother,' &c, He had not been understood : but be-
cause we know this is an eternal precept, part of a moral and eternal
excellency, a duty of Christianity, and a portion of Christ's institution,
and we know that Christ pulled down the Jewish altars and the sacri-
fice of beasts by the sacrifice of His eternal priesthood, and we also
are sufficiently instructed by what instruments and by what minis-
tries the memory of that is conserved and the benefits of it conveyed ;
therefore we also are sure that by these words Christ intended to com-
mand us to be at peace with our brother, and with our enemy, when
we come to offer prayers and to celebrate the memorial of His eter-
nal sacrifice.

§ 4. So when our blessed Saviour told the parable of Dives and
Lazarus, and intended to represent unto His disciples that we are to
expect salvation by the ordinary ministries of the church, and not to
expect it by the way of miracle and extraordinary dispensation, He was
pleased to say, "They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear
themc." This was all which could be said to them whose scriptures

b In Psal. exxvi. [col. 116 C] c [Luke xvi. 29.]

IX. u u

058 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

were completed in the writings of Moses and the prophets : but when
our great Master had by His holy Spirit and by His apostles and dis-
ciples perfected another instrument of salvation and repository of di-
vine truths, the proposition is to be enlarged to these. They have
Christ and His apostles, they have the gospels and epistles, let them
hear them ; for if they will not hear and obey them speaking in the
scriptures, neither will they be converted though one arise from the
dead, and appear to them in the terrible dresses of affrightment.

§ 5. When Christ whipped the buyers and sellers out of the tem-
ple, and urged the words of the prophet, " My Father's house shall
be called the house of prayer to all nations ; but ye have made it a
den of thieves d •" although this was spoken to the Jews and of their
temple, yet Christ, who knew this temple was to be destroyed, and
not a stone left upon a stone, intended the piety of His command-
ment should last longer than the dying temple ; and therefore it is
to be translated wholly to the christian sense. And although He
would not have the temple profaned so long as it was standing and
used for prayer and divine service, ad horam, as S. Irenseus his ex-
pression is, even ' for an hour/ taking care of that because it was a
holy place : yet the sacredness and holy usage of the temple was less
principally intended, but principally Christ regarded the christian
oratories and separate places of devotion; that where God by pub-
lic appointment and the laws was to be worshipped, there the affairs
of the world should not intrude by the interests of a private and a
profane spirit.

RULE XVI.

THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST ARE TO BE INTERPRETED TO THE SENSE OF A
PRESENT OBEDIENCE ACCORDING TO THEIR SUBJECT MATTER.

§ 1. That which is true to-day will be true to-morrow, and that
which is in its own nature good or necessary any day is good or
necessary every day : and therefore there is no essential duty of the
religion but is to be the work of every day. To confess God's glory,
to be His subject, to love God, to be ready to do Him service, to
live according to nature and to the gospel, to be chaste, to be tem-
perate, to be just, these are the employment of all the periods of a
Christian's life. For the moral law of the religion is nothing but the

d [Mark xi. 17 ; Matt. xxi. 13; Luke xix. 46.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 659

moral law of nature, (as I have already proved e.) Naturaliler lex
nostra est lex pietatis, just i lice, fidei, simplicitatis, eharitatis, optime-
que institutes, said Cardan f : and again g, Christiani Joveru junction ha-
bent cum sole, illiusque diem colunt dominicum : Sol autem significat
justitiam et veritatem, Christiana autem lex plus continet veritatis, et
simpliciores reddit Jwmines : ' the christian law is nothing else but a
perfect institution of life and understanding, it makes men wise, and
it makes them good; it teaches wisdom, and it teaches justice; it
makes them wise and simple, that is, prudent and innocent, and there
is no time of our life in which we are permitted to be otherwise/
Those who in the primitive church put off their baptism till the time
of their death, knew that baptism was a profession of holiness, and
an undertaking to keep the faith, and live according to the command-
ments of Jesus Christ ; and that as soon as ever they were baptized,
that is, as soon as ever they had made profession to be Christ's disci-
ples, they were bound to keep all the laws of Christ : and therefore
that they deferred their baptism was so egregious a prevarication of
their duty, that as in all reason it might ruin their hopes, so it pro-
claimed their folly to all the world. For as soon as ever they were
convinced in their understanding, they were obliged in their con-
sciences. And although baptism does publish the profession, and is
like the forms and solemnities of law ; yet a man is bound to live the
life of a Christian as soon as ever he believes the doctrine and com-
mandments of Christianity ; for indeed he is obliged as soon as he
can use reason, or hear reason. The first things a man can learn are
some parts of Christianity, not to hurt any one, to do all that he can
understand to be good ; that is, as soon as ever he begins to live like
a rational creature, so soon he begins to live as Christ commanded :
and since baptism (as to this relation and intention of it) is nothing
else but the publication of our undertaking to do that which in
our very nature and by the first and universal laws of God to man-
kind we are obliged, to refuse to be baptized, or to defer it, is no-
thing but a refusing or deferring to own our natural obligation, a
denying or not accepting the duty of living according to the law of
nature; which deferring, as it must needs be the argument of an
evil man, and an indication of unwillingness to live worthily, so it
can serve really no prudent ends to which it can fallaciously pretend.
For Christianity being in its moral part nothing but the perfection of
the natural law, binds no more upon us than God did by the very
reason of our nature. By the natural law we are bound to live f in
holiness and righteousness all the days of our lifeh/ and so we are by
the christian law, as appears in the song of Zechary and in very many
other places : and therefore although when some of our time is
elapsed and lost in carelessness and folly, the goodness of God will

e Chap. i. and chap. ii. of this book. fol. Lugd. 1(363.]

f [In Ptolemseum.] de astror. jud., lib. s [text. 18. p. 1 89. J

ii. [cap. 9.] text. 51'. [torn. v. p. 221, opp. h [Luke i. 75.]

u u 2

660 OF THE INTEltPRETATlON AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

admit as to second counsels, and the death of Christ and His inter-
cession will make them acceptable; yet Christianity obliges us to
obedience as soon as the law of nature does, and we must profess to
live according to Christianity as soon as we can live by the measures
of the natural law, and that is even in the very infancy of our reason;
and therefore baptism is not to be deferred longer : it may be sooner,
because some little images of choice and reason, which must be con-
ducted by the measures of nature, appear even in infancy ; but it
must not be deferred longer ; there is no excuse for that, because
there can be no reason for so doing, unless where there is a necessity,
and it can be no otherwise.

§ 2. The effects of this consideration are these.

1) All the negative precepts of Christ's law are obligatory in all
persons, and all periods, and all instances. Nunquam licuit, nun-
quam llceblt, ' it was and is and ever will be unlawful/ to do any
action which God forbids to be done : and therefore to say I will be
chaste when I am old, I will be temperate when I am sick, I will be
just when I am rich, I will be willing to restore when I die, is to
measure eternity by time, and to number that which is not. Tn
negatives there is neither number, nor weight, nor measure : and not
to kill, not to blaspheme, not to commit adultery hath no time, and
hath no proportion.

§ 3. 2) This is also true in the positive commandments of Christ,
in respect of the inward duty ; that is never to be deferred. The
charity of alms, the devotion of prayer, piety to our parents, love of
God, love of our neighbour, desires to do justice; these are not
limited to times and opportunities. The habits of them and the dis-
positions to action, the readiness and the love, must for ever be with-
in ; because these are always possible, and always good, and always
necessary, and therefore cannot have accidental determinations from
without : being works of the inward man, they depend only upon the
grace of God and the will of man, and that never fails, if this does
not; and therefore are always possible unless we will not; but they
are always necessary, whether we will or no.

§ 4. 3) The external actions of duty are determinable from with-
out, and by things which are not in our power, and by things which
will not happen always, and in some instances by our own will and
mere choice. Thus a man is bound actually to restore but in certain
circumstances ; but to be ready and to love to do it, he is always
bound. To say our prayers is limited by time and place, by occa-
sions and emergent necessities, by use and custom, by laws and ex-
amples : but to'depend upon God, to expect all good from Him, to
glorify Him, to worship Him with all our heart, is not limited, but
may be done in all tin? actions of our life, by actual application or
habitual intention, by secret purpose or by open profession, by
obedience and by love, or by the voice and hand. For to 'pray
continually/ which is tiie precept of our blessed Saviour, is obliga-

CITAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CIIFTST. G61

tory in the very letter, in proportion to the natural possibilities and
measure of a man ; that is, in all our actions we must glorify God,
which is one of the parts of prayer, and we must endear 1 lis blessing,
which is the other. But to kneel, or to speak, or actually to think
a prayer, being the body of this duty and determinable by something
from without, receives its limit according to the subject matter, that
is, when we are commanded, and when we have need, and when we
can, and in the proper season of it.

§ 5. This rule is also otherwise explicated, by distinguishing the
affirmative precepts of Christ into universal and particular. Parti-
cular precepts are to be acted only in their proper determinations, in
special times, and pertinent occasions, because they are always rela-
tive to time and place, or person ; they have a limited effect, and are
but parts of a good life, and therefore cannot alone work out our
salvation, but must give allowance of time and action to others, of
the like particular and limited nature and effect.

§ G. But this is otherwise in the universal and diffusive, or tran-
scendent precepts of the religion, though they be affirmative. He
that shall say that because to love God is an affirmative precept,
that it is only obligatory in certain accidents, and times, and cases,
and that therefore we are not always bound to love God, by the
impiety cf his conclusion reproves the folly of his proposition.
Neither is it sufficient to say that we are indeed always bound to the
habitual love of God, but not always to the actual; not always to
do an act of the love of God. For the love of God does not consist
only in the fancy or the passionate part, neither is it to be measured
by the issues of any one faculty : and though we are not bound to
the exercise of an act of passion, or intuition, or melting affection,
that is, we are not always tied to a limited, particular, single effect
of one grace, in all times, yet we are bound to do an act of love to
God when we are bound to do any act at all ; for all our religion, and
all our obedience, and all our conversation is wholly to be conducted
by the love of God : and although to love God be an affirmative
commandment, yet because it is a transcendent or universal precept,
and includes in it all those precepts, which by binding at several
times fill up all our time, and every of them being an act of obedi-
ence is consequently an act and instance of our love to God; it
follows, that there is no time in which we are not bound to love
God, and to exercise acts of this grace does not depend upon times
and circumstances.

§ 7. Upon the accounts of this rule it is very opportune, and
certainly very useful, to enquire concerning the duty of repentance ;
for upon this article the whole question of late or death-bed repent-
ance-will depend, and consequently the eternal felicity or infelicity of
mankind: and therefore I have reason to reckon this to be the
greatest case of conscience in the whole world, and it will appear so
both in the event of the discourse, and in the event of things.

662 OF THE INTEUBnETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

Question I.

§ 8. At what time precisely is every sinner bound to repent of his
sins, so that if he does not repent at that time, he commits a new sin ?

§ 9. To this question of f at what time' the church of Rome
answers, ' at what time soever/ For repentance is as the precept of
baptism and prayers. Neither this day nor to-morrow precisely is it
necessary to be baptized, but sometime or other ; and if we pray half
an hour hence, it is as much obedience as if we fall upon our knees
at the instant of the proclamation. Add to this, that since repent-
ance (besides that it is an affirmative commandment) is also a punitive1
duty, it is generally agreed upon Neminem in conscientia donee con-
demnelur ad pmnam exsolvendam teneri, ' no man is bound to undergo
his punishment, till the instant that the law determines him :' and
therefore when he is required, when the day of humiliation comes,
when there is danger that if it be not now done it will not be done
at all, then let the sinner look to it, then he must repent, it cannot
be any longer put off. This is the doctrine of the Roman schools,
and of some others, which they have pursued to dangerous and
horrid propositions.

§ 10. Scotus and his scholars say a man is bound to repent upon
holidays, as upon Christmas, Whitsuntide, or at Easter to be sure.
But Sotus and Medina very confidently reprove this proposition as
too severe, for this reason, because the church having appointed
many holidays, yet when she explicates the doctrine of repentance,
she did suppose it to be sufficient to compel the sinner to repent
once by the year : and although the end why the festivals are or-
dained is the inward sanctification of the soul, hac tamen non est id
quod per praceptum de observatione festorum injungitur, 'this is not
it which was enjoined by the precept concerning festivals/ saith Regi-
naldusj. ' For the church/ saith he, ' commanded only the means
to this interior holiness ; so that if you do the outward work, it mat-
ters not (as to the precept of the church) whether that end be ac-
quired or no : you disobey the church if you do not hear mass ; but
though you be never the better, so you do but hear mass she does
not find herself grieved/

§ 11. By the way, it is observable that Scotus and the more severe
part of them, which affirm a man to be bound to repent on every
holiday, do not intend to say that by the law of God men are so
bound, but by the law of the church only. Medina and the looser
part deny the church to have determined this affirmative and inde-
finite commandment of repentance to so much severity. But as to
the law of God, they all pronounce a man to be free to repent once
for all ; once he must, but when that once shall be God hath not
set down : and since God left it at the greatest liberty, they do not

' [' primitive' B, C, D.] [n. 22. torn. i. p. 206. ed. fol. Mogunt.

J Vide Reginaldum in praxi fori poeni- 1617.]
tent., lib. v. de contritione, cap. 2. sect. 4.

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CUBIST. G63

believe that the church is so severe as some pretend, neither do they
think it fit she should ; but if they never repent till the article of
death, they prevaricate no command of God. For Vera, atque adeo,
id expressit Navarrus in Encliir. cap. i. n. 31, omnium communis
sententia est, tempus in quo peccator conteri tenetnr (intellige per se,
sen vi specialis pracepti cle contritione a Deo dati) esse imminentem
ardeulum mortis naturalis, vel violenta, so Reginaldusk : ' the true
and common opinion of all men is that the time in which a sinner
is bound to have contrition for his sins (meaning in respect of any
divine commandment) is the article of imminent death, whether
natural or violent/ And in the meantime ' there is no precept com-
manding that a sinner should not persevere in enmity against God :
there is no negative precept forbidding such a perseverance/ Nay
worse, if worse be possible, ' even to resolve to defer our repentance/
velle pcenitentiam differre, nolleque nisi ad aliquod tempus poen iter el,
1 and to refuse to repent till such a day, is but a very little sin/ saith
Sotus ; ' it is none at all/ saith Medina, it is neither an act of im-
penitence nor at all unlawful.

§ 12. These are sad stories to be told and maintained by christian
families, but therefore the more carefully to be looked to, because it
is concerning the sum of affairs, and an error here is worse than an
oversight in a day of battle : for repentance being the remedy for all
the evils of our soul, if the remedy be ordered so as that it come too
late, or deferred till the disease increase to an intolerable and an in-
curable evil, the state of our soul must needs be without remedy ;
and that in our philosophy is equivalent to desperation.

