 Chapter 36 of Leviathan. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes. Chapter 36. Of the Word of God and of Prophets. When there is mention of the Word of God, or of man, it does not signify a part of speech, such as grammarians call a noun or a verb, or any simple voice, without a contextual with other words to make it significative. But a perfect speech or discourse, whereby the speaker affirms it, denies it, commands it, promises it, threatens it, wishes it, or interrogates it. In which sense, it is not the cabulum that signifies a word, but sermo in Greek logos. That is, some speech, discourse, or saying. Again, if we say the Word of God, or of man, it may be understood sometimes of the speaker, as the words that God has spoken, or that a man has spoken. In which sense, when we say up the Gospel of St. Matthew, we understand St. Matthew to be the writer of it, and sometimes of the subject, in which sense, when we read in the Bible, the words of the days of the kings of Israel, or Judah. It has meant the acts that were done in those days were the subject of those words, and in the Greek, which in the Scripture retain at many Hebraisms, by the Word of God is often times meant, not that which is spoken by God, but concerning God and his government. That is to say, the doctrine of religion. In so much as it is all one to say Logos Theo and Theologia, which is that doctrine which we usually call divinity, and is manifest by the places following. Paul and Barnabas waxed bold and said, it was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken to you, but seeing you put it from you and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. That which is here called the Word of God was the doctrine of Christian religion, as it appears evidently by that which goes before. And where it is said to the apostles by an angel, go stand and speak in the temple all the words of this life. By the words of this life is meant the doctrine of the Gospel, as is evident by that which they did in the temple, and is expressed in the last verse of the same chapter. Daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Christ Jesus. In which place it is manifest that Jesus Christ was the subject of this Word of Life, or which is all one, the subject of the words of this life eternal, that our Savior offered them. So the Word of God is called the Word of the Gospel, because it containeth the doctrine of the Kingdom of Christ, and the same Word is called the Word of Faith, that is, as is there expressed, the doctrine of Christ come and raised from the dead. Also, when anyone heareth the Word of the Kingdom, that is, the doctrine of the Kingdom taught by Christ. Again, the same Word is said to grow and to be multiplied, which to understand of the evangelical doctrine is easy, but of the voice or speech of God, hard and strange. In the same sense, the doctrine of devils signifyeth not the words of any devil, but the doctrine of heathen men concerning demons, and those phantasms which they worshiped as gods. Considering these two significations of the Word of God, as it is taken in Scripture, it is manifest in this latter sense, where it is taken for the doctrine of Christian religion, that the whole Scripture is the Word of God, but in the former sense, not so. For example, though these words, I am the Lord thy God, etc., to the end of the Ten Commandments, were spoken by God to Moses, yet the preface, God spoke these words and said, is to be understood for the words of him that wrote the holy history. The Word of God, as it is taken for that which he hath spoken, is understood sometimes properly, sometimes metaphorically. Properly, as the words he hath spoken to his prophets, metaphorically, the his wisdom power and eternal decree in making the world, in which sense, those feats, let there be light, let there be firmament, let us make man, etc., are the Word of God. And in the same sense, it is said, all things were made by it, and without it was nothing made that was made. And he upholdeth all things by the Word of his power, that is, by the power of his Word, that is, by his power. And the worlds were framed by the Word of God, and many other places to the same sense, as also amongst the Latins, the name of fate, which signifyeth properly the word spoken, is taken in the same sense. Secondly, for the effect of his Word, that is to say, for the thing itself, which by his Word is affirmed, commanded, threatened or promised, as where Joseph is said to have been kept in prison, till his Word was come, that is, till that was come to pass, which he had foretold to Pharaoh's butler, concerning his being restored to his office. For there, by his Word was come, is meant the thing itself was come to pass. So also, Elijah saith to God, I have done all these thy words, instead of, I have done all these things at thy word, or commandment, and where is the Word of the Lord, is put for, where is the evil he threatened? And there shall none of my words be prolonged anymore. By words are understood those things which God promised to his people. And in the New Testament, heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. That is, there is nothing that I have promised or foretold that shall not come to pass. And in this sense, it is that St John the Evangelist, and I think St John only, calleth our saver himself as in the flesh, the Word of God. And the Word was made flesh, that is to say, the Word or promise that Christ should come into the world, who in the beginning was with God. That is to say, it was in the purpose of God the Father to send God the Son into the world to enlighten men in the way of eternal life. But it was not till then put in execution and actually incarnate, so that our Saviour is there called the Word, not because he was the promise, but the thing promised. They that taking occasion from this place to commonly call him the verb of God do but render the text more obscure. They might as well turn him the noun of God, for as by noun, so also by verb. Men understand nothing but a part of speech, a voice, a sound, that neither affirms nor denies nor commands nor promises, nor is any substance corporeal or spiritual. And therefore it cannot be said to be either God or man, whereas our Saviour is both. And this Word which St John in his Gospel sayeth was with God, is in his first epistle, called the Word of Life, and the Eternal Life which was with the Father. So that he can be in no other sense called the Word, than in that wherein he is called Eternal Life, that is, he that have procured us Eternal Life by his coming in the flesh. So also the Apostle, speaking of Christ clothed in a garment dipped in blood, sayeth his name is the Word of God, which is to be understood, as if he had said his name had been, he that was come according to the purpose of God from the beginning, and according to his Word and promises delivered by the prophets. So that there is nothing here of the Incarnation of a Word, but of the Incarnation of God the Son, therefore called the Word, because his Incarnation was the performance of the promise, in like manner as the Holy Ghost is called the promise. There are also places of the Scripture where the Word of God is signified such words as are consonant to reason and equity, though spoken sometimes neither by prophet nor by a holy man. For Pharaoh Necho was an idolater, yet his words to the good king Josiah, in which he advised him by messengers not to oppose him in his march against Khakamesh, are said to have preceded from the mouth of God, and that Josiah, not harkening to them, was slain in the battle. It is true that as the same history is related in the first book of Estrus, not Pharaoh but Jeremiah, spake these words to Josiah from the mouth of the Lord, but we are to give credit to the canonical Scripture, whatsoever be written in the Apocrypha. The Word of God is then also to be taken for the dictates of reason and equity, when the same is said in the Scriptures to be written in man's heart. The name of prophet signified in Scripture sometimes Prolocator, that is, he that speaketh from God to man, or from man to God, and sometimes predictor, or foreteller of things to come, and sometimes one that speaketh incoherently, as men that are distracted. It is most frequently used in the sense speaking from God to the people, so Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Jeremiah, and others were prophets, and in this sense the high priest was a prophet, for he only went into the sanctum sanctorum to inquire of God, and was to declare his answer to the people, and therefore when Kukaiophras said it was expedient that one man should die for the people, Saint John sayeth that, he spake not this of himself, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that one man should die for the nation. So they that in Christian congregations taught the people are said to prophesy, in the like sense it is that God sayeth to Moses concerning Aaron, he shall be thy spokesman to the people, and he shall be to thee a mouth, and thou shall be to him instead of God. That which here is spokesman is interpreted prophet. See sayeth God, I have made thee a God to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. In the same sense of speaking from man to God, Abraham is called a prophet, where God in a dream speaketh to Abimelech in this manner. Now therefore restore the man his wife, for he is a prophet, and shall pray for thee. Whereby may be also gathered that the name of prophet may be given not unproperly to them that in Christian churches have a calling to say public prayers In the same sense, the prophets that came down from the high place, or hill of God, with a sultry, and a tabaret, and a pipe and a harp, Saul amongst them, are said to prophesy, in that they praised God in that manner publicly. In the like sense is Miriam called a prophetess. So is it also to be taken where Saint Paul sayeth, every man that prayeth or prophesyeth with his head covered, et cetera, and every woman that prayeth or prophesyeth with her head uncovered, for prophesy in that place signifyeth no more but praising God in psalms and holy songs, which women might do in the church, though it were not lawful for them to speak to the congregation. And in this signification it is that the poets of the heathen that composed hymns and other sorts of poems in the honour of their gods were called vates, prophets, as is well enough