hooker_book1.txt

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I.

[1.] He that goeth about to persuade a multitude, that they are not so well
governed as they ought to be, shall never want attentive and favourable hearers;
because they know the manifold defects whereunto every kind of regiment is
subject, but the secret lets and difficulties, which in public proceedings are
innumerable and inevitable, they have not ordinarily the judgment to consider.
And because such as openly reprove supposed disorders of state are taken for
principal friends to the common benefit of all, and for men that carry singular
freedom of mind; under this fair and plausible colour whatsoever they utter
passeth for good and current. That which wanteth in the weight of their speech,
is supplied by the aptness of men's minds to accept and believe it. Whereas on
the other side, if we maintain things that are established, we have not only to
strive with a number of heavy prejudices deeply rooted in the hearts of men, who
think that herein we serve the time, and speak in favour of the present state,
because thereby we either hold or seek preferment; but also to bear such
exceptions as minds so averted beforehand usually take against that which they
are loth should be poured into them.

[2.] Albeit therefore much of that we are to speak in this present cause may
seem to a number perhaps tedious, perhaps obscure, dark, and intricate; (for
many talk of the truth, which never sounded the depth from whence it springeth;
and therefore when they are led thereunto they are soon weary, as men drawn from
those beaten paths wherewith they have been inured;) yet this may not so far
prevail as to cut off that which the matter itself requireth, howsoever the nice
humour of some be therewith pleased or no. They unto whom we shall seem tedious
are in no way injured by us, because it is in their own hand to spare that
labour which they are not willing to endure. And if any complain of obscuity,
they must consider, that in these matters it cometh no otherwise to pass than in
sundry the works both of art and also of nature, where that which hath greatest
force in the very things we see is notwithstanding itself oftentimes not seen.
The stateliness of houses, the goodliness of trees, when we behold them
delighteth the eye; but that foundation which beareth the one, that root which
ministereth unto the other nourishment and life, is in the bosom of the earth
concealed; and if there be at any time occasion to search into it, such labour
is then more necessary than pleasant, both to them which undertake it and for
the lookers-on. In like manner, the use and benefit of good laws all that live 
under them may enjoy with delight and comfort, albeit the grounds and first
original causes from whence they have sprung be unknown, as to the greatest part 
of men they are. But when they who withdraw their obedience pretend that the
laws which they should obey are corrupt and vicious; for better examination of
their quality, it behoveth the very foundation and root, the highest wellspring
and fountain of them to be discovered. Which because we are not oftentimes
accustomed to do, when we do it the pains we take are more needful a great deal
than acceptable, and the matters which we handle seem by reason of newness (till
the mind grow better acquainted with them) dark, intricate, and unfamiliar. For
as much help whereof as may be in this case, I have endeavoured throughout the
body of this whole discourse, that every former part might give strength unto
all that follow, and every later bring some light unto all before. So that if
the judgments of men do but hold themselves in suspense as touching these first
more general meditations, till in order they have perused the rest that ensue;
what may seem dark at the first will afterwards be found more plain, even as the
later particular decisions will appear I doubt not more strong, when the other
have been read before.

[3.] The Laws of the Church, whereby for so many ages together we have been
guided in the exercise of Christian religion and the service of that true God,
our rites, customs, and orders of ecclesiastical governument, are called in
question: we are accused as men that will not have Christ Jesus to rule over
them, but have willfully cast his statutes behind their backs, hating to be
reformed and made subject unto the sceptre of his discipline. Behold therefore
we offer the law whereby we live unto the general trial and judgment of the
whole world; heartily beseeching Almighty God, whom we desire to serve according
to his own will, that both we and others (all kind of partial affection being
clean laid aside) may have eyes to see and hearts to embrace the things that in
his sight are most acceptable.

And because the point about which we strive is the quality of our laws, our
first entrance hereinto cannot better be made, than with consideration of the
nature of law in general, and of that law which giveth life unto all the rest,
which are commendable, just, and good; namely the law whereby the Eternal
himself doth work. Proceeding from hence to the law, first of nature, then of
Scripture, we shall have the easier access unto those things which come after to
be debated, concerning the particular cause and question which we have in hand.


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II. 

[1.] All things that are, have some operation not violent or casual. Neither
doth any thing ever begin to exercise the same, without some fore-conceived end
for which it worketh. And the end which it worketh for is not attained, unless
the work be also fit to obtain it by. For unto every end every operation will
not serve. That which doth assign unto each thing the kind, that which doth
moderate the force and power, that which doth appoint the form and measure, of
working, the same we term a Law. So that no certain end could ever be attained,
unless the actions whereby it is attained were regular; that is to say, made
suitable, fit, and correspondent unto their end, by some canon, rule, or law.
Which thing doth first take place in the works even of God himself.

[2.] All things therefore do work after a sort, according to law: all other
things according to a law, whereof some superior, unto whom they are subject, is
author; only the works and operations of God have Him both for their worker, and
for the law whereby they are wrought. The being of God is a kind of law to his
working: for that perfection which God is, giveth perfection to that he doth.
Those natural, necessary, and internal operations of God, the Generation of the
Son, the Proceeding of the Spirit, are without the compass of my present intent:
which is to touch only such operations as have their beginning and being by a
voluntary purpose, wherewith God hath eternally decreed when and how they should
be. Which eternal decree is that we term an eternal law. 

Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of the
Most High; whom although to know be life, and joy to make mention of his name;
yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know him not as indeed he is,
neither can know him; and our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence,
when we confess without confession that his glory is inexplicable, his greatness
above our capacity and reach, He is above, and we upon earth; therefore it
behoveth our words to be wary and few.

Our God is one, or rather very Oneness, and mere unity, having nothing but
itself in itself, and not consisting (as all things do besides God) of many
things. In which essential unity of God a Trinity personal nevertheless
subsisteth, after a manner far exceeding the possiblilty of man's coneit. The
works which outwardly are of God, they are in such sort of Him being one, that
each Person hath in them somewhat particular and proper. For being three, and
they all subsisting in the essence of one Deity; from the Father, by the Son,
through the Spirit, all things are. That which the Son doth hear of the Father,
and which the Spirit doth receive of the Father and the Son, the same we have at
the hands of the Spirit as being the last, and therefore the nearest unto us in
order, although in power the same with the second and the first.

[3.] The wise and learned among the very heathens themselves
have all acknowledged some First Cause, whereupon originally the
being of all things dependeth. Neither have they otherwise spoken of that 
cause than as an Agent, which knowing what and why
it worketh, observeth in working a most exact order or law. Thus
much is signified by that which Homer mentioneth, Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο
βουλή. Thus much acknowledged by Mercurius Trismegistus, Τὸν
πάντα κόσμον ἐποίησεν ὁ δημιουργὸς οὐ χερσὶν ἀλλὰ λόγῳ,Thus
much confest by Anaxagoras and Plato, terming the Maker of the
world an intellectual Worker. Finally the Stoics, although imagining the first 
cause of all things to be fire, held nevertheless, that the
same fire having art, did ὁδῳ̑ βαδίζειν ἐπὶ γενέσει κόσμου. They all
confess therefore in the working of that first cause, that Counsel is
used, Reason followed, a Way observed; that is to say, constant Order 
and Law is kept; whereof itself must needs be author unto itself.
Otherwise it should have some worthier and higher to direct it, and
so could not itself be the first. Being the first, it can have no other
than itself to be the author of that law which it willingly worketh by.

God therefore is a law both to himself, and to all other things besides. To 
himself he is a law in all those things, whereof our Saviour
speaketh, saying, “My Father worketh as yet, so I.” God worketh
nothing without cause. All those things which are done by him have
some end for which they are done; and the end for which they are
done is a reason of his will to do them. His will had not inclined to
create woman, but that he saw it could not be well if she were not
created. Non est bonum, “It is not good man should be alone; therefore 
let us make a helper for him.” That and nothing else is done by
God, which to leave undone were not so good.
If therefore it be demanded, why God having power and ability
infinite, the effects notwithstanding of that power are all so limited as 
we see they are: the reason hereof is the end which he hath
proposed, and the law whereby his wisdom hath stinted the effects
of his power in such sort, that it doth not work infinitely, but 
correspondently unto that end for which it worketh, even “all things
χρηστω̑ς, in most decent and comely sort,” all things in “Measure,
Number, and Weight.”

[4.] The general end of God’s external working is the exercise of
his most glorious and most abundant virtue. Which abundance doth
shew itself in variety, and for that cause this variety is oftentimes
in Scripture exprest by the name of riches,“The Lord hath made all
things for his own sake.” Not that any thing is made to be beneficial
unto him, but all things for him to shew beneficence and grace in them.

The particular drift of every act proceeding externally from God
we are not able to discern, and therefore cannot always give the
proper and certain reason of his works. Howbeit undoubtedly a
proper and certain reason there is of every finite work of God, inasmuch 
as there is a law imposed upon it; which if there were not, it
should be infinite, even as the worker himself is.

[5.] They err therefore who think that of the will of God to do this or that
there is no reason besides his will. Many times no reason known to us; but that
there is no reason thereof I judge it most unreasonable to imagine, inasmuch as
he worketh all things κατὰ τὴν βουλὴν του̑ θελήματος αὐτου̑, 
not only according to his own will, but "the Counsel of his own will." And
whatsoever is done with counsel or wise resolution hath of necessity some reason
why it should be done, albeit that reason be to us in some things so secret,
that it forceth the wit of man to stand, as the blessed Apostle himself doth,
amazed thereat:"O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of
God! how unsearchable are his judgments," etc. That law eternal which God
himself hath made to himself, and thereby worketh all things whereof he is the
cause and author; that law in the admirable frame whereof shineth with most
perfect beauty the countenance of that wisdom which hath testified concerning
herself, "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, even before his
works of old I was set up;" that law, which hath been the pattern to make, and
is the card to guided the world by; that law which hath been of God and with God
everlastingly; that law, the author and observer whereof is one only God to be
blessed for ever: how should either men or angels be able perfectly to behold?
The book of this law we are neither able nor worthy to open and look into. That
little thereof we darkly apprehend we admire, the rest with religious ignorance
we humbly and meekly adore.

[6.] Seeing therefore that according to this law He worketh, "of whom, through
whom, and for whom, are all things;" although there seem unto us confusion and
disorder in the affairs of this present world:"Tamen quoniam bonus mundum rector
temperat, recte fieri cuncta ne dubites:" "let no man doubt but that every thing
is well done, because the world is ruled by so good a guide," as transgresseth
not His own law, than which nothing can be more absolute, perfect, and just.

The law whereby He worketh is eternal, and therefore can have no show or colour
of mutability: for which cause, a part of that law being opened in the promises
which God hath made (because his promises are nothing else but declarations what
God will do for the good of men) touching those promises the Apostle hath
witnessed, that God may as possibly "deny himself" and not be God, as fail to
perform them. And concerning the counsel of God, he termeth it likewise a thing
"unchangeable;" the counsel of God, and that law of God whereof now we speak,
being one.

Nor is the freedom of the will of God any whit abated, let or hindered, by means
of this; because the imposition of this law upon himself is his own free and
voluntary act.

This law therefore we may name eternal, being "that order which God before all
ages hath set down with himself, for himself to do all things by."


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III. 

[1] I am not ignorant that by "law eternal" the learned for the most part do
understand the order, not which God hath eternally purposed himself in all his
works to observe, but rather that which with himself he hath set down as
expedient to be kept by all his creatures, according to the several condition
wherewith he hath endued them. They who thus are accustomed to speak apply the
name of Law unto that only rule of working which superior authority imposeth;
whereas we somewhat more enlarging the sense thereof term any kind of rule or
canon, whereby actions are framed, a law. Now that law which, as it is laid up
in the bosom of God, they call Eternal, receiveth according unto the different
kinds of things which are subject unto it different and sundry kinds of names.
That part of it which ordereth natural agents we call usually Nature's law; that
which Angels do clearly behold and without any swerving observe is a law
Celestial and heavenly; the law of Reason, that which bindeth creatures
reasonable in this world, and with which by reason they may most plainly
perceive themselves bound; that which bindeth them, and is not known but by
special revelation from God, Divine law; Human law, that which out of the law
either of reason or of God men probably gathering to be expedient, they make it
a law. All things therefore, which are as they ought to be, are conformed unto
this second law eternal; and even those things which to this eternal law are not
conformable are notwithstanding in some sort ordered by the first eternal law.
For what good or evil is there under the sun, what action correspondent or
repugnant unto the law which God hath imposed upon his creatures, but in or upon
it God doth work according to the law which himself hath eternally purposed to
keep; that is to say, the first law eternal? So that a twofold law eternal being
thus made, it is not hard to conceive how they both take place in all things.

[2.] Wherefore to come to the law of nature: albeit thereby we sometimes mean
that manner of working which God hath set for each created thing to keep; yet
forasmuch as those things are termed most properly natural agents, which keep
the law of their kind unwittingly, as the heavens and elements of the world,
which can do no otherwise than they do; and forasmuch as we give unto
intellectual natures the name of Voluntary agents, that so we may distinguish
them from the other; expedient it will be, that we sever the law of nature
observed by the one from that which the other is tied unto. Touching the former,
their strict keeping of one tenure, statute, and law, is spoken of by all, but
hath in it more than men have as yet attained to know, or perhaps ever shall
attain, seeing the travail of wading herein is given of God to the sons of men,
that perceiving how much the least thing in the world hath in it more than the
wisest are able to reach unto, they may by this means learn humility. Moses, in
describing the work of creation, attributeth speech unto God: "God said, Let
there be light; let there be a firmament: let the waters under the heaven be
gathered together into one place: let the earth bring forth: let there be lights
in the firmament of heaven." Was this only the intent of Moses, to signify the
infinite greatness of God's power by the easiness of his accomplishing such
effects, without travail, pain, or labour? Surely it seemeth that Moses had
herein besides this a further purpose, namely, first to teach that God did not
work as a necessary but a voluntary agent, intending beforehand and decreeing
with himself that which did outwardly proceed from him: secondly, to show that
God did then institute a law natural to be observed by creatures, and therefore
according to the manner of laws, the institution thereof is described, as being
established by solemn injunction. His commanding those things to be which are,
and to be in such sort as they are, to keep that tenure and course which they
do, importeth the establishment of nature's law. This world's first creation,
and the preservation since of things created, what is it but only so far forth a
manifestation by execution, what the eternal law of God is concerning things
natural? And as it cometh to pass in a kingdom rightly ordered, that after a law
is once published, it presently takes effect far and wide, all states framing
themselves thereunto; even so let us think it fareth in the natural course of
the world: since the time that God did first proclaim the edicts of his law upon
it, heaven and earth have hearkened unto his voice, and their labour hath been
to do his will: He "made a law for the rain;" He gave his "decree unto the sea,
that the waters should not pass his commandment." Now if nature should intermit
her course, and leave altogether though it were but for a while the observation
of her own laws; if those principal and mother elements of the world, whereof
all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qualities which now
they have; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should
loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should forget their wonted
motions, and by irregular volubility turn themselves any way as it might happen;
if the prince of the lights of heaven, which now as a giant doth run his
unwearied course, should as it were through a languishing faintness begin to
stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten way, the
times and seasons of the year blend themselves by disordered and confused
mixture, the winds breathe out their last gasp, the clouds yield no rain, the
earth be defeated of heavenly influence, the fruits of the earth pine away as
children at the withered breasts of their mother no longer able to yield them
relief: what would become of man himself, whom these things now do all serve?
See we not plainly that obedience of creatures unto the law of nature is the
stay of the whole world?

[3] Notwithstanding with nature it cometh sometimes to pass as with art. Let
Phidias have rude and obstinate stuff to carve, though his art do that it
should, his work will lack that beauty which otherwise in fitter matter it might
have had. He that striketh an instrument with skill may cause notwithstanding a
very unpleasant sound, if the string whereon he striketh chance to be uncapable
of harmony. In the matter whereof things natural consist, that of Theophrastus
taketh place, Πολὺ τὸ οὐχ ὑπακου̑ον οὐδὲ δεχόμενον τὸ εὐ̑. "Much of it is 
oftentimes such as will by no means yield to receive that impression which were 
best and most perfect." Which defect in the matter of things natural, they who
gave themselves unto the contemplation of nature amongst the heathen observed
often: but the true original cause thereof, divine malediction, laid for the sin
of man upon these creatures which God had made for the use of man, this being an
article of that saving truth which God hath revealed unto his Church, was above
the reach of their merely natural capacity and understanding. But howsoever
these swervings are now and then incident into the course of nature,
nevertheless so constantly the laws of nature are by natural agents observed,
that no man denieth but those things which nature worketh are wrought, either
always or for the most part, after one and the same manner.