§ 13. But before I reprove these horrid doctrines, which so en-
tirely and without dispute prevail in some churches, I am to say two
things. 1) If God hath left the time of our repentance and return
so wholly without care and provision, though by the doctrine of some
Roman doctors the church hath been more careful of it and more
severe than God himself, yet neither the care of the church, nor the
ordinary provisions and arrests made by God, can ever be sufficient to
cause men to live well in any tolerable degree. For if God binds you
only to repent in the day of your death, or if He to hasten it will
affright you with a popular judgment upon the neighbourhood, all
those that escape the sickness, and all that have but little or no rea-
son to fear it, and all those that can fly from it, shall not repent,
and indeed shall not be tied to it. And if we consider the event
and impressions usually made upon our cities and villages by any
popular judgment, we shall find so very many to be unconcerned,
that if this be the time of repentance, the duty will upon this account
go but slowly forward : very many shall have no need to do it, and
none will do it but they that have ; and if the fear of imminent death
be the only period, we may easily perceive what ill provisions are
made for repentance, when even dying men will hardly believe that

k Lib. v. cap. 2. sect. 4. [n. 23.] i Idem, sect. 3. [n. 21.]

664 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

they shall die yet, but hope for life, till their hopes and powers of
working expire together. But then because it is pretended that the
church hath made better provisions, and tied all men to communicate
at Easter, and consequently to repent by way of preparation to the
holy communion ; I consider that the church can only tie them to
the outward signification of repentance, as confession, and the appen-
dages of that entercourse; and if they omit the inward and more
spiritual and essential part of this great duty, they may for this sin
as well as for all the other repent in the day of death, and that is
sufficient for the performance of the divine commandment. And since
the church requires no more but a periodical and a ritual repentance,
the repentance of a Christian will be like the Persian feast, which
they called vitiorum interitum, ' the destruction of impiety •' upon the
anniversary of which feast they killed all the venemous creatures they
could find, but they let them alone to swarm till that day came again :
and that is the event of these ritual and anniversary repentances ; at
a set time there is a declamation made against sin, and some signifi-
cations of the evil of it expressed, but when the solemnity is over, it
returns in all the material instances ; and there is no help for it in
this doctrine, nor in the customs and usages of those churches that
entertain it. So that this doctrine must be acknowledged as a de-
stroyer of good life : and though I know no artifices of escape from
this that are made use of, yet if there were, we are not to consider
what is talked amongst schoolmen to excuse the objection and to
maintain the faction, but what is really and materially the event of it,
as it is every day observed in the manners of men.

§ 14. 2) The other thing which I was to say is this, that this
doctrine of the Roman schools, which is the common sentence of
them all, cannot be directly confuted, unless we fall upon this propo-
sition, that a man is positively and directly bound to repent of his
sin as soon as ever he hath committed it.

§ 15. For if there be not something in the nature of sin that
must not be retained at all, if there be not much in the anger of God
that must not be endured at all, if there be not obligations to the
service of God that must not be put off at all, if there be not great
regards concerning the love of God without which we must not live
at all, and lastly, if there be not infinite dangers in our life, and that
every putting our repentance off exposes it to the inexcusable danger
of never having it done at all ; then it must follow that repentance
obliges no otherwise than alms, or saying our prayers : it is to be
done in its proper season, and the consequent of that will be, that so
it be done at all we are safe enough if it be done at any time ; and if
you can defer it till to-morrow you may also put it off till the next
day, and so until you die. And there is no avoiding it, as is evident
to all rational and considering persons ; for to-morrow and to-day are
both alike as to the affirmative command, and by God's law we are
not bound to it till the day of our death, if we be not bound to it

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. (5(ij

every day. We must therefore choose our proposition. Does God
give us leave if we have sinned to dwell in it, to forget our danger,
to neglect the wound that putrifies ? Is He pleased that we for whom
He hath given His Son, we whom He hath adopted into His family
and made members of Christ, we to whom He perpetually gives 1 lis
grace, whom He invites by His promises and calls by His preachers
every day, and affrights by His threatenings every hour, and incites
by His spirit, and makes restless by the daily emotions of an unquiet
conscience ; that we whom He every day obliges, and no day neglects
to do something towards our amendment and salvation ; is He, I say,
pleased that we should in despite or contempt of all this abide in His
displeasure, and dwell in that state of evil things, that if on any hour
of so many days, and weeks, and months, and years, we chance to
die, we die again and die for ever? Is this likely? Does God so
little value the services of our life, the vigour of our youth, the wis-
dom of our age, the activity of our health, the employment of our
faculties, the excellency of our dwelling with Him ? Does He so little
estimate the growth in grace, and the repetition of holy acts, the
strength of our habits and the firmness of our love, that He will be
satisfied with an accidental repentance, a repentance that comes by
chance, and is certain in nothing but that it certainly comes too late ?
But if we may not defer our repentance to the last, then we must
not defer it at all, we must not put it off one day : for if one, then
twenty, if twenty, then twenty thousand ; there is no reason against
one but what is against all : but if we may not stay a thousand days,
then not one hour, and that is the thing I shall now contend for.

§ 16. 1) I remember an odd argument used by Beginaldus"1 to
prove that a mau is not bound to be contrite for his sins as soon as
he remembers them, ' because/ says he, ' if he were, then it were but
ill provided by God and the church that preachers should call upon
men to confess their sins, to be sorrowful for them, and utterly to
leave them : for there is no question but such discourses will often
remind us of our sins ; and if we were then tied to repent, and did
sin by not repenting, then such preachings would be the occasion of
many sins, and the law would be an intolerable commandment, and
Christ's yoke not to be endured ; because men do not find it so easy
to repent upon every notice :' so he. But this consideration turned
with the right end forwards is an excellent argument to enforce the
duty which I am now pressing of, a present actual repentance. For
does God send preachers who every day call upon us to repent, and
does not God intend we should repent on that day He calls to do it?
Do the prophets and preachers of righteousness bid us repent next
year ? Have they commission to say, it were well and convenient if
you would repent to-day ; but you do not sin if you stay till next
year, or till you are old, or till you die? To what purpose, then, do
they preach? Does not God require our obedience? Do we not

m Ubi supra, sect. 3. [n. 19. p. 2Uti.]

666 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

sin if the preachers say well and right, and we do it not ? Is there
any one minute, any one day, in which we may innocently stay from
the service of God ? Let us think of that. Every day on which a
sinner defers his repentance, on that day he refuses to be God's ser-
vant ; and if God does command his service every day, then he every
day sins on which he refuses. For unless God gives him leave to
stay away, his very staying away is as much a sin as his going away,
that is, his not repenting is a new sin.

§ 17. And if byway of objection it be enquired by what measures
or rules of multiplication shall such sins be numbered ; whether by
every day, and why not by every night, or why not by every hour, or
every half hour ; I answer, that the question is captious and of no
real use, but to serve instead of a temptation. But the answer is
this, a) that the sin of not repenting increases by intension of de-
grees, as the perpetuity of an act of hatred against God. He that
continues a whole day in such actual hostility and defiance increases
his sin perpetually, not by the measures of wine and oil, or the strokes
of the clock, but by spiritual and intentional measures ; he still more
and more provokes God, and in the eternal scrutiny God will fit him
with numbers and measures of a proportionable judgment. j3) The
sin of not repenting is also multiplied by extension ; for every time
a man does positively refuse to repent, every time a man is called
upon or thinks of his duty and will not do it, every such negative is
a new sin, and a multiplication of his scores : and it may happen
that every day that may become twenty sins, and in a short time rise
to an intolerable height.

§ 18. 2) He that remembers he hath committed a sin, either re-
members it with joy or with displeasure. If with displeasure, it is
an act of repentance, if with joy, it is a new sin ; or if it be with
neither, the man does not consider at all. But if it abides there,
the sin will be apt to repeat its own pleasures to the memory, to act
them in the fancy, and so endear them to the heart : and it is certain
that all active considerations declare on one side or other, either for
the sin or against it; and the devil is not so backward at tempting,
and the pleasure of the sin is not so unactive, but if ever it be
thought upon without sorrow, it cannot easily be thought upon
without some actual or potential delight : and therefore he that
repents not, does sin anew. He that hath stolen is bound presently
to restore if he can, and when it is in our hand it must also be in
our heart to restore, and the evil must not be suffered so much as
for an hour to dwell upon the injured person : so it is in the restitu-
tion of our hearts and our affections to God, there is an injustice
done to God all the way by our detaining of His rights, the injury is
upon Him, He complains that we will not come in, and is delighted if
we come speedily. Restitution therefore must be made presently;
and for the satisfaction and amends for the wrong besides, God may
longer expect, even till the day of its proper period.

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 007

§ 19. 3) Does not God every day send something of His grace
upon us ? does He not always knock at the door of our hearts, as
long as the day of salvation lasts ? does not He send His spirit to
invite, His arguments to persuade, and His mercies to endear us ?
would He have any thing of this lost ? is it not a sin once to re-
sist the holy Spirit? and he that remembers his sin, and knows it
is an offence against God, and yet does not repent at that thought
and that knowledge, does not he resist the holy Spirit of God, so
moving, so acting, so insinuating? is not every good sermon a part
of the grace of God? Qui monet, quasi adjuvat, says the comedy",
' he that counsels you, helps you ;' and can it be imagined that he
that resists the grace of God twenty years is not a greater villain
than he that stood against it but twenty months, and so on to twenty
days and twenty hours ? Peccatorem tanto sequitur districtior sen-
tentla quanto peccanti ei magna est patientia prorogata ; et div'nia
severitas eo iniquum acrius punit, quo diutius pertidit, saith S. Gre-
gory : ' the longer God hath expected our repentance, the more
angry He is if we do not repent ;' now God's anger would not in-
crease if our sin did not. But I consider, must not a man repent
of his resisting God's grace, of his refusing to hear, of his not attend-
ing, of his neglecting the means of salvation? and why all this,
but that every delay is a quenching of the light of God's spirit, and
every such quenching cannot be innocent ? and what can be ex-
pounded to be a contempt of God, if this be not ; that when God
by His preventing, His exciting, His encouraging, His assisting
grace invites us to repentance, we nevertheless refuse to mourn for
our sins and to repent? This is the very argument which the Spirit
of God himself uses, and therefore is not capable of reproof or con-
futation. " Because I have called and ye refused, I have stretched
out My hand and no man regarded : but ye have set at nought all
My counsel, and would none of My reproof; I will also laugh at your
calamity, and mock when your fear cometh0." Is not therefore
every call to be regarded ? and consequently is not every refusing
criminal? and does not God call every day ? Put these things toge-
ther, and the natural consequent of them is this, that he who sins
and does not repent speedily, does at least sin twice, and every day
of delay is a further provocation of the wrath of God. To this pur-
pose are those excellent words of S. Paulp, " Despisest thou the
riches of His goodness and forbearance and long-suffering, not know-
ing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?" That is,
every action of God's loving-kindness and forbearance of thee is an
argument for, and an exhortation to repentance ; and the not making
use of it is called by the apostle ' a despising of His goodness ;' and
the not repenting is on every day of delay ' a treasuring up of
wraths :'

" Curculio. [net. iii. 89.] p [Rom. ii. 4.]

0 [Prov. i. 24.] ■" [ver. 4, 5.]

668 OP THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

Afya yap iv KaK6rr]TL fipoTo] KarayripdffKovffi T,

' Men wax old' and grow gray f in their iniquity/ while they think
every day too short for their sin, and too soon for their repentance.
But (if I may have leave to complain) it is a sad thing to see a man
who is well instructed in religion, able to give counsel to others, wise
enough to conduct the affairs of his family, sober in his resolution
concerning the things of this world, to see such a person come to
church every festival, and hear the perpetual sermons of the gospel,
the clamours of God's holy Spirit, the continual noise of Aaron's
bells ringing in his ears, a man that knows the danger of a sinner if
lie dies without pardon, that the wrath of God cannot be endured,
and yet that without a timely and sufficient repentance it cannot be
avoided ; to see such a man day after day sin against God, enter into
all temptations, and fall under every one, and never think of his re-
pentance, but unalterably resolve to venture for it, and for the accept-
ance of it at the last : for it is a venture whether lie shall repent ;
and if he does, it is yet a greater venture whether that repentance
shall be accepted, because without all peradventure in that case it
can never be perfected. But the evil of this will further appear in
the next argument.

§ 20. 4) He that does not repent presently, as soon as he remem-
bers and considers that he hath sinned, does certainly sin in that very
procrastination, because he certainly exposes himself to a certain and
unavoidable danger of committing other and new sins. And there-
fore I cannot but wonder at the asserters of the opposite doctrine,
who observe this danger, and signify it publicly, and yet condemn
such persons of imprudence only but not of sin. The words of Rcgi-
nalduss, and according to the sense of Navarre, are these, Ad quod
tamen tempus poznitentiam dijferre esse salutem anim-ee in magnum
discrimen adducere, patet per illud quod ex D. Augustino refertur in
cap. 'Si quis :' et cap.jinali, de pceniten. dist. 7. dubiam esse salutem
ittorum quos non ante sed post agritudmem pamitel. Ratio vero esse
potest quod in eo eernatur interpretativus contemptus Bel, qui sapius
per gratias prcevenientes illos excitat ac movet resipisceniiam, agen-
damque pcenitentiam, conterendumve de suis peccatis : nihilominus non
cvrant atque negligunt : 'he that defers his repentance brings his
soul into manifest and great danger, according to the doctrine of
S. Austin ; for it is an interpretative contempt of God, who often
excites them by His preventing graces to repent and to do penance,
and to be contrite for their sins, but they neglect it and care not/
Now since thus much is observed and acknowledged, it is a strange
violence to reason and to religion that it should not also be confessed
to be the design and intention of God, His will and pleasure, the
purpose of His grace and the economy of heaven, the work of His

r [Horn, culys?., t. 360.]

s Lib. v. prax. fori pcenit., cap. 2. sect. 4, n. 23. [p. 206.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 609

spirit and the meaning and interpretation of His commandment, that
we should repent presently. Tor when the question is concerning
the sense and limit of an indefinite commandment, what can be ;i
better commentary to the law than the actions of God himself? for
He understands His own meaning best, and certainly by these things
He hath very competently and sufficiently declared it.

§ 21. If it be objected that these actions of the divine grace are
not sufficient to declare it to be a sin not to do it, whenever the
grace of God prompts us to repent, because we find that the Spirit
of God does use rare arts to invite us forward to such degrees of per-
fection and excellency, to which whoever arrives shall be greatly re-
warded, but if a man falls short he does not sin ; I reply, that the
case is not the same in the matter of counsel and in the matter of
a commandment : for when the question is concerning the sense and
signification, the definition and limit of that which is acknowledged
to be a commandment, the actions of the divine grace signifying
God's pleasure and meaning do wholly relate to the commandment;
when the thing is only matter of counsel, then the actions of the di-
vine grace relate to that, and are to be expounded accordingly. But
thus they are alike; that as God by His arguments and inducements,
His assistances and aids, declares that to do the thing He counsels
would be very pleasing to Him, so they declare that what He com-
mands is to be done, that He intends the commandment then to
bind, that whenever the one is good the other is necessary. But His
pleasure which He signifies concerning a counsel does not mean like
His pleasure concerning a commandment; but every thing according
to the nature of the subject-matter : for God having left the one
under choice, and bound the other by a law, whatever signification
of the mind of God comes after this must be relative to what He hath
before established, and does not now alter, but only expound now
what His meaning was before. Since, therefore, the question here is
to what precise time we are obliged in the precept of repentance,
nothing is more reasonable than to conclude that then God intended
we should keep the precept, when He enables us, and exhorts and
calls upon us to do it, which because He by His grace and holy
Spirit does every day, this declaration of God is the best commentary
upon His commandment.