known by all that are versed in the books of the Gentiles, and as is evident where Saint Paul sayeth of the Cretans, that a prophet of their own said they were liars. Not that Saint Paul held their poets for prophets, but acknowledged that the word prophet was commonly used to signify them that celebrated the honour of God in verse. When by prophesy is meant prediction, or for telling a future contingence, not only they were prophets who were God's spokesmen, and foretold those things to others which God had foretold them, but also all those imposters that pretend by the help familiar spirits, or by superstitious divination of events past, from false causes to foretell the like events in time to come. Of which, as I have declared already in the 12th chapter of this discourse, there be many kinds who gain in the opinion of the common sort of men a greater reputation of prophesy by one casual event that may be but rested to their purpose than can be lost again by never so many failings. Prophecy is not an art, nor when it is taken for prediction a constant vocation, but an extraordinary and temporary employment from God, most often of good men, but sometimes also of the wicked. The woman of Endor who is said to have had a familiar spirit, and thereby to have raised a phantasm of Samuel, and foretold Saul his death, was not therefore a prophetess. For neither she had any science whereby she could raise such a phantasm, nor does it appear that God commanded the raising of it, but only guided that imposture to be a means of Saul's terror and discouragement, and by consequent of the discomforture by which he fell. And for incoherent speech, it was amongst the Gentiles taken for one sort of prophecy, because the prophets of their oracles, intoxicated with a spirit or vapour from the cave of the Pythian Oracle of Delphi, were for the time really mad and spake like madmen, of whose loose words a sense might be made to fit any event, in such sort as all bodies are said to be made of materia primer. In the Scripture I find it also so taken in these words. And the evil spirit came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house. And although there be so many significations in Scripture of the word prophet, yet is that the most frequent in which it is taken for him to whom God speaketh immediately, and which the prophet is to say from him to some other man or to the people, and hereupon a question may be asked, in what manner God speaketh to such a prophet? Can it, some may say, be properly said that God have voice and language, when it cannot be properly said he have a tongue or other organs as a man? The prophet David argueeth thus, shall he that made the eye not see, or he that made the ear not hear? But this may be spoken not, as usually, to signify God's nature, but to signify our intention to honour for to see and hear are honourable attributes and may be given to God to declare as far as capacity can conceive his almighty power. But if it were to be taken in the strict and proper sense, one might argue from his making of all other parts of man's body that he had also the same use of them which we have, which would be many of them so uncommly as it would be the greatest consumily in the world to ascribe them to him. Therefore, we are to interpret God speaking to men immediately for that way, whatsoever it be, by which God makes them understand his will. And the ways whereby he doth this are many, and to be sought only in the Scripture, where though many times it be said that God spoke to this and that person, without declaring in what manner, yet there be again many places that deliver also the signs by which they were to acknowledge his presence and commandment. And by these we may understand how he spoke to many of the rest. In what manner God spoke to Adam and Eve and Cain and Noah, is not expressed, nor how he spoke to Abraham, till such time as he came out of his own country to Sychem in the land of Canaan. And then God is said to have appeared to him. So there is one way whereby God made his presence manifest, that is by an apparition or vision. And again, the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision, that is to say, somewhat, as a sign of God's presence, appeared as God's messenger to speak to him. Again, the Lord appeared to Abraham by an apparition of three angels, and to Abu Malik in a dream, to Lot by an apparition of two angels, and to Hagar by the apparition of one angel, and to Abraham again by the apparition of a voice from heaven, and to Isaac in the night, that is, in his sleep or by dream, and to Jacob in a dream, that is to say, as other words of the text, Jacob dreamed that he saw a ladder, etc. And in a vision of angels, and to Moses in the apparition of a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush, and after the time of Moses, where the manner how God spoke immediately to man, in the Old Testament is expressed, that he spoke always by a vision, or by a dream, as to Gideon, Samuel, Elijah, Elijah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and the rest of the prophets, and often in the New Testament, as to Joseph, to St. Peter, to St. Paul, and to St. John, the evangelist in the Apocalypse. Only to Moses he spoke in a more extraordinary manner in Mount Sinai, and in the Tabernacle, and to the High Priest in the Tabernacle, and in the St. Torim of the Temple. But Moses, and after him the High Priest, were prophets of a more eminent place and degree in God's favor. And God himself, in express words, declared that to other prophets. He spoke in dreams and visions, but to his servant Moses, in such manner as a man speaketh to his friend. The words are these, If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known to him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all my house. With him I will speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, not in dark speeches, and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold. And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaketh to his friend. And yet this speaking of God to Moses was by mediation of an angel or angels, as appears expressly, and was therefore a vision, though a more clear vision than was given to other prophets. And conformable here unto where God saith, If there arise amongst you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, the latter word is but the interpretation of the former, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Where again the word prophesy is expounded by dream and vision, and in the same manner it was that God spake to Solomon, promising in wisdom riches and honour, for the text saith, and Solomon awoke, and behold it was a dream. So that generally the prophets extraordinary in the Old Testament took notice of the word of God less than from their dreams or visions, that is to say, from the imaginations which they had in their sleep or in anesthesia, which imaginations in every true prophet were supernatural, but in false prophets were either natural or fiend. The same prophets were nevertheless said to speak by the Spirit, as were the prophet speaking of the Jews saith. They made their hearts hard as adamant, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts has sent in his spirit by the former prophets. By which it is manifest that speaking by the Spirit or inspiration was not a particular manner of God speaking different from vision, when they that were said to speak by the Spirit were extraordinary prophets, such as for every new message were to have a particular commission or, which is all one, a new dream or vision. Of prophets there were so by a perpetual calling in the Old Testament. Some were supreme and some subordinate. Supreme were first Moses, and after him the High Priest, everyone for his time, as long as the priesthood was royal, and after the people of the Jews had rejected God, that he should no more reign over them. Those kings which submitted themselves to God's government were also his chief prophets, and the High Priest's office became ministerial. And when God was to be consulted they put on the whole investments and inquired of the Lord as the king commanded them, and were deprived of their office when the king thought fit. For king Saul commanded the burnt offering to be brought and he commands the priest to bring the ark near him, and again to let it alone, because he saw an advantage upon his enemies. And in the same chapter Saul asked the Council of God in like manner King David, after he's been anointed though before he had possession of the kingdom, is said to inquire of the Lord whether he should fight against the Philistines at Kila, and David commanded the priest to bring him the airfod to inquire whether he should stay in Kila or not. And King Solomon took the priesthood from Abitha, and gave it to Zadok. Therefore Moses and the High Priest and the Pious Kings who inquired of God on all extraordinary occasions how they were to carry themselves, or what event they were to have, were all sovereign prophets. But in what manner God spoke unto them is not manifest. To say that when Moses went up to God in Mount Sinai it was a dream, or vision, such as other prophets had, is contrary to that distinction which God made between Moses and other prophets. To say God spoke or appeared, as he is in his own nature, is to deny his infiniteness, invisibility, incomprehensibility. To say he spoke by inspiration, or infusion of the Holy Spirit, as the Holy Spirit signified the deity, is to make Moses equal with Christ, in whom only the Godhead, as Saint Paul speaketh, dwelleth bodily. And lastly, to say he spoke by the Holy Spirit, as it signified the graces or gifts of the Holy Spirit, is to attribute nothing to him supernatural. For God disposed of men to piety, justice, mercy, truth, faith, in all manner of virtue, both moral and intellectual, by doctrine, example, and by several occasions natural and ordinary. And as these ways cannot be applied to God, in his speaking to Moses at Mount Sinai, so also they cannot be applied to him in his speaking to the high priests, from the mercy seat. Therefore, in what manner God spoke, to those sovereign prophets of the Old Testament, whose office it was to inquire of him, is not intelligible. In the time of the New Testament there was no sovereign prophet but our Saviour, who was both God that spoke, and the prophet to whom he spoke. To subordinate prophets of perpetual