[4] If here it be demanded what that is which keepeth nature in obedience to her
own law, we must have recourse to that higher law whereof we have already
spoken, and because all other laws do thereon depend, from thence we must borrow
so much as shall need for brief resolution in this point. Although we are not of
opinion therefore, as some are, that nature in working hath before her certain
exemplary draughts or patterns, which subsisting in the bosom of the Highest,
and being thence discovered, she fixeth her eyes upon them, as travellers by sea
upon the pole-star of the world, and that according thereunto she guideth her
hand to work by imitation: although we rather embrace the oracle of Hippocrates,
that "each thing both in small and in great fulfilleth the task which destiny
hath set down;" and concerning the manner of executing and fulfilling the same,
"what they do they know not, yet is it in show and appearance as though they did
know what they do; and the truth is they do not discern the things which they
look on:" nevertheless, forasmuch as the works of nature are no less exact, than
if she did both behold and study how to express some absolute shape or mirror
always present before her; yea, such her dexterity and skill appeareth, that no
intellectual creature in the world were able by capacity to do that which nature
doth without capacity and knowledge; it cannot be but nature hath some director
of infinite knowledge to guide her in all her ways. Who the guide of nature, but
only the God of nature? "In him we live, move, and are." Those things which
nature is said to do, are by divine art performed, using nature as an
instrument; nor is there any such art or knowledge divine in nature herself
working, but in the Guide of nature's work.

Whereas therefore things natural which are not in the number of Voluntary
agents, (for of such only we now speak, and of no other,) do so necessarily
observe their certain laws, that as long as they keep those forms which give
them their being, they cannot possibly be apt or inclinable to do otherwise than
they do; seeing the kinds of their operations are both constantly and exactly
framed according to the several ends for which they serve, they themselves in
the meanwhile, though doing that which is fit, yet knowing neither what they do,
nor why: it followeth that all which they do in this sort proceedeth originally
from some such agent, as knoweth, appoineth, holdeth up, and even actually
frameth the same.

The manner of this divine efficiency, being far above us, we are no more able to
conceive by our reason than creatures unreasonable by their sense are able to
apprehend after what manner we dispose and order the course of our affairs. Only
thus much is discerned, that the natural generation and process of all things
receiveth order of proceeding from the settled stability of divine
understanding. This appointeth unto them their kind of working; the disposition
whereof in the purity of God's own knowledge and will is rightly termed by the
name of Providence. The same being referred unto things themselves here disposed
by it, was wont by the ancient to be called natural Destiny. That law, the
performance whereof we behold in things natural, is as it were an authentical or
an original draught written in the bosom of God himself; whose Spirit being to
execute the same useth every particular nature, every mere natual agent, only as
an instrument created at the beginning, and ever since the beginning used, to
work his own will and pleasure withal. Nature therefore is nothing else but
God's instrument: in the course whereof Dionysius perceiving some sudden
disturbance is said to have cried out, "Aut Deus naturae patitur, aut mundi
machina dissolvetur:" "either God doth suffer impediment, and is by a greater
than himself hindered; or if that be impossible, then hath he determined to make
a present dissolution of the world; the execution of that law beginning now to
stand still, without which the world cannot stand."

This workman, whose servitor nature is, being in truth but only one, the
heathens imagining to be more, give him in the sky the name of Jupiter, in the
air the name of Juno, in the water the name of Neptune, in the earth the name of
Vesta and sometimes of Ceres, the name of Apollo in the sun, in the moon the
name of Diana, the name of AEolus and divers other in the winds; and to
conclude, even so many guides of nature they dreamed of, as they saw there were
kinds of things natural in the world. These they honoured, as having power to
work or cease accordingly as men deserved of them. But unto us there is one only
Guide of all agents natural, and he both the Creator and the Worker of all in
all, alone to be blessed, adored and honoured by all for ever.

[5] That which hitherto hath been spoken concerneth natural agents considered in
themselves. But we must further remember also, (which thing to touch in a word
shall suffice,) that as in this respect they have their law, which law directeth
them in the means whereby they tend to their own perfection: so likewise another
law there is, which toucheth them as they are sociable parts united into one
body; a law which bindeth them each to serve unto another's good, and all to
prefer the good of the whole before whatsoever their own particular; as we
plainly see they do, when things natural in that regard forget their ordinary
natural wont; that which is heavy mounting sometime upwards of it own accord,
and forsaking the centre of the earth which to itself is most natural, even as
if it did hear itself commanded to let go the good it privately wisheth, and to
relieve the present distress of nature in common.


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IV.

[1] But now that we may lift our eyes (as it were) from the footstool to the
throne of God, and leaving these natural, consider a little the state of
heavenly and divine creatures: touching Angels, which are spirits immaterial and
intellectual, the glorious inhabitants of those sacred palaces, where nothing
but light and blessed immortality, no shadow of matter for tears,
discontentments, griefs, and uncomfortable passions to work upon, but all joy,
tranquillity, and peace, even for ever and ever doth dwell: as in number and
order they are huge, mighty, and royal armies, so likewise in perfection of
obedience unto that law, which the Highest, whom they adore, love, and imitate,
hath imposed upon them, such observants they are thereof, that our Saviour
himself being to set down the perfect idea of that which we are to pray and
wish for on earth, did not teach to pray or wish for more than only that here it
might be with us, as with them it is in heaven. God which moveth mere natural
agents as an efficient only, doth otherwise move intellectual creatures, and
especially his holy angels: for beholding the face of God, in admiration of so
great excellency they all adore him; and being rapt with the love of his beauty,
they cleave inseparably for ever unto him. Desire to resemble him in goodness
maketh them unweariable and even unsatiable in their longing to do by all means
all manner good unto all the creatures of God, but especially unto the children
of men: in the countenance of whose nature, looking downward, they behold
themselves beneath themselves; even as upward, in God, beneath whom themselves
are, they see that character which is no where but in themselves and us
resembled. Thus far even the paynims have approached; thus far they have seen in
to the doings of the angels of God; Orpheus confessing, that "the fiery throne
of God is attended on by those most industrious angels, careful how all things
are performed amongst men;" and the Mirror of human wisdom plainly teaching,
that God moveth angels, even as that thing doth stir man's heart, which is
thereunto presented amiable. Angelical actions may therefore be reduced unto
these three general kinds: first, most delectable love arising from the visible
apprehension of the purity, glory, and beauty of God, invisible saving only unto
spirits that are pure: secondly, adoration grounded upon the evidence of the
greatness of God, on whom they see how all things depend; thirdly, imitation,
bred by the presence of his exemplary goodness, who ceaseth not before them
daily to fill heaven and earth with the rich treasures of most free and
undeserved grace.

[2] Of angels, we are not to consider only what they are and do in regard of
their own being, but that also which concerneth them as they are linked into a
kind of corporation amongst themselves, and of society or fellowship with men.
Consider angels each of them severally in himself, and their law is that which
the prophet David mentioneth, "All ye his angels praise him." Consider the
angels of God associated, and their law is that which disposeth them as an army,
one in order and degree above another. Consider finally the angels as having
with us that communion which the apostle to the Hebrews noteth, and in regard
whereof angels have not disdained to profess themselves our "fellow-servants;"
from hence there springeth up a third law, which bindeth them to works of
ministerial employment. Every of which their several functions are by them
performed with joy.

[3] A part of the angels of God notwithstanding (we know) have fallen, and that
their fall hath been through the voluntary breach of that law, which did require
at their hands continuance in the exercise of their high and admirable virtue.
Impossible it was that ever their will should change or incline to remit any
part of their duty, without some object having force to avert their conceit from
God, and to draw it another way; and that before they attained that high
perfection of bliss, wherein now the elect angels are without possibility of
falling. Of any thing more than of God they could not by any means like, as long
as whatsoever they knew besides God they apprehended it not in itself without
dependency upon God; because so long God must needs seem infinitely better than
any thing which they so could apprehend. Things beneath them could not in such
sort be presented unto their eyes, but that therein they must needs see always
how those things did depend on God. It seemeth therefore that there was no other
way for angels to sin, but by reflex of their understanding upon themselves;
when being held with admiration of their own sublimity and honour, the memory of
their subordination unto God and their dependency on him was drowned in this
conceit; whereupon their adoration, love, and imitation of God could not choose
but be also interrupted. The fall of angels therefore was pride. Since their
fall, their practices have been the clean contrary unto those before mentioned. 
For being dispersed, some in the air, some on the earth, some in the water, some
among the minerals, dens, and caves, that are under the earth; they have by all
means laboured to effect an universal rebellion against the laws, and as far as
in them lieth utter destruction of the works of God. These wicked spirits the
heathens honoured instead of gods, both generally under the name of Dii inferi,
"gods infernal;" and particularly, some in oracles, some in idols, some as
household gods, some as nymphs: in a word, no foul and wicked spirit which was
not one way or other honoured of men as God, till such time as light appeared in
the world and dissolved the works of the devil. Thus much therefore may suffice
for angels, the next unto whom in degree are men.

==========================================================

V.

[1] God alone excepted, who actually and everlastingly is whatsoever he may be,
and which cannot hereafter be that which now he is not; all other things besides
are somewhat in possibility, which as yet they are not in act. And for this
cause there is in all things an appetite or desire, whereby they incline to
something which they may be; and when they are it, they shall be perfecter than
now they are. All which perfections are contained under the general name of
Goodness. And because there is not in the world any thing whereby another may
not some way be made the perfecter, therefore all things that are, are good.

Again, sith there can be no goodness desired which proceedeth not from God
himself, as from the supreme cause of all things; and every effect doth after a
sort contain, at leastwise resemble, the cause from which it proceedeth: all
things in the world are said in some sort to seek the highest, and to covet more
or less the participation of God himself. Yet this doth no where so much appear as it
doth in man, because there are so many kinds of perfections which man seeketh.
The first degree of goodness is that general perfection which all things do
seek, in desiring the continuance of their being. All things therefore coveting
as much as may be to be like unto God in being ever, that which cannot hereunto
attain personally doth seek to continue itself another way, that is by offspring
and propagation. The next degree of goodness is that which each thing coveteth
by affecting resemblance with God in the constantcy and excellency of those
operations which belong unto their kind. The immutability of God they strive
unto, by working either always or for the most part after one and the same
manner; his absolute exactness they imitate, by tending unto that which is most
exquisite in every particular. Hence have risen a number of axioms in
philosophy, showing how "the works of nature do always aim at that which cannot
be bettered."

[3.] These two kinds of goodness rehearsed are so nearly united to the things
themselves which desire them, that we scarcely perceive the appetite to stir in
reaching forth her hand towards them. But the desire of those perfections which
grow externally is more apparent; especially of such as are not expressly
desired unless they be first known, or such as are not for any other cause than
for knowledge itself desired. Concerning perfections in this kind; that by
proceeding in the knowledge of truth, and by growing in the exercise of virtue,
man amongst the creatures of this inferior world aspireth to the greatest
conformity with God; this is not only known unto us, whom he himself hath so
instructed, but even they do acknowledge, who amongst men are not judged the
nearest unto him. With Plato what one thing more usual, than to excite men unto
the love of wisdom, by showing how much wise men are thereby exalted above men;
how knowledge doth raise them up into heaven; how it maketh them, though not
gods, yet as gods, high, admirable, and divine? And Mercurius Trismegistus
speaking of the virtues of a righteous soul , "Such spirits" (saith he) "are
never cloyed with praising and speaking well of all men, with doing good unto
every one by word and deed, because they study to frame themselves according to
the pattern of the Father of spirits."

==============================================================================
VI.  

[1.] In the matter of knowledge, there is between the angels of God and the
children of men this difference: angels already have full and complete knowledge
in the highest degree that can be imparted unto them; men, if we view them in
their spring, are at the first without understanding or knowledge at all. 
Nevertheless from this utter vacuity they grow by degrees, till they come at
length to be even as the angels themselves are. That which agreeth to the one
now, the other shall attain unto in the end; they are not so far disjoined and
severed, but that they come at length to meet. The soul of man being therefore
at the first as a book, wherein nothing is and yet all things may be imprinted;
we are to search by what steps and degrees it riseth unto perfection of
knowledge.

[2.] Unto that which hath been already set down concerning natural agents this
we must add, that albeit therein we have comprised as well creatures living as
void of life, if they be in degree of nature beneath men; nevertheless a
difference we must observe between those natural agents that work altogether
unwittingly, and those which have though weak yet some understanding what they
do, as fishes, fowls, and beasts have. Beasts are in sensible capacity as ripe
even as men themselves, perhaps more ripe. For as stones, though in dignity of
nature inferior unto plants, yet exceed them in firmness of strength or
durability of being; and plants, though beneath the excellency of creatures
endued with sense, yet exceed them in the faculty of vegetation and of
fertility: so beasts, though otherwise behind men, may notwithstanding in
actions of sense and fancy go beyond them; because the endeavours of nature,
when it hath a higher perfection to seek, are in lower the more remiss, not
esteeming thereof so much as those things do, which have no better proposed unto
them.

[3.] The soul of man therefore being capable of a more divine perfection, hath
(besides the faculties of growing unto sensible knowledge which is common unto
us with beasts) a further ability, whereof in them there is no show at all, the
ability of reaching higher than unto sensible things. Till we grow to some
ripeness of years, the soul of man doth only store itself with conceits of
things of inferior and more open quality, which afterwards do serve as
instrument unto that which is greater; in the meanwhile above the reach of
meaner creatures it ascendeth not. When once it comprehendeth any thing above
this, as the difference of time, affirmations, negations, and contradictions in
speech, we then count it to have some use of natural reason. Whereunto if
afterwards there might be added the right helps of true art and learning (which
helps, I must plainly confess, this age of the world, carrying the name of a
learned age, doth neither much know nor greatly regard), there would undoubtedly
be almost as great difference in maturity of judgment between men therewith
inured, and that which now men are, as between men that are now and innocents.
Which speech if any condemn, as being over hyperbolical, let them consider but
this one thing. No art is at the first finding out so perfect as industry may
after make it. Yet the very first man that to any purpose knew the way we speak
of and followed it, hath alone thereby performed more very near in all parts of
natural knowledge, than sithence in any one part thereof the whole world besides
hath done.

[4.] In the poverty of that other new devised aid two things there are
notwithstanding singular. Of marvellous quick despatch it is, and doth show them
that have it as much as almost in three days, as if it dwell threescore years
with them. Again, because the curiosity of man's wit doth many times with peril
wade farther in the search of things than were convenient; the same is thereby
restrained unto such generalities as every where offering themselves are
apparent unto men of the weakest conceit that need be. So as following the rules
and precepts thereof, we may define it to be, an Art which teacheth the way of
speedy discourse, and restraineth the mind of man that it may not wax over-wise.

[5.] Education and instruction are the means, the one by use, the other by
precept, to make our natural faculty of reason both the better and the sooner
able to judge rightly between truth and error, good and evil. But at what time a
man may be said to have attained so far forth the use of reason, as sufficeth to
make him capable of those Laws, whereby he is then bound to guide his actions;
this is a great deal more easy for common sense to discern, than for any man by
skill and learning to determine; even as it is not in philosophers, who best
know the nature both of fire and of gold, to teach what degree of the one will
serve to purify the other, so well as the artisan, who doth this by fire,
discerneth by sense when the fire hath that degree of heat which sufficeth for
his purpose.

====================================================
VII. 

[1.] By reason man attaineth unto the knowledge of things that are and are not
sensible. It resteth therefore that we search how man attaineth unto the
knowledge of such things unsensible as are to be known that they may be done.
Seeing then that nothing can move unless there be some end, the desire whereof
provoketh unto motion; how should that divine power of the soul, that "spirit of
our mind," as the apostle termeth it, ever stir itself unto action, unless it
have also the like spur? The end for which we are moved to work, is sometimes
the goodness which we conceive of the very working itself, without any further
respect at all; and the cause that procureth action is the mere desire of
action, no other good besides being thereby intended. Of certain turbulent wits
it is said, "Illis quieta movere magna merces videbatur:" they thought the very
disturbance of things established an hire sufficient to set them on work.
Sometimes that which we do is referred to a further end, without the desire
whereof we would leave the same undone; as in their actions that gave alms to
purchase thereby the praise of men.

[2.] Man in perfection of nature being made according to the likeness of his
Maker resembleth him also in the manner of working: so that whatsoever we work
as men, the same we do wittingly work and freely; neither are we according to
the manner of natural agents any way so tied, but that it is in our power to
leave the thing we do undone. The good which either is gotten by doing, or which
consisteth in the very doing itself, causeth not action, unless apprehending it
as good we so like and desire it: that we do unto any such end, the same we
choose and prefer before the leaving of it undone. Choice there is not, unless
the thing which we take be so in our power that we might have refused and left
it. If fire consume the stubble, it chooseth not so to do, because the nature
thereof is such that it can do no other. To choose is to will one thing before
another. And to will is to bend our souls to the having or doing of that which
they see to be good. Goodness is seen with the eye of the understanding. And the
light of that eye, is reason. So that two principal foundations there are of
human action, Knowledge and Will; which Will, in things tending towards any end,
is termed Choice. Concerning Knowledge, "Behold, (saith Moses,) I have set
before you this day good and evil, life and death." Concerning Will, he addeth
immediately, "Choose life;" that is to say, the things that tend unto life, them
choose.