§22. But to return to the first purpose of this argument. He
that knows he hath sinned, and will not kill it by repentance, leaves
the affections to sin remaining; an aptness to be tempted, a relation
to the devil, a captivity to lust, and an impotency under his passion.
For if sin be a cursed serpent, if it leaves any venom upon the spirit
of the man, if by committing sin we are more apt to commit it still ;
he that hath sinned, and when he remembers it does not repent,
keeps himself in the dispositions to sin, he dwells in the temptation
and the neighbourhood : and because every thing that invites and
directly tends to sin is symbolical and of the same nature, the retain-

670 OE THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

ing of that very aptness by not repenting the old, must needs be a
progression and going on in sin, and therefore a new sin by inter-
pretation.

§ 23. And if we consider but the sad circumstances of those per-
sons who wax old in carelessness and contempt of duty, how dead
their spirit is, how every day they grow more unwilling to repent,
how habitual their persuasions are in the behalf of sin, how accident-
ally hard they grow ; and by perceiving so long an impunity, and that
things remain as they were twenty years ago, and that though they
sinned then, yet they are well still, and all the affrightments of the
preacher's sermons are but loud noises and harmless thunder, they
grow confident and still more careless ; we shall find that their spirit
is in declension1, and is continually and still further distant from the
friendship of God. So sometimes we see a healthful body by the dis-
orders of one intemperate meeting fallen into the beginnings of a
sickness. The man it may be does so no more ; but feeling his sick-
ness tolerable, and under the command of reason, he refuses to take
physic, and to throw out the evil principle which begins to ferment
in the disordered body : but nature being disturbed and lessened in
her proper vigour, goes on in her usual methods as well as she can ;
she goes forward, but she carries a load, which in a long progression
grows intolerable, not by its own weight, but by the diminution of
nature's strengths. But when the evil is grown great, the physician
is called for, who, espying the evil state of things, is forced to reply,
it is now very late, for nature is weak and the disease is strong. I
shall do what art can minister, but I fear that nature is incapable of
relief. So it is in the soul ; the very deferring of taking physic is an
increasing of the disease. For every sin is ulcus, cAkos airb tov eA/ceiv,
it is an ' ulcer/ and ' draws' all the humours thither for its increase
and nourishment : and that which is sore will swell, and all the waters
Mill run to the hole in the bank, and every finger to the wound that
smarts, and every eye to the thing we fear : and therefore it hath
been observed by the wise guides of souls, that those persons who
defer their repentance to their old age, their repentance comes off the
harder, their penitential actions are the worse, their zeal colder, their
care more indifferent, their religion less, their fears are trifling, their
love stark and cold, their confessions formal and imperfect, every
thing amiss, nothing right : but no repentance can be that which
God intends unless it begins betimes.

Vidi ego quod fuerat primo sanabile vulnus
Dilatum longae damna tulisse moraeu.

Any one disease if let alone, though there be no new sickness super-
vening, grows mortal by mere delay, and incurable for want of timely
remedy.

§ 24. 5) Let us consider upon what account any man can defer

1 ['delusion' B, C, D.] ■ Ovid, [remed. amor. 101.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 671

his repentance and yet be innocent. It must either be because he
loves his sin, or because he loves not God ; because he either despises
the divine justice, or presumes upon His mercy; because he hath
evil principles, or because he will not obey those which are good.
It is positive impenitence, or it is privative ; it is hardness of heart,
or it is effeminacy of life ; it is want of fear, or want of love : and
whatsoever can come from any of these causes or beginnings can
never be innocent. And therefore S. Ambrose his question was a
good caution and a severe reproof. Quid euim est quod d'rfferas ? an
ut plura peccata coiumittas ? 'why do you defer your rejoentance ? is
it because you would commit more sins ?' That's most likely.

Sed quia delectat Veneris decerpere fructus,

Dicimus assidue, eras qnoque fiet idem.
Interea tacitte serpunt in viscera flammae,

Et mala radices altius arbor agitv.

He that says he will not repent of his lust to-day, says in effect that
he means to act it again to-morrow ; for why else should he put his
repentance further off?

Quid juvat in longum causas producere moibi ?
Cur dubium expectat eras hodierna salus"?

If you really intend your cure, it is better to begin to-day than to-
morrow : and why should any man desire to be sick one day longer?
Whatever can be in it, it is a disease and a very sickness of itself ;
there can be no good excuse pretended for it. For if carelessness,
if the neglect of holy things can ruin us (as certainly a man may die
with hunger as surely as by gluttony, by not eating at all as well as
by eating too much, by omission as well as by commission,) it will
follow that the not repenting is fatal and damnable, because every
delay is a not-repenting till that delay be gone.

§ 25. 6) The scripture does every where call upon us for a speedy
repentance. For God that commands us to pray every day, conse-
quently commands us to repent every day. This argument ought to
prevail even upon the adversaries' account : for Navarrex confesses,
Extra tempus articuli mortis dantur casus in quibus peccator conteri
tenetur per aliud, sive ex vi alicujus pracepti quod peccator ipse
transgreditur, aliquid agens non contritus. When there is any dis-
tinct precept obliging to a duty which cannot be done by him that
is not penitent, he that directly obliges to that other duty, does in-
directly and consequently at that very time oblige to repentance.
Thus when the church obliges a priest to consecrate and communi-
cate, because he who does so without repentance commits a deadly
sin, the church accidentally ties him at that time to repent. From
these premises I assume, that since God obliges us every day to pray,

* [Ovid. ibid. 103.] x Apud Reginald, ubi supra, [sect, 4.

w [Prosper, epigr. lxxii. in max. bibl. n. 24. p. 206.]
vet. patr.j torn. viii. p. 1)4 C]

672

OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

He also obliges us to do that without which we cannot pray as God
intends we should ; that is, to throw away all our affection to sin, to
repent of it and to forsake it. For " the prayer of a wicked man is
an abomination to the Lord," said Solomon y; and "we know that
God heareth not sinners," said he in the gospel, that is, those who
having sinned have not yet repented,

Infelix infelicior ut sit,

being unhappy in their hasty sin, but more unhappy in their slow
repentance : but it is the prayer of the repenting man which God
will hear ; and therefore our blessed Saviour z commanding us to pray
and teaching us how, enjoins us that we every day pray for the for-
giveness of our trespasses ; as for our daily bread, so for our daily
pardon : Panem nostrum da nobis hodie, ' Give us this day' our pro-
portion of ' bread / and therefore also this day give us pardon ; for
we must return to-day : hodie for bread, and hodie for forgiveness
and amendment. So the psalmist3, and so the apostleb in his words,
" To-day hear His voice and harden not your hearts •" not only ex-
pressly commanding us not to defer our repentance one day, but
plainly enough affirming that every such delay is an act of hardness
of heart and obduration, and therefore a new sin superadded to the
old. For although in nature and logic time consignifies, that is, it
does the work of accidents and appendages and circumstances, yet in
theology it signifies and effects too ; time may signify a substantial
duty, and effect a material pardon : but of all the parts of time we
are principally concerned in the present. But it is remarkable that
though hodie, ' to-day/ signifies the present time, yet the repentance
which began yesterday, which took an earlier hodie, is better than
that which begins to-day : but that which stays till to-morrow is the
worst of all.

Hie sapit quisquis, Posthume, visit heric.

For heri and hodie, ' yesterday' and ' to-day/ signifies ' eternity / so
it is said of Christ d, 'yesterday and to-day, the same for ever/ But
hodie and eras, ' to-day' and ' to-morrow/ signifies but ' a little
while/ " To-day and to-morrow I work," said Christe, that is, I
work a little while ; and " the third day," that is, very shortly or
quickly, " I shall make an end." That repentance is likely to pre-
vail to a happy eternity which was yesterday and to-day, but if it be
deferred till to-morrow, it begins late and will not last so long. To this
purpose excellent are those words of Ben-Sirachf, " Make no tarry-
ing to turn unto the Lord, and put not off from day to day : for
suddenly shall the wrath of the Lord come forth, and in thy security
thou shalt be destroyed." Meaning that every day of thy life may

y [Prov. xxviii. 9.]

2 [John ix. 31.]

a [Psalm xcv. 7.]

b [llebr. iii. 7, 15 ;

iv. 7.]

c [Mart., lib. v. epigr.
* [Hebr. xiii. 8.]

[Luke xiii. 32, 3.]
f [Eccius. v. 7.]

59.]

CHAP. TIT.] OP THE LAWS OF JRSUS CHRIST. 678

be the day of thy death, therefore take heed, and "defer not until
death to be justified," for God oftentimes smites sinners in their con-
fidence ; He strikes them in their security, in their very delay they are
surprised, in their procrastination they shall lose their hopes, and
the benefit and usefulness of to-morrow. For what is vain man that
he should resolve not to repent till easter ? It may be at that very
time he so resolves there is an impostume in his head or breast, or
there is a popular disease abroad that kills in three days, or to-mor-
row's dinner shall cause a surfeit, or that night's drinking shall in-
flame his blood into a fever, or he is to ride a journey the next day
and he shall fall from his horse and die, or a tile in the street shall
dash his brains out ; and no man can reckon all the possibilities of
his dying suddenly, nor the probabilities that his life will end very
quickly. This question therefore may be determined without the
intrigues of disputation. Let a man but believe that he is mortal,
let him but confess himself to be a man, and subject to chance, and
there is no more required of him in this article, but the consequence
of that confession. Nemo Deo credens non se sub verbis ejus corrigit
nisi qui diu se putat esse victurum, saith S. Austin, ' whosoever be-
lieves in God will presently amend his life at the command of God,
unless he thinks he shall live long/ But what if a man should live
long ? is it so intolerable a thing to live virtuously when we are to
live long, that the hopes of life shall serve to no other end but that
sin may be continued and repeated, and repentance may be delayed ?
That's the worst conclusion in the world from such premises. But
however, he that considers that so many men and women die young,
will have but little reason to conclude to so evil and dangerous pur-
poses from so weak and contingent principles. When Theramenesg
came out from his friend's house the roof and walls immediately fell
down. The Athenians espying the circumstances of that safety,
flocked about him, congratuledh his escape, and cried him up as a
man dear unto the gods for his so strange deliverance from the ruin.
But he wisely answered, Nescitis, viri, ad quce tempora et pericula
Jupiter me servare voluerit, fye know not, O Athenians, to what
evils I am reserved.' He said true, for he that had escaped the fall
of a house in Athens, was in a little while condemned by the epkori
of Sparta to drink the cold and deadly hemlock ; he passed but from
one opportunity of death unto another.

OuK iffTl Qv7\T<tlV <5<TTIS i£(Trt<TTaTCU

TV aijpwv fxeWovcrav ei fiiuaeTat K

No man can tell whether he shall live to-morrow, and to put off
our repentance, when it may be there is at the very instant the
earnest of death in thy heart or bowels, a stone ready formed, har-

8 [Plut. consol. ad Apollon., torn. vi. h ['congratulated' B.]

p. 398.] j Eurip. [Alcest. 799.]

IX. X X

(574 01' THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

dened and ripe in the kidneys, and will before to-morrow morning
drop into the bladder :

Mors latet in mediis abdita visceribus,

' Death is already placed in the stomach/ or is gone into the belly ;
then, that is, in any case, to defer repentance, is a great folly and a
great un charitableness, and a contempt of all the divine relations
concerning heaven and hell. Mr/ irlareve XP°V(?> °f an things in the
world, ' do not trust to time/

Obrepit non intellecta senectus ;

Nee revocare potes qui periere diesj.

In time there is nothing certain, but that a great part of our life
slips away without observation, and that which is gone shall never
come again. These things although they are dressed like the argu-
ments of orators, yet they do materially and logically conclude, that
if to be uncharitable be a sin, he that defers his repentance in so un-
certain a life and so certainly approaching death, must needs be a
very great sinner upon that account, because he does not love him-
self, and therefore loves nobody, but abides without charity. But
our blessed Saviour hath drawn this caution into a direct precept,
" Agree with thine adversary Ta^v, quickly." The hope of eternity
which now is in thy hand may else be lost for ever, and drop
through thy fingers before to-morrow morning. Quanto miser in
periculo versaberis, quamque inopinati rerum casus te abripient k /
* miserable man, thou art in extreme danger, and unlooked for acci-
dents may end thy talkings of repentance and make it impossible for
ever/ A man is subject to infinite numbers of chances, and there-
fore that we may not rely upon the future or make delays, let us
make use of this argument, "Whatsoever comes by chance comes upon
the sudden.

§ 26. But because this discourse is upon the grounds of scripture,
it is of great force what was by the Spirit of God threatened to the
angel of the church of Ephesus x ; " Repent, for I will come unto
thee quickly, and remove the candlestick out of its place, unless thou
dost repent •" that is, unless thou repent quickly, I will come
quickly. Who knows how soon that may be to any man of us all :
and therefore it is great prudence, and duty, and charity, to take
care that His coming to us do not prevent our return to Him ; which
thing can never be secured but by a present repentance. And if it
be considered that many persons as good as we, as wise, as confident,
as full of health, and as likely to live, have been snatched away when
they least did think of it, with a death so sudden, that the deferring
their repentance one day hath been their undoing for ever ; that if
they had repented heartily, and chosen a good life clearly and re-

3 Auson. [epigr. xiii. 3.] xl. § 14. torn. i. p. 700 E.]

k S. Greg. Naz. in sanct. bapt. [orat. ' [Rev. ii. 5.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 675

solvedly upon the day before their sudden arrest, it would have
looked like a design of grace and of election, and have rendered
their condition hopeful; we shall find it very necessary that we do
not at all defer our return, for this reason, because one hour's stay
may not only by interpretation, but also in the real event of things,
prove to be that which S. Austin m called the sin against the Holy
Ghost, that is, final impenitence. For as he that dies young, dies
as much as he that dies after a life of fourscore years ; so is that
impenitence final under which a man is arrested under the infancy of
his crime, as much as if after twenty years' grace and expectation, the
man be snatched from hence to die eternally. The evil is not so
great, and the judgment is not so heavy, but as fatal and as irre-
versible as the decree of damnation upon the falling angels.