calling, I find not any place that proveeth God's speak to them supernaturally, but only in such manner as naturally he inclineth men to piety, to belief, to righteousness, and to other virtues all other Christian men. Which way, though a consistent constitution, instruction, education, and the occasions and invites men have to Christian virtues, yet it is truly attributed to the operation of the Spirit of God, or Holy Spirit, which we in our language call the Holy Ghost. For there is no good inclination that is not of the operation of God. But these operations are not always supernatural. When therefore a prophet is said to speak in the Spirit, or by the Spirit of God, we are to understand no more but that he speaks according to God's will, declared by the supreme prophet. For the most common acceptation of the word Spirit is in the signification of a man's intention, mind, or disposition. In the time of Moses there were 70 men besides himself that prophesied in the camp of the Israelites. In what manner God spoke to them is declared. The Lord came down in a cloud and spake unto Moses and took of the Spirit that was upon him, and gave it to the 70 elders, and it came to pass when the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied and did not cease. By which it is manifest first that their prophesying to the people was subservient and subordinate to the prophesying of Moses, for that God took of the Spirit of Moses, put upon them, so that they prophesied as Moses would have them, otherwise they had not been suffered to prophesied all. For there was a complaint made against them to Moses, and Joshua would have Moses to have forbidden them, which he did not but said to Joshua, be not jealous in my behalf. Secondly, that the Spirit of God in that place signified nothing but the mind and disposition to obey and assist Moses in the administration of the government. For if it were meant they had the substantial Spirit of God, that is, the divine nature inspired into them, then they had it in no less manner than Christ himself, in whom only the Spirit of God dwelt bodily. It is meant therefore of the gift and grace of God that guided them to cooperate with Moses, from whom their Spirit was derived. And it appeareth that they were such as Moses himself should appoint for elders and officers of the people, for the words are, gather unto me seventy men whom thou knowest to be elders and officers of the people, where thou knowest is the same with thou appointest, or hath appointed to be such. For we are told before that Moses, following the Council of Jethro, his father in all, did appoint judges and officers over the people such as feared God. And of these were those seventy whom God, by putting upon them Moses' Spirit inclined to aid Moses in the administration of the kingdom. And in this sense the Spirit of God is said presently upon the anointing of David, to have come upon David and left Saul. God giving his graces to him he chose to govern his people, and taking them away from him he rejected. So that by the Spirit is meant inclination to God's service and not any supernatural revelation. God spoke also many times by the event of lots, which were ordered by such as he had put in authority over his people. So we read that God manifested by the lots which Saul caused to be drawn the fault that Jonathan had committed in eating a honeycomb contrary to the oath taken by the people. And God divided the land of Canaan among the Israelites by the lots that Joshua did cast before the Lord in Shiloh. In the same manner it seemed to be that God discovered the crime of Achan and these are the ways whereby God declared his will in the Old Testament. All which ways he used also in the New Testament to the Virgin Mary by a vision of an angel to Joseph in a dream again to Paul in the way to Damascus in a vision of our Saviour and to Peter in the vision of a Sheik let down from heaven with diverse sorts of flesh of clean and unclean beasts and in prison by vision of an angel and to all the apostles and writers of the New Testament by the graces of his spirit and to the apostles again at the choosing of Matthias in the place of Judas Iscariot by lot. Seeing then all prophecy suppose a vision or dream do when they be natural are the same or some a special gift of God so rarely observed in mankind as to be admired were observed and seeing as well such gifts as the most extraordinary dreams and visions may proceed from God not only by his supernatural and immediate but also by his natural operation and by mediation of second causes there is need of reason and judgment to discern between natural gifts and between natural and supernatural visions or dreams and consequently men had need to be very circumspect and wary in obeying the voice of man that pretending himself to be a prophet requires us to obey God in that way which he in God's name telleth us to be the way to happiness for he that pretends to teach men the way of so great felicity pretends to govern them that is to say rule and reign over them which is a thing that all men naturally desire and is therefore worthy to be suspected of ambition and imposter and consequently ought be examined and tried by every man before he yield them obedience unless he have yielded them already in the institution of a commonwealth as when the prophet is the civil sovereign or by the civil sovereign authorized and if this examination of prophets and spirits were not allowed to every one of the people it have been to no purpose to set out the marks by which every man might be able to distinguish between those whom they ought and those whom they ought not to follow seeing therefore such marks are set out to know a prophet by and to know a spirit by and seeing there is so much prophesying in the Old Testament and so much preaching in the New Testament against prophets and so much greater a number ordinarily of false prophets than of true everyone is to beware of obeying their directions at their own peril and first that there were many more false than true prophets appears by this that when Ahab consulted 400 prophets they were all false imposters and only one macaia and a little before the time of the captivity the prophets were generally liars the prophets sayeth the Lord by Jeremiah prophesy lies in my name I sent them not neither have I commanded them nor spake unto them they prophesy to you a false vision a thing of nought and the deceit of their heart so much as God commanded the people by the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah not to obey them thus sayeth the Lord of hosts harken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy to you they make you vain they speak a vision of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord seeing then there was in the time of the Old Testament such quarrels amongst the visionary prophets one contesting with another and asking when departed the spirit from me to go to thee as between macaia and the rest of the 400 and such giving at the lie to one another and such controversies in the New Testament this day amongst the spiritual prophets every man then was and now is bound to make use of his natural reason to apply to all prophecy those rules which God hath given us to discern the true from the false of which rules in the Old Testament one was conformable doctrine to that which Moses the sovereign prophet had taught them and the other miraculous power of foretelling what God would bring to pass and in the New Testament there was but one only mark and that was the preaching of this doctrine that Jesus is the Christ that is the king of the Jews promised in the Old Testament whosoever denied that article he was a false prophet whatsoever miracles he might seem to work and he that taught it was a true prophet for Saint John speaking expressly of the means to examine spirits whether they be of God or not after he had told them that there would arise false prophets sayeth thus hereby know ye the spirit of God every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God that is is approved and allowed as a prophet of God not that he is a godly man or one at the elect for this that he confesseth, professeth or preacheth Jesus to be the Christ but for that he is a prophet avowed for God sometimes speaketh by prophets whose persons he hath not accepted as he did by Balan and as he foretold Saul of his death by the witch of Endor again in the next verse every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of Christ and this is the spirit of Antichrist so that the rule is perfect on both sides that he is a true prophet which preacheth the Messiah already come in the person of Jesus and he a false one that denyeth him come and looketh for him in some future imposter that shall take upon him that honour falsely whom the apostle there properly called Antichrist every man therefore ought to consider who is the sovereign prophet that is to say who it is that is God's vice-regent on earth and hath next under God the authority of governing Christian men and to observe for a rule that doctrine which in the name of God he hath commanded to be taught and thereby to examine and try out the truth of those doctrines which pretended prophets with miracle or without shall at any time advance and if they find it contrary to that rule to do as they did that came to Moses and complained that there were some that prophesied in the camp whose authority so to do they doubted of and leave to the sovereign as they did to Moses to uphold or to forbid them as he should see cause and if he disavow them there no more to obey their voice or if he approve them then to obey them as men to whom God hath given a part for when Christian men take not their Christian sovereign for God's prophet they must either take their own dreams for their prophesy they mean to be governed by and the tumour of their own hearts for the spirit of God or they must suffer themselves to be led by some strange prince or by some of their fellow subjects that can bewitch them by slander of the government inter-rebellion without other miracle to confirm their calling for military success and impunity and by this means destroying all laws both divine and human reduce all order government and society to the first chaos of violence and civil war end of chapter 36 Chapter 37 of Leviathan this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Chapter 37 of miracles in their use by miracles are