[3.] But of one thing we must have special care, as being a matter of no small
moment; and that is, how the Will, properly and strictly taken, as it is of
things which are referred unto the end that man desireth, differeth greatly from
that inferior natural desire which we call Appetite. The object of Appetite is
whatsoever sensible good may be wished for; the object of Will is that good
which Reason doth lead us to seek. Affections, as joy, and grief, and fear, and
anger, with such like, being as it were the sundry fashions and forms of
Appetite, can neither rise at the conceit of a thing indifferent, nor yet choose
but rise at the sight of some things. Wherefore it is not altogether in our
power, whether we will be stirred with affections or no: whereas actions which
issue from the disposition of the Will are in the power thereof to be performed
or stayed. Finally, Appetite is the Will's solicitor, and the Will is Appetite's
controller; what we covet according to the one by the other we often reject;
neither is any other desire termed properly Will, but that where Reason and
Understanding, or the show of Reason, prescribeth the thing desired.

It may be therefore a question, whether those operations of men are to be
counted voluntary, wherein that good which is sensible provoketh Appetite, and
Appetite causeth action, Reaon being never called to counsel: as when we eat or
drink, and betake ourselves unto rest, and such like. The truth is, that such
actions in men having attained to the use of Reason are voluntary. For as the
authority of higher powers hath force even in those things, which are done
without their privity, and are of so mean reckoning that to acquaint them
therewith it needeth not; in like sort, voluntarily we are said to do that also,
which the Will if it listed might hinder from being done, although about the
doing thereof we do not expressly use our reason or understanding, and so
immediately apply our wills thereunto. In cases therefore of such facility, the
Will doth yield her assent as it were with a kind of silence, by not dissenting;
in which respect her force is not so apparent as in express mandates or
prohibitions, especially upon advice and consultation going before.

[4.] Where understanding therefore needeth, in those things Reason is the
director of man's Will by discovering in action what is good. For the Laws of
well-doing are the dictates of right Reason. Children, which are not as yet come
unto those years whereat they may have; again, innocents, which are excluded by
natural defect from ever having; thirdly, madmen, which for the present cannot
possibly have the use of right Reason to guide themselves, have for their guide
the Reason that guideth other men, which are tutors over them to seek and to
procure their good for them. In the rest there is that light of Reason, whereby
good may be known from evil, and which discovering the same rightly is termed
right.

[5.] The Will notwithstanding doth not incline to have or do that which Reason
teacheth to be good, unless the same do also teach it to be possible. For albeit
the Appetite, being more general, may wish any thing which seemeth good, be it
never so impossible; yet for such things the reasonable Will of man doth never
seek. Let Reason teach impossibility in any thing, and the Will of man doth let
it go; a thing impossible it doth not affect, the impossibility thereof being
manifest.

[6.] There is in the Will of man naturally that freedom, whereby it is apt to
take or refuse any particular object whatsoever being presented unto it.
Whereupon it followeth, that there is no particular object so good, but it may
have the show of some difficulty or unpleasant quality annexed to it, in respect
whereof the Will may shrink and decline it; contrariwise (for so things are
blended) there is no particular evil which hath not some appearance of goodness
whereby to insinuate itself. For evil as evil cannot be desired: if that be
desired which is evil, the cause is the goodness which is or seemeth to be
joined with it. Goodness doth not move by being, but by being apparent; and
therefore many things are ignored which are most precious, only because the
value of them lieth hid. Sensible goodness is most apparent, near, and present;
which causeth the Appetite to be therewith strongly provoked. Now the pursuit
and refusal in the Will do follow, the one the affirmation the other the
negation of goodness, which the understanding apprehendeth, grounding itself
upon sense, unless some higher Reason do chance to teach the contrary. And if
Reason have taught it rightly to be good, yet not so apparent that the mind
receiveth it with utter impossibility of being otherwise, still there is place
left for the Will to take or leave. Whereas therefore amongst so many things as
are to be done, there are so few, the goodness whereof Reason in such sort doth
or easily can discover, we are not to marvel at the choice of evil even then
when the contrary is probably known. Hereby it cometh to pass that custom 
inuring the mind by long practice, and so leaving there a sensible impression,
prevaileth more than reasonable persuasion what way soever. Reason therefore may
rightly discern the thing which is good, and yet the Will of man not incline
itself thereunto, as oft as the prejudice of sensible experience doth oversway.

[7.] Nor let any man think that this doth make any thing for the just excuse of
iniquity. For there was never any sin committed, wherein a less good was not
preferred before a greater, and that wilfully; which cannot be done without the
singular disgrace of Nature, and the utter disturbance of that divine order,
whereby the preeminence of chiefest acceptation is by the best things worthily
challenged. There is not that good which concerneth us, but it hath evidence
enough for itself, if Reason were diligent to search it out. Through neglect
thereof, abused we are with the show of that which is not; sometimes the
subtilty of Satan inveigling us as it did Eve, sometimes the hastiness of our
Wills preventing the more considerate advice of sound Reason, as in the
Apostles, when they no sooner saw what they liked not, but they forthwith were
desirous of fire from heaven; sometimes the very custom of evil making the heart
obdurate against whatsoever instructions of the contrary, as in them over whom
our Saviour spake weeping, "O Jerusalem, how often, and thou wouldest not!"
Still therefore that wherewith we stand blameable, and can no way excuse it, is,
in doing evil, we prefer a less good before a greater, the greatness whereof is
by reason investigable and may be known. The search of knowledge is a thing
painful; and the painfulness of knowledge is that which maketh the Will so
hardly inclinable thereunto. The root hereof, divine malediction; whereby the
instruments being weakened wherewithal the soul (especially in reasoning) doth
work, it preferreth rest in ignorance before wearisome labour to know. For a
spur of diligence therefore we have a natural thirst after knowledge ingrafted
in us. But by reason of that original weakness in the instruments, without which
the understanding part is not able in this world by discourse to work, the very
conceit of painfulness is as a bridle to stay us. For which cause the Apostle,
who knew right well that the weariness of the flesh is an heavy clog to the
Will, striketh mightily upon the key, "Awake thou that sleepest; Cast off all
which presseth down; Watch, Labour, Strive to go forward, and to grow in
knowledge."

==========================================================
VIII.

[1.] Wherefore to return to our former intent of discovering the natural way,
whereby rules have been found out concerning that goodness wherewith the Will of
man ought to be moved in human actions; as every thing naturally and necessarily
doth desire the utmost good and greatest perfection whereof Nature hath made it
capable, even so man. Our felicity therefore being the object and accomplishment
of our desire, we cannot choose but wish and covet it. All particular things
which are subject unto action, the Will doth so far forth incline unto, as
Reason judgeth them the better for us, and consequently the more available to
our bliss. If Reason err, we fall into evil, and are so far forth deprived of
the general perfection we seek. Seeing therefore that for the framing of men's
actions the knowledge of good from evil is necessary, it only resteth that we
search how this may be had. Neither must we suppose that there needeth one rule
to know the good and another the evil by. For he that knoweth what is straight
doth even thereby discerneth what is crooked, because the absence of
straightness in bodies capable thereof is crookedness. Goodness in actions is
like unto straightness; wherefore that which is done well we term right. For as
the straight way is most acceptable to him that travelleth, because by it he
cometh soonest to his journey's end; so in action, that which doth lie the
evenest between us and the end we desire must needs be the fittest for our use.
Besides which fitness for use, there is also in rectitude, beauty; as
contrariwise in obliquity, deformity. And that which is good in the actions of
men, doth not only delight as profitable, but as amiable also. In which
consideration the Grecians most divinely have given to the active perfection of
men a name expressing both beauty and goodness, because goodness in ordinary
speech is for the most part applied only to that which is beneficial. But we in
the name of goodness do here imply both.

[2.] And of discerning goodness there are but these two ways; the one the
knowledge of the causes whereby it is made such; the other the observation of
those signs and tokens, which being annexed always unto goodness, argue that
where they are found, there also goodness is, although we know not the cause by
force whereof it is there. The former of these is the most sure and infallible
way, but so hard that all shun it, and had rather walk as men do in the dark by
haphazard, than tread so long and intricate mazes for knowledge' sake. As
therefore physicians are many times forced to leave such methods of curing as
themselves know to be the fittest, and being overruled by their patients'
impatiency are fain to try the best they can, in taking that way of cure which
the cured will yield unto; in like sort, considering how the case doth stand
with this present age full of tongue and weak of brain, behold we yield to the
stream thereof; into the causes of goodness we will not make any curious or deep
inquiry; to touch them now and then it shall be sufficient, when they are so
near at hand that easily they may be conceived without any far-removed
discourse: that way we are contended to prove, which being the worse in itself,
is notwithstanding now by reason of common imbecility the fitter and likelier to
be brooked.

[3.] Signs and tokens to know good by are of sundry kinds: some more certain and
some less. The most certain token of evident goodness is, if the general
persuasion of all men do so account it. And therefore a common received error is
never utterly overthrown, till such time as we go from signs unto causes, and
show some manifest root or fountain thereof common unto all, whereby it may
clearly appear how it hath come to pass that so many have been overseen. In
which case surmises and slight probabilities will not serve, because the
universal consent of men is the perfectest and strongest in this kind, which
comprehendeth only the signs and tokens of goodness. Things casual do vary, and
that which a man doth but chance to think well of cannot still have the like
hap. Wherefore although we know not the cause, yet thus much we may know; that
some necessary cause there is, whensoever the judgments of all men generally or
for the most part run one and the same way, especially in matters of natural
discourse. For of things necessarily and naturally done there is no more
affirmed than this, "They keep either always or for the most part one tenure."
The general and perpetual voice of men is as the sentence of God himself. For
that which all men have at all times learned, Nature herself must needs have
taught; and God being the author of Nature, her voice is but his instrument. By
her from Him we receive whatsoever in such sort we learn. Infinite duties there
are, the goodness whereof is by this rule sufficiently manifested , although we
had no other warrant besides to approve them. The Apostle St. Paul having speech
concerning the heathen saith of them, "They are a law unto themselves." His
meaning is, that by force of the light of Reason, wherewith God illuminateth
every one which cometh into the world, men being enabled to know truth from
falsehood, and good from evil, do thereby learn in many things what the will of
God is; which will himself not revealing by any extraordinary means unto them,
but they by natural discourse attaining the knowledge thereof, seem the makers
of those Laws which indeed are his, and they but only the finders of them out.

[4.] A law therefore generally taken, is a directive rule unto goodness of
operation. The rule of divine operations outward, is the definitive appointment
of God's own wisdom set down within himself. The rule of natural agents that
work by simple necessity, is the determination of the wisdom of God, known to
God himself the principal director of them, but not unto them that are directed
to execute the same. The rule of natural agents which work after a sort of their
own accord, as the beasts do, is the judgment of common sense or fancy
concerning the sensible goodness of those objects wherewith they are moved. The
rule of ghostly or immaterial natures, as spirits and angels, is their intuitive
intellectual judgment concerning the amiable beauty and high goodness of that
object, which with unspeakable joy and delight doth set them on work. The rule
of voluntary agents on earth is the sentence that Reason giveth concerning the
goodness of those things which they are to do. And the sentences which Reason
giveth are some more some less general, before it come to define in particular
actions what is good.

[5.] The main principles of Reason are in themeselves apparent. For to make
nothing evident of itself unto man's understanding were to take away all
possibility of knowing any thing. And herein that of Theophrastus is true, "They
that seek a reason of all things do utterly overthrow Reason." In every kind of
knowledge some such grounds there are, as that being proposed the mind doth
presently embrace them as free from all possibility of error, clear and manifest
without proof. In which kind axioms or principles more general are such as this,
"that the greatest good is to be chosen before the less." If therefore it should
be demanded what reason there is, why the Will of Man, which doth necessarily
shun harm and covet whatsoever is pleasant and sweet, should be commanded to
count the pleasures of sin gall, and notwithstanding the bitter accidents
wherewith virtuous actions are compassed, yet still to rejoice and delight in
them: surely this could never stand with Reason, but that wisdom thus prescibing
groundeth her laws upon an infallible rule of comparison; which is, "That small
difficulties, when exceeding great good is sure to ensue, and on the other side
momentany benefits, when the hurt which they draw after them is unspeakable, are
not at all to be respected." This rule is the ground whereupon the wisdom of the
Apostle buildeth a law, enjoining patience unto himself; "The present lightness
of our affliction worketh unto us even with abundance upon abundance an eternal
weight of glory; while we look not on the things which are seen, but on the
things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the
things which are not seen are eternal:" therefore Christianity to be embraced,
whatsoever calamities in those times it was accompanied withal. Upon the same
ground our Saviour proveth the law most reasonable, that doth forbid those
crimes which men for gain's sake fall into. "For a man to win the world if it be
with the loss of his soul, what benefit or good is it?" Axioms less general, yet
so manifest that they need no further proof, are such as these, "God to be
worshipped;" "parents to be honoured;" "others to be used by us as we ourselves
would by them." Such things, as soon as they are alleged, all men acknowledge to
be good; they require not proof or further discourse to be assured of their
goodness.

Notwithstanding whatsoever such principle there is, it was at the first found
out by discourse, and drawn from out of the very bowels of heaven and earth. For
we are to note, that things in the world are to be discernible, not only so far
forth as serveth for our vital preservation, but further also in a twofold
higher respect. For first if all other uses were utterly taken away, yet the mind
of man being by nature speculative and delighted with contemplation in itself,
they were to be known even for mere knowledge and understanding's sake. Yea
further besides this, the knowledge of every the least thing in the whole world
hath in it a second peculiar benefit unto us, inasmuch as it serveth to minister
rules, canons, and laws, for men to direct those actions by, which we properly
term human. This did the very heathens themselves obscurely insinuate, by making
Themis, which we call Jus, or Right, to be the daughter of heaven and earth.

[6.] We know things either as they are in themselves, or as they are in mutual
relation one to another. The knowledge of that which man is in reference unto
himself, and other things in relation unto man, I may justly term the mother of
all those principles, which are as it were edicts, statutes, and decrees, in
that Law of Nature, whereby human actions are framed. First therefore having
observed that the best things, where they are not hindered, do still produce
the best operations, (for which cause, where many things are to concur unto one
effect, the best is in all congruity of reason to guide the residue, that it
prevailing most, the work principally done by it may have greatest perfection:)
when hereupon we come to observe in ourselves, of what excellency our souls are
in comparison of our bodies, and the diviner part in relation unto the baser of
our souls; seeing that all these concur in producing human actions, it cannot be
well unless the chifest do command and direct the rest. The soul then ought to
conduct the body, and the spirit of our minds the soul. This is therefore the
first Law, whereby the highest power of the mind requireth general obedience at
the hands of all the rest concurring with it unto action.

[7.] Touching the several grand mandates, which being imposed by the
understanding faculty of the mind must be obeyed by the Will of Man, they are by
the same method found out, whether they import our duty towards God or towards
man.

Touching the one, I may not here stand to open, by what degrees of discourse
the minds even of mere natural men have attained to know, not only that there is
a God, but also what power, force, wisdom, and other properties that God hath,
and how all things depend on him. The being therefore presupposed, from that
known relation which God hath unto us as unto children, and unto all good things
as unto effects whereof himself is the principal cause, these axioms and laws
natural concerning our duty have arisen, "that in all things we go about his aid
is by prayer to be craved:" "that he cannot have sufficient honour done unto
him, but the utmost of that we can do to honour him we must;" which is in effect
the same that we read, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind:" which Law our Saviour doth term "The
first and the greatest commandment."

Touching the next, which as our Saviour addeth is "like unto this," (he meaneth
in amplitude and largeness, inasmuch as it is the root out of which all Laws of
duty to menward have grown, as out of the former all offices of religion
towards God,) the like natural inducement hath brought men to know that it is
their duty no less to love others than themselves. For seeing those things which
are equal must needs all have one measure; if I cannot but wish to receive all
good, even as much at each man's hand as any man can wish unto his own soul, how
should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be
careful to satisfy the like desire which is undoubtedly in other men, we all
being of one and the same nature? To have any thing offered them repugnant to
this desire must needs in all respects grieve them as much as me: so that if I
do harm I must look to suffer; there being no reason that others should show
greater measure of love to me than they have by me showed unto them. My desire
therefore to be loved of my equals in nature as much as possible may be,
imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to them-ward fully the like affection.
From which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as
ourselves, what several rules and canons natural Reason hath drawn from direction
of life no man is ignorant; as namely, "That because we would take no harm, we
must therefore do none;" "That sith we would not be in any thing extremely dealt
with, we must ourselves avoid all extremity in our dealings;" "That from all
violence and wrong we are utterly to abstain;" with such like; which further to
wade in would be tedious, and to our present purpose not altogether so
necessary, seeing that on these two general heads already mentioned all other
specialities are dependent.