§ 27. 7) When we see a man do amiss we reprove him presently,
we call him off from it at the very time, and every good man would
fain have his unhappy friend or relative leave in the midst of his sin,
and be sorry that he went so far; and if he have finished his sin,
we require of him instantly to hate it, and ask pardon. This is upon
the same account that God does it, because to continue in it can be
for no good, to return instantly hath great advantages; to abide
there is danger and a state of evil, to choose to abide there is an act
of love to that evii state, and consequently a direct sin ; and not to
repent when we are admonished is a choosing to abide there ; and
whenever we remember, and know and consider we have sinned, we
are admonished by God's Spirit and the principles of grace and of a
holy religion. So that from first to last it follows certainly that
without a new sin we cannot remember that we have sinned, unless
then also we do repent : and our aptness to call upon others to do
so is a great conviction that every man is obliged in his own parti-
cular to do so.

" AiravTis eVyuei/ ell rb vovOgtziv ffocpoi'
Aiirul 5' afxaprdi/ovres oil yiyfuxrKOfx.ev a.

Since we are all wise enough to give good counsel, it will re-
proach us if we are not conducted by the consequences of our own
wise advices. It was long first, but at last S. Austin fell upon this
way; nothing could end his questions, or give rest unto his con-
science, or life to his resolutions, or satisfaction to his reason, or de-
finition to his uncertain thoughts, or a conclusion to his sin, but to
understand the precept of repentance to oblige in the very present,
and at no time else. Differens dicebam modo, ecce modo, sine pau-
lulum : sed modo et modo turn liabebal modum0. He would anon, and
he would next week, and he would against the next communion ;
but there was no end of this : and when he saw it, sa.bjieo slravi me
Jlens, quamdiu quamdiu, eras et eras ? qiiare non modo ? quare ?ion

w [See the passages cited by Bingham, tit. xxiii. 5.]
book xvi. chap. 7. § 3.] °. [Confess., lib. viii. cap. 5. torn. i.

n Mcnand. [Eurip. apud Stob. floril., col. 149 E.]

x x 2

G76 OP THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [ROOK II.

hachora fin-is turpitudinis mea? ? 'I wept and said, how long shall
I say to-morrow ? Why shall I not now by present repentance put
an end to my crimes ?' If not now, if not till to-morrow, still there
is the same reason for every time of your health, in which you can
say to-morrow. There is enough to determine us to-day, but
nothing that can determine us to-morrow. If it be not necessary
now, it is not necessary then, and never can be necessary till it be
likely there will be no morrow morning to our life. I conclude this
argument in the words of the Latin anthology q,

Converti ad rectos mores et vivere sancte
In Christo meditans, quod cupit acceleret.

He that would live well and be Christ's servant must make haste,
and instantly act what he knows he ought always to purpose, and
more. To which purpose S. Eucheriusr gives this advice, which at
first will seem strange : ' Propound to yourself the example of the
thief upon the cross, do as he did/ Yes, we are too ready to do so,
that is, to defer our repentance to the last, being encouraged by his
example and success. No : we do not as he did, that is a great mis-
take. It is much to be wished that we would do as he did in his
repentance. How so ? S. Eucherius thus resolves the riddle, Ad
consequendum fidem non fuit extrema ilia hora, sed prima. He did
not defer his repentance and his faith unto the last ; but in the very
first hour in which he knew Christ, in that very instant he did
believe and was really converted ; he confessed Christ gloriously,
and repented of his sins without hypocrisy : and if we do so too, this
question is at an end, and our repentance shall never be reproved.

§ 28. 8) He that hath sinned, and remembers that he hath sinned,
and does not repent, does all that while abide in the wrath of God :
God hates him in every minute of his delay. And can it consist
with any christian grace, with faith, or hope, or charity, with pru-
dence or piety, with the love of God, or the love of ourselves, to
outstand the shock of thunder, to outface the cannon, to dare the
divine anger, and to be careless and indifferent, though he be hated
by the fountain of love and goodness, to stand excommunicate from
heaven ? All this is beside the sin which he committed ; all this is
the evil of his not repenting presently. Can a man consider that
God hates him, and care not though He does, and yet be innocent ?
And if he does care, and yet will not remedy it, does not he then
plainly despair, or despise it presumptuously ? and can he that does
so be innocent ? When the little boy of Xylander saw a company
of thieves robbing his father's house, and carry away the rich
vessels and ten Attic talents, he smiled and whipped his top. But
when a child who was in their company stole his top from him, he
cried out and raised the neighbourhood.

p [Ibid., cap. 12. col. 156 A.] r [Al. Eusebms Gallicanus, in hom.

q [Prosper, epigr. lxxii. in max. bibl. de latrone beato.— Max. bibl. vet. patr.,
vet. patr., torn. viii. p. 94 C] torn. vi. p. 645 E.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OK JESUS CHRIST. 677

Sic sunt qui ridcnt, nee cessant ludere, ssevus
Cum Satanas ill is non peritura rapit*.

So is he that plays on and is merry when his soul is in the pos-
session of the devil: for so is every soul that hath sinned and hath
not repented ; he would not be so patient in the loss of his money,
he would not trust his gold one hour in the possession of thieves,
nor venture himself two minutes in a lion's power ; but for his soul
he cares not, though it stay months and years in a danger so great
as would distract all the wits of mankind, if they could understand it
perfectly as it is.

§ 29. 9) If there were nothing else, but that so long as Ids sin is
unrepented of, the man is in an unthriving condition, he cannot
entertain God's grace, he cannot hope for pardon, he cannot give
God thanks for any spiritual blessing, he cannot love His word, he
must not come to the holy sacrament; if (I say) there were nothing .
else in it but the mere wanting of those excellencies which were pro-
vided for him, it were an intolerable evil for a man to be so long in
the dark without fire or food, without health or holiness ; but when
he is all that while the object of the divine anger, and the right-aim-
ing thunderbolts* are directed against his heart from the bow in the
clouds, what madness and what impiety must it needs be to abide in
this state of evil without fear and without love !

§ 30. 10) The advice of S. Paulu in the instance of anger hath
something in it very pertinent to this article, " Let not the sun go
down upon your wrath;" that is, do not sleep till you have laid
aside your evil thoughts; for many have quietly slept in sin, who
with horror and amazement have awaked in hell. But S. Paul's in-
stance of anger is very material, and hath in it this consideration,
that there are some principiant and mother sins, pregnant with mis-
chief, of a progressive nature, such sins which if they be let alone
will of themselves do mischief; if they be not killed they will strike;
like as quicksilver, unless it be allayed with fasting spittle, or some
other excellent art, can never fix : now of these sins there is no
question but a man is bound instantly to repent, and there is no
season for these, but all times are alike, and the first is duty. Now
how many are thus is not easily told ; but it is easily told that all
are so of their own nature, or may be so by the divine judgment,
and therefore none of them are to be let alone at all.

§ 31. 11) The words of S.Austin which he intended for exhorta-
tion are also argumentative in this question, Hodiernum /tubes in quo
corrigarls, 'you have this day for your repentance/ To-morrow you
have not, For God did not command him that lived in the time of
Samuel to repent in the days of Moses; that was long before him,
and therefore was not his time: neither did he command that Ma-
nasses should repent in the days of the Asmonai j they lived long

' [AnthoL sacr. Jac. Billii, n. M. (e [Wisd. v. 21.]

Chrysostomo.) p. 1,57. ed. 8vo. Par. 1575.] " [ Ephes. iv 26. !

678 011 THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

after him, and therefore that could not be his time, or day of re-
pentance. Every one hath a day of his own. But when we con-
sider that God hath commanded us to repent, and yet hath given us
no time but the present, we shall perceive evidently that there is no
time but the present in which He intended we should obey Him.
Against this there can be no objection ; for it is so in all other pre-
cepts whatsoever, unless there be something in the nature of the ac-
tion that is determinable by circumstances and particularities : but in
this there is nothing of relation to time and place ; it may be done
at any time, and is of an absolute, irrespective nature, of universal
influence, and of absolute necessity : and God could no more intend
to-morrow to be the proper season of repentance than He could in-
tend the five-and-twentieth olympiad to be your day for it ; for the
commandment is present, and to-morrow is not present, and there-
fore unless we can suppose a commandment, and no time given us
with the commandment for the performing it, we must suppose the
present only to be it. If to-morrow does come, then when it is pre-
sent it is also the time of your repentance. By which it is infallibly
certain, and must be confessed so by all wise and rational persons
. that know the consequences of things and the persuasion of propo-
sitions, that God in every present commands us to repent ; and there-
fore in every present in which we remember our sin and repent not,
we offend God, we prevaricate His intentions, we sin against His
mercies, and against His judgments, and against His command-
ments. I end this with the plain advice of Alcimus Avitus s ;

Dum patulam cunctis Christi dementia sese
Prasbet, praeteritae plangamus crimina vitae ;
Poeniteatque olim negligenter temporis acti,
Dum licet, et sano ingenioque animoque valemus.

In which words besides the good counsel this argument is insinuated,
that because we must repent even of the days of our negligence, and
be sorry for all our mis-spent time, and weep for having stayed so
long from God, it follows that the very deferring of our repentance,
our very neglecting of it is a direct sin, and increases the causes of
repentance ; and therefore makes it the more necessary to begin the
sooner, by how much we have stayed the longer.

Question II.

§ 32. As an appendage to this great case of conscience, it is an
useful enquiry to ask, whether a man is bound to repent, not only
the first time, but every time that he thinks of his sin.

§ 33. I answer that he is ; but to several purposes, and in differ-
ing measures and significations. If he hath never repented, then
upon the former accounts, every remembrance of his sin is a specifi-
cation and limit to the indefinite and affirmative commandment ; and
the second thought of it, because the first not being attended to hath

s [lib. v. cap. 30. 23. J

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 679

increased the score, and the time being so much the more spent,
hath increased the necessity and the haste ; and if the second be
neglected, then the third still calls louder; and every succeeding
thought does not only point us out the opportunity, and the still
proceeding season of doing it, but it upbraids every preceding neg-
lect, and presses the duty stronger by a bigger weight of the saint;
growing arguments. Tor no man is safe but he that repents at least
to-day, but he was wise that repented yesterday. And as it is in
human entercourse, he that hath done wrong, and runs presently to
confess it, and offer amends, shall have easier terms of peace than he
that stands out at law, and comes not in till he be compelled ; so it
is in our returns to God : the speedy penitent shall find a ready and
a prepared mercy, but he that stays longer will find it harder, and if
he stays to the last, it may be not at all. But then if we have re-
pented at the first monition or memory of sin, we must never any
more be at peace with it : it will perpetually make claim, it will
every day solicit, it will break into a flame upon the breath of every
temptation, it will betray thy weakness and abuse thy credulity, it
will please thy fancy and abuse thy understanding, it will make thee
sin again as formerly, or desire to sin, to fall willingly, or very hardly
to stand ; and after all, if thou hast sinned thou art under a sad
sentence, and canst not tell when thou shalt have a certain peace.
So that whenever thou thinkest of thy sin thou hast reason to be
displeased, for thou art always the worse for it ; always in danger, or
always uncertain : thou hast always something to do, or something
to undo; something to pray for, and many things to pray against.
But the particular causes of a perpetual repentance for our past sins
are reducible to these two.

§ 34. 1) Whenever we have sinned, and fallen into the divine
displeasure, we dwell for ever after in the dark : we are sure we have
sinned, and God's anger is plainly revealed against sinners : but we
know not how far this anger will extend, nor when it will break out,
nor by what expressions it shall be signified, nor when it will go off,
nor at what degree of sorrow God will be appeased, nor how much
industry shall be accepted, nor how many actions of infirmity shall
be allowed ; nothing of this is revealed. But we arc commanded to
do an indefinite duty, we are to have an unlimited watchfulness, we
are called upon to have a perpetual caution, a duty that hath no
limit, but all our time and all our possibilities ; and all the fruit of
this is growing in the paradise of God, and we shall not taste it till
the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God. In the
mean time we labour and fear, we fear and hope, we hope and are
uncertain, we pray and cannot see what will be the event of things.
Sometimes we are confident ; but that pertness comes it may be from
the temper of the body, and we cannot easily be sure that it comes
from God : and when we are cast down, it may be it is nothing but
an effect of the spleen, or of some hypochondriacal propositions, or

680 OE THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

some peevish company, and all is well with us, better than we think
it is ; but we are under the cloud, and, which is worst of all, we
have always but too much reason to fear, and consequently to be
grieved for the causes of all this darkness, and all this fear, and all
this danger.

§ 35. 2) Besides all this, our sin is so long in dying, and we kill
it with such lingering circumstances, and reprieve it so often, and it
is often laid only aside until the day of temptation, and our repent-
ance is so frequently interrupted, or made good for nothing, and even
in our weepings for sin we commit folly, that a man can never tell
when he hath done, and when he is to begin again. For these rea-
sons we find it very necessary to hate our sin perpetually, and for
ever to deplore our calamity in the divine displeasure, to remember
it with sorrow, and to strive against it with diligence. Our sins
having made so great an alteration in our persons, and in the state
of our affairs, we cannot be so little concerned as to think of them
with indifference; a sigh at least or a tear will well become every
thought ; a prayer for pardon, or an act of indignation against them ;
a Domine miserere, or a Me miserum peccatorem ! ' Have mercy
upon me, O God/ or ' Miserable man that I am !' something of
hope, or something of fear. Own it but as a cause of sorrow or an
instance of thy danger, let it make thee more zealous or more patient,
troubled at what is past, or cautious for the time to come : and if at
every thought of thy sin it be not easy to do a positive act of repent-
ance, yet the actions must be so frequent that the repentance be habi-
tual, ever in preparation, and ever apt for action ; seeking occasions
of doing good, and omitting none ; praying and watching against all
evil, and committing none. At this rate of repentance a man must
always live, and in God's time expect a freedom from sin, and a con-
firmation in grace. But then as to the main issue of the question ;

§ 80. It is not intended that a man should every time weep when
he thinks of his sins ; sometimes he must give thanks to God for his
escape, and rejoice in the memory of the divine mercies, and please
himself in the promises of pardon, and do acts of eucharist and holy
festivity. But even these acts of spiritual joy, if they endear our
duty, they destroy our sin ; if they make us to love God, they make
us to hate sin ; if they be acts of piety, they are acts of repentance.
So that when it is said, at every thought of your sin you must do
something of repentance, if you do any act at all, this is nothing else
but a calling upon us for the particulars, and to pursue the methods
of a good life. For repentance is the conversion of the whole man,
an entire aversation from evil, and a full return to God ; and every
action of amendment, every prayer for pardon, and every mortifica-
tion of our desires, every observation and caution against danger, all
actions of a holy fear, and every act of hope, even our alms and
mercy to the poor, is a breaking off our sins', and therefore an action

1 [Dan. iv. 27. J

CHAP. 111.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. US I

of repentance. So that if there can be any time of life in which a
sinner may not serve God and yet be innocent, then it may be allowed
at some time to think of our sin and consider it, and yet not to do
an act of repentance ; but in no case else can it be allowed.