signified the admirable works of God and therefore they are also called wonders and because they are for the most part done for a signification of his commandment in such occasions as without them men are apt to doubt following their private natural reasoning what he hath commanded and what not they are commonly in Holy Scripture called signs in the same sense as they are called by the Latins Ostenta and Portentia from showing and for signifying that which the Almighty is about to bring to pass to understand therefore what is a miracle we must first understand what works they are which men wonder at and call admirable and there are but two things which make men wonder at any event the one is if it be strange that is to say such as the like of it hath never or very rarely been produced the other is if when it is produced we cannot imagine it to have been done by natural means but only by the immediate hand of God but when we see some possible natural cause of it how rarely so ever the like has been done or if the like have been done often how impossible so ever it be to imagine a natural means thereof we know more wonder nor esteem it for a miracle therefore if a horse or cow should speak it were a miracle because both the thing is strange and the natural cause difficult to imagine so also were it to see a strange deviation of nature in the production of some new shape of a living creature but when a man or an animal engenders his like though we know no more how this is done than the other yet because it is usual it is no miracle in like manner if a man be metamorphosed into stone or into a pillar it is a miracle because strange but if a piece of wood be so changed because we have seen it so often it is no miracle and yet we know no more by what operation of God the one is brought to pass than the other the first rainbow that was seen in the world was a miracle because the first and consequently strange and served for a sign from God placed in heaven to assure his people there should be no more universal destruction of the world by water but at this day because they are frequent they are not miracles neither to them that know their natural causes nor to them who know them not again there may be many rare works produced by the art of man yet when we know they are done because thereby we know also the means how they are done we count them not for miracles because not wrought by the immediate hand of God but by mediation of human industry furthermore seeing admiration and wonder is consequent to the knowledge and experience wherewith men are endured some more some less it followeth that the same thing may be a miracle to one and not to another and thence it is that ignorant and superstitious men make great wonders of these works which other men knowing to proceed from nature which is not the immediate but the ordinary work of God admire not at all as when eclipses of the sun and moon have been taken for supernatural works by the common people when nevertheless there were others could from their natural causes have foretold the very hour they should arrive or as when a man by confederacy and secret intelligence getting knowledge of the private actions of an ignorant unwary man thereby tells him what he has done in former time it seems to him a miraculous thing but amongst wise and cautious men such miracles as those cannot easily be done again it belongeth to the nature of the miracle that it be wrought for the procuring of credit to God's messengers ministers and prophets that thereby men may know they are called sent and employed by God and thereby be the better inclined to obey them and therefore though the creation of the world and after that the destruction of all living creatures in the universal deluge where admiral works yet because they were not done to procure credit to any prophet or other minister of God they use not to be called miracles for how admirable so ever any work be the admiration consisteth not in that they could be done because men naturally believe the Almighty can do all things but because he does it at the prayer a word of a man but the works of God in Egypt by the hand of Moses were properly miracles because they were done with intention to make the people of Israel believe that Moses came unto them not out of any design of his own interest but as sent from God therefore after God had commanded him to deliver the Israelites from the Egyptian bondage then he said they will not believe me but will say the Lord hath not appeared unto me Exodus 4.1 God gave him power to turn the rod he had held in his hand into a serpent and again to return it into a rod and by putting his hand into his bosom to make it leprous and again by pulling it out to make it whole to make the children of Israel believe that the God of their fathers had appeared unto him Ibid 4.5 and if that were not enough he gave him power to turn their waters into blood and when he had done these miracles before the people it is said that they believed him Ibid 4.31 nevertheless for fear of Pharaoh they durst not yet obey him therefore the other works which were done to plague Pharaoh and the Egyptians tended all to make the Israelites believe in Moses and properly miracles like manner if we consider all the miracles done by the hand of Moses and all the rest of the prophets till the captivity and those of our Saviour and his apostles afterwards we should find their end was always to beget or confirm belief that they came not of their own notion but were sent by God we may further observe in scripture that the end of miracles was to beget belief not universally in all men elect and reprobate but in the elect only that is to say God had determined should become his subjects for those miraculous plagues of Egypt had not for end the conversion of Pharaoh for God had told Moses before that he would harden the heart of Pharaoh that he should not let the people go and when he let them go at last not the miracles persuaded him but the plagues forced him to do it so also of our Saviour it is written that he wrought not many miracles in his own country because of their unbelief in Matthew 1358 and instead of he wrought not many it is he could work none Mark 6.5 it was not because he wanted power which to say were blasphemy against God nor that the end of miracles was not to convert incredulous men to Christ for the end of all miracles of Moses of the prophets of our Saviour and of his apostles was to add men to the church but it was because the end of their miracles was to add to the church men but such as should be saved that is to say such as God had elected seeing therefore our Saviour was sent from his father he could not use his power in the conversion of those whom his father had rejected they that expounding this place of Saint Mark say that this word he could not is put for he would not do it without example in the Greek tongue where would not is put sometimes for could not in things inanimate that have no will not for would not never and thereby lay a stumbling block before weak Christians as if Christ could do no miracles but amongst the credulous from that which I have here set down of the nature and use of miracle we may define it thus a miracle is the work of God besides his operation by the way of nature ordained in the creation done for the making manifest to his elect the mission of an extraordinary minister for their salvation we may infer first that in all miracles the work done is not the effect of any virtue in the prophet because it is the effect of the immediate hand of God that is to say God have done it without using the profit therein as a subordinate cause secondly that no devil angel or other created spirit can do a miracle for it must either be by virtue of some natural science or by incantation that is virtue of words for if the enchanters do it by their own power independent there is some power that precedeth not from God which all men deny and if they do it by power given them then is the work not from the immediate hand of God but natural and consequently no miracle there be some text of scripture that seem to attribute the power of working wonders equal to some of those immediate miracles wrought by God himself to certain acts of magic and incantation as for example when we read that after the rod of Moses being cast on the ground became a serpent the magicians of Egypt did the like by their enchantments Exodus 711 and that after Moses had turned the waters of the Egyptians streams, rivers, ponds and pools of water into blood the magicians of Egypt did likewise with their enchantments Ibid 722 and that after Moses had by the power of God brought frogs upon the land the magicians did also with their enchantments and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt Ibid 877 will not man be apt to attribute miracles to enchantments that is to say to the efficacy of the sound of words and think the very same well proved out of this and other such places and yet there is no place of scripture that telleth us what an enchantment is if therefore enchantment be not as many think it is a working of strange effects by spells and words but in posture and delusion wrought by ordinary means and so far from supernatural as the imposters need not the study so much of natural causes but the ordinary ignorance stupidity and superstition of mankind to do them those texts seem to countenance the power of magic witchcraft and enchantment must needs have another sense than at first sight they seem to bear for it is evident enough that words have no now effect but on those that understand them and then they have no other but to signify the intentions or passions of them that speak and thereby produce hope fear or other passions or conceptions in the hearer therefore when a rod seemeth a serpent or the water's blood or any other miracle seemeth done by enchantment if it be not the edification of God's people not the rod nor the water nor any other thing is enchanted that is to say wrought upon by the words but the spectator so that all the miracle consisteth in this that the enchanter has deceived a man which is no miracle but a very easy matter to do for such is the ignorance and aptitude to error generally of all men but especially of them that have not much knowledge of the natural causes and of the nature and interests of men as by innumerable and easy tricks to be abused what opinion of miraculous power before it was known