[8.] Wherefore the natural measure whereby to judge our doings, is the sentence
of Reason, determining and setting down what is good to be done. Which sentence
is either mandatory, showing what must be done; or else permissive, declaring
only what may be done; or thirdly admonitory, opening what is the most
convenient for us to do. The first taketh place, where the comparison doth stand
altogether between doing and not doing of one thing which in itself is
absolutely good or evil; as it had been for Joseph to yield or not to yield to
the impotent desire of his lewd mistress, the one evil the other good simply.
The second is, when of divers things evil, all being not evitable, we are
permitted to take one; which one saving only in case of so great urgency were
not otherwise to be taken; as in the matter of divorce amongst the Jews. The
last, when of divers things good, one is principal and most eminent; as in their
act who sold their possessions and laid the price at the Apostles' feet; which
possessions they might have retained unto themselves without sin: again, in the
Apostle St. Paul's own choice to maintain himself by his own labour; whereas in
living by the Church's maintenance, as others did, there had been no offence
committed. In Goodness therefore there is a latitude or extent, whereby it
cometh to pass that even of good actions some are better than other some;
whereas otherwise one man could not excel another, but all should be either
absolutely good, as hitting jump that indivisible point or centre wherein
goodness consisteth; or else missing it they should be excluded out of the
number of well-doers. Degrees of well-doing there could be none, except perhaps
in the seldomness and oftenness of doing well. But the nature of Goodness being
thus ample, a Law is properly that which Reason in such sort defineth to be good
that it must be done. And the Law of Reason or human Nature is that which men by
discourse of natural Reason have rightly found out themselves to be all for ever
bound unto in their actions.

[9.] Laws of nature have these marks to be known by. Such as keep them resemble
most lively in their voluntary actions that very manner of working which Nature
herself doth necessarily observe in the course of the whole world. The works of
Nature are all behoveful, beautiful, without superfluity or defect; even so
theirs, if they be framed according to that which the Law of Reason teacheth.
Secondly, those laws are investigable by Reason, without the help of Revelation
supernatural and divine. Finally, in such sort they are investigable, that the
knowledge of them is general, the world hath always been acquainted with them;
according to that which one in Sophocles observeth concerning a branch of this
Law, "It is no child of today's or yesterday's birth, but hath been no man
knoweth how long sithence." It is not agreed upon by one, or two, or few, but
by all. Which we may not so understand, as if every particular man in the whole
world did know and confess whatsoever the Law of Reason doth contain; but this
Law is such that being proposed no man can reject it as unreasonable and unjust.
Again, there is nothing in it but any man (having natural perfection of wit and
ripeness of judgment) may by labour and travail find out. And to conclude, the
general principles thereof are such, as it is not easy to find men ignorant of
them, Law rational therefore, which men commonly use to call the Law of Nature,
meaning thereby the Law which human Nature knoweth itself in reason universally
bound unto, which also for that cause may be termed most fitly the law of
Reason; this Law, I say, comprehendeth all those things which men by the light
of their natural understanding evidently know, or at leastwise may know, to be
beseeming or unbeseeming, virtuous or vicious, good or evil for them to do.

[10.] Now although it be true, which some have said, that "whatsoever is done
amiss, the Law of Nature and Reason thereby is transgressed," because even those
offences which are by their special qualities breaches of supernatural laws, do
also, for that they are generally evil, violate in general that principle of
Reason, which willeth universally to fly from evil: yet do we not therefore so
far extend the Law of Reason, as to contain in it all manner laws whereunto
reasonable creatures are bound, but (as hath been showed) we restrain it to
those only duties, which all men by force of natural wit either do or might
understand to be such duties as concern all men. "Certain half-waking men there
are" (as Saint Augustine noteth), "who neither altogether asleep in folly, nor
yet throughly awake in the light of true understanding, have thought that there
is not at all any thing just and righteous in itself; but look, wherewith
nations are inured, the same they take to be right and just. Whereupon their
conclusion is, that seeing each sort of people hath a different kind of right
from other, and that which is right of its own nature must be everywhere one and
the same, therefore in itself there is nothing right. These good folk," saith
he, ("that I may not trouble their wits with rehearsal of too many things,) have
not looked so far into the world as to perceive that, 'Do as thou wouldest be
done unto,' is a sentence which all nations under heaven are agreed upon. Refer
this sentence to the love of God, and it extinguisheth all heinous crimes;
refer it to the love of thy neighbour, and all grievous wrongs it banisheth out
of the world." Wherefore as touching the Law of Reason, this was (it seemeth)
Saint Augustine's judgment: namely, that there are in it some things which stand
as principles universally agreed upon; and that out of those principles, which
are in themselves evident, the greatest moral duties we owe towards God or man
may without any great difficulty be concluded.

[11.] If then it be here demanded, by what means it should come to pass (the
greatest part of the Law moral being so easy for all men to know) that so many
thousands of men notwithstanding have been ignorant even of principal moral
duties, not imagining the breach of them to be sin: I deny not but lewd and
wicked custom, beginning perhaps at the first amongst few, afterwards spreading
into greater multitudes, and so continuing from time to time, may be of force
even in plain things to smother the light of natural understanding; because men
will not bend their wits to examine whether things wherewith they have been
accustomed be good or evil. For example's sake, that grosser kind of heathenish
idolatry, whereby they worshipped the very works of their own hands, was an
absurdity to reason so palpable, that the Prophet David comparing idols and
idolaters together maketh almost no odds between them, but the one in a manner
as much without wit and sense as the other; "They that make them are like unto
them, and so are all that trust in them." That wherein an idolater doth seem so
absurd and foolish is by the Wise Man thus exprest, "He is not ashamed to speak
unto that which hath no life, he calleth on him that is weak for health, he
prayeth for life unto him which is dead, of him which hath no experience he
requireth help, for his journey he sueth to him which is not able to go, for
gain and work and success in his affairs he seeketh furtherance of him that hath
no manner of power." The cause of which senseless stupidity is afterwards
imputed to custom. "When a father mourned grievously for his son that was taken
away suddenly, he made an image for him that was once dead, whom now he
worshippeth as a god, ordaining to his servants ceremonies and sacrifies. Thus
by process of time this wicked custom prevailed, and was kept as a law;" the
authority of rulers, the ambition of craftsmen, and such like means thrusting
forward the ignorant, and increasing their superstition.

Unto this which the Wise Man hath spoken somewhat besides may be added. For
whatsoever we have hitherto taught, or shall hereafter, concerning the force of
man's natural understanding, this we always desire withal to be understood; that
there is no kind of faculty or power in man or any other creature, which can
rightly perform the functions alloted to it, without perpetual aid and
concurrence of that Supreme Cause of all things. The benefit whereof as oft as
we cause God in his justice to withdraw, there can no other thing follow than
that which the Apostle noteth, even men endued with the light of reason to walk
notwithstanding "in the vanity of their mind, having their cogitations darkened,
and being strangers from the life of God through the ignorance which is in them,
because of the hardness of their hearts." And this cause is mentioned by the
prophet Esay, speaking of the ignorance of idolaters, who see not how the
manifest Law of Reason condemneth their gross iniquity and sin. "They have not
in them," saith he, "so much wit as to think, 'Shall I bow to the stock of a
tree?' All knowledge and understanding is taken from them; for God hath shut
their eyes that they cannot see."

That which we say in this case of idolatry serveth for all other things, wherein
the like kind of general blindness hath prevailed against the manifest Laws of
Reason. Within the compass of which laws we do not only comprehend whatsoever
may be easily known to belong to the duty of all men, but even whatsoever may
possibly be known to be of that quality, so that the same be by necessary
consequence deduced out of clear and manifest principles. For if once we descend
unto probable collections what is convenient for men, we are then in the
territory where free and arbitrary determinations, the territory where Human
Laws take place; which laws are after to be considered.

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IX. 

[1.] Now the due observation of this law which Reason teacheth us cannot but be
effectual unto their great good that observe the same. For we see the whole
world and each part thereof so compacted, that as long as each thing performeth
only that work which is natural unto it, it thereby preserveth both other things
and also itself. Contrariwise, let any principal thing, as the sun, the moon,
any one of the heavens or elements, but once cease or fail, or swerve, and who
doth not easily conceive that the sequel thereof would be ruin both to itself
and whatsoever dependeth on it? And is it possible, that Man being not only the
noblest creature in the world, but even a very world in himself, his
transgressing the Law of his Nature should draw no manner of harm after it? Yes,
"tribultation and anguish unto every soul that doeth evil." Good doth follow
unto all things by observing the course of their nature, and on the contrary
side evil by not observing it; but not unto natural agents that good which we
call Reward, not that evil which we properly term Punishment. The reason whereof
is, because amongst creatures in this world, only Man's observation of the Law
of his Nature is Righteousness, only Man's transgression Sin. And the reason of
this is the difference in his manner of observing or transgressing the Law of
his Nature. He doth not otherwise than voluntarily the one or the other. What we
do against our wills, or constrainedly, we are not properly said to do it,
because the motive cause of doing it is not in ourselves, but carrieth us, as if
the wind should drive a feather in the air, we no whit furthering that whereby
we are driven. In such cases therefore the evil which is done moveth compassion;
men are pitied for it, as being rather miserable in such respect than culpable.
Some things are likewise done by man, though not through outward force and
impulsion, though not against, yet without their wills; as in alienation of
mind, or any the like inevitable utter absence of wit or judgment. For which
cause, no man did ever think the hurtful actions of furious men and innocents to
be punishable. Again, some things we do neither against nor without, and yet not
simply and merely with our wills, but with our wills in such sort moved, that
albeit there be no impossibility but that we might, nevertheless we are not so
easily able to do otherwise. In this consideration one evil deed is made more
pardaonable than another. Finally, that which we do being evil, is
notwithstanding by so much more pardonable, by how much the exigence of so doing
or the difficulty of doing otherwise is greater; unless this necessity or
difficulty have originally arisen from ourselves. It is no excuse therefore unto
him, who being drunk committeth incest, and allegeth that his wits were not his
own; inasmuch as himself might have chosen whether his wits should by that mean
have been taken from him. Now rewards and punishments do always presuppose
something willingly done well or ill; without which respect though we may
sometimes receive good or harm, yet then the one is only a benefit and not a
reward, the other simply an hurt and not a punishment. From the sundry
dispositions of man's Will, which is the root of all his actions, there groweth
variety in the sequel of rewards and punishments, which are by these and the
like rules measured: "Take away the will, and all acts are equal: That which we
do not, and would do, is commonly accepted as done." By these and the like rules
men's actions are determined of and judged, whether they be in their own nature
rewardable or punishable.

[2.] Rewards and punishments are not received, but at the hands of such as being
above us have power to examine and judge our deeds. How men come to have this
authority one over another in external actions, we shall more diligently examine
in that which followeth. But for this present, so much all do acknowledge, that
sith every man's heart and conscience doth in good or evil, even secretly
committed and known to none but itself, either like or disallow itself, and
accordingly either rejoice, very nature exulting (as it were) in certain hope of
reward, or else grieve (as it were) in a sense of future punishment; neither of
which can in this case be looked for from any other, saving only from Him who
discerneth and judgeth the very secrets of all hearts; therefore He is the only
rewarder and revenger of all such actions; although not of such actions only,
but of all whereby the Law of Nature is broken whereof Himself is author. For
which cause, the Roman laws, called the Laws of the Twelve Tables, requiring
offices of inward affection which the eye of man cannot reach unto, threaten the
neglecters of them with none but divine punishment.

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X. 

[1.] That which hitherto we have set down is (I hope) sufficient to show their
brutishness, which imagine that religion and virtue are only as men will account
of them; that we might make as much account, if we would, of the contrary,
without any harm unto ourselves, and that in nature they are as indifferent one
as the other. We see then how nature itself teacheth laws and statutes to live
by. The laws which have been hitherto mentioned do bind men absolutely even as
they are men, although they have never any settled fellowship, never any solemn
agreement amongst themselves what to do or not to do. But forasmuch as we are
not by ourselves sufficient to furnish ourselves with competent store of things
needful for such a life as our nature doth desire, a life fit for the dignity of
man; therefore to supply those defects and imperfections which are in us living
single and solely by ourselves, we are naturally induced to seek communion and
fellowship with others. This was the cause of men's uniting themselves at the
first in politic Societies, which societies could not be without Government, nor
Government without a distinct kind of Law from that which hath been already
declared. Two foundations there are which bear up public societies; the one, a
natural inclination, whereby all men desire sociable life and fellowship; the
other, an order expressly or secretly agreed upon touching the manner of their
union in living together. The latter is that which we call the Law of a
CommonWeal, the very soul of a politic body, the parts whereof are by law
animated, held together, and set on work in such actions, as the common good
requireth. Laws politic, ordainded for external order and regiment amongst men,
are never framed as they should be, unless presuming the will of man to be
inwardly obstinate, rebellious, and averse from all obedience unto the sacred
laws of his nature; in a word, unless presuming man to be in regard of his
depraved mind little better than a wild beast, they do accordingly provide
notwithstanding so to frame his outward actions, that they be no hindrance unto
the common good for which societies are instituted: unless they do this, they
are not perfect. It resteth therefore that we consider how nature findeth out
such laws of government as serve to direct even nature depraved to a right end.

[2.] All men desire to lead in this world a happy life. That life is led most
happily, wherein all virtue is exercised without impediment or let. The Apostle,
in exhorting men to contentment although they have in this world no more than
very bare food and raiment, giveth us thereby to understand that those are even
the lowest of things necessary; that if we should be stripped of all those
things without which we might possibly be, yet these must be left; that
destitution in these is such an impediment, as till it be removed suffereth not
the mind of man to admit any other care. For this cause, first God assigned Adam
maintenance of life, and then appointed him a law to observe. For this cause,
after men began to grow to a number, the first thing we read they gave
themselves unto was the tilling of the earth and the feeding of cattle. Having
by this mean whereon to live, the principal actions of their life afterward are
noted by the exercise of their religion. True it is, that the kingdom of God
must be the first thing in our purpose and desires. But inasmuch as righteous
life presupposeth life; inasmuch as to live virtuously it is impossible except
we live; therefore the first impediment, which naturally we endeavour to remove,
is penury and want of things without which we cannot live. Unto life many
implements are necessary; more, if we seek (as all men naturally do) such as
life as hath in it joy, comfort, delight, and pleasure. To this end we see how
quickly sundry arts mechanical were found out, in the very prime of the world.
As things of greatest necessity are always first provided for, so things of
greatest dignity are most accounted of by all such as judge rightly. Although
therefore riches be a thing which every man wisheth, yet no man of judgment can
esteem it better to be rich, than wise, virtuous, and religious. If we be both
or either of these, it is not because we are so born. For into the world we come
as empty of the one as of the other, as naked in mind as we are in body. Both
which necessities of man had at the first no other helps and supplies than only
domestical; such as that which the Prophet implieth, saying, "Can a mother
forget her child?" such as that which the Apostle mentioneth, saying, "He that
careth not for his own is worse than an infidel;" such as that concerning
Abraham, "Abraham will command his sons and his household after him, that they
keep the way of the Lord."

[3.] But neither that which we learn of ourselves nor that which others teach us
can prevail, where wickedness and malice have taken deep root. If therefore when
there was but as yet one only family in the world, no means of instruction human
or divine could prevent effusion of blood; how could it be chosen but that when
families were multiplied and increased upon earth, after separation each
providing for itself, envy, strife, contention, and violence must grow amongst
them? For hath not Nature furnished man with wit and valour, as it were with
armour, which may be used as well unto extreme evil as good? Yea, were they not
used by the rest of the world unto evil; unto the contrary only by Seth, Enoch,
and those few the rest in that line? We all make complaint of the iniquity of
our times: not unjustly; for the days are evil. But compare them with those
times wherein there was as yet no manner of public regiment established, with
those times wherein there were not above eight persons righteous living upon the
face of the earth; and we have surely good cause to think that God hath blessed
us exceedingly, and hath made us behold most happy days.