§ 37. So that by this discourse we have obtained all the significa-
tions of hodie, ' to-day/ and they all relate to repentance. For though
it signifies the present time as to the beginning of this duty, yet it
signifies our whole life after that beginning, that is our hodie, 'to-
day/ we must begin now and continue to do the same work all our
days. Our repentance must begin this day by the computations of
time, and it must not be put off one day, yet it must go on by the
measures of eternity. As soon as ever and as long as ever we can
say hodie, it is 'to-day/ so soon and so long we must repent. This is
as certain in divinity as a demonstration in the mathematics.

§ 38. The sum is this; if by repentance we mean nothing but sor-
row, then it hath its season, and does not bind always to all times.
But if by repentance we understand a change of life, to which sorrow
is only instrumental and preparatory, then it is our duty always to
repent. That is, if you do any thing at all, it must be good : even
to abide in goodness, to resolve not to sin, to love not to sin, to pro-
ceed or to abide in innocence by choice and by delight, by custom
and resolution, are actions of an habitual repentance ; but repent-
ance is never safe till it be habitual, but then also it is so much the
more perfect, by how much it is the more actual.

§ 39. To conclude this enquiry, we must pray often, but we must
repent always : and it is in these affirmative precepts as it is in the
matter of life and eating; we must eat at certain times and definite
seasons, but we must live continually. Repentance is the new life
of a Christian; and therefore we must no more ask when we are
bound to repent, than when we are by nature required to breathe.
The motion must return speedily, or we die with strangling.

KTTLE XVII.

BECAUSE THE LAWS OF JESUS CHltlST WERE DELIVERED IN SERMONS TO A
SINGLE PERSON, OR A DEFINITE NUMBER OF HEARERS, WE ARE CURIOUSLY
TO ENQUIRE AND WISELY TO UNDERSTAND, WHEN THOSE PERSONS WERE
ONLY PERSONALLY CONCERNED, AND WHEN THEY WERE REPRESENTATIVES
OF THE WHOLE CHURCH.

§ 1. This rule I learn from S. Austin", Erit igitur etiam hoc in
observationibus intelligendarwm script ar arum, ut sciamus alia omni-
bus comma n iter pmcipi, alia singulis quib usque generib us per sonar urn :
a Lib. iii. de doctrina Christiana, cap. 17. [torn. iii. part. 1. col. 52 G.]

682 0E THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

ut nan solum ad universum statum valetndinis, sed etiam ad suam cu-
jttsque membri propriam infirmitatem medicina pertineat : ' some
things are given to all, others but to a few ; and some commands
were to single persons and single states : God having regard to
the well-being of societies, and to the health even of every single
Christian/ That there is a necessity of making a distinction is cer-
tain, but how this distinction is to be made is very uncertain, and no
measures have yet been described, and we are very much to seek for
a certain path in this intricacy. If we do not distinguish precept
from precept, and persons from states of life, and states of life from
communities of men, it will be very easy for witty men to bind bur-
dens upon other men's shoulders with which they ought not to
be pressed ; and it will be very ready for scrupulous persons to take
loads upon themselves which appertain not to them ; and very many
Avill dispute themselves out of their duty, and say, Quid ad me ? I am
not concerned here ; and the conscience shall be unguided and unde-
termined while the laws of order shall themselves lie undistinguished
and undiscerned in confusion and indiscrimination. There must be
care taken of this, or else cases of conscience will extremely multiply
to no purposes but those of danger and restless scruple. The best
measures that I know are these;

§ 2. 1) There are some precepts which are by all men confessed
to be general, and some are everywhere known to be merely per-
sonal ; and by proportion to these we can be helped to take account
of others. When Abraham, as a trial of his obedience, was com-
manded to sacrifice his son, this was alone a commandment given
to that man concerning that child, at that time, and to that purpose.
So when he was commanded to forsake his country and go to Canaan,
this was personal, and could not be drawn into example; and no man
could think that if he should kill his son, or leave his country, he
should be rewarded for his obedience. For the commandments given
to persons are individuated as the persons themselves are, by time
and place and circumstances, and a singular nature, a particular soul.
So is the commandment also ; it is made circumstantiate by all that
is in and about it : and the reason of a man and his observation is
the competent and final judge of these things; and no man is further
required to look after significations of that which is notorious. Others
also are as certainly and confessedly general ; such as were the ten
commandments to the children of Israel ; they were given to all the
people, proclaimed to the whole nation, expressly spoken to them all,
exacted of them all, and under the same reason, and upon the same
conditions. Now here are some proportions by which we may guess
at others.

§ 3. 2) For whatsoever related wholly to a person, or was deter-
mined by a circumstance, or was the relative of time, that passes no
obligation beyond the limits and definitions of those circumstances.
Upon this account all the ceremonial and judicial laws of the Jews

CHAP. III. J OF THE LAWS OP JESUS CHRIST. (iVj

have lost their obligation. The service that related to a temple that
is now destroyed, and was to be performed by a priesthood that is
expired, can no longer be a law of conscience. Thus the command
which Christ gave that His brethren should follow Ilim into Galilee
after the resurrection was wholly personal. The apostles were com-
manded to untie another man's ass, and, without asking leave, to
bring him to Christ ; the command was wholly relating to that occa-
sion, and gives no man warrant to take another man's goods for pious
uses without his leave. Circumstances are to actions like hedges to
the grounds, they divide and defend, and assign every man's portion.
And in these cases ordinary prudence is a sufficient guide.

§ 4. 3) Whatsoever precept was given to many, if it was suc-
ceeded to by another that is inconsistent, or of a quite differing
nature and circumstance, the former is by the latter declared to have
been personal, relative, temporary and expired; and nothing of it
can be drawn into direct obligation. When our blessed Saviour sent
out the seventy-two disciples by two and two, He commanded them
to go without sword or shoes or bag, and that they should not go
into the way of the gentiles. That these commandments were tem-
porary and relative to that mission appears by the following mission
after Christ's resurrection ; by which they received command that
they should go into the way of the gentiles, that they should teach
all nations. Therefore besides the special and named permissions
in this second legation, as that they might now wear a sword, that
they might converse with heathens, it is certain that those other
clauses of command which were not expressly revoked, are not ob-
ligatory by virtue of the first sanction and commandment. x\nd
therefore if any man shall argue, Christ, when He sent forth His
disciples to preach, commanded that they should not go forth from
house to house, but where they did first enter there to abide till
the time of their permitted departure, therefore it is not lawful to
change from one church to another, from a less to a greater, from a
poorer to a richer, will argue very incompetently and inartificially ;
for all the commandments then given were relative to that mission ;
and if any thing were inserted of an universal or perpetual obliga-
tion, it is to be attended to upon some other account, not upon the
stock of this mission, and its relative precepts.

§ 6. 4) It is not enough to prove a precept to be perpetual and
general, that it is joined with a body of precepts that are so, though
there be no external mark of difference. Thus we find in the ten
words of Moses one commandment for resting upon the seventh day
from the creation; it is there equally prescribed, but fortified with
reasons and authority, more laboriously pressed, and without all ex-
ternal sign of difference to distinguish the temporary obligation of
this from the perpetuity of the other ; and yet all the christian
church esteem themselves bound by the other, but at liberty for
this day. But then we understand our liberty by no external mark

684 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

appendent to the sanction, but by the natural signature of the thing.
The nature of the precept was ceremonial and typical; and though
to serve God be moral and eternal duty, yet to serve Him by rest-
ing upon that day, or upon any day, is not moral; and it was not
enjoined in that commandment at all that we should spend that day
in the immediate service of God and offices of religion ; and it was
declared by S. Paul to be a shadow of good things to come, and by
our blessed Lord it was declared to be of a yielding nature, and in-
tended to give place to charity and other moral duties, even to re-
ligion itself, or the immediate service of God : for though the com-
mandment was a precept merely of rest, and doing no labour was
the sanctification of the day; yet that the priests in the temple
might worship God according to the rites of their religion, they
were permitted to work, viz., to kill the beasts of sacrifice, which
Christ called profaning of the sabbath, and in so doing He affirms
them to have been blameless. From hence, that is, from the natural
signature of the thing commanded, and from other collateral notices,
we come to understand that in the heap of moral and eternal pre-
cepts, a temporary, transient, and relative did lie : and the reason
why there was no difference made, or distinctive mark given in the
decalogue, is because there was no difference to be made by that
nation to whom they were given ; but as soon as that dispensation
and period was to determine, then God gave us those marks and
notes of distinction which I have enumerated, and which were suf-
ficient to give us witness. So that if a whole body of command-
ments be published, and it be apparent that most of them are general
and eternal, we must conclude all to be so, until we have a mark of
difference, directly or collaterally, in the nature of the thing, or in
our notices from God : but when we have any such sign we are to
follow it ; and the placing of the precept in other company is not a
sufficient mark to conclude them all alike. Thus it was also in the
first mission of the disciples (above spoken of) in which the body of
precepts was temporary and relative ; but yet when our blessed Lordv
had inserted that clause " freely ye have received, freely give," we
are not to conclude it to be temporary and only relating to that
mission, because it is placed in a body of relative commandments :
for there is in it something that is spiritual, and of an eternal de-
cency, rectitude, and proportion ; and we are taught to separate this
from the other by the reproof which fell upon Simon Magus, by the
separate nature of spiritual things, by the analogy of the gospel, by
the provisions which upon other accounts are made for the clergy
and the whole state ecclesiastical, upon the stock of such proposi-
tions which provide so fully, that they cannot be tempted by neces-
sity to suppose God left them to be supplied by simoniacal enter-
courses. If there be nothing in the sanction of the commandments
or any where else that can distinguish them, we must conclude them

v [Matt.x. S.J

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 085

alike ; but if there be any thing there or any where else that makes
an indubitable or sufficient separation, the unity of place does not
make an equal obligation.

§ 6. 5) When any thing is spoken by Christ to a single person,
or a definite number of persons, which concerns a moral duty, or a
perpetual rite of universal concernment, that single person, or that
little congregation, are the representatives of the whole church. Of
this there can be no question ;

First, because as to all moral precepts they are agreeing to the
nature of man, and perfective of him in all his capacities ; and there-
fore such precepts must needs be as universal as the nature, and
therefore to be extended beyond the persons of those few men. Now
if it be enquired how we shall discern what is moral in the laws of
God from what is not moral, we may be assisted in the enquiry by
the proper measures of it which I have already described w. Those
concern the matter of the commandment, here we enquire concerning
the different relation of the commandment when the sanction is the
same with these which are of particular concernment; that is, here
we enquire by what other distinction besides the matter and nature
of the thing we are to separate general precepts from personal, per-
petual from temporal, moral from relative. And thus to enquire is
necessary in the interpretation of the laws of Jesus Christ ; because
there are some precepts moral and eternal, which nevertheless are
relative to particular states under the gospel.

But secondly, there are some precepts which are not moral, but
yet they are perpetual and eternal, and concern every man and
woman in the christian pale according to their proportion ; I mean
the precepts concerning the sacraments and other rituals of Christi-
anity. In order therefore to these evangelical concerns it is to be
noted, that whatsoever concerns every one by the nature of the thing,
though it was at first directed personally, yet it is of universal obli-
gation. Thus we understand all Christians that have the use of rea-
son, that is, which are capable of laws, and have capacities to do an
act of memory, and symbolical representment, to be obliged to receive
the holy communion : because although the present of " do this,"
and " drink this," was personally directed to the apostles, yet there
is nothing in the nature of the communion that appropriates the rite
to ecclesiastics ; but the apostle explicates it as obliging all Chris-
tians, and it was ever so understood, and practised accordingly : all
are equally concerned in the death of Christ, and therefore in the
commemoration of it, and thanksgiving for it. Now thus far is easy.
But there are some interests that pretend some of the words to be
proper to ecclesiastics, others common to the whole church. I have
already given account of the unreasonableness of the pretension in
this chapter*. But for the present I shall observe, that there being

w Lib. ii. chap. 2. rule 6. num. 65. [p. 468.]
* Rule 9. num. 7, 8, 9. [pp. 536, 7.J

686 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

in this whole institution the greatest simplicity and unity of design
that can be, the same form of words, a single sacrament, the same
address, no difference in the sanction, no variety or signs of variety
in the appendages, in the parallel places, or in any discourse con-
cerning it, to suppose here a difference will so intricate this whole
affair, that either men may imagine and dream of varieties when they
please, and be or not be obliged as they list ; or else if there be a
difference intended in it by our lawgiver, it will be as good as none
at all, He having left no mark of the distinction, no shadow of differ-
ent commandments, under several representations. If the apostles
were only representatives of the ecclesiastical state when Christ said,
" Drink ye all of this/'' then so they were when Christ said, " This
do in remembrance of Me :" the consequent is this, that either all
are bound to receive the chalice, or none but the clergy are tied to
eat the holy bread ; for there is no difference in the manner of the
commandment; and the precept hath not the head of a man, and
the arm of a tree, and the foot of a mountain, but it is univocal, and
simple, and proper, and if there be any difference, it must be dis-
covered by some clear light from without ; for there is nothing within
of difference, and yet without we have nothing but a bold affirma-
tive.

§7.6) When the universal church does suppose herself bound by
any preceptive words, though they were directed to particular per-
sons, yet they are to be understood to be of universal concernment.
Now this relies not only upon the stock of proper probability, viz.,
that such a multitude is the most competent interpreter of the diffi-
culties in every commandment ; but there is in the church a public
and a holy Spirit, assisting her to guide, and warranting us to follow
the measures of holiness by which she finds herself obliged. For
besides that the questions of general practice are sooner understood,
as being like corn sown upon the furrow, whereas questions of specu-
lation are like metals in the heart of the earth, hard to be found out,
and harder to be drawn forth ; besides this, no interest but that of
heaven and the love of God can incline the catholic church to take
upon herself the burden of a commandment. If it were to decline a
burden, there might be the more suspicion, though the weight of so
great authority were sufficient to outweigh any contrary probability;
but when she takes upon her the burden, and esteems herself obliged
by a commandment given to the apostles or to the pharisees, or to
any single person among them, it is great necessity that enforces her,
or great charity that invites her, or great prudence and caution for
security that determines her, and therefore she is certainly to be fol-
lowed. Upon this account we are determined in the foregoing in-
stance : and because the primitive catholic church did suppose her-
self bound by the words of institution of the chalice in the blessed
sacrament, therefore we can safely conclude the apostles to be repre-
sentatives of the whole church. Ad bibendum omnes exhortantur qui

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRTST. 687

volunt habere vitam, saith S. Austin y, ' all are called upon to drink
of the chalice, if they mean to have life eternal/ IV indignwm dieit
esse Domino qui aliter mystermm celebrat quant ab eo traditum est,
saith S. Ambrose2, ' as Christ delivered it to the apostles, so it must
be observed by all / and therefore Durandus3 affirms that 'all who
were present did every day communicate of the cup, because all the
apostles did so, our Lord saying, Drink ye all of this/ Tor the apo-
stles were representatives, not of the clergy consecrating (for they
then did not consecrate but communicate) but of all that should be
present. Nam quae Domini sunt non, sunt hujus servi, non altering,
sed omnibus commuma, saith S. Chrysostomb, ' the precept of our
Lord belonged not to this servant, nor to another, but to all/ Now
things that are of this nature, and thus represented, and thus ac-
cepted, become laws even by the very acceptation : and as S. Paulc said
of the gentiles, that they ' having not the law become a law unto
themselves/ and our conscience is sometimes by mere opinion a strict
and a severe lawgiver; when the church accepts any precept as in-
tended to her (if not directly, yet) collaterally and by reflexion it
passes an obligation ; and then it will be scandalous to disagree in
manners from the custom and severe sentence of the Christians, and
to dissent will be of evil report, and therefore at no hand to be done.