there was a science of the course of the stars might a man have gained that should have told the people this hour or this day the sun should be darkened a juggler by the handling of his goblets and other trinkets if it were not now ordinarily practiced would be thought to do his wonders by the power at least of the devil a man that had practiced to speak by drawing in of his breath which kind of men in ancient time were called ventriloquy as so to make the weakness of his voice seem to proceed not from the weak impulsion of the organs of speech but from a distance of place is able to make very many men believe it is a voice from heaven whatsoever he pleased to tell them as for a crafty man that hath inquired into the secrets and familiar confessions that one man ordinarily maketh to another of his actions and adventures past to tell them him again is no hard matter and yet there be many that by such means as that obtain the reputation of being conjurers but it is too long a business to reckon up the several sorts of those men which the Greeks call thermaturgy that is to say workers of things wonderful and yet these do all they do by their own single dexterity but if we look upon the imposters wrought by confederacy there is nothing how impossible so ever to be done that is impossible to the believed for two men conspiring one to seem lame the other to cure him with a charm will deceive many but many conspire one to seem lame another so to cure him and all the rest to bear witness will deceive many more in this aptitude of mankind to give too hasty belief to pretended miracles there can be no better I think nor any other caution than that which God hath prescribed first by Moses as I have said before in the preceding chapter in the beginning of the 13th and end of the 18th of Deuteronomy that we take not for prophets any that teach any other religion than that which God's lieutenant was at that time was Moses hath established nor any though he teach the same religion whose prediction we did not see come to pass Moses therefore in his time and Aaron his successor in their time and the sovereign governor of God's people next under God himself that is to say the head of the church in all times are to be consulted what doctrine he hath established before we give credit to a miracle or profit and when that is done the thing they pretend to be a miracle we must both see it done and use all means possible to consider whether it be really done and not only so but whether it be such as no man can do the like by his natural power but that it requires the immediate hand of God and in this also we must have recourse to God's lieutenant to whom in all doubtful cases we have submitted our private judgments a man pretend that after certain words spoken over a piece of bread that presently God hath made it bread but God or a man or both and nevertheless it looketh still as like bread as it ever did there is no reason for any man to think it really done nor consequently to fear him till he inquire of God by his vicar or lieutenant whether it be done or not if he say not then follow with that which Moses sayeth he spoken it presumptuously and thou shalt not fear him Deuteronomy 1822 if he say it is done then he is not to contradict it so also if we see not but only hear tell of a miracle we are to consult the lawful church that is to say the lawful head thereof how far we are to give credit to the relators of it and this is chiefly the case of men that in these days live under Christian sovereigns for in these times I do not know one man that ever saw this work done by the charm at a word or prayer of a man that a man endued but with a mediocrity of reason would think supernatural and the question is no more whether what we see done be a miracle whether the miracle we hear or read of or a real work and not the act of a tongue or pen but in plain terms whether the report be true or a lie in which question we are not everyone to make our own private reason or conscious but the public reason that is the reason of God's supreme lieutenant judge and indeed we have made him judge already if we have given him a sovereign power to do all that is necessary for our peace and defense a private man has always the liberty because thought is free to believe or not believe in his heart those acts that have been given out for miracles according as he shall see what benefit can accrue by men's belief to those that pretend or countenance them and thereby conjecture whether they be false or lies but when it comes to confession of that faith the private reason must submit to the public that is to say to God's lieutenant but who is this lieutenant of God and head of the church shall be considered in its proper place hereafter Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes Chapter 38 Of the signification and scripture of eternal life hell, salvation the world to come and redemption the maintenance of civil society depending on justice and justice on the power of life and death and other less rewards and punishments residing in them that have the sovereignty of the commonwealth it is impossible a commonwealth should stand any other than the sovereign have the power of giving greater rewards than life and of inflicting greater punishments than death now seeing eternal life is a greater reward than the life present and eternal torment a greater punishment than the death of nature it is a thing worthy to be well considered of all men that desire by obeying authority to avoid the calamities of confusion and civil war what is meant in holy scripture by life eternal and for what offenses and against whom committed men are to be eternally tormented and for what actions they are to obtain an eternal life and first we find that Adam was created in such a condition of life as had he not broken the commandment of God he had enjoyed it in the paradise of Eden everlastingly for there was the tree of life whereof he was so long allowed to eat as he should forbear to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil which was not allowed him and therefore as soon as he had eaten of it God thrust him out of paradise lest he should put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and live forever Genesis 3 22 by which it seemeth to me with submission nevertheless both in this and in all questions whereof the determination depended on the scriptures to the interpretation of the Bible authorized by the commonwealth whose subject I am that Adam if he had not sinned had an eternal life on earth and that mortality entered upon himself and his posterity by his first sin not that actual death then entered for Adam could never have had children whereas he lived long after and saw a numerous posterity ere he died but where it is said in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die I bid 2 17 it must needs be meant of his mortality and certitude of death seeing then eternal life was lost by Adam's forfeiture in committing sin that he should cancel that forfeiture was to recover there by that life again now Jesus Christ hath satisfied for the sins of all that believe in him and therefore recovered to all believers that eternal life which was lost by the sin of Adam and in this sense it is that the comparison of Saint Paul holdeth as by the offensive one judgment came upon all men to condemnation even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men to the justification of life Romans 5 18 and 19 which is again more perspicuously delivered in these words for since by man came death by man came also the resurrection of the dead for as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive 1 Corinthians 15 21 and 22 concerning the place wherein men shall enjoy that eternal life which Christ hath obtained for them the text next before alleged seems to make it on earth for if as in Adam all die that is have forfeited paradise and eternal life on earth even so in Christ all shall be made alive then all men shall be made to live on earth for else the comparison were not proper here unto Seymeth to agree that of the psalmist upon Zion God commanded the blessing even life for evermore psalms 133 for Zion is Jerusalem upon earth as also that of Saint John to him that over cometh I will give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God revelations 2 7 this was the tree of Adam's eternal life but his life was to have been on earth the same Seymeth to be confirmed again by Saint John where he saith I John saw the holy city New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband and again verse 10 to the same effect as if he should say the New Jerusalem the paradise of God at the coming again of Christ should come down to God's people from heaven and not they go up to it from earth and this differs nothing from that of the two men in white clothing that is the two angels said to the apostles that were looking upon Christ ascending this same Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven shall so come as you have seen him go up into heaven which soundeth as if they had said he should come down to govern them under his father eternally here and not take them up to govern them in heaven and is conformable to the restoration of the kingdom of God instituted under Moses was a political government of the Jews on earth again that saying of our savior that in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the angels of God in heaven is a description of an eternal life resembling that which we lost in Adam in the point of marriage for seeing Adam and Eve if they had not sinned had lived on earth eternally in their individual persons it is manifest they should not continually have procreated their kind for if immortal should have generated as mankind doth now the earth in a small time would not have been able to afford them place to stand on the Jews that asked our savior the question whose wife the woman that had married many brothers should be in the resurrection knew not what were the consequences of life eternal and therefore puts them in mind of this consequence of immortality that there shall be no generation and consequently no marriage there is marriage or generation among the angels the comparison between that eternal life which Adam lost and our savior by his victory over death hath recovered holdeth also in this that as Adam lost eternal life by his sin and yet lived after it for a time so the faithful Christian hath recovered eternal