[4.] To take away all such mutual grievances, injuries, and wrongs, there was no
way but only by growing unto composition and agreement amongst themselves, by
ordaining some kind of government public, and by yielding themselves subject
thereunto; that unto whom they granted authority to rule and govern, by them the
peace, tranquillity, and happy estate of the rest might be procured. Men always
knew that when force and injury was offered they might be defenders of
themselves; they knew that howsoever men may seek their own commodity, yet if
this were done with injury unto others it was not to be suffered, but by all
mean and by all good means to be withstood; finally they knew that no man might
in reason take upon him to determine his own right, and according to his own
determination proceed in maintenance thereof, inasmuch as every man is towards
himself and them whom he greatly affecteth partial; and therefore that strifes
and troubles would be endless, except they gave their common consent all to be
ordered by some whom they should agree upon: without which consent there were no
reason that one man should take upon him to be lord or judge over another;
because, although there be according to the opinion of some very great and
judicious men a kind of natural right in the noble, wise, and virtuous, to
govern them which are of servile disposition; nevertheless for manifestation of
this their right, and men's more peaceable contentment on both sides, the assent
of them who are to be governed seemeth necessary.

To fathers within their private families Nature hath given a supreme power; for
which cause we see throughout the world even from the foundation thereof, all
men have ever been taken as lords and lawful kings in their own houses. Howbeit
over a whole grand multitude having no such dependency upon any one, and
consisting of so many families as every politic society in the world doth,
impossible it is that any should have complete lawful power, but by consent of
men, or immediate appointment of God; because not having the natural superiority
of fathers, their power must needs be either usurped, and then unlawful; or, if
lawful, then either granted or consented unto by them over whom they exercise
the same, or else given extraordinarily from God, unto whom all the world is
subject. It is no improbable opinion therefore which the arch-philosopher was
of, that as the chiefest person in every household was always as it were a king,
so when numbers of households joined themselves in civil society together, kings
were the first kind of governors amongst them. Which is also (as it seemeth) the
reason why the name of Father continued still in them, who of fathers were made
rulers; as also the ancient custom of governors to do as Melchisedec, and being
kings to exercise the office of priests, which fathers did at the first, grew
perhaps by the same occasion.

Howbeit not this the only kind of regiment that hath been received in the world.
The inconveniences of one kind have caused sundry other to be devised. So that
in a word all public regiment of what kind soever seemeth evidently to have
risen from deliberate advice, consultation, and composition between men, judging
it convenient and behoveful; there being no impossibility in nature considered
by itself, but that men might have lived without any public regiment. Howbeit,
the corruption of our nature being presupposed, we may not deny but that the Law
of Nature doth now require of necessity some kind of regiment, so that to bring
things unto the first course they were in, and utterly to take away all kind of
public government in the world, were apparently to overturn the whole world. 

[5.] The case of man's nature standing therefore as it doth, some kind of
regiment the Law of Nature doth require; yet the kinds thereof being many,
Nature tieth not to any one, but leaveth the choice as a thing arbitrary. At the
first when some certain kind of regiment was once approved, it may be that
nothing was then further thought upon for the manner of governing, but all
permitted unto their wisdom and discretion which were to rule; till by
experience they found this for all parts very inconvenient, so as the things
which they had devised for a remedy did indeed but increase the sore which it
should have cured. They saw that to live by one man's will became the cause of
all men's misery. This constrained them to come unto laws, wherein all men might
see their duties beforehand, and know the penalties of transgressing them. If
things be simply good or evil, and withal universally so acknowledged, there
needs no new law to be made for such things. The first kind therefore of things
appointed by laws human containeth whatsoever being in itself naturally good or
evil, is notwithstanding more secret than that it can be discerned by every
man's present conceit, without some deeper discourse or judgment. In which
discourse because there is difficulty and possibility many ways to err, unless
such things were set down by laws, many would be ignorant of their duties which
now are not, and many that know what they should do would nevertheless dissemble
it, and to excuse themselves pretend ignorance and simplicity, which now they
cannot.

[6.] And because the greatest part of men are such as prefer their own private
good before all things, even that good which is sensual before whatsoever is
most divine; and for that the labour of doing good, together with the pleasure
arising from the contrary, doth make men for the most part slower to the one and
proner to the other, than that duty prescribed them by law can prevail
sufficiently with them: therefore unto laws that men do make for the benefit of
men it hath seemed always needful to add rewards, which may more allure unto
good than any hardness deterreth from it, and punishment, which may more deter
from evil than any sweetness thereto allureth. Wherein as the generality is
natural, virtue rewardable and vice punishable; so the particular determination
of the reward or punishment belongeth unto them by whom laws are made. Theft is
naturally punishable, but the kind of punishment is positive, and such lawful as
men shall think with discretion convenient by law to appoint.

[7.] In laws, that which is natural bindeth universally, that which is positive
not so. To let go of those kinds of positive laws which men impose upon
themselves, as by vow unto God, contract with men, or such like; somewhat it
will make unto our purpose, a little more fully to consider what things are
incident into the making of the positive laws for the government of them that
live united in pubic society. Laws do not only teach what is good, but they
enjoin it, they have in them a certain constraining force. And to constrain
men unto any such inconvenience doth seem unreasonable. Most requisite therefore
it is that to devise laws which all men shall be forced to obey none but wise
men be admitted. Laws are matters of principal consequence; men of common
capacity and but ordinary judgment are not able (for how should they?) to
discern what things are fittest for each kind and state of regiment. We cannot
be ignorant how much our obedience unto laws dependeth upon this point. Let a
man though never so justly oppose himself unto them that are disordered in their
ways, and what one amongst them commonly doth not stomach at such contradiction,
storm at reproof, and hate such as would reform them? Notwithstanding even they
which brook it worst that men should tell them of their duties, when they are
told the same by a law, think very well and reasonably of it. For why? They
presume that the law doth speak with all indifferency; that the law hath no
side-respect to their persons; that the law is as it were an oracle proceeded
from wisdom and understanding.

[8.] Howbeit laws do not take their constraining force from the quality of such
as devise them, but from that power which doth give them the strength of laws.
That which we spake before concerning the power of government must here be
applied unto the power of making laws whereby to govern; which power God hath
over all: and by the natural law, whereunto he hath made all subject, the lawful
power of making laws to command whole politic societies of men belongeth so
properly unto the same entire societies, that for any prince or potentate of
what kind soever upon earth to exercise the same of himself, and not either by
express commission immediately and personally received from God, or else by
authority derived at the first from their consent upon whose persons they impose
laws, it is no better than mere tyranny.

Laws they are not therefore which public approbation hath not made so. But
approbation not only they give who personally declare their assent by voice sign
or act, but also when others do it in their names by right originally at the
least derived from them. As in parliaments, councils, and the like assemblies,
although we be not personally ourselves present, notwithstanding our assent is
by reason of others agents there in our behalf. And what we do by others, no
reason but that it should stand as our deed, no less effectually to bind us than
if ourselves had done it in person. In many things assent is given, they that
give it not imagining they do so, because the manner of their assenting is not
apparent. As for example, when an absolute monarch commandeth his subjects that
which seemeth good in his own discretion, hath not his edict the force of a law
whether they approve or dislike it? Again, that which hath been received long
sithence and is by custom now established, we keep as a law which we may not
transgress; yet what consent was ever thereunto sought or required at our hands?

Of this point therefore we are to note, that sith men naturally have no full and
perfect power to command whole politic multitudes of men, therefore utterly
without our consent we could in such sort be at no man's commanding living. And
to be commanded we do consent, when that society whereof we are part hath at any
time before consented, without revoking the same after by the like universal
agreement. Wherefore as any man's deed past is good as long as himself
continueth; so the act of a public society of men done five hundred years
sithence standeth as theirs who prsently are of the same society, because
corporations are immortal; we were then alive in our predecessors, and they in
their successors do live still. Laws therefore human, of what kind soever, are
available by consent.

[9.] If here it be demanded how it cometh to pass that this being common unto
all laws which are made, there should be found even in good laws so great
variety as there is; we must note the reason hereof to be the sundry particular
ends, whereunto the different disposition of that subject or matter, for which
laws are provided, causeth them to have especial respect in making laws. A law
there is mentioned amongst the Grecians whereof Pittacus is reported to have
been author; and by that law it was agreed, that he which being overcome with
drink did then strike any man, should suffer punishment double as much as if he
had done the same being sober. No man could ever have thought this reasonable,
that had intended thereby only to punish the injury committed according to the
gravity of the fact: for who knoweth not that harm advisedly done is naturally
less pardonable, and therefore worthy of the sharper punishment? But forasmuch
as none did so usually this way offend as men in that case, which they wittingly
fell into, even because they would be so much the more freely outrageous; it was
for their public good where such disorder was grown to frame a positive law for
remedy thereof accordingly. To this appertain those known laws of making laws;
as that law-makers must have an eye to the place where, and to the men amongst
whom; that one kind of laws cannot serve for all kinds of regiment; that where
the multitude beareth sway, laws that shall tend unto preservation of that state
must make common smaller offices to go by lot, for fear of strife and division
likely to arise; by reason that ordinary qualites sufficing for discharge of
such offices, they could not but by many be desired, and so with danger
contended for, and not missed without grudge and discontentment, whereas at an
uncertain lot none can find themselves grieved, on whomsover it lighteth;
contrariwise the greatest, whereof but few are capable, to pass by popular
election, that neither the people may envy such as have those honours, inasmuch
as themselves bestow them, and that the chiefest may be kindled with desire to
exercise all parts of rare and beneficial virtue, knowing they shall not lose
their labour by growing in fame and estimation amongst the people: if the helm
of chief government be in the hands of a few of the wealthiest, that then laws
providing for continuance thereof must make the punishment of contumely and
wrong offered unto any of the common sort sharp and grievious, that so the evil
may be prevented whereby the rich are most likely to bring themselves into
hatred with the people, who are not wont to take so great offence when they are
excluded from honours and offices, as when their persons are contumeliously
trodden upon. In other kinds of regiment the like is observed concerning the
difference of positive laws, which to be every where the same is impossible and
against their nature.

[10.] Now as the learned in the laws of this land observe, that our statutes
sometimes are only the affirmation or ratification of that which by common law
was held before; so here it is not to be omitted that generally all laws human,
which are made for the ordering of politic societies, be either such as
established some duty whereunto all men by the law of reason did before stand
bound; or else such as make that a duty now which before was none. The one sort
we may for distinction's sake call "mixedly," and the other "merely" human. That
which plain or necessary reason bindeth men unto may be in sundry considerations
expedient to be ratified by human law. For example, if confusion of blood in
marriage, the liberty of having many wives at once, or any other the like
corrupt and unreasonable custom doth happen to have prevailed far, and to have
gotten the upper hand of right reason with the greatest part; so that no way is
left to rectify such foul disorder without prescribing by law the same things
which reason necessarily doth enforce but is not perceived that so it doth; or
if many be grown unto that which the Apostle did lament in some, concerning whom
he writeth, saying, that "even what things they naturally know, in those very
things as beasts void of reason they corrupted themselves;" of if there be no
such special accident, yet forasmuch as the common sort are led by the sway of
their sensual desires, and therefore do more shun sin for the sensible evils
which following it amongst men, than for any kind of sentence which reason doth
pronounce against it: this very thing is cause sufficient why duties belonging
unto each kind of virtue, albeit the law of Reason teach them, should
notwithstanding be prescribed even by human law. Which law in this case we term
mixed, because the matter whereunto it bindeth is the same which reason
necessarily doth require at our hands, and from the Law of Reason it differeth
in the manner of binding only. For whereas men before stood bound in conscience
to do as the Law of Reason teacheth, they are now by virtue of human law become
constrainable, and if they outwardly transgress, punishable. As for laws which
are merely human, the matter of them is any thing which reason doth but probably
teach to be fit and convenient; so that till such time as law hath passed
amongst men about it, of itself it bindeth no man. One example whereof may be
this. Land are by human law in some places after the owner's decease divided
unto all his children, in some all descendeth to the eldest son.  If the Law of
Reason did necessarily require but the one of these two to be done, they which
by law have received the other should be subject to that heavy sentence, which
denounceth against all that decreed wicked, unjust, and unreasonable things,
woe. Whereas now whichsoever be received there is no Law of Reason transgressed;
because there is probable reason why either of them may be expedient, and for
either of them more than probable reason there is not to be found.

[11.] Laws whether mixed or merely human are made by politic societies: some,
only as those societies are civilly united; some, as they are spiritually joined
and make such a body as we call the Church. Of laws human in this latter kind we
are to speak in the third book following. Let it therefore suffice thus far to
have touched the force wherewith Almighty God hath graciously endued our nature,
and thereby enabled the same to find out both those laws which all men generally
are for ever bound to observe, and also such as are most fit for their behoof,
who lead their lives in any ordered state of government.

[12.] Now besides the law which simply concerneth men as men, and that which
belongeth unto them as they are men linked with others in some form of politic
society, there is a third kind of law which toucheth all such several bodies
politic, so far forth as one of them hath public commerce with another. And this
third is the Law of Nations. Between men and beasts there is no possibility of
social communion, because the well-spring of that communion is a natural delight
which man hath to tranfuse from himself into others, and to receive from others
into himself especially those things wherein the excellency of his kind doth
most consist. The chiefest instrument of human communion therefore is speech,
because thereby we impart mutually one to another the conceits of our reasonable
understanding. And for that cause seeing that beasts are not hereof capable,
forasmuch as with them we can use no such conference, they being in degree,
although above other creatures on earth to whom nature hath denied sense, yet
lower than to be sociable compainions of man to whom nature hath given reason;
it is of Adam said that amongst the beasts "he found not for himself any meet
companion." Civil society doth more content the nature of man than any private
kind of solitary living, because in society this good of mutual participation is
so much larger than otherwise. Herewith notwithstanding we are not satisfied,
but we covet (if it might be) to have a kind of society and fellowship even with
all mankind. Which thing Socrates intending to signify professed himself a
citizen, not of this or that commonwealth, but of the world. And an effect of
that very natural desire in us (a manifest token that we wish after a sort an
universal fellowship with all men) appeareth by the wonderful delight men have,
some to visit foreign countries, some to discover nations not heard of in former
ages, we all to know the affairs and dealings of other people, yea to be in
league of amity with them: and this not only for traffick's sake, or to the end
that when many are confederated each may make other the more strong, but for
such cause also as moved the Queen of Saba to visit Solomon; and in a word,
because nature doth presume that how many men there are in the world, so many
gods as it were there are, or at leastwise such they should be towards men.

[13.] Touching laws which are to serve men in this behalf; even as those Laws of
Reason, which (man retaining his original integrity) had been sufficient to
direct each particular person in all his affairs and duties, are not sufficient
but require the access of other laws, now that man and his offspring are grown
thus corrupt and sinful; again, as those laws of polity and regiment, which
would have served men living in the public society together with that harmless
disposition which then they should have had, are not now able to serve, when
men's iniquity is so hardly restrained within any tolerable bounds: in like
manner, the national laws of mutual commerce between societies of that former
and better quality might have been other than now, when nations are so prone to
offer violence, injury, and wrong. Hereupon hath grown in every of these three
kinds that distinction between Primary and Secondary laws; the one grounded upon
sincere, the other built upon depraved nature. Primary laws of nations are such
as concern embassage, such as belong to the courteous entertainment of
foreigners and strangers, such as serve for commodious traffick, and the like.
Secondary laws in the same kind are such as this present unquiet world is most
familiarly acquainted with; I mean laws of arms, which yet are much better known
than kept. But what matter the Law of Nations doth contain I omit to search.

The strength and virtue of that law is such that no particular nation can
lawfully prejudice the same by any their several laws and ordinances, more than
a man by his private resolutions the law of the whole commonwealth or state
wherein he liveth. For as civil law, being the act of a whole body politic,
doth therefore overrule each several part of the same body; so there is no
reason that any one commonwealth of itself should to the prejudice of another
annihilate that whereupon the whole world hath agreed. For which cause, the
Lacedaemonians forbidding the access of strangers into their coasts, are in that
respect both by Josephus and Theodoret deservedly blamed, as being enemies to
that hospitality which for common humanity's sake all the nations on earth
should embrace.

[14.] Now as there is great cause of communion, and consequently of laws for the
maintenance of communion, amongst nations; so amongst nations Christian the like
in regard even of Christianity hath been always judged needful.

And in this kind of correspondence amongst nations the force of general councils
doth stand. For as one and the same law divine, whereof in the next place we are
to speak, is unto all Christian churches a rule for the chiefest things; by
means whereof they all in that respect make one church, as having all but "one
Lord, one faith, and one baptism:" so the urgent necessity of mutual communion
for preservation of our unity in these things, as also for order in some other
things convenient to be every where uniformly kept, maketh it requisite that the
Church of God here on earth have here laws of spiritual commerce between
Christian nations; laws by virtue whereof all churches may enjoy freely the use
of those reverend, religious, and sacred consultations, which are termed
Councils General. A thing whereof God's own blessed Spirit was the author; a
thing practised by the holy Apostles themselves; a thing always afterwards kept
and observed throughout the world; a thing never otherwise than most highly
esteemed of, till pride, ambition, and tyranny began by factious and vile
endeavour to abuse that divine invention unto the furtherance of wicked
purposes. But as the just authority of civil courts and parliaments is not
therefore to be abolished, because sometime there is cunning used to frame them
according to the private intents of men over potent in the commonwealth; so the
grievous abuse which hath been of councils should rather cause men to study how
so gracious a thing may again be reduced to that first perfection, than in
regard of stains and blemishes sithence growing be held for ever in extreme
disgrace.