§ 8. 7) When a precept is addressed to particular persons, and
yet hath a more full, useful, and illustrious understanding if ex-
tended to the whole church, there it is to be presumed it was so
intended; and those particular persons are representatives of the
church. S. Austind extends this rule beyond precepts, even to pri-
vileges and favours ; Quadam dicuntur quae ad apostolum Petrum
proprie pertinere videantur, nee tamen habent illustrem intellectum
nisi cum refer untur ad ecclesiam, cujus ille agnoscitur in figura ges-
tasse personam, propter primatum quern in discipulis habuit : ' some
things are spoken which seem to relate particularly to the apostle
Peter, but yet they are better understood when they are applied to
the whole church/ But this must needs be true in commandments ;
for where nothing hinders it, the commandment is supposed to be
incumbent upon us ; and therefore when the commandment is better
understood, and hath a more noble and illustrious sense, that is, pro-
motes the interest of any grace remarkably, there the particular ad-
dress must mean a general obligation.

§ 9. 8) When any commandment is personally addressed, and yet
is enforced with the threatening of death eternal, that commandment
is of universal obligation. The reason is, because the covenant of
life and death is the same with all men ; and God is no respecter of

y In Levit.qusest.lvii. [tom.iii. part.]. p. 539 supra.]
col. 517 A.] b In 1 Cor. xi. [hom. xxvii. torn. x.

z [Pseud-Ambros.] in 1 Cor. xi. [torn. p. 244 B.]
ii. append, col. 149 E.] c [Rom. ii. 14.]

a Rationale divin., lib. iv. cap. I. [vid. d [In psalm, cviii. torn, iv.col. 1215 E.]

688 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

persons, and therefore deals alike with all : and upon this account
the words which our blessed Saviour spake to some few of the Jews
upon occasion of the Galilean massacre, and the ruin of the tower of
Siloam, had been a sufficient warning and commandment to all men,
though besides those words there had been in all the scriptures of the
New testament no commandment of repentance. " Except ye repent
ye shall all likewise perish %" does mean that all the world should re-
pent for the avoiding of the final and severest judgments of God.

§ 10. But this rule is to be understood only in commandments
that are not relative to the differing states of men, but are of an ab-
solute and indefinite nature. For where the commandment is rela-
tive, and yet personally addressed or represented, there that person is
the representative, not of all mankind, but of that whole state and
order. Thus when S. Paulf said, "There is a necessity laid upon me,
and woe is unto me if I do not preach the gospel," he was a repre-
sentative of the whole order of the curates of souls. But when he
said8, " I press forward to the mark of the price h of the high calling,"
and "if by any means I may comprehend," here he spake of his own
person what is the duty incumbent upon all Christians, and he was a
representative of the whole church.

§11. 9) When any good action is personally recommended upon
the proposition of reward, it does not always signify an universal
commandment; but according as it was intended personally, so it
signifies universally : that is, if it was a counsel to the person in the
first address, it is a counsel to all men in the same circumstances ; if
it was a commandment to one it was a commandment to all. Thus
when Christ' said to the young man in the gospel, " Go and sell
what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in
heaven ;" here the precept or the counsel is propounded under a pro-
mise : but because there is no threatening so much as implied, whe-
ther it be a command or no cannot be known from these words, nor
from the appendant condition ; because that which is not under com-
mand may be excellently good, and therefore fit to be encouraged and
invited forward. But whether it was a precept or a counsel, that young
man, though alone spoken to, was not alone intended ; because the
thing to which he was invited is an excellency and a spiritual worthi-
ness in all men for ever that can and will receive it.

e [Luke xiii. 3, 5.] h [See vol. iv. p. 500.]

1 [1 Cor. ix. 16.] ' [Matt, xix, 21 ; Mark x. 21 ; Luke

s [Phil. iii. 14.] xviii. 22.]

CHAP. III.] OP THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 689

EULE XVIII.

EVANGELICAL LAWS GIVEN TO ONE CONCERNING THE DUTY OF ANOTHER DO IN
THAT VERY RELATION CONCERN THEM BOTH, BUT IN DIFFERING DEGREES.

§ 1. This rule I learn from S. Paulh, and it is of good use in cases
of conscience relating to some evangelical laws. " Obey them that
have the rule over you, and be subject; for they watch for your souls,
as they which must give an account, that they may do it with joy,
and not with grief; for that is unprofitable for you." Thus a pre-
late or curate of souls is to take care that his cure be chaste and
charitable, just and temperate, religious and orderly. He is bound
that they be so, and they are more bound ; but each of them for their
proportion : and the people are not only bound to God to be so, but
they are bound to their bishop and priest that they be so ; and not
only God will exact it of them, but their prelate must, and they
must give accounts of it to their superior, because he must to his
supreme ; and if the people will not, they are not only unchaste or
intemperate before God and their bishop, but they are disobedient
also. It is necessary that infants be baptized ; this I shall suppose
here, because I have in other places sufficiently (as I suppose) proved
it1. Upon this supposition, if the enquiry be upon whom the neces-
sity is incumbent, it will be hard to say, upon infants, because they
are not capable of a law, nor of obedience ; and yet it is said to be
necessary for them. If upon their parents, then certainly it is not
necessary to the infants; because if what is necessary be wanting,
they for whom it is necessary shall suffer : and therefore it will be
impossible that the precept should belong to others, and the punish-
ment or evil in not obeying belong to the children ; that is, that the
salvation of infants should depend upon the good will or the diligence
of any man whatsoever. Therefore if others be bound, it is neces-
sary that they bring them, but it will not be necessary that they be
brought ; that is, they who do not bring them, but not they who are
not brought, shall suffer punishment. But therefore to answer this
case this rule is useful, It is necessary that the parents or the church
should bring them to baptism, and it is necessary that they be bap-
tized; and therefore both are bound, and the thing must not be
omitted. The parents are bound at first, and the children as soon as
they can be bound ; so that the precept leans upon two shoulders :
if the first omit their share in their time, there is no evil consequent
but what is upon themselves ; but when the children can choose, and

h [Hebr. xiii. 17.] 247 sqq.] 'Liberty of prophesying,' sect.

1 'Great Exemplar,' discourse Of bap- 18. [vol. v. p. 540 sqq.]
tizing infants, [part i. sect. 9. vol. ii. p.

IX. Y V

G90 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

can come, they must supply their parents' omission and provide for
their own proper necessity. It is in this as in provisions ; at first
they must be fed by the hand and care of others, and afterwards by
their own labour and provisions ; but all the way they are under a
necessity and a natural law of being provided for. When S. Paul
wrote to Timothy concerning the dispositions required in those per-
sons who were to be bishops, it will not be very easy to say, of whom
the defect of some of those conditions shall be required. " A bishop
must be the husband of one wifek," that is, he must not marry while
his first wife lives, though she be civilly dead, that is, whether di-
vorced or banished, or otherwise in separation. But what if he be
married to two wives at once ? Many Christians were so at first ;
many, I say, who were converted from Judaism or gentilism, and yet
were not compelled to put away either. If a bishop be chosen that
is a polygamist, who sins ? that is, who is obliged by this precept ?
Is the bishop that ordains him, or the prince or people that chooses
him, or the ecclesiastic himself that is so chosen ? The answer to
this enquiry is by considering the nature of such a law, which the
Italians call il mandato volante, a ' flying' or ambulatory ' command-
ment/ in which the duty is divided, and several persons have several
parts of the precept incumbent on them. He that chooses and he
that ordains him are bound for their share, to take care that he be
canonically capable ; but he that is so chosen is not bound to any
thing but what is in his power, that is, he is not obliged to put away
her whom he hath legally married, and her whom without sin he can
lawfully retain : but because that which is without sin is not always
without reproach and obloquy, and that which may be innocent may
sometimes not be laudable, and of a clergyman more may be required
than of another that is not so ; they who call him to the office are to
take care of that, and he which is called is not charged with that.
But then though he be not burdened with that which is innocent
and at present out of his power, and sucli a person may be innocently
chosen, when they who choose him are not innocent; yet when any
thing of the will is ingredient on his part, he must take care of that
himself. He may be chosen, but he must not ambire, not sue for it,
nor thrust himself upon it ; for here begins his obligation : there
can be no duty but what is voluntary and can be chosen, but when
a man can choose he can be obliged. I do not here dispute how far
and in what cases this law does oblige ; for of that I am to give ac-
count in the chapter of ecclesiastical laws : but the present enquiry
is, who are the persons concerned in the obligation. It was also
taken care that a bishop should not be a novice : and yet S. Timothy
was chosen a bishop at the age of five and twenty years ; and he was
innocent, because it was the act of others, who came off from their
obligation upon another account. But if he had desired it, or by
power or faction thrust himself upon the church with that canonical

* [1 Tim. iii". 2.]

CHAP. III.] OP THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 691

insufficiency, he had prevaricated the canon apostolical : for to so
much of it he was bound ; but in what he was passive he was not
concerned, but others were.

§ 2. But this is to be limited in two particulars.

1) In what the clerk is passive he is not obliged; that is, in such
matters and circumstances as are extrinsical to his office, and matter
of ornament and decency. Thus if he have been married to an in-
famous woman, which he cannot now help ; if he be young, which
he cannot at all help, but it will help itself in time ; if he have an
evil and unpleasant countenance, if he be deformed ; for these things
and things of like nature, the choosers and ordainers are concerned;
but the clerk may suffer himself to be chosen, the law notwithstand-
ing. But if the canonical impediment be such as hinders him from
doing of his future duty, there he may not suffer himself to be
chosen j and if he be, he must refuse it. The reason of the differ-
ence is plain ; because the electors and ordainers are concerned but
till the election is past, but the elected is concerned for ever after :
therefore although there may be many worthinesses in the person to
be chosen to outweigh the external insufficiency and incapacity, and
if there be not the electors are concerned, because it is their office
and their act, and they can hinder it, and therefore they only are
charged there ; yet for ever after the elected is burdened, and if he
cannot do this duty he is a sinner all the way ; he is a wolf to the
revenue and a butcher to the flock.

§ 3. 2) Though in matters of decency and ornament the person
to be chosen is not so obliged but that he may suffer himself to be
chosen if he be otherwise capable, because those things which are
not in his power are not in his duty, yet even for these things he
also is obliged afterwards; and he is bound not to do that after-
wards, which if it was done before, others were obliged not to choose
him. If a person was divorced before and married again, he may
accept of a bishopric : but if he do so afterwards he is guilty of the
breach of the commandment : for he must not go back to that door
where he might not enter, but then he is wholly obliged; he alone,
because then it is his own act, and he alone can hinder it. I say he
must not go back.

§ 4. But if he be thrust back to that door where if he had stood
at first he ought not to have been let in, he is no more obliged at
last than at first : he that does not govern his house well, and hath
not his children in subjection, may not (by the apostle's rule) be
chosen; but when he is a bishop, and falls into the calamity of
having evil and rebellious children, this is no impediment to his
office directly, and does not so much as indirectly pass upon him
any irregularity.

§ 5. But then as to the rule itself this instance is fit to explicate
it. For parents are tied to rule their children, masters to govern
their servants; but children are always obliged to be governable,

Yy2

692 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

and servants must be obedient. For in relative duties every man
must bear his own burden, and observe his own share of the com-
mandment.

EULE XIX.

CUSTOM IS NO SUFFICIENT INTERPRETER OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST.

§ 1. Truth and the divine commandments need no prescription,
but have an intrinsic warrant and a perpetual abode ; but that which
is warranted by custom hath but an accidental obligation, and is of
human authority. The laws of Christ are or ought to bek the parents
of custom ; but custom cannot introduce a divine law or obligation :
our customs ought to be according to Christ's commandment ; but
from our customs we cannot conclude or infer that this is the
will or commandment of Christ. This rule is TertulliauV : Veritati
nemo prascribere potest, non spatium temporum, non patrocinia per-
sonarum, non privilegium regionum. . . Ex his enim fere consuetudo
iuitium ab aliqua ignorantia vel simplicitate sortita, in usum per suc-
cessionem corroborata ; et ita adversus veritatem vindicatur. Sed
Dominus noster C/iristus veritatem se, non consuetudinem, cogno-
minavit. . . Quodcunque adversus veritatem sapit, hoc erit hceresis,
etiam veins consuetudo : ' no man can prescribe to truth/ that is, to
any proposition or commandment evangelical; 'for customs most
commonly begin from ignorance or weakness, and in time get
strength by use, till it prevail against right : but our Lord Christ
does not call Himself custom, but truth. Whatsoever is against
truth, though it be an old custom, is heresy, notwithstanding its
long continuance/

§ 2. The purpose of this rule is not to bar custom from being of
use in the exposition of the sense of a law or doctrine. Eor when
it is certain that Christ gave the law, and it is uncertain what sense
was intended to the law, custom is very useful in the interpretation,
that is, the customs of the first and best ages of the church : and
then the longer the custom did descend, still we have the more con-
fidence, because we have all the wise and good men of so many ages
concurring in the interpretation and understanding of the law. Thus
the apostle gave the church a canon, 'that we should in all things
give thanks / the custom of the ancient church did in pursuance of
this rule say a short prayer, and give thanks at the lighting up of
candles. The history of it I have from S. Basil1" : Visum est patri-

k ['are wrought to be' A.] '" Cap. xxix. de Spir. S. [torn. iii. p.

1 De virgin, veland. [cap. i. p. 172.] 62 B.]

CHAP. 111.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 698

bus nostris beneficium vespertini luminis non sileulio suscipere, sed
statim ut apparuit gratias agere. They said grace for their light as
well as for their meat. This custom was good, for it was but the
particular instance of a general duty.

§ 3. But then custom is to be allowed but as one topic, not as
all : it is the best argument when we have no better ; but it is the
most unartificial of all arguments, and a competent reason to the
contrary is much to be preferred before a great and long prescribing
custom. Both these propositions are severally affirmed by the fathers
of the church. The first by S. Austin in his epistle to Casulanus",
In his rebus de quibus nihil certi sfaluit scriptura divina, mos populi
Dei vel instituta majorum pro lege tenenda sunt : et sicut pravarica-
tores leg-urn, divinarum, ita contemptores consuetudinum ecclesiastica-
rum coercendi stmt. The holy catholic church is certainly guided by
the Spirit of God, and therefore where the question is concerning any
tiling that is not clear in scripture, the customs of the catholic church
are not to be despised ; for it is to be presumed (where the contrary
is not proved) that she piously endeavours, and therefore is graciously
assisted in the understanding of the will and commandments of her
Lord : and in this sense custom is the best interpreter, because
there is no better, and no clearer light shining from any angle0.