life by Christ's passion though he die a natural death and remain dead for a time namely till the resurrection for as death is reckoned from the condemnation of Adam not from the execution so life is reckoned from the absolution not from the resurrection of them that are elected in Christ that the place wherein men are to live eternally after the resurrection is the heavens meaning by heaven those parts of the world which are the most remote from earth as where the stars are or above the stars in another high heaven called Colum Imperium but of there is no mention in scripture nor ground in reason is not easily to be drawn from any text that I can find by the kingdom of heaven is meant the kingdom of the king that dwelleth in heaven and his kingdom was the people of Israel whom he ruled by the prophets his lieutenants first Moses and after him Eleazar and the sovereign priests till in the days of Samuel they rebelled and would have a mortal man for their king after the manner of other nations and when our savior Christ by the preaching of his ministers shall have persuaded the Jews to return and called the Gentiles to his obedience then shall there be a new king of heaven because our king shall then be God whose throne is heaven without any necessity evident in the scripture that man shall ascend to his happiness any higher than God's footstool the earth on the contrary we find written that no man hath ascended into heaven but he that came down from heaven even the son of man that is in heaven where I observe by the way that these words are not as those which go immediately before the words of our savior but have sent John himself for Christ was then not in heaven but upon the earth the like is said of David where Saint Peter to prove the ascension of Christ using the words of the psalmist thou wilt not leave my soul in hell nor suffer thine holy one to see corruption sayeth they were spoken not of David but of Christ and to prove it addeth this reason for David is not ascended into heaven but to this a man may easily answer and say that though their bodies were not to ascend till the general day of judgment yet their souls were in heaven as soon as they were departed from their bodies which also seemeth confirmed by the words of our savior who proving the resurrection out of the words of Moses sayeth thus that the dead are raised even Moses showed at the bush when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob for he is not a God of the dead but of the living for they all live to him Luke 20, 37, 38 but if these words be to be understood only of the immortality of the soul they prove not at all that which our savior intended to prove which was the resurrection of the body that is to say the immortality of man therefore our savior meaneth that those patriarchs were immortal not by a property consequent to the essence and nature of mankind but by the will of God that was pleased of his mere grace to bestow eternal life upon the faithful and though at that time the patriarchs and many other faithful men were dead yet as it is in the text they lived to God that is they were written in the book of life with them that were absolved of their sins and the life eternal at the resurrection that the soul of man is in its own nature eternal and a living creature independent on the body or that any mere man is immortal otherwise than by the resurrection in the last day except Enos and Elias is a doctrine not apparent in scripture the whole fourteenth chapter of Job which is the speech not of his friends but of himself is a complaint of this mortality of nature and yet no contradiction of the immortality of the resurrection there is hope of a tree if it be cast down though the root thereof wax old and the stock thereof die in the ground yet when it senteth the water it will bud and bring forth boughs like a plant but man dyeth and wasteeth away ye man giveth up the ghost and where is he Job 147 and verse 12 man lyeth down but when is it that the heavens shall be no more St. Peter tells us that it is at the general resurrection for in his second epistle third chapter verse 7 he saith the heavens on the earth that are now are reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men and verse 12 looking for and hasting to the coming of God wherein the heavens shall be on fire and shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat nevertheless we according to the promise look for new heavens and a new earth where dwelleth righteousness therefore when Job saith man riseeth not till the heavens be no more it is all one as if he had said the immortal life and soul and life in the scripture do usually signify the same thing begineth not in man till the resurrection and day of judgment and hath for cause not his specific nature and generation for St. Peter says not we look for new heavens and a new earth but from promise lastly seeing it hath been already proved out of diverse evident places of scripture in the 35th chapter of this book that the kingdom of God is the civil commonwealth where God himself is sovereign by virtue first of the old and since of the new covenant wherein he reigneth by his vicar or lieutenants the same places do therefore also prove that after the coming again of our savior in his majesty and glory to reign actually and eternally the kingdom of God is to be on earth but because this doctrine though proved out of places of scripture not few nor obscure will appear to most men a novelty I do but propound it maintaining nothing in this or in any other paradox of religion but attending the end of that dispute of the sword concerning the authority not yet amongst my countrymen decided by which all sorts of doctrine are to be approved or rejected and whose commands both in speech and writing whatsoever be the opinions of private men must by all men that mean to be protected by their laws be obeyed for the points of doctrine concerning the kingdom of God have so great influence on the kingdom of man as not to be determined but by them that under God have the sovereign power as the kingdom of God and eternal life so also God's enemies and their torments after judgment appear by the scripture to have their place on earth the name of the place where all men remain till the resurrection that were either buried or swallowed up of the earth is usually called in scripture by words that signify underground which the latins read generally in furnace and in fury and the Greeks ades that is to say a place where men cannot see and contain it as well the grave as any other deep place but for the place of the damned after the resurrection it is not determined neither in the old nor new testament by any note of situation but only by the company as that it shall be where such wicked men were as God in former times in extraordinary and miraculous manner had destroyed from off the face of the earth as for example they that are in inferno in Tartarus or in the bottomless pit because Korra Nathan and Iberum were swallowed up alive into the earth not that the writers of the scripture would have us believe there could be in the globe of the earth which is not only finite but also compared to the height of the stars of no considerable magnitude a pit without a bottom that is a whole of infinite depth such as the Greeks in their demonology that is to say in their doctrine concerning demons and after them the Romans called Tartarus of which Virgil says for that is a thing the proportion of the earth to heaven cannot bear but that we should believe them there indefinitely where those men are on whom God inflicted that exemplary punishment again because those mighty men of the earth that lived in the time of Noah before the flood which the Greeks called heroes and the scripture giants and both say were begotten by the copulation of the children of God with the children of men were for their wicked life destroyed by the general deluge the place of the damned is therefore also sometimes marked out by the company of those deceased giants as Proverbs 21 16 the man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the giants and Job 26 5 the giants grown underwater and they that dwell with them here the place of the damned is under the water and Isaiah 14 9 hell is troubled how to meet thee that is the king of Babylon and will displace the giants for thee and here again the place of the damned if the sense be literal is to be underwater thirdly because the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by the extraordinary wrath of God were consumed for their wickedness with fire and brimstone and together with them the country about made a stinking bituminous lake the place of the damned is sometimes expressed by fire and a fiery lake as in the apocalypse 21 8 but the timorous incredulous and abominable and murderers and hormongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death so that it is manifest that hellfire which is here expressed by metaphor from the real fire of Sodom signifyeth not any certain kind or place of torment but is to be taken indefinitely for destruction as it is in Revelation 20 at the 14th verse where it is said that death and hell were cast into the lake of fire that is to say were abolished and destroyed as if after the day of judgment there shall be no more dying nor no more going into hell that is no more going to Hades from which word perhaps our word hell is derived which is the same with no more dying fourthly from the plague of darkness inflicted on the Egyptians of which it is written they saw not one another neither arose any man from his place for three days but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings Exodus 10 23 the place of the wicked after judgment is called utter darkness or as it is in the original darkness without and so it is expressed where the king commanded his servants to bind hand and foot the man that had not his wedding garment and to cast him into Ace Tuscotos to exteran external darkness Matthew 22 13 or darkness without which though translated utter darkness does not signify how great but where that darkness is to be namely without the habitation of God's elect and lastly whereas there was a place near Jerusalem called the valley of the children of Henan in a part whereof called Tophit the Jews had committed most grievous idolatry sacrificing their children to the idol Moloch and wherein also God had afflicted his enemies with most grievous punishments