To speak of this matter as the cause requireth would require very long
discourse. All I will presently say is this: whether it be for the finding out
of any thing whereunto divine law bindeth us, but yet in such sort that men are
not thereof on all sides resolved; or for the setting down of some uniform 
judgment to stand touching such things, as being neither way matters of
necessity, are notwithstanding offensive and scandalous when there is open
opposition about them; be it for the ending of strifes, touching matters of
Christian belief, wherein the one part may seem to have probable cause of
dissenting from the other; or be it concerning matters of polity, order, and
regiment in the church; I nothing doubt but that Christian men should much
better frame themselves to those heavenly precepts, which our Lord and Saviour
with so great instancy gave us concerning peace and unity, if we did all concur
in desire to have the use of ancient councils again renewed, rather than these
proceedings continued, which either make all contentions endless, or bring them
to one only determination, and that of all other the worst, which is by sword.

[15.] It followeth therefore that a new foundation being laid, we now adjoin
hereunto that which cometh in the next place to be spoken of; namely, wherefore
God hath himself by Scripture made known such laws as serve for direction of
men.


===============================================================
XI. 

[1.] All things, (God only excepted,) besides the nature which they have in
themselves, receive externally some perfection from other things, as hath been
showed. Insomuch as there is in this world no one thing great or small, but
either in respect of knowledge or of use it may unto our perfection add
somewhat. And whatsoever such perfection there is which our nature may acquire,
the same we properly term our Good; our Sovereign Good or Blessedness, that
wherein the highest degree of all our perfection consisteth, that which being
once attained unto there can rest nothing further to be desired; and therefore
with it our souls are fully content and satisfied, in that they have they
rejoice, and thirst for no more. Wherefore of good things desired some are such
that for themselves we covet them not, but only because they serve as
instruments unto that for which we are to seek: of this sort are riches. Another
kind there is, which although we desire for itself, as health, and virtue, and
knowledge, nevertheless they are not the last mark whereat we aim, but have
their further end whereunto they are referred, so as in them we are not satisfied
as having attained the utmost we have, but our desires do still proceed. These
things are linked and as it were chained one to another; we labour to eat, and
we eat to live, and we live to do good, and the good which we do is as seed
sown with reference to a future harvest. But we must come at length to some
pause. For, if every thing were to be desired for some other without any stint, 
there could be no certain end proposed unto our actions, we should go on we know 
not whither; yea, whatsoever we do were in vain, or rather nothing at all were
possible to be done. For as to take away the first efficient of our being were 
to annihilate utterly our persons, so we cannot remove the last final cause of 
our working, but we shall cause whatsoever we work to cease. Therefore something
there must be desired for itself simply and for no other. That is simply for
itself desirable, unto the nature whereof it is opposite and repugnant to be
desired with relation unto any other. The ox and the ass desire their food,
neither propose they unto themselves any end wherefore; so that of them this is
desired for itself; but why? By reason of their imperfection which cannot
otherwise desire it; whereas that which is desired simply for itself, the
excellency thereof is such as permitteth it not in any sort to be referred to a
further end.

[2.] Now that which man doth desire with reference to a further end, the same he
desireth in such measure as is unto that end convenient; but what he coveteth as
good in itself, towards that his desire is ever infinite. So that unless the
last good of all, which is altogether desired in itself, be also infinite, we do
evil in making it our end; even as they who placed their felicity in wealth or
honour or pleasure or any thing here attained; because in desiring any thing as
our final perfection which is not so, we do amiss. Nothing may be infinitely
desired but that good which indeed is infinite; for the better the more
desirable; that therefore most desirable wherein there is infinity of goodness:
so that if any thing desirable may be infinite, that must needs be the highest
of all things that are desired. No good is infinite but only God; therefore he
our felicity and bliss. Moreover, desire tendeth unto union with that it
desireth. If then in Him we be blessed, it is by force of
participation and conjunction with Him. Again, it is not the possession of any
good thing can make them happy which have it, unless they enjoy the thing
wherewith they are possessed. Then are we happy therefore when fully we enjoy
God, as an object wherein the powers of our souls are satisfied even with
everlasting delight; so that although we be men, yet by being unto God united we
live as it were the life of God.

[3.] Happiness therefore is that estate whereby we attain, so far as possibly
may be attained, the full possession of that which simply for itself is to be
desired, and containeth in it after an eminent sort the contentation of our
desires, the highest degree of all our perfection. Of such perfection capable we
are not in this life. For while we are in the world, subject we are unto sundry
imperfections, griefs of body, defects of mind; yea the best things we do are
painful, and the exercise of them grievous, being continued without
intermission; so as in those very actions whereby we are especially perfected in
this life we are not able to persist; forced we are with very weariness, and
that often, to interrupt them: which tediousness cannot fall into those
operations that are in the state of bliss, when our union with God is complete. 
Complete union with him must be according unto every power and faculty of our
minds apt to receive so glorious an object. Capable we are of God both by
understanding and will: by understanding, as He is that sovereign Truth which
comprehendeth the rich treasures of all wisdom; by will, as He is that sea of
Goodness whereof whoso tasteth shall thirst no more. As the will doth now work
upon that object by desire, which is as it were a motion towards the end as yet
unobtained; so likewise upon the same hereafter received it shall work also by
love. "Appetitus inhiantis fit amor fruentis," saith St. Augustine:"The longing
disposition of them that thirst is changed into the sweet affection of them that
taste and are replenished." Whereas we now love the thing that is good, but good
especially in respect of benefit unto us; we shall then love the thing that is 
good, only or principally for the goodness of beauty in itself. The soul being
in this sort, as it is active, perfected by love of that infinite good, shall,
as it is receptive, be also perfected with those supernatural passions of joy,
peace, and delight. All this endless and everlasting. Which perpetuity, in
regard whereof our blessedness is termed "a crown which withered not," doth
neither depend upon the nature of the thing itself, nor proceed from any natural
necessity that our souls should so exercise themselves for ever in beholding and
loving God, but from the will of God, which doth both freely perfect our nature
in so high a degree, and continue it so perfected. Under Man, no creature in the
world is capable of felicity and bliss. First, because their chiefest perfection
consisteth in that which is best for them, but not in that which is simply best,
as ours doth. Secondly, because whatsoever external perfection they tend unto,
it is not better than themselves, as ours is. How just occasion have we
therefore even in this respect with the Prophet to admire the goodness of God!
"Lord, what is man, that thou shouldst exalt him above the works of thy hands,"
so far as to make thyself the inheritance of his rest and the substance of his
felicity?

[4.] Now if men had not naturally this desire to be happy, how were it possible
that all men should have it? All men have. Therefore this desire in man is
natural. It is not in our power not to do the same; how should it then be in our
power to do it coldly or remissly? So that our desire being natural is also in
that degree of earnestness whereunto nothing can be added. And is it probable
that God should frame the hearts of all men so desirous of that which no man can
obtain? It is an axiom of nature that natural desire cannot utterly be
frustrate. This desire of ours being natural should be frustrate, if that which
may satisfy the same were a thing impossible for man to aspire unto. Man doth
seek a triple perfection: first a sensual, consisting in those things which very
life itself requireth either as necessary supplements, or as beauties and
ornaments thereof; then an intellectual, consisting in those things which none
underneath man is either capable of or acquainted with; lastly a spiritual and
divine, consisting in those things whereunto we tend by supernatural means here,
but cannot here attain unto them. They that make the first of these three the
scope of their whole life, are said by the Apostle to have no god but only their
belly, to be earthly-minded men. Unto the second they bend themselves, who seek
especially to excel in all such knowledge and virtue as doth most commend men.
To this branch belongeth the law of moral and civil perfection. That there is
somewhat higher than either of these two, no other proof doth need than the very
process of man's desire, which being natural should be frustrate, if there were
not some farther thing wherein it might rest at the length contented, which in
the former it cannot do. For man doth not seem to rest satisfied, either with
fruition of that wherewith his life is preserved, or with performance of such
actions as advance him most deservedly in estimation; but doth further covet,
yea oftentimes manifestly pursue with great sedulity and earnestness, that which
cannot stand him in any stead of vital use; that which exceedeth the reach of
sense; yea somewhat above capacity of reason, somewhat divine and heavenly,
which with hidden exultation it rather surmiseth than conceiveth; somewhat it
seeketh, and what that is directly it knoweth not, yet very intentive desire
thereof doth so incite it, that all other known delights and pleasures are laid
aside, they give place to the search of this but only suspected desire. If the
soul of man did serve only to give him being in this life, then things
apertaining unto this life must content him, as we see they do other creatures;
which creatures enjoying what they live by seek no further, but in this
contentation do show a kind of acknowledgement that there is no higher good
which doth any way belong unto them. With us it is otherwise. For although the
beauties, riches, honours, sciences, virtues, and perfections of all men living,
were in the present possession of one; yet somewhat beyond and above all this
there would still be sought and earnestly thirsted for. So that Nature even in
this life doth plainly claim and call for a more divine perfection than either
of these two that have been mentioned.

[5.] This last and highest estate of perfection whereof we speak is received of
men in the nature of a Reward. Rewards do always presuppose such duties
performed as are rewardable. Our natural means therefore unto blessedness are
our works; nor is it possible that Nature should find any other way to salvation
than only this. But examine the works which we do, and since the first
foundation of the world what one can say, My ways are pure? Seeing then all
flesh is guilty of that for which God hath threatened eternally to punish, what
possiblity is there this way to be saved? There resteth therefore either no way
unto salvation, or if any, then surely a way which is supernatural, a way which
could have never entered into the heart of man as much as once to conceive or
imagine, if God himself had not revealed it extraordinarily. For which cause we
term it the mystery or secret way of salvation. And therefore St. Ambrose in
this matter appealeth justly from man to God, "Coeli mysterium doceat me Deus
qui condidit, non homo qui seipsum ignoravit: -- Let God himself that made me,
let not man that knows not himself, be my instructor concerning the mystical way
to heaven." "When men of excellent wit," saith Lactantius, "had wholly betaken
themselves unto study, after farewell bidden unto all kind as well of private as
public action, they spared no labour that might be spent in the search of truth;
holding it a thing of much more price to seek and to find out the reason of all
affairs as well divine as human, than to stick fast in the toil of piling up
riches and gathering together heaps of honours. Howbeit, they both did fail of
their purpose, and got not as much as to quite their charges; because truth
which is the secret of the Most High God, whose proper handy-work all things
are, cannot be compassed with that wit and those senses which are our own. For
God and man should be very near neighbours, if man's cogitations were able to
take a survey of the counsels and appointments of that Majesty everlasting.
Which being utterly impossible, that the eye of man by itself should look into
the bosom of divine Reason; God did not suffer him being desirous of the light
of wisdom to stray any longer up and down, and with bootless expense of travail
to wander in darkness that had no passage to get out by. His eyes at the length
God did open, and bestow upon him the knowledge of the truth by way of Donative,
to the end that man might both be clearly convicted of folly, and being through
error out of the way, have the path that leadeth unto immortality laid plain
before him." Thus far Lactantius Firmianus, to show that God himself is the
teacher of the truth, whereby is made known the supernatural way of salvation
and law for them to live in that shall be saved. In the natural path of
everlasting life the first beginning is that ability of doing good, which God in
the day of man's creation endued him with; from hence obedience unto the will of
his Creator, absolute righteousness and integrity in all his actions; and last
of all the justice of God rewarding the worthiness of his deserts with the crown
of eternal glory. Had Adam continued in his first estate, this had been the way
of life unto him and all his posterity. Wherein I confess notwithstanding with
the wittiest of the school-divines, "That if we speak of strict justice, God
could no way have been bound to requite man's labours in so large and ample a
manner as human felicity doth import; inasmuch as the dignity of this exceedeth
so far the other's value. But be it that God of his great liberality had
determined in lieu of man's endeavours to bestow the same by the rule of that
justice which best beseemeth him, namely, the justice of one that requiteth
nothing mincingly, but all with pressed and heaped and even over-enlarged
measure; yet could it never hereupon necessarily be gathered, that such justice
should add to the nature of that reward the property of everlasting continuance;
sith possession of bliss, though it should be but for a moment, were an abundant
retribution." But we are not now to enter into this consideration, how gracious
and bountiful our good God might still appear in so rewarding the sons of men,
albeit they should exactly perform whatsoever duty their nature bindeth them
unto. Howsoever God did propose this reward, we that were to be rewarded must
have done that which is required at our hands; we failing in the one, it were in
nature an impossibility that the other should be looked for. The light of nature
is never able to find out any way of obtaining the reward of bliss, but by
performing exactly the duties and works of righteousness.

[6.] From salvation therefore and life all flesh being excluded this way, behold
how the wisdom of God hath revealed a way mystical and supernatural, a way
directing unto the same end of life by a course which groundeth itself upon the
guiltiness of sin, and through sin desert of condemnation and death. For in this
way the first thing is the tender compassion of God respecting us drowned and
swallowed up in misery; the next is redemption out of the same by the precious
death and merit of a mighty Saviour, which hath witnessed of himself, saying, "I
am the way," the way that leadeth us from misery into bliss. This supernatural
way had God in himself prepared before all the worlds. The way of supernatural
duty which to us he hath prescribed, our Saviour in the Gospel of St. John doth
note, terming it by an excellency, The Work of God, "This is the work of God,
that ye believe in him whom he hath sent." Not that God doth require nothing unto
happiness at the hands of men saving only a naked belief (for hope and charity
we may not exclude); but that without belief all other things are as nothing,
and it the ground of those other divine virtues.

Concerning Faith, the principal object whereof is that eternal Verity which hath
discovered the treasures of hidden wisdom of Christ; concerning Hope, the
highest object whereof is that everlasting Goodness which in Christ doth quicken
the dead; concerning Charity, the final object whereof is that comprehensive
beauty which shineth in the countenance of Christ the son of the living God:
concerning these virtues, the first of which beginning with a weak apprehension
of things not seen, endeth with the intuitive vision of God in the world to 
come; the second beginning here with a trembling expectation of things far
removed and as yet but only heard of, endeth with real and actual fruition of
that which no tongue can express; the third beginning with a weak inclination of
hearts towards him unto whom we are not able to approach, endeth with endless
union, the mystery whereof is higher than the reach of the thoughts of men;
concerning that Faith, Hope, and Charity, without which there can be no
salvation, was there ever any mention made saving only in that law which God
himself hath from heaven revealed? There is not in the world a syllable muttered 
with certain truth concerning any of these three, more than hath been
supernatually received from the mouth of the eternal God.

Laws therefore concerning these things are supernatural, both in respect of the 
manner of delivering them, which is divine; and also in regard of the things
delivered, which are such as have not in nature any cause from which they flow,
but were by the voluntary appointment of God ordained besides the course of 
nature, to rectify nature's obliquity withal.


===================================================
XII.

[1.] When supernatural duties are necessarily exacted, natural are not rejected
as needless. The law of God therefore is, though principally delivered for the
instruction in the one, yet fraught with the precepts of the other also. The
Scripture is fraught even with laws of Nature; insomuch that Gratian defining
Natural Right, (whereby is meant the right which exacteth those general duties
that concern men naturally even as they are men,) termeth "Natural Right, that
which the Books of the Law and the Gospel do contain." Neither is it vain that
the Scripture aboundeth with so great store of laws in this kind: for they are
either such as we of ourselves could not easily have found out, and then the
benefit is not small to have them readily set down to our hands; or if they be
so clear and manifest that no man endued with reason can lightly be ignorant of 
them, yet the Spirit as it were borrowing them from the school of Nature, as
serving to prove things less manifest, and to induce a persuasion of somewhat
which were in itself more hard and dark, unless it should in such sort be
cleared, the very applying of them unto cases particular is not without most
singular use and profit many times for men's instruction. Besides, be they plain
of themselves or obscure, the evidence of God's own testimony added to the
natural assent of reason concerning the certainty of them, doth not a little
comfort and confirm the same.

