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PART III. ginal author of them is God; and consequently the question disputed, is not that. Again, it is manifest, that none can know they are God's word, (though all true Christians believe it,) but those to whom God himself hath revealed it supernaturally; and therefore the question is not rightly moved, of our knowledge of it. Lastly, when the question is propounded of our belief; because some are moved to believe for one, and others for other reasons; there can be rendered no one general answer for them all. The question truly stated is, by what authority they are made law.

Their autho rity and interpretation.

As far as they differ not from the laws of nature, there is no doubt, but they are the law of God, and carry their authority with them, legible to all men that have the use of natural reason: but this is no other authority, than that of all other moral doctrine consonant to reason; the dictates whereof are laws, not made, but eternal.

If they be made law by God himself, they are of the nature of written law, which are laws to them only to whom God hath so sufficiently published them, as no man can excuse himself, by saying, he knew not they were his.

He therefore to whom God hath not supernaturally revealed that they are his, nor that those that published them, were sent by him, is not obliged to obey them, by any authority, but his, whose commands have already the force of laws; that is to say, by any other authority, than that of the commonwealth, residing in the sovereign, who only has the legislative power. Again, if it be not the legislative authority of the commonwealth, that giveth them the force of laws, it must be some other

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rity and inter.

authority derived from God, either private, or PART III. public: if private, it obliges only him, to whom in particular God hath been pleased to reveal it. For Their authoif every man should be obliged, to take for God's pretation. law, what particular men, on pretence of private inspiration, or revelation, should obtrude upon him, in such a number of men, that out of pride and ignorance, take their own dreams, and extravagant fancies, and madness, for testimonies of God's spirit; or out of ambition, pretend to such divine testimonies, falsely, and contrary to their own consciences, it were impossible that any divine law should be acknowledged. If public, it is the au

thority of the commonwealth, or of the church. But the church, if it be one person, is the same thing with a commonwealth of Christians; called a commonwealth, because it consisteth of men united in one person, their sovereign; and a church, because it consisteth in Christian men, united in one Christian sovereign. But if the church be not one person, then it hath no authority at all; it can neither command, nor do any action at all; nor is capable of having any power, or right to anything: nor has any will, reason nor voice; for all these qualities are personal. Now if the whole number of Christians be not contained in one commonwealth, they are not one person; nor is there an universal church that hath any authority over them; and therefore the Scriptures are not made laws, by the universal church or if it be one commonwealth, then all Christian monarchs and states are private persons, and subject to be judged, deposed, and punished by an universal sovereign of all Christendom. So that the question of the authority of the

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PART III. Scriptures, is reduced to this, whether Christian kings, and the sovereign assemblies in Christian commonwealths, be absolute in their own territories, immediately under God; or subject to one vicar of Christ, constituted of the universal church; to be judged, condemned, deposed, and | put to death, as he shall think expedient, or necessary for the common good.

Which question cannot be resolved, without a more particular consideration of the Kingdom of God; from whence also, we are to judge of the authority of interpreting the Scripture. For, whosoever hath a lawful power over any writing, to make it law, hath the power also to approve, or disapprove the interpretation of the same.

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how taken in the Scripture.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

OF THE SIGNIFICATION OF SPIRIT, ANGEL,

AND INSPIRATION IN THE BOOKS OF

HOLY SCRIPTURE.

Body and spirit SEEING the foundation of all true ratiocination, is the constant signification of words; which in the doctrine following, dependeth not, as in natural science, on the will of the writer, nor, as in common conversation, on vulgar use, but on the sense they carry in the Scripture; it is necessary, before I proceed any further, to determine, out of the Bible, the meaning of such words, as by their ambiguity, may render what I am to infer upon them, obscure, or disputable. I will begin with the words BODY and SPIRIT, which in the language of the Schools are termed, substances, corporeal, and incorporeal.

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how taken in

The word body, in the most general acceptation, PART III. signifieth that which filleth, or occupieth some certain room, or imagined place; and dependeth not Body and spirit on the imagination, but is a real part of that we the Scripture. call the universe. For the universe, being the aggregate of all bodies, there is no real part thereof that is not also body; nor any thing properly a body, that is not also part of that aggregate of all bodies, the universe. The same also, because bodies are subject to change, that is to say, to variety of apparence to the sense of living creatures, is called substance, that is to say, subject to various accidents as sometimes to be moved; sometimes to stand still; and to seem to our senses sometimes hot, sometimes cold, sometimes of one colour, smell, taste, or sound, sometimes of another. And this diversity of seeming, produced by the diversity of the operation of bodies on the organs of our sense, we attribute to alterations of the bodies that operate, and call them accidents of those bodies. And according to this acceptation of the word, substance and body signify the same thing; and therefore substance incorporeal are words, which when they are joined together, destroy one another, as if a man should say, an incorporeal body.

But in the sense of common people, not all the universe is called body, but only such parts thereof as they can discern by the sense of feeling, to resist their force, or by the sense of their eyes, to hinder them from a farther prospect. Therefore in the common language of men, air, and aerial substances, use not to be taken for bodies, but (as often as men are sensible of their effects) are called wind, or breath, or (because the same are called in

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PART III. the Latin spiritus) spirits; as when they call that aerial substance, which in the body of any living Body and spirit creature gives it life and motion, vital and animal the Scripture. spirits. But for those idols of the brain, which represent bodies to us, where they are not, as in a looking-glass, in a dream, or to a distempered brain waking, they are, as the apostle saith generally of all idols, nothing; nothing at all, I say, there where they seem to be; and in the brain itself, nothing but tumult, proceeding either from the action of the objects, or from the disorderly agitation of the organs of our sense. And men, that are otherwise employed, than to search into their causes, know not of themselves, what to call them; and may therefore easily be persuaded, by those whose knowledge they much reverence, some to call them bodies, and think them made of air compacted by a power supernatural, because the sight judges them corporeal; and some to call them spirits, because the sense of touch discerneth nothing in the place where they appear, to resist their fingers: so that the proper signification of spirit in common speech, is either a subtle, fluid, and invisible body, or a ghost, or other idol or phantasm of the imagination. But for metaphorical significations, there be many for sometimes it is taken for disposition or inclination of the mind; as when for the disposition to controul the sayings of other men, we say, a spirit of contradiction; for a disposition to uncleanness, an unclean spirit; for perverseness, a froward spirit; for sullenness, a dumb spirit; and for inclination to godliness and God's service, the Spirit of God: sometimes for any eminent ability or extraordinary passion, or disease of the mind, as

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