and wherein Josiah had burnt the priests of Moloch upon their own altars as a pierith at large in 2 Kings 23 the place served afterwards to receive the garbage which was carried thither out of the city and there used to be fires made from time to time to purify the air and take away the stench of carrion from this abominable place the Jews used ever after to call the place of the damned by the name of Gehenna or valley of Henan and this Gehenna is that word which is usually now translated hell and from the fires from time to time they're burning we have the notion of everlasting and unquenchable fire seeing now there is none that so interprets the scripture as that after the day of judgment the wicked are all eternally to be punished in the valley of Henan or that they shall so rise again as to be ever underground or underwater or that after the resurrection they shall no more see one another nor stir from one place to another it followeth me thinks very necessarily that which is thus said concerning hellfire is spoken metaphorically and that therefore there is a proper sense of being acquired after for of all metaphors there is some real ground and may be expressed in proper words both of the place of hell and the nature of hellish torments and tormentors and first for the tormentors we have their nature and properties exactly and properly delivered by the names of the enemy or Satan the accuser or diabolus the destroyer or Abaddon which significant names Satan devil Abaddon both to us any individual person as proper names used to do but only in office or quality and are therefore appellatives which ought not to have been left untranslated as they are in the Latin and modern Bibles because thereby they seem to be the proper names of demons and men are more easily seduced to believe the doctrine of devils which at that time was the religion of the Gentiles and contrary to that of Moses and of Christ and because by the enemy the destroyer is meant the enemy of them that shall be in the kingdom of God therefore if the kingdom of God after the resurrection be upon the earth as in the former chapter I have shown by scripture it seems to be the enemy and his kingdom must be on earth also for so also was it in the time before the Jews had deposed God for God's kingdom was in Palestine and the nations around it were the kingdoms of the enemy and consequently by Satan is meant any earthly enemy of the church the torments of hell are expressed sometimes by weeping and gnashing of teeth as Matthew 8.12 sometimes by the worm of conscience as Isaiah 66.24 and Mark 9.44 46.48 sometimes by fire as in the place now quoted where the worm dieeth not and the fire is not quenched and many places besides sometimes by shame and contempt and many of them that slept in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt Daniel 12.2 all which places design metaphorically a grief and discontent of mind from the sight of that eternal felicity in others which they themselves through their own incredulity and disobedience have lost and because such felicity in others is not sensible but by comparison with their own actual miseries it followeth that they are to suffer such bodily pains and calamities as our incident to those who not only live under evil and cruel governors but have also for enemy the eternal king of the saints God Almighty and amongst these bodily pains is to be reckoned also to every one of the wicked a second death for though the scripture be clear for a universal resurrection yet we do not read that to any of the reprobate is promised an eternal life for where as Saint Paul to the question concerning what bodies men shall rise with again sayeth that the body is sown in corruption and is raised in incorruption it is sown in dishonor it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power 1 Corinthians 15 42 43 glory and power cannot be applied to the bodies of the wicked nor can the name of second death be applied by but once and although in metaphorical speech a calamitous life everlasting may be called an everlasting death yet it cannot well be understood of a second death the fire prepared for the wicked is an everlasting fire that is to say the estate wherein no man can be without torture both of body and mind after the resurrection shall endure forever and in that sense the fire shall be unquenchable and the torments everlasting but it cannot thence be inferred that he who shall be cast into that fire or be tormented with those torments shall endure and resist them so as to be eternally burnt and tortured and yet never be destroyed nor die and though there be many places that affirm everlasting fire and torments into which men may be cast successively one after another forever yet I find none that affirm there shall be an everlasting life therein of any individual person but to the contrary an everlasting death which is the second death for after death and the grave shall have delivered at the dead which were in them and every man be judged according to his works death and the grave also shall be cast into the lake of fire this is the second death Revelation 20 1314 whereby it is evident that there is to be a second death of everyone that shall be condemned at the day of judgment after which he shall die no more the joys of life eternal are in Scripture comprehended all under the name of salvation or being saved to be saved is to be secured either respectively against special evils or absolutely against all evil comprehending want, sickness, and death itself and because man was created in a condition immortal not subject to corruption and consequently to nothing that tendeth to the dissolution of his nature and fell from that happiness by the sin of Adam it followeth that to be saved from sin is to be saved from all the evil and calamities that sin hath brought upon us and therefore in the Holy Scripture remission of sin and salvation from death and misery is the same thing as it appears by the words of our Saviour who having cured a man sick of the palsy by saying son be of good cheer thy sins be forgiven thee Matthew 9 too and knowing that the scribes took for blasphemy should pretend to forgive sins asked them whether it were easier to say thy sins be forgiven thee or arise and walk Ibid 9.5 signifying thereby that it was all one as to the saving of the sick to say thy sins are forgiven and arise and walk and that he used that form of speech only to show he had power to forgive sins and it is besides evident in reason that since death and misery were the punishments of sin the discharge of sin must also be a discharge of death and misery that is to say salvation absolute such as the faithful are to enjoy after the day of judgment by the power and favor of Jesus Christ who that cause is called our Saviour concerning particular salvation such as are understood as the Lord liveth that saveth Israel first Samuel 1439 that is from their temporary enemies and thou art my Saviour who savest me from violence 2 Samuel 223 and God gave the Israelites a Saviour and so they were delivered from the hands of the Assyrians 2 Kings 13.5 and the like I need say nothing there being neither difficulty nor interest to corrupt the interpretation of texts of that kind but concerning the general salvation because it must be in the kingdom of heaven there is great difficulty concerning the place on one side by kingdom which is an estate ordained by men for their perpetual security against enemies and want it seemeth that this salvation should be on earth for by salvation is set forth unto us a glorious reign of our king by conquest not a safety by escape and therefore there where we look for salvation we must also look for triumph and before triumph for victory and before victory for battle which cannot well be imposed shall be in heaven but how good so ever this reason may be I will not trust to it without very evident places of scripture the state of salvation is described at large Isaiah 30 20 21 22 23 and 24 look upon Zion the city of our solemnities thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation a tabernacle that shall not be taken down not one of the stakes thereof shall be removed neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken but there the glorious lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams wherein shall go no galley with oars neither shall gallant ship pass thereby for the lord is our judge the lord is our law giver the lord is our king he will save us thy tacklings are loosed they could not well strengthen their mast they could not spread the sail that is the a great spoil divided the lame take the prey and the inhabitants shall not say I am sick the people that shall dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity in which words we have the place from when salvation is to proceed Jerusalem a quiet habitation the eternity of it a tabernacle that shall not be taken down etc the savior of it the lord their judge their law giver their king he will save us the lord shall be to them as a broad mode of swift waters etc the condition of their enemies their tacklings are loosed their mast weak the lame shall take the spoil of them the condition of the saved the inhabitants shall not say I am sick and lastly this is all comprehended in forgiveness of sin the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity by which it is evident that salvation shall be on earth then when God shall reign of Christ in Jerusalem and from Jerusalem shall proceed the salvation of the Gentiles that shall be received into God's kingdom as is also more expressly declared by the same prophet and they, that is the Gentiles who had any Jew in bondage shall bring all your brethren for an offering to the lord out of all nations upon horses and in chariots and in litters and upon mules and upon swift beasts to my holy mountain Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the lord and I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, sayeth the lord Isaiah 66, 20, 21 whereby it is manifest that the chief seat of God's kingdom which is the place from whence the salvation of us that were Gentiles shall proceed shall be Jerusalem and the same is also confirmed by our savior in his discourse with the woman of Samaria concerning the place of God's worship to whom he sayeth that the Samaritans worshipped they knew not what but the Jews worshipped what they knew for salvation is of the Jews John 4, 