[2.] Wherefore inasmuch as our actions are conversant about things beset with
many circumstances, which cause men with sundry wits to be also of sundry
judgments concerning that which ought to be done; requisite it cannot but seem
the rule of divine law should herein help our imbecility, that we might the more
infallibly understand what is good and what evil. The first principles of the
Law of Nature are easy; hard it were to find men ignorant of them. But
concerning the duty which Nature's Law doth require at the hands of men
in a number of things particular, so far hath the natural understanding even of 
sundry whole nations been darkened, that they have not discerned no not gross 
iniquity to be sin. Again, being so prone as we are to fawn upon ourselves, and
to be ignorant as much as may be of our own deformities, without the feeling
sense whereof we are most wretched, even so much the more, because not knowing
them we cannot so much as desire to have them taken away: how should our
festered sores be cured, but that God hath delivered a law as sharp as the
two-edged sword, piercing the very closest and most unsearchable corners of the
heart, which the Law of Nature can hardly, human laws by no means possible,
reach unto? Hereby we know even secret concupiscence to be sin, and are made
fearful to offend though it be but in a wandering cogitation. Finally, of those
things which are for direction of all the parts of our life needful, and not
impossible to be discerned by the light of Nature itself; are there not many
which few men's natural capacity, and some which no man's, hath been able to
find out? They are, saith St. Augustine, but a few, and they endued with great
ripness of wit and judgment, free from all such affairs as might trouble their
meditations, instructed in the sharpest and subtlest points of learning, who
have, and that very hardly, been able to find out but only the immortality of
soul. The resurrection of the flesh what man did ever at any time dream of,
having not heard it otherwise than from the school of Nature? Whereby it
appeareth how much we are bound to yield unto our Creator, the Father of all
mercy, eternal thanks, for that he hath delivered his law unto the world, a law
wherein so many things are laid open, clear, and manifest, as a light which
otherwise would have been buried in darkness, not without the hazard, or rather
not with the hazard but with the certain loss, of infinite thousands of souls
most undoubtedly now saved.

[3.] We see, therefore, that our sovereign good is desired naturally; that God
the author of that natural desire had appointed natural means whereby to fulfil
it; that man having utterly disabled his nature unto those means hath had other
revealed from God, and hath received from heaven a law to teach him how that
which is desired naturally must now supernaturally be attained. Finally, we see
that because those latter exclude not the former quite and clean as unnecessary,
therefore together with such supernatural duties as could not possibly have been
otherwise known to the world, the same law that teacheth them, teacheth also
with them such natural duties as could not by light of nature easily have been 
known.


=============================
XIII.

[1.] In the first age of the world God gave laws unto our fathers, and by reason
of the number of their days their memories served instead of books; whereof the
manifold imperfections and defects being known to God, he mercifully relieved
the same by often putting them in mind of that whereof it behoved them to be
specially mindful. In which respect we see how many times one thing hath been
iterated unto sundry even the best and wisest amongst them. After that the lives
of men were shortened, means more durable to preserve the laws of God from
oblivion and corruption grew in use, not without precise direction from God
himself. First therefore of Moyses it is said, that he "wrote all the words of 
God;" not by his own private motion and device: for God taketh this act to
himself, "I have written." Furthermore, were not the Prophets following
commanded also to do the like? Unto the holy evangelist St. John, how often 
express charge is given, "Scribe," "Write these thing." Concerning the rest of
our Lord's disciples, the words of St. Augustine are, "Quicquid ille de suis
factis et dictis legere voluit, hoc scribendum illis tanquam suis manibus
imperavit."

[2.] Now, although we do not deny it to be a matter merely accidental unto the 
law of God to be written; although writing be not that which addeth authority
and strength thereunto; finally, though his laws do require at our hands the
same obedience howsoever they be delivered; his providence, notwithstanding,
which hath made principal choice of this way to deliver them, who seeth not
what cause we have to admire and magnify? The singular benefit that hath grown
unto the world, by receiving the laws of God even by his own appointment
commited unto writing, we are not able to esteem as the value thereof deserveth.
When the question therefore is, whether we be now to seek for any revealed law
of God otherwhere than only in the sccred Scripture; whether we do now stand
bound in the sight of God to yield to traditions urged by the Church of Rome the
same obedience and reverence we do to his written law, honouring equally and
adoring both as divine: our answer is, no. They that so earnestly plead for
the authority of tradition, as if nothing were more safely conveyed than that
which spreadeth itself by report, and descendeth by relation of former
generations unto the ages that succeed, are not all of them (surely a miracle it
were if they should be) so simple as thus to persuade themselves; howsoever, if
the simple were so persuaded, they could be content perhaps very well to enjoy
the benefit, as they account it, of that common error. What hazard the truth is
in when it passeth through the hands of report, how maimed and deformed it
becometh, they are not, they cannot possibly be ignorant. Let them that are
indeed of this mind consider but only that little of things divine, which the
heathen have in such sort received. How miserable had the state of the Church of
God been long ere this, if wanting the sacred Scripture we have no record of his
laws, but only the memory of man receiving the same by report and relation from
his predecessors?

[3.] By Scripture it hath in the wisdom of God seemed meet to deliver unto the
world much but personally expedient to be practised of certain men; many deep
and profound points of doctrine, as being the main original ground whereupon
the precepts of duty depend; many prophesies, the clear performance whereof
might confirm the world in belief of things unseen; many histories to serve as
looking-glasses to behold the mercy, the truth, the righteousness of God towards
all that faithfully serve, obey, and honour him; yea many entire meditations of 
piety, to be as patterns and precedents in cases of like nature; many things
needful for explication, many for application unto particular occasions, such as
the providence of God from time to time hath taken to have the several books of
his holy ordinance written. Be it then that together with the principal
necessary laws of God there are sundry other things written, whereof we might 
haply be ignorant and yet be saved: what? shall we hereupon think them needless?
shall we esteem them as riotous branches wherewith we sometimes behold most
pleasant vines overgrown? Surely no more than we judge our hands or our eyes
superfluous, or what part soever, which if our bodies did want, we might
notwithstanding any such defect retain the complete being of men. As therefore a
complete man is neither destitute of any part necessary, and hath some parts
though the want thereof could not deprive him of his essence, yet to have them
standeth him in singular stead in respect of the special uses for which they 
serve; in like sort all those writings which contain in them the Law of God,
all those venerable books of Scripture, all those sacred tomes and volumes of 
Holy Writ, they are with such absolute perfection framed, that in them there
neither wanteth any thing the lack whereof might deprive us of life, nor any
thing in such wise aboundeth, that as being superfluous, unfruitful, and
altogether needless, we should think it no loss or danger at all if we did want 
it.


======================================================
XIV.

[1.] Although the Scripture of God therefore be stored with infinite variety of
matter in all kinds, although it abound with all sorts of laws, yet the
principal intent of Scripture is to deliver the laws of duties supernatural. 
Oftentimes it hath been in very solemn manner disputed, whether all things
necessary unto salvation be necessarily set down in the Holy Scripture or no. 
If we define that necessary unto salvation, whereby the way to salvation is
made more plain, apparent, and easy to be known; then is there no part of true
philosophy, no art of account, no kind of science rightly so called, but the
Scripture must contain it. If only those things be necessary, as surely none
else are, without the knowledge and practice whereof it is not the will and
pleasure of God to make any ordinary grant of salvation; it may be
notwithstanding and oftentimes hath been demanded, how the books of Holy
Scripture contain in them all necessary things, when of things necessary the
very chiefest is to know what books we are bound to esteem holy; which point is
confessed impossible for the Scripture itself to teach. Whereunto we may answer
with truth, that there is not in the world any art or science, which proposing
unto itself an end (as every one doth some end or other) hath been therefore
thought defective, if it have not delivered simply whatsoever is needful to the
same end; but all kinds of knowledge have their certain bounds and limits; each
of them presupposeth many necessary things learned in other sciences and known
beforehand. He that should take upon him to teach men how to be eloquent in
pleading causes, must needs deliver unto them whatsoever precepts are requisite 
unto that end; otherwise he doth not the thing which he taketh upon him. Seeing
that no man can plead eloquently unless he be able first to speak; it followeth
that ability of speech is in this case a thing most necessary. Notwithstanding
every man would think it ridiculous, that he which undertaketh by writing to
instruct an orator should therefore deliver all the precepts of grammar; because
his profession is to deliver precepts necessary unto eloquent speech, yet so
that they which are to receive them be taught beforehand so much of that which
is thereunto necessary, as comprehendeth the skill of speaking. In like sort,
albeit Scripture do profess to contain in it all things that are necessary unto
salavation; yet the meaning cannot be simply of all things which are necessary, 
but all things that are necessary in some certain kind or form; as all things
which are necessary, and either could not at all or could not easily be known by
the light of natural discourse; all things which are necessary to be known that
we may be saved, but known with presupposal of knowledge concerning certain 
principles whereof it receiveth us already persuaded, and then instructeth us in
all the residue that are necessary. In the number of these principles one is the
sacred authority of Scripture. Being therefore persuaded by other means that the
Scriptures are the oracles of God, themselves do then teach us the rest, and lay
before us all the duties which God requireth at our hands as necessary unto
salvation.

[2.] Further, there hath been some doubt likewise, whether containing in
Scripture do import express setting down in plain terms, or else comprehending
in such sort that by reason we may from thence conclude all things which are
necessary. Against the former of these two instructions instance hath sundry 
ways been given. For our belief in the Trinity, the co-eternity of the Son of
God with his Father, the proceeding of the Spirit from the Father and the Son,
the duty of baptizing infants: these with such other principal points, the
necessity whereof is by none denied, are notwithstanding in Scripture no where
to be found by express literal mention, only deduced they are out of Scripture
by collection. This kind of comprehension in Scripture being therefore received, 
still there is doubt how far we are to proceed by collection, before the full
and complete measure of things necessary be made up. For let us not think that
as long as the world doth endure the wit of man shall be able to sound the 
bottom of that which may be concluded out of the Scripture; especially if
"things contained by collection" do so far extend, as to draw in whatsoever may
be at any time out of Scripture but probably and conjecturelly surmised. But let
necessary collection be made requisite, and we may boldly deny, that of all
those things which at this day are with so great necessity urged upon this 
Church under the name of reformed church-discipline, there is any one which
their books hitherto have made manifest to be contained in the Scripture. Let
them, if they can, allege but one properly belonging to their cause, and not
common to them and us, and shew the deduction thereof out of Scripture to be
necessary.

[3.] It hath already been shewed, how all things necessary unto salvation in
such sort as before we have maintained must needs be possible for men to know;
and that many things are in such sort necessary, the knowledge whereof is
by the light of Nature impossible to be attained. Whereupon it followeth that
either all flesh is excluded from possibility of salvation, which to think were
most barbarous; or else God hath by supernatural means revealed the way of life
so far forth as doth suffice. For this cause God hath so many times and ways
spoken to the sons of men. Neither hath he by speech only, but by writing also,
instructed and taught his Church. The cause of writing hath been to the end that
things by him revealed unto the world might have the longer continuance, and
greater certainty of assurance, by how much that which standeth on record hath
in both those respects preeminence above that which passeth from hand to hand,
and hath no pens but the tongues, no books but the ears of men to record it. The
several books of Scripture having had each some several occasion and particular
purpose which caused them to be writtern, the contents thereof are according to
the exigency of that special end whereunto they are intended. Hereupon it
groweth that every book of Holy Scripture doth take out all kinds of truth,
natural, historical, foreign, supernatural, so much as the matter handled
requireth.

Now forasmuch as there hath been reason alleged sufficient to conclude, that all
things necessary unto salvation must be made known, and that God himself hath
therefore revealed his will, because otherwise men could not have known so much
as is necessary; his surceasing to speak to the world, since the publishing of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the delivery of the same in writing, is unto us a
manifest token that the way of salvation is now sufficiently opened, and that we
need no other means for our full instruction than God hath already furnished us 
withal.

[4.] The main drift of the whole New Testament is that which St. John setteth 
down as the purpose of his own history; "This things are written, that ye might
believe that Jesus is Christ the son of God, and that in believing ye might have
life through his name." The drift of the Old that which the Apostle mentioneth
to Timothy, "The Holy Scriptures are able to make thee wise to salvation." So
that the general end both of Old and New is one; the difference between them
consisting in this, that the Old did make wise by teaching salvation through
Christ that should come, the New by teaching that Christ the Saviour is come,
and that Jesus whom the Jews did crucify, and whom God did raise again from the 
dead, is he. When the Apostle affirmeth therefore unto Timothy, that the Old was
able to make him wise to salvation, it was not his meaning that the Old alone
can do this unto us which live sithence the publication of the New. For he
speaketh with presupposal of the doctrine of Christ known also unto Timothy; and
therefore first it is said, "Continue in those things which thou hast learned
and art persuaded, knowing of whom thou hast been taught them." Again, those
Scriptures he granteth were able to make him wise to salvation; but he addeth,
"through the faith which is in Christ." Wherefore without the doctrine of the
New Testament teaching that Christ hath wrought the redemption of the world,
which redemption the Old did forshew he should work, it is not the former alone
which can on our behalf perform so much as the Apostle doth avouch, who
presupposeth this when he magnifieth that so highly. And as his words concerning
the book of ancient Scripture do not take place but with presupposal of the
Gospel of Christ embraced; so our own words also, when we extol the complete
sufficiency of the whole entire body of the Scripture, must in like sort be
understood with this caution, that the benefit of nature's light be not thought
excluded as unnecessary, because the necessity of a diviner light is magnified.

[5.] There is therefore in Scripture no defect, but that any man, what place or
calling soever he hold in the Church of God, may have thereby the light of his
natural understanding so perfected, that the one being relieved by the other,
there can want no part of needful instruction unto any good work which God
himself requireth, be it natural or supernatural, belonging simply unto men as 
men, or unto men as they are united in whatsoever kind of society. It suffieceth
therefore that Nature and Scripture do serve in such full sort, that they both
jointly, and not severally either of them, be so complete, that unto everlasting
felicity we need not the knowledge of any thing more than these two may easily
furnish our minds on all sides; and therefore they which add traditions, as part
of supernatural necessary truth, have not the truth, but are in error. For they
only plead, that whatsoever God revealeth as necessary for all Christian men to 
do or believe, the same we ought to embrace, whether we have received it in
writing or otherwise; which no man denieth: when that which they should confirm,
who claim so great reverence unto traditions, is, that the same traditions are
necessarily to be acknowledged divine and holy. For we do not reject them only
because they are not in the Scripture, but because they are neither in
Scripture, nor can otherwise sufficiently by any reason be proved to be of God. 
That which is of God, and may be evidently proved to be so, we deny not but it
hath in his kind, although unwritten, yet the selfsame force and authority with
the written laws of God. It is by ours acknowledged, "that the Apostles did in
every church institute and ordain some rites and customs serving for the
seemliness of church-regiment, which rites and customs they have not committed
unto writing." Those rites and customs being known to be apostolical, and having
the nature of things changeable, were no less to be accounted of in the Church
than other things of the like degree; that is to say, capable in like sort of
alteration, although set down in the Apostles' writings. For both being known to
be apostolical, it is not the manner of delivering them unto the Church, but the
author from whom they proceed; which doth give them their force and credit.


=========================================
XV. Of laws positive contained in Scripture, the mutabiity of certain of them,
and the general use of Scripture.

[1.] Laws being imposed either by each man upon himself, or by a public society
upon the particulars thereof, or by all the nations of men upon every several
society, or by the Lord himself upon any or every of these; there is not amongst
these four kinds any one but containeth sundry both natural and positive laws.
Impossible it is but that they should fall into a number of gross errors, who
only take such law for positive as have been made or invented of men, and
holding this position holdeth also, that all positive and none but positive laws
are mutable. Laws natural do always bind; laws positive not so, but only after
they have been expressly and wittingly imposed. As in the first kind the
promises which we have passed unto men, and the vows we have made unto God; for
these are laws which we tie ourselves unto, and till we have so tied ourselves
they bind us not. Laws positive in the second kind are such as the civil
constitutions peculiar unto each particular commonweal. In the third kind the
law of Heraldry in war is positive: and in the last all the judicials which God
gave unto the people of Israel to observe. And although no laws but positive be
mutable, yet all are not mutable which be positive. Positive laws are either
permanent or else changeable, according as the matter itself is concerning which 
they were first made. Whether God or man be the maker of them, alteration they
so far forth admit, as the matter doth exact.

[2.] Laws that concern supernatural duties are all positive, and either concern
men supernaturally as men, or else as parts of a supernatural society, which
society we call the Church. To concern men as men supernaturally is to concern
them as duties which belong of necessity to all, and yet could not have been
known by any to belong unto them, unless God had opened them himself, inasmuch
as they do not depend upon any natural ground at all out of which they may be
deduced, but are appointed of God to supply the defects of those natural ways of
salvation, by which we are not now able to attain thereunto. The Church being a
supernatural society doth differ from natural societies in this, that the
persons unto whom we associate ourselves, in the one are men simply considered 
as men, but they to whom we be joined in the other, are God, angels, and holy
men. Again the Church being both a society and a society supernatural, although
as it is a society it have the selfsame original grounds which other politic 
societies have, namely, the natural inclination which all men have unto sociable
life, and consent to some certain bond of association, which bond is the law
which appointeth what kind of order they shall be associated in: yet unto the
Church as it is a society supernatural this is peculiar, that part of the bond
of their association which belong to the Church of God must be a law 
supernatural, which God himself hath revealed concerning that kind of worship
which his people shall do unto him. The substance of the service of God
therefore, so far forth as it hath in it any thing more than the law of Reason
doth teach, may not be invented of men, as it is amongst the heathens, but must
be received from God himself, as always it hath been in the Church, saving only
when the Church hath been forgetful of her duty.