§ 4. Custom can thus in cases of destitution of other topics de-
clare the meaning of a law ; but custom of itself cannot be the inter-
preter of the will of Christ, or a sufficient warrant of a law, or imme-
diately bind the conscience as if it were a signification of the divine
pleasure : much less ought it to be opposed to any words of scripture
or right reason, and proper arguments derived from thence. And
that is the other thing which I also said is taught us by the fathers
of the church. So S. Cyprianp, Frustra quidam qui ratione vincun-
tur consuetudinem nobis opponunt, quasi consuetudo major sit reritate,
aut non id sit in spiritualibus sequendum quod in, melius fuerit a
S. Spiritu revelatum ; ' in vain is custom opposed to reason, as if
it were greater than truth : not custom, but that which is best, is to
be followed by spiritual persons, if any thing better than custom be
revealed by the Spirit of God/

§ 5. All good customs are good warranties and encouragements,
but whether they be good or no is to be examined and proved by the
rule and by the commandment : and therefore the custom itself is
but an ill indication of the commandment ; from whence itself is
marked for good, or else is to be rejected as reprobate and good for
nothing. Consuetudo auctoritati cedat ; pravum usum lex et ratio
vincat : cum vero nee sacris canonibus nee humanis legibus consuetudo
obviare monstratur, inconcussa servanda est, said Isidore11, ( Let cus-

n [So quoted by Gratian, decret. part. ° [' angel' B, C, D.]

1. dist. xi. cap. 7. col. 41, but the latter >> Ad Jubaian. [epist. lxxiii. p. 203.]

clause is not in the text of the author, r| In synonymis, lib. ii. [vid, § 80.

epist. xx.wi. cap. i. torn. ii. col. (i8 E.] torn. vi. p. H7.J

694 OP THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

torn yield to authority, to law and to reason ; but when it agrees
with the laws of God and of man, let it be kept inviolate/

§ 6. When custom is consonant to some other instrument of pro-
bation, when it is apparently pious and reasonable, and of the analogy
of faith, it is an excellent corroborative and defensative of truth, and
warrant to the conscience ; but when it stands alone, or hath an ill
aspect upon other more reasonable and effective ways of persuasion,
it is very suspicious and very dangerous, and is commonly a very ill
sign of an ill cause, or of corrupted manners. Cedrenus1" tells that
' the patriarch Abraham was wont to say that there is great difference
between truth and custom ; that being very hard to be found, this,
whether good or bad, being obvious to every eye : and which is
worse, by following custom a man gets no comfort if it be in the
right, and no great shame if it be in the wrong, because he relies
not upon his own reason, but the judgment of old men that lived
long ago, who whether they judged wisely or foolishly must appear
by some other way : but this he will find, that it will be very hard to
leave it, though it be never so foolish and ridiculous.''

§ 7. Of what obligation in matters of practice, and of what per-
suasion in the enquiries of truth ecclesiastical customs are to be
esteemed, I shall afterwards discourse when I treat of ecclesiastical
laws : but that which I would persuade for the present is, that the
customs and usages of the world are but an ill commentary on the
commandments of our blessed Lord.

§ 8. 1) Because evil is crept into most of the manners of men;
and then a custom is most likely to transmit her authority to that
which ought to be destroyed. Inter causas malorum nostrorum est,
quod vivimus ad exempla ; nee ratione componimur, sed consuetudine
abducimur. Quod si pauci facerent, nolumus imitari ; quum plures
facere coeperunt, quasi honestius sit quia frequentius, sequimur, et
recti apud nos locum tenet error, tibi publicus f actus est, so Seneca s
complained : ( it is one great cause of our mischiefs, that we are not
led by truth, but led away by custom ; as if a thing were the honester
because it is frequent ; and error becomes truth when it is common
and public/ Excellent therefore was that saying of pope Nicolas the
first1, Parvus numerus non obest ubi pietas abundat : tnagnus non
prodest ubi impietas regnat ; ' if right and religion be on our side,
the smallness of our company is nothing, but a multitude cannot
justify impiety/

§ 9. 2) Custom in moral practices becomes law to men by pressing
upon their modesty, and by outfacing truth and piety ; so that unless
the custom have warranty from the law, it hath the same effect against
a law as for it; and therefore in such cases is at no hand to be
trusted, but at every hand to be suspected, lest it make it necessary

r Hist, compend. fere in initio, [torn. p. 614.]
i. p. 31 A. ed. fol. Par. 1647.] ' [Vid. epist. viii. ad Michael, imp.

9 Epist. lviii. [lege exxiii. torn. ii. concill. Harduin., torn. v. col. 159. fin.]

CHAP. 111.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. (595

that men become vicious. The customs of the German and neigh-
bour nations so expound the laws of Christ concerning temperance,
that if by their measures it be defined, it looks so like intemperance,
as milk to milk ; and the common customs of the world expound all
the laws of the blessed Jesus so as to be truly obligatory at no time
but in the danger, or in the article of death : but certainly it is but
an ill gloss that evacuates all the holy purposes of the command-
ment ; and at the day of judgment, when we shall see numberless
numbers of the damned hurried to their sad sufferings, it will be but
an ill apology to say, I did as all the world almost besides me, by
whose customs I understood the laws of the gospel to a sense of ease
and gentleness, and not by the severity of a few morose preachers.
Poggius11 tells of a Neapolitan shepherd, that against Easter going to
confession, he told his confessor with a tender conscience and great
sorrow of heart that he had broken the holy fast of Lent, by chance
indeed, but yet with some little pleasure ; for when he was pressing
of a new cheese, some of the whey startv from the vessel and leaped
into his mouth, and so went into his stomach. The priest smiling a
little at the fantastic conscience of the man, asked him if he was
guilty of nothing else. The shepherd saying, he knew of nothing
else that did or ought to trouble him, his confessor knowing the
customs of those people upon the mountains of Naples, asked him if
he had never robbed or killed any strangers passengers. ' 0 yes/ re-
plied the shepherd, f I have often been at that employment ; but that
we do every day, and always did so, and I hope that is no sin :' but
the cheese, the forbidden cheese stuck in his stomach, because every
one did abominate such meat upon fasting-days ; only the custom of
killing and stealing had hardened his heart and forehead till it was
not perceived.

dedit banc contagio labem,

Et dabit in plures : sicut grex totus in agris
Unius scabie cadit, et porrigine porci,
Uvaque conspecta livorem ducit ab uva*.

§ 10. Evil manners begin from one evil man, or from one weak
or vicious principle, and pass on to custom, and then to be virtuous
is singularity, and it is full of envy ; and concerning the customs of
the world it is ten to one if there be not some foulness in them. The
advice therefore of S. Cyprian y is a good compendium of this enquiry.
Consuetudo quae apud quosdam obrepserat, impedire non debet quo
minus Veritas pravaleat et vincat ; nam consuetudo sine veritate
vetustas erroris est : propter quod relicto errore sequamur veritatem ;
scientes quod . . Veritas vincit, . . Veritas valet et invalescit in afer-
num, et vivit et obtinet in sacula sceculorum : ' custom ought not to
prevail against any truth ; but truth which is eternal will live and

u [Facet, p. 439. op. fol. Bas. 1538.] * Juven. sat. ii. [78.]

v ['started' C, D.] 7 Ad Pompei. [epist. lxxiv. p. 21-5.]

696 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

prevail for ever and ever. Custom without truth is but a prescrip-
tion of falsehood and irregularity/

Question.

§ 11. Upon occasion of this argument it is seasonable, and of it-
self a very useful enquiry, whether the customs of Jews and gentiles,
or indefinitely of many nations, be a just presumption that the thing
so practised is agreeable to the law of nature, or is any ways to be
supposed to be consonant to the will of God.

Answer.

§ 12. To this some of eminence in the church of Rome answer
affirmatively ; and are so far from blushing that many of their rites
are derived from the customs of heathens, that they own it as a thing
reasonable, and prudent, and pious, according to the doctrine and
practice of Gregory surnamed Thaumaturgus, who (as S. Gregory
Nyssenz reports) that he might allure the common people to the love
of Christianity, gave way that those dances and solemn sports which
they celebrated to the honour of their idols should be still retained,
but diverted to the honour of the saints departed ; and Baroniusa
supposes it to be no other than as the Israelites taking of the silver
and brass from the Egyptians, and employing it in the service of the
tabernacle. And in particular, the custom of burning candles to the
honour of the virgin Mary he imputes to the same principle, and
owns it to be of heathenish extraction. The same also is in divers
other instances avowed by Polydore Vergilb; by Fauchetc in his
books of the antiquities of France ; by Du Chould, Blonduse and
T3ellarminef, who brings this as an argument for the doctrine of
purgatory, because the Jews, the Turks, and the heathens did be-
lieve something of it; it being very likely, that what almost all
nations consent in, derives from the natural light of reason which
is common to all men : and upon this very thing cardinal Perron5
boasts in the behalf of the service in an unknown tongue, that not
only the Greeks, and many other christian churches, but even all
religions, the Persians and the Turks use it.

This pretence therefore is fit to be considered.

1) Therefore I answer, that it is true that the primitive church
did sometimes retain some ceremonies which the heathens used ; but
they were such ceremonies which had no relation to doctrine, but

z Orat. de vita S. Gregor. Thaum. cap. 17. [?]

[tom. iii. p. 574.] d Lib. de religione Romanorum, in

a Annal. A. D. xliv. § 88. [tom. i. fine. [p. 312. ed. 4to. Wesel. 1672.]

p. 340.] et A.D. lviii. § 77. [p. 551.] et e In lib. i. et ii. de Roma triumphante.

in Martyrol. Feb. 2. [p. 104, 5. ed. 4to. [passim.]

Col. Agr. 1610.] f Lib.i. de purgatorio, cap. 11. § 'Ter-

b De inventor, rerum, lib. v. cap. 2. tia ratio.' [tom. ii. col. 749 A.]

[p. 304. ed. 12mo. Amst. 1671. J g Adv. regem Jacobum, ['Replique'

c Lib. ii. cap. 19. [fol. 59. b. ed. 4to. &c. livr. vi.] in prima instantia, cap. 1.

1610.] et lib. v. de origin, dignit. Gall., [p. 1075.— fol. Par. 1620.]

CHAP. III.] OP THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. G97

might be made apt for order and decent ministries external. Such
were the garments of the priests, lights, girdles, fasts, vigils, proces-
sions, postures, festivals and the like ; and they did it for good rea-
son and with good effect, that the people who were most of all amused
with exterior usages, finding many of their own customs adopted into
Christianity, might with less prejudice attend to the doctrines of that
persuasion which so readily complied in their common ceremonies.
This did well enough at first, and was a prudent imitation of the
practice of our great Master, who that the Jews might the easier pass
under His discipline and institution, made the passage as short, and
the difference as little as could be ; for since He would retain but
two external ministries in His whole institution, He took those rites
to which the Jews had been accustomed ; only He made their baptisms
sacramental and effective of great purposes, and some of the paschal
rites He consecrated into highest mystery ; retaining apparent foot-
steps, or rather bodies of their government and discipline ecclesiasti-
cal. And this proceeding we find owned and justified by S. Austin
against Eaustus the Manichee, and S. Hierome against Vigilantius,
and Ephraim Syrus of old ; and of later times by Alcuinus'1, Amala-
rius1, and by Gratiank; and who please to see it more largely pleaded
for may read Mutius Pansa his Oscidum christians et elhnicce philo-
sop/tia,and Nicolaus Mont-Georgius De Mosaico jure enucleando: and
that it may be reasonable from the services of such men from whom
we justly abhor to borrow some usages, is excellently discoursed of
by Mr. Hooker in his fourth book of Ecclesiastical Polity1.

§ 14. But however this might fit the necessities and circumstances
of the infant ages of the church, yet they ought not to be done
easily, but ever with very great caution. Eor though it served a
present turn, yet it made christian religion less simple and less pure ;
but by becoming a miscellany it became worse and worse. It was or
might be at the first a complying with the infirmities of the weak, a
pursuance of S. Paul's advice so to do ; but when these weak persons
are sufficiently instructed in the religion, and that to dissent is not
infirmity, but peevishness and pride, or wilfulness, all compliance
and condescension is no longer charity, but gives confidence to their
error. Eor when the reasonable discourses of the religion will not
satisfy the supposed weak brother, he that complies with him con-
fesses his better way ; and when learned men follow the ignorant to
superstition, they will no longer call it compliance and condescen-
sion, but duty, and necessity, and approbation. A good man will
go a little out of his road to reduce the wandering traveller ; but if

h De divinis offic. [Formerly attri- w De consecrat. [decret. part. iii. dist.

buted to Alcuin, but classed as suppo- i. cap. 2. col. 2049.]

sititious in the later editions of his works. l [See a learned and interesting tract

See Mabillon, annal. ord. S. Bened., lib. on this subject, attributed to Bishop

xxvii. § 31. torn. ii. p. 368.] Andrewes, and published with his ' Pat-

■ De offic. eccles. [lib. iii. cap. 43. tern of catechistical doctrine,' Svo. Oxon.

max.bibl. vet. patr., tom.xiv. p. 1001 A.] 1846; which Taylor appears to hnve seen.]

698 OE THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [liOOK II.

he will not return, it will be an unreasonable compliance to go along
with him to the end of his wandering. And where there is any such
danger (as in most cases it is) we have the example of God himself
and His commandment expressly given to the children of Israel, that
they should abstain from all communion with -the gentiles their
neighbours even in things indifferent ; and that they should destroy
the very monuments and rituals, and the very materials of their re-
ligion, lest by such a little compliance they be too far temptedm.
And thus also they did sometime in the primitive church ; for Ter-
tullian11, because the gentiles used in the services of their idols to sit
down immediately after they had prayed, would not have the Chris-
tians do so, though the ceremony of itself was wholly indifferent.
And when many christian churches had taken some gentile cere-
monies into their Christmas solemnity, being occasioned by the cir-
cumcision of Christ falling on the calends of January, or new-year's
day, they were not only forbidden in the council of Auxerre0, but
the church did particularly appoint private litanies, processions, and
austerities, to be used for three days within the twelve of Christmas,
ad calcandam gentilium consuetudinem, ' to destroy and countermine
the superstitious customs of the heathen/ which by the compliance
and fondness of some Christians had dishonoured the excellency and
innocency of the Christmas festivity ; as we find noted by the fathers
of the synod of Turip. Sometimes there had been reason to retain
these things : but when in the days of persecution some weak-hearted
Christians did shelter themselves under the cover of such symbolical
ceremonies, and escaped the confession of Christianity by doing some
things of like custom, or when the folly and levity of Christians q by
these instruments passed on to vanity or superstition, then the church
with care did forbid the retaining of heathenish customs, which had
been innocent but for such accidents. In these things the church
may use her liberty, so that ' all things be done to edification1'/

§ 15. 2) But if the customs and rites be such as are founded upon
any point of doctrine, whatsoever it be that derives from pagan cus-
toms must also be imputed to their doctrines; and then to follow
their customs will be also to mingle the religions, to blend light and
darkness, and to join Christ with Belial. It had been a material
objection which Faustus the Manichee made against the catholics,
that they did remove the worship from idols, and give it to saints
and martyrs. S. Austin, who was to answer the objection, could not
justify, but did deny the fact, as to that instance and some few others ;
for the custom of the nations in such cases was no argument, but an
objection. From these premises it will appear to be but a weak pre-
tence to say, that if many nations and religions agree in such a cere-

m [Deut. vii. 5; xii. 2, 3.] p Concil. Turon. ii. can. 17. [torn. iii.