22 ex Judeus, that is begins at the Jews as if he should say you worship God but know not by whom he will save you as we do that know it shall be by one of the tribe of Judah a Jew not a Samaritan and therefore also the woman not impertently answered him again we know the Messiah shall come so that which our sabers sayeth salvation is from the Jews it is the same that Paul says the Gospel is the power of God's salvation to every one that believeth to the Jew first and also to the Greek for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith Romans 1, 16 and 17 from the faith of the Jew to the faith of the Gentile in the like sense the prophet Joel describing the day of judgment the God would show wonders in heaven and in earth, blood and fire and in pillars of smoke the sun should be turned to darkness and the moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord come Joel 2, 30, 31 he added and it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be salvation Ibid 2, 32 verse 17 sayeth the same upon Mount Zion shall be deliverance and there shall be holiness and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions that is the possessions of the heathen which possessions he expresses more particularly in the following verses by the Mount of Esau the land of the Philistines the fields of Ephraim of Samaria, Gilead and the cities of the south and concludes with these words all these places are for salvation and the kingdom of God after the day of judgment upon earth on the other side I have not found any text that can probably be drawn to prove any ascension of the saints into heaven that is to say into any column and perium or other ethereal region saving that it is called the kingdom of heaven which name it may have because God that was king of the Jews governed them by his command sent to Moses by angels from heaven after the revolt sent his son from heaven to reduce them to their obedience and shall send him thence again to rule both them and all other faithful men from the day of judgment everlastingly or from that that the throne of this our great king is in heaven whereas the earth is but his footstool but that the subjects of God should have any place as high as his throne or higher than his footstool it seemeth not suitable to the dignity of a king can I find any evident text for it in holy scripture from this that hath been said of the kingdom of God and of salvation it is not hard to interpret what is meant by the world to come there are three worlds mentioned in the scripture the old world the present world and the world to come of the first St. Peter speaks if God spared not the old world but saved Noah the eighth person a preacher of righteousness bringing the flood upon the world of the ungodly etc. 2 Peter 2 5 so the first world was from Adam to the general flood of the present world our savior speaks my kingdom is not of this world John 18 36 for he came only to teach men the way of salvation and to renew the kingdom of his father by his doctrine of the world to come St. Peter speaks nevertheless we according to his promise look for new heavens and earth 2 Peter 3 13 this is that world where in Christ coming down from heaven in the clouds with great power and glory shall send his angels and shall gather together his elect from the four winds and from the uttermost parts of the earth and thenceforth reign over them under his father everlastingly salvation of a sinner suppotheth a precedent redemption for he that is once guilty of sin penalty of the same and must pay or some other for him such ransom as he that is offended and has him in his power shall require and seeing the person offended as Almighty God in whose power are all things such ransom is to be paid before salvation can be acquired as God hath been pleased to require by this ransom is not intended a satisfaction for sin equivalent to the offense which no sinner for himself a righteous man can ever be able to make for another the damage a man does to another he may make amends for by restitution or recompense but sin cannot be taken away by recompense for that were to make the liberty to sin a thing vendible but sins may be pardoned to the repentant either gratis or upon such penalty as God is pleased to accept that which God usually accepted in the Old Testament was some sacrifice or ablation to forgive sin is not an act of injustice though the punishment have been threatened even amongst men though the promise of good bind the promiser yet threats that is to say promises of evil bind them not much less shall they bind God who is infinitely more merciful than men our savior Christ therefore to redeem us did not in that sense satisfy for the sins of men as that his death of its own virtue could make it just in God to punish sinners with eternal death but did make that sacrifice an oblation of himself at his first coming which God was pleased to require for the salvation at his second coming of such as in the meantime should repent and believe in him and though this act of our redemption be not always in scripture called a sacrifice an oblation but sometimes a price yet by price we are not to understand anything by the value whereof for us from his offended father but that price which God the father was pleased in mercy to demand the word church ecclesia signifyeth in the books of the holy scripture diverse things sometimes though not often it is taken for God's house that is to say for a temple wherein Christians assemble to perform holy duties publicly as let your women keep silence in the churches first Corinthians 1434 but this is metaphorically put for the congregation there assembled and have been since used for the edifice itself to distinguish between the temples of Christians and idolaters the temple of Jerusalem was God's house and the house of prayer and so is any edifice dedicated by Christians to the worship of Christ Christ's house and therefore the Greek fathers call it Kyriac the Lord's house and then scenario language it became to be called the Kirk and church church when not taken for house signifyeth the same that ecclesia signified in the temples that is to say a congregation or an assembly of citizens called forth to hear the magistrate speak unto them and which in the commonwealth of Rome was called consio as he that spake was called ecclesiastes and consionator and when they were called forth by lawful authority it was ecclesia legitimate a lawful church and no most ecclesia acts 1939 but when they were excited by tumultuous and seditious summer then it was a confused church ecclesia sugechemene it is taken also sometimes for the men that have the right to be of the congregation though not actually assembled that is to say for the whole multitude of Christian men how far so ever they be dispersed as where it is said that Saul made havoc of the church acts 83 and in this sense is Christ said to be the head of the church and sometimes for a certain part of Christians salute the church that is in his house Colossians 415 sometimes also for the elect only a glorious church without spot or wrinkle holy and without blemish Ephesians 527 which is meant of the church triumphant or church to come sometimes for a congregation assembled of professors of Christianity whether their profession be true or counterfeit as it is understood where it is said tell it to the church and if he neglect to hear the church let him be to thee as a Gentile or publicum Matthew 1817 and in this last sense only it is that the church can be taken for one person that is to say that it can be said to have power to will to pronounce to command to be obeyed to make laws or do any other action whatsoever for without authority from a lawful congregation whatsoever act be done in a concourse of people it is the particular act of every one of those that were present and gave their aid to the performance of it and not the act of them all in growth as of one body much less the act of them that were absent or that being present were not willing that it should be done according to this sense I define a church to be a company of men professing Christian religion united in the person of one sovereign at whose command they ought to assemble and without whose authority they ought not to assemble and because in all commonwealths that assembly which is without warrant from the civil sovereign is unlawful that church also which is assembled in any commonwealth that hath forbidden them to assemble is an unlawful assembly it followeth also that there is on earth no such universal church as all Christians are bound to obey because there is no power on earth to which all other commonwealths are subject there are Christians in the denominations of several princes and states one of them is subject that commonwealth whereof he is himself a member and consequently cannot be subject to the commands of any other person and therefore a church such a one as is capable to command, to judge, absolve condemn or do any other act is the same thing with the civil commonwealth consisting of Christian men and is called a civil state for that the subjects of it are men and a church for that the subjects thereof are Christians temporal and spiritual government are but two words brought into the world to make men see double and mistake their lawful sovereign it is true that the bodies of the faithful after the resurrection shall be not only spiritual but eternal but in this life they are gross and corruptible there is therefore no other government in this life neither of state nor religion but temporal nor teaching of any doctrine lawful to any subject which the governor or religion forbiddeth to be taught and that governor must be one or else there must needs follow faction and civil war in the commonwealth between the church and state between spiritualists and temporalists between the sword of justice and the shield of faith and which is more in every Christian man's own breast between the Christian and the man the doctors of the church are called pastors so also are civil sovereigns but if pastors be not subordinate one to another also is that there may be one chief pastor men will be taught contrary doctrines whereof both may be and one must be false who that one chief pastor is according to the law of nature hath been already shown namely that it is the civil sovereign and to whom the scripture hath assigned that office we shall see in the chapters following end of chapter 39