[3.] Wherefore to end with a general rule concerning all the laws which God hath
tied men unto: those laws divine which belong, whether naturally or
supernaturally, either to men as men, or to men as they live in politic society,
or to men as they are of that politic society which is the Church, without any
further respect had unto any such variable accident as the state of men and of
societies of men and of the Church itself in this world is subject unto; all
laws that so belong unto men, they belong for ever, yea although they be
positive Laws, unless being positive God himself which made them alter them. The
reason is, because the subject or matter of laws in general is thus far forth
constant: which matter is that for the ordering whereof laws were instituted,
and being instituted are not changeable without cause, neither can they have
cause of change, when that which give them their first institution remaineth for
ever one and the same. On the other side, laws that were made for men or
societies or churches, in regard of their being such as they do not always
continue, but may perhaps be clean otherwise a while after, and so may require
to be otherwise ordered than before; the laws of God himself which are of this 
nature, no man endued with common sense will ever deny to be of a different
constitution from the former, in respect of the one's constancy and the
mutability of the other. And this doth seem to be the very cause why St. John
doth so peculiarly term the doctrine that teacheth salvation by Jesus Christ,
Evangelium aeternum, "an eternal Gospel;" because there can be no reason
wherefore the publishing thereof should be taken away, and any other instead of
it proclaimed, as long as the world doth continue: whereas the whole law of
rites and ceremonies, although delivered with so great solemnity, is
notwithstanding clean aborgated, inasmuch as it had but temporary cause of God's
ordaining it.

[4.] But that we may at the length conclude this general introduction unto the
nature and original birth, as of all other laws, so likewise of those which the
sacred Scripture containeth, concerning the Author whereof even infidels have
confessed that He can neither err nor deceive: albeit about things easy and
manifest unto all men by common sense there needeth no higher consultation;
because as a man whose wisdom is in weighty affairs admired would take it in
some disdain to have his counsel solemnly asked about a toy, so the meanness of
some things is such, that to search the Scripture of God for the ordering them
is to derogate from the reverend authority and dignity of the Scripture, no less
than they do by whom the Scriptures are in ordinary talk very idly applied unto
vain and childish trifles: yet better it were to be superstitious than profane;
to take from thence all our direction even in things great or small, than to
wade through matters of principal weight and moment, without ever caring what
the law of God hath either for or against our designs. Concerning the custom of
the very Panims, thus much Strabe witnesseth:"Men that are civil do lead their
lives after one common law appointing them what to do. For that otherwise a
multitude should with harmony amongst themselves concur in the doing of one
thing, (for this is civilly to live,) or they should in any sort manage 
community of life, it is not possible. Now laws or statutes are of two sorts.
For they are received either from gods, or else from men. And our ancient
predecessors did surely most honour and reverend that which was from the gods;
for which cause consultation with oracles was a thing very usual and frequent in
their times." Did they make so much account of the voice of their gods, which in
truth were no gods; and shall we neglect the precious benefit of conference with
those oracles of the true and living God, whereof so great store is left to the
Church, and whereunto there is so free, so plain, and so easy access for all 
men? "By thy commandments," (this was David's confession unto God) "thou hast
made me wiser than mine enemies." Again, "I have had more understanding than all
my teachers, because thy testimonies are my meditations." What pains would not 
they have bestowed in the study of these books, who travelled sea and land to
gain the treasure of a few days' talk with men whose wisdom the world did make
any reckoning of? That little which some of the heathens did chance to hear,
concerning such matters as the sacred Scripture plentifully containeth, they did
in wonderful sort affect; their speeches as oft as they make mention thereof are
strange, and such as themselves could not utter as they did other things, but
did acknowledge that their wits, which did every where else conquer hardness,
were with profoundness here over-matched. Wherefore seeing that God hath endued
us with sense, to the end that we might perceive such things as this present
life doth need; and with reason, lest that which sense cannot reach unto, being
both now and in regard of a future estate hereafter necessary to be known,
should lie obscure; finally, with the heavenly support of prophetical
revelation, which doth open those mysteries that reason could never have been
able to find out, or to have known the necessity of them unto our everlasting
good: use we the precious gifts of God unto his glory and honour that gave them,
seeking by all means to know what the will of our God is; what righteous before
him; in his sight what holy, perfect, and good, that we may truly and faithfully
do it.


==================================================
XVI.

[1.] Thus far we have endeavoured in part to open, of what force and nature laws
are, according unto their several kinds; the law which God himself hath
eternally set down to follow in all his works; the law which he hath made for
his creatures to keep; the law of natural and necessary agents; the law which
angels in heaven obey; the law whereunto by the light of reason men find
themselves bound in that they are men; the law which they make by composition
for multitudes and politic societies of men to be guided by; the law which
belongeth unto each nation; the law that concerneth the fellowship of all; and
lastly the law which God hath supernaturally revealed. It might peradventure
have been more popular and more plausible to vulgar ears, if this first
discourse had been spent in extolling the force of laws, in shewing the great
necessity of them when they are good, and in aggravating their offence by whom
public laws are injuriously traduced. But forasmuch as with such kind of matter
the passions of men are rather stirred one way or other, than their knowledge
any way set forward unto the trial of that whereof there is doubt made; I have
therefore turned aside from that beaten path, and chosen though a less easy yet
a more profitable way in regard of the end we propose. Lest therefore any man 
should marvel whereunto all these things tend, the drift and purpose of all is
this, even to shew in what manner, as every good and perfect gift, so this very
gift of good and perfect laws is derived from the Father of lights; to teach men
a reason why just and reasonable laws are of so great force, of so great use in
the world; and to inform their minds with some method of reducing the laws
whereof there is present controversy unto their first original causes, that so
it may be in every particular ordinance thereby the better discerned, whether
the same be reasonable, just, and righteous, or no. Is there any thing which can
either be throughly understood or soundly judged of, till the very first causes
and principles from which originally it springeth be made manifest? If all parts
of knowledge have been thought by wise men to be then most orderly delivered and
proceeded in, when they are drawn to their first original; seeing that our whole
question concerneth the quality of ecclesiastical laws, let it not seem a labour
superfluous that in the entrance thereunto all these several kinds of laws have
been considered, inasmuch as they all concur as principles, they all have their
forcible operations therein, although not all in like appearent and manifest
manner. By means wherefore it followeth that the force which they have is not
observed of many.

[2.] Easier a great deal it is for men by men to be taught what they ought to
do, than instructed how to judge as they should do of law: the one being a thing
which belongeth generally unto all, the other such as none but the wiser and
more judicious sort can perform. Yea, the wisest are always touching this point
the readiest to acknowledge, that soundly to judge of a law is the weightiest
thing which any man can take upon him. But if we will give judgment of the laws
under which we live; first let that law eternal be always before our eyes, as
being of principal force and moment to breed in religious minds a dutiful
estimation of all laws, the use and benefit whereof we see; because there can be
no doubts but that laws apparently good are (as it were) things copied out of
the very tables of that high everlasting law; even as the book of that law hath
said concerning itself, "By me kings reign, and" by me "princes decree justice."
Not as if men did behold that book and accordingly frame their laws; but because
it worketh in them, because it discovereth and (as it were) readeth itself unto 
the world by them, when the laws which they make are righteous. Furthermore,
although we do perceive not the goodness of laws made, nevertheless sith things
may have in themselves that which we peradventure discern not, should not this
breed a fear in our hearts, how we speak or judge in the worse part concerning
that, the unadvised disgrace whereof may be no mean dishonour to Him, towards
whom we profess all submission and awe? Surely there must be very manifest
iniquity in laws, against which we shall be able to justify our contumelious
invectives. The chiefest root whereof, when we we use them without cause, is
ignorance how laws inferior are derived from that supreme or higher law.

[3.] The first that receive impression from thence are natural agents. The law
of whose operations might be haply thought less pertinent, when the question is
about laws of human actions, but that in those very actions which most
spiritually and supernaturally concern men, the rules and axioms of natural
actions have their force. What can be more immediate to our salvation than our
persuasion concerning the law of Christ towards his Church? What greater
assurance of love towards his Chruch, than the knowledge of that mystical union,
whereby the Church is become as near unto Christ as any one part of his flesh is
unto other? That the Church being in such sort his he must needs protect it,
what proof more strong than if a manifest law so require, which law it is
not possible for Christ to violate? And what other law doth the Apostle for this
allege, but such as is both common unto Christ with us, and unto us with other
things natural; "No man hateth his own flesh, but doth love and cherish it?" The
axioms of that law therefore, whereby natural agents are guided, have their use
in the moral, yea, even in the spiritual actions of men, and consequently in all
laws belonging unto men howsoever.

[4.] Neither are the Angels themselves so far severed from us in their kind and
manner of working, but that between the laws of their heavenly operations and
the actions of men in this our state of morality such correspondence there is,
as maketh it expedient to know in some sort the one, for the other's most
perfect direction. Would Angels acknowledge themselves "fellow-servants" with
the sons of men, but that both having one Lord, there must be some kind of law
which is one and the same to both, whereunto their obedience being perfecter is
to our weaker both a pattern and a spur? Or would the Apostles, speaking of that
which belongeth unto saints as they are linked together in the bond of spiritual
society, so often make mention how Angels therewith are delighted, if in things
publicly done by the Church we are not somewhat to respect what the Angels of
heaven do? Yea, so far hath the Apostle St. Paul proceeded, as to signify, that
even about the outward orders of the Church which served but for comeliness,
some regard is to be had of Angels, who best like us when we are most like unto
them in all parts of decent demeanour. So that the law of Angels we cannot judge
altogether impertinent unto the affairs of the Church of God.

[5.] Our largeness of speech how men do find out what things reason bindeth them
of necessity to observe, and what it guideth them to choose in things which are
left as arbitrary; the care we have had to declared the different nature of laws
which severally concern all men, from such as belong unto men either civilly or
spiritually associated, such as pertain to the fellowship which nations, or
which Christian nations, have amongst themselves, and in the last place such as
concerning every or any of these God himself hath revealed by his Holy Word: all
serveth but to make manifest, that as the actions of men are of sundry distinct
kinds, so the laws thereof must accordingly be distinguished. There are in men
operations, some natural, some rational, some supernatural, some politic, some
finally ecclesiastical: which if we measure not each by his own proper law,
whereas the things themselves are so different, there will be in our
underestanding and judgment of them confusion.

As that first error sheweth, whereon our opposites in this cause have grounded
themselves. For as they rightly maintain that God must be glorified in all
things, and the actions of man cannot tend unto his glory unless they be framed
after his law; so it is their error to think that the only law which God hath
appointed unto men in that behalf is the sacred Scripture. By that which we work
naturally, as when we breathe, sleep, move, we set forth the glory of God as
natural agents do, albeit we have no express purpose to make that our end, nor
any advised determination therein to follow a law, but do that we do (for the
most part) not as much as thinking thereon. In reasonable and moral actions
another law taketh place; a law by the observation whereof we glorify God in
such sort, as no creature under man is able to do; because other creatures have
not judgment to examine the quality of that which is done by them, and therefore
in that they do they neither can accuse nor approve themselves. Men do both, as
the Apostle teacheth; yea, those men which have no written law of God to show
what is good or evil, carry written in their hearts the universal law of
mankind, the Law of Reason, whereby they judge as by a rule which God hath given
unto all men for that purpose. The law of reason doth somewhat direct men how to
honour God as their Creator; but how to glorify God in such sort as is required,
to the end he may be an everlasting Saviour, this we are taught by divine law,
which law both ascertaineth the truth  and supplieth unto us the want of that
other law. So that in moral actions, divine law helpeth exceedingly the law of
reason to guide man's life; but in supernature it alone guideth.

Proceed we further; let us place men in some public society with others, whether
civil or spiritual; and in this case there is no remedy but we must add yet a
further law. For although here likewise the laws of nature and reason be of
necessary use, yet somewhat over and besides them is necessary, namely human and
positive law, together with the law which is of commerce between grand
societies, the law of nations, and of nation Christian. For which cause the law
of God hath likewise said, "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers." The
public power of all societies is about every sould contained in the same
societies. And the principal use of that power is to give laws unto all that are
under it; which laws in such case we must obey, unless there be reason shewed
which may necessarily enforce that the law of Reason or of God doth enjoin the
contrary. Because except our own private and but probable resolutions be by the
law of public determinations overruled, we take away all possibility of sociable
life in the world. A plainer example whereof than ourselves we cannot have. How
cometh it to pass that we are at this present day so rent with mutual
contentions, and that the Church is so much troubled about the polity of the
Church? No doubt if men had been willing to learn how many laws their actions in
this life are subject unto, and what the true force of each law is, all these
controversies might have died the very day they were first brought forth. 

[6.] It is both commonly said, and truly, that the best men otherwise are not
the best in regard of society. The reason whereof is, for that the law of men's
actions is one, if they be respected only as men; and another, when they are
considered as parts of a politic body. Many men there are, than whom nothing is
more commendable when they are singled; and yet in society with others none less
fit to answer the duties which are looked for at their hands. Yea, I am
persuaded, that of them with whom in this cause we strive, there are whose
betters amongst men would be hardly found, if they did not live amongst men, but
in some wilderness by themselves. The cause of which their disposition so
unframable unto societies wherein they live, is, for that they discern not
aright what place and force these several kinds of laws ought to have in all
their actions. Is there question either concerning the regiment of the Church in
general, or about conformity between one church and another, or of ceremonies,
offices, powers, jurisdictions in our own church? Of all these things they judge
by that rule which they frame to themselves with some show of probability, and
what seemeth in that sort convenient, the same they think themselves bound to
practise; the same by all means they labour mightily to uphold; whatsoever any 
law of man to the contrary hath determined they weigh it not. Thus by following
the law of private reason, where the law of public should take place, they bred
disturbance.

[7.] For the better inuring therefore of men's minds with the true distinction
of laws, and of their several force according to the different kind and quality
of our actions, it shall not peradventure be amiss to shew in some one example
how they all take place. To seek no further, let but that be considered, than
which there is not any thing more familiar unto us, our food.

What things are food and what are not we judge naturally by sense; neither need
we any other law to be our director in that behalf than the selfsame which is
common unto us with beasts.

But when we come to consider of food, as of a benefit which God of his
bounteous goodness hath provided for all things living; the law of Reason doth
here require the duty of thankfulness at our hands, towards him at whose hands
we have it. And lest appetite in the use of food should lead us beyond that
which is meet, we owe in this case obedience to that law of Reason, which
teacheth mediocrity in meats and drinks. The same things divine law teacheth
also, as at large we have shewed it doth all parts of moral duty, whereunto we
all of necessity stand bound, in regard of the life to come.

But of certain kinds of food the Jews sometimes had, and we ourselves likely
have, a mystical, religious, and supernatural use, they of their paschal lambs
and oblations, we of our bread and wine in the Eucharist; which use none but
divine law could institute.

Now as we live in civil society, the state of the commonwealth wherein we live
both may and doth require certain laws concerning food; which laws, saving only
that we are members of the commonwealth where they are of force, we should not
need to respect as rules of action, whereas now in their place and kind they
must be respected and obeyed. 

Yea, the selfsame matter is also a subject wherein sometime ecclesiastical laws
have place; so that unless we will be the authors of confusion in the Church,
our private discretion, which otherwise might guide us a contrary way, must have
submitted itself to be that way guided, which the public judgment of the Church
hath thought better. In which case that of Zonaras concerning fasts may be
remembered. "Fastings are good, but let good things be done in good and
convenient manner. He that transgresseth in his fasting the orders of the holy
fathers," the positive laws of the Church of Christ, must be plainly told, "that
good things do lose the grace of their goodness, when in good sort they are not
performed."

And as here men's private fancies must give place to the higher judgment of that
Church which is in authority a mother over them; so the very actions of whole 
churches have, in regard of commerce and fellowship with other churches, been
subject to laws concerning food, the contrary unto which laws had else been
thought more convenient for them to observe; as by that order of abstinence from
strangled and blood may appear; and order grounded upon that fellowship which
the Churches of Gentiles had with the Jews.

Thus we see how even one and the selfsame thing is under divers considerations
conveyed through many laws; and that to measure by any one kind of law all the
actions of men are to confound the admirable order, wherein God hath disposed
all laws, each as in nature, so in degree, distinct from other.

[8.] Wherefore that here we might briefly end: of Law there can be no less
acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of
the world: all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as
feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power, both Angels
and men and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort
and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their
peace and joy.