" De orat., cap. xii. [p. 134 B.] col. 360.]

° Concil. Antisiodor., c. 1. [torn. Hi. q [' Christianity' B, C, D.]

col. 444.] ' [1 Cor. xiv. 26.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OP JESUS CHRIST. 699

mony, or such an opinion, it will be supposed to come from the light
of nature. For there are not many propositions in all which nature
can teach ; and we should know but a very few things if we did not
go to school to God, to tutors, to experience, and to necessity. This
pretence would not only establish purgatory, but the worship of
images, and the multitude of gods, and idololatrical services, and
very many superstitions, and trifling observances, and confidences in
dreams, and the sacrifice of beasts, and many things more than can
well become or combine with Christianity. When not only some na-
tions but all agree in a proposition, it is a good corroborative, a good
second to our persuasions, but not a principal ; it gives advantage
but not establishment, ornament but not foundation to a truth : which
thing if it had been better observed by the Christians who from the
schools of Plato, Chrysippus, Aristotle, and Epicurus, came into the
schools of Christ, or from the temples of Jupiter and Apollo into the
services of the church, Christianity had been more pure and unmingled
than at this day we find it. The ceremony of sprinkling holy water
was a heathenish rite, used in the sanctifications and lustrations of
the capitol, as Alexander ab Alexandra relates : but because this is
not a ceremony of order or circumstance, but pretends to some real
effect, and derives not from Christ or His apostles, but from the gen-
tiles, and relies upon the doctrine of the effect of such ceremonies, it
is not justifiable. Burning candles by dead bodies was innocent and
useful to them that attended in the vigils before interment ; but when
they took this from the custom of the heathens, who thought those
lights useful to the departed souls, they gave a demonstration by the
event of things that they did not do wrell : for the Christians also
derived superstitious opinion along with the ceremony, and began to
think that those lights did entertain the souls in those cemeteries;
and this produced the decree of the council of Eliberis3, that wax
candles should not be burnt in the day time, ' lest the spirits of the
dead be disturbed/ Now when any false principle is in the entry of
the ceremony, or attends upon it, or any superstition be in the pro-
gress or in the end of it, any scandal, or any danger, such customs
are not at all to be followed, such rituals are not to be imitated or
transcribed ; that is, no custom is a warranty for any evil.

EULE XX.

THE MEASURE OF PERFECTION AND OBEDIENCE EXPECTED OF CHRISTIANS IS
GREATER THAN THAT OF THE JEWS, EVEN IN MORAL DUTIES COMMON TO
THEM AND US.

§ 1. It matters not whether Christ's law have in it more precepts
than were in the law of Moses : our work is set before us, and we

8 Can. 3-1. [torn. i. col. 254.]

700 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

are not concerned how much they had to do ; and in most of the
instances which are, or are said to be new commandments, it may
also be said of them as it was by the apostle concerning charity,
' this is a new commandment/ and ' this is an old commandment /
there being, at least in most instances, an obligation upon them to do
what was of itself good and perfective of human nature, and an imi-
tation of the eternal law of God, a conformity to the divine perfec-
tions. This is true as to the material part : but then because that which
was an ' old commandment' is also made f a new commandment/ and
' established upon better promises/ and endeared by new instances of
an infinite love ; and we ourselves are enabled by many more ex-
cellent graces, and the promise of the holy Spirit is made to all that
ask Him ; it is infinitely reasonable to think that because this new
commandment superadds nothing new in the matter, it must in-
troduce something new at least in the manner or measure of our
obedience.

§ 2. They and we are both of us to pray ; but we are commanded
to pray fervently, frequently, continually. They were to be charit-
able, and so are we : but they were tied to be so to their friends and
to their neighbours, but we to our enemies ; and though in some
instances they were tied to be so, yet we are bound in more ; more
men are our neighbours, and more are our brethren, and more is our
duty. They were to do them no hurt, but we must do them good.
They were to forgive upon submission and repentance ; but we must
invite them to repentance, and we must offer pardon. They were to
give bread to their needy brother, but we are in some cases to give
him our lives. They were to love God ' with all their souls, and
with all their strength/ and though we cannot do more than this, yet
we can do more than they did ; for our strengths are more, our un-
derstandings are better instructed, our shield is stronger, and our
breast-plate broader, and our armour of righteousness is of more
proof than theirs was. Dares and Entellus* did both contend with
all their strength ; but because Entellus had much more than the
other, he was the better champion.

§ 6. 1) This rule does principally concern christian churches and
communities of men ; that their laws be more holy, that the con-
dition of the subjects be more tolerable, that wars be not so easily
commenced, that they be with more gentleness acted, that the laws
of Christ be enforced, that malefactors be not permitted, that vice be
more discouraged, that nothing dishonourable to religion be per-
mitted, that the kingdom of Christ in all capacities be advanced, that
His ministers be honoured and maintained according to the excel-
lency of the present ministry and the relation to Christ's priesthood,
that the public and honorary monuments of it be preserved, and
virtue properly encouraged, and great public care taken for the ad-
vantageous ministry of souls, which are the proper purchase of our

t [Virg. JEn. lib. v. 368—460.]

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 7<»1

Redeemer, that in all tilings Christ may be honoured by us more
than Moses was by them, and that God through Jesus Christ be
more glorified than He was in the levitical government.

§ 4. 2) This also concerns single persons ; that they certainly
abstain from all those imperfections of duty which were either per-
mitted in the law, or introduced by the commentaries of their doctors,
or inferred by the general declination of their first piety, and the
corruption of manners. The Jews would not take usury of a needy
Jew, but of a needy stranger they would : but we must consider
them with a more equal eye, we must be charitable to all ; for to a
Christian no man that needs and asks him is a stranger. The Jews
had great liberty of divorces indulged to them, a Christian hath not
the same ; but in that in which he is permitted, he is not to be too
forward.

§ 5. 3) In matters of duty a Christian is to expound his obligation
to the advantage of piety, to security of obedience, to the ease of his
brother, and the pressing upon himself; that whatever be the event
of his temporal affairs, he secure his spiritual interest, and secure
justice though to the loss of his money, and in all doubts determine
for duty rather than for interest : the Jews went not beyond the let-
ter of the commandment.

§7.4) In the interior acts of virtue a Christian is to be more
zealous, forward, operative and busy, frequent and fervent ; he must
converse with God by a more renewed entercourse, give himself no
limits, always striving to go forward, designing to himself no mea-
sure but infinite in the imitation of the perfections of God, and the
excellencies of His most holy Son.

§7.5) In the exterior acts of virtue Christians must according to
their proportion be ashamed to be outdone by Jews, not only in what
they did in obedience, but also in what they in good and prudent
zeal for the law of Moses did expend or act. I say, what they did
act in good and prudent zeal for their law. Thus they adorned their
temple, freely gave contributions for its support and ornament, loved
all of their persuasion, endeavoured to get proselytes ; and therefore
are in these things not only to be imitated, but to be outdone, be-
cause all this was a prudent and zealous prosecution of their duty.
But when in zeal they did not only love their own sect, but hate
and persecute and were uncivil to all of another persuasion, this was
zeal indeed ; but it was folly too and a work of the flesh, and there-
fore not to be imitated by Christians, who are the servants of the
Spirit.

§ 8. 6) Where Christians are left to their liberty in those instances
in which the Jews were bound, Christians ought freely to do as much
as they did by constraint and by necessity : for then properly we do
more than they, when we voluntarily choose what was imposed on
them ; it is not more work, but it is more love. Thus the Jews
were bound to pay tithes to the Levites, we are commanded to main-

702 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION [BOOK II.

tain them honourably : but because tithes is not in the command-
ment to us, we ought to supply the want of a command by the
abundance of love, and in this there is no abatement to be made but
by what did concern the nation in some special relation, necessity or
propriety. God was pleased to make the more ample provision for
the tribe of Levi, because they had no inheritance amongst their
brethren; they had no portion in the division of the land. Now
because the christian clergy have a capacity of lands and other pro-
visions, there is not all the same reason in the quantity of their
appartiment as was in the assignation of the levitical portion. Now
when any such thing can intervene and enter into consideration, it
must be allowed for in the proportions of increase which are de-
manded of the Christian. The Jews gave great contribution to the
temple ; but it was but one, and therefore it is not to be expected
that every christian church in such a multitude should be adorned
and rich like the temple of Jerusalem.

§ 9. 7) Where Jews and Christians are equally left to their liberty,
it is infinitely reasonable and agreeable to the excellency of the re-
ligion that Christians should exceed the Jews. Thus we find that at
the erecting of the tabernacle the Jews brought silver and gold and
other materials till they had too much, and the people were com-
manded to cease and bring no more. Now when an occasion as great
in itself and more proportionable to the religion calls upon us for an
offering and voluntary contribution, if the instance be in a matter as
proportionable to the gospel as that was to the law of Moses, the ex-
cellency of the religion and the dignity of the work and the degree of
our grace and love require of us to be more ready and more liberal
in equal proportions.

§ 10. 8) In those graces which are proper to the gospel, that is,
such which are the peculiar of Christians, literally and plainly exacted
of us, and but obscurely insinuated, or collaterally and by the con-
sequence of something else required of them ; it cannot be but that
the obedience which we owe should be more ready, the actions more
frequent, the degrees more intense ; because every advantage in the
commandment hath no other end but to be an advance of our duty,
and what was obscurely commanded can be but dully paid ; while the
Christian's duty must be brisk, and potent, and voluntary, and early,
and forward, and intense, in proportion to greater mercies received, to
a better law, to a more determined conscience, to a clearer revelation,
to more terrible threatenings, and to the better promises of the gospel ;
all which are so many conjugations of aid, and instances of a mighty
grace \ and therefore Christians are to be more humble, more patient,
more charitable, more bountiful, greater despisers of the world, greater
lords over all their passions, than the Jews were obliged to be by the
consequences of their law.

11. 9) When this comes to be reduced to practice in any par-
ticular enquiry of conscience, every Christian is not to measure his

CHAP. III.] OF THE LAWS OF JESUS CHRIST. 703

actions by proportion to the best, and the rare persons under the
Mosaic law, in their best and heroic actions. For who can do more
than David did after he had procured the waters of Bethlehem to
cool his intolerable thirst, but to deny his appetite, and refuse to
drink the price of blood ? who can do more than he did and would
have done toward the building of the temple ? who can give better
testimony of duty to his prince than he did to Saul ; who can with
more valour and confidence fight the battles of the Lord ? who can
with more care provide for the service of God, and the beauty and
orderly ministries of the tabernacle? who can with more devotion
compose and sing hymns to the honour of God ? In these and such
as these David was exemplary : and so was Moses for meekness, and
Job for patience, and Manasses for repentance, and Abraham for
faith, and Jacob for simplicity and ingenuity, and Enoch for de-
votion : these in their several periods before and under the law were
the great lights of their ages, and set in eminent places to invite
forward the remiss piety of others, alluring them by the beauty of
their flames to walk in their light and by their example. And it is
well if Christians would do as well as these rare personages in their
several instances. But as some women are wiser than some men,
and yet men are the more understanding sex, and have the pre-
rogative of reason and of government; so though some persons of
the old religions were better than many of the new (of the religion
of Jesus Christ) yet the advantage and the increase must be in the
christian church, which must produce some persons as exemplary in
many graces as any of these hath been in any one.
§ 12. 10) Bat then as to single persons;

a) Every man must observe those increases of duty which our
blessed Saviour either by way of new sanction or new interpretation
superadded to the old, in the sermon upon the mount.

/3) Every man must do in proportion to all the aids of the Spirit
which the gospel ministers, all that he can do ; which proportion if
he observes, it will of itself amount to more than the usual rate of
Moses' law, because he hath more aids.

y) He must be infinitely removed from those sins to which they
were prepense, and which made God to remove them out of his
sight; such as were idolatry, the admitting of strange gods, in-
fidelity, obstinacy, hypocrisy, and sensual low appetites : because
these were the crimes of an ignorant uninstructed people in respect
of what the Christian is ; and for a Christian to be an idolater, or
easily divorced, or incredulous, as they were, is therefore the more
intolerable, because it is almost removed from his possibilities ; he
can scarce be tempted to such things who knows any thing of the
doctrine of the gospel.

b) There is no other positive measures of his duty, but that which
can have no measure itself, and*that is love ; and a Christian must
therefore exceed the righteousness of the subjects of Moses' law,

704 OF THE INTERPRETATION AND OBLIGATION, &C. [BOOK II.

because they must do all their works in faith and love : in faith, to
make them accepted, though they be imperfect; in love, to make
them as perfect as they can be. Now he that loves will think every
thing too little ; and he that thinks so will endeavour to do more,
and to do it better : and Christians that have greater experience of
God, and understand the nature of charity, and do all of them ex-
plicitly and articulately long after the glories of an eternal love, and
know that all increase of grace is a proceeding towards glory, need
no other argument to enforce the duty, and no other measure to de-
scribe the duty of this rule, but to reflect upon the state of his reli-
gion, the commandments, the endearments, the aids, the example, the
means : all which are well summed up by S. John u, " Beloved, we are
the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be ; but we
know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see
Him as He is : and every man that hath this hope, purifieth himself as
God is pure." That is, we are for the present children of God by
adoption, sealed with His spirit, renewed by regeneration, justified by
His grace, and invited forward by most glorious promises, greater
than we can understand. Now he that considers this state of things,
and hopes for that state of blessings, will proceed in duty and love
toward the perfections of God, never giving over till he partake of the
purities of God and His utmost glories.

I add no more but this, that in the measures of the practice of this
rule there is no difficulty, but what is made by the careless lives of
Christians and their lazy and unholy principles. At the rate as
Christians usually do live, it is hard to know how and in what in-
stances and in what degrees our obedience ought to be more humble
and more diligent than that of Moses' disciples. But they that love
will do the thing, and so understand the rule. Obedlte, et intelli-
getis, ' Obey, and ye shall understand.'

Concerning the interpretation of the laws of the most holy Jesus,
I know of no other material consideration here to be inserted. Only
there are several pretences of exterior and accidental means of under-
standing the laws of Christ ; which because they are derived from the
authority or from the discourses of men, they are more properly to
be considered in the rules concerning human laws, which is the
subject of the next book, where the reader may expect them.

n [1 John iii. 2, 3.]

THE END OP THE SECOND BOOK.

OXFORD:
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