from whence I infer that this article is that on which all other doctrines of the Church are built, as on their foundation. A fifth is (1 Cor. iii. 11, 12, &c.), "Other foundation can no man lay, than that which is laid, Jesus is the Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burnt, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire." Which words, being partly plain and easy to understand, and partly allegorical and difficult; out of that which is plain may be inferred, that pastors that teach this foundation, that " 'Jesus is the Christ," though they draw from it false consequences, which all men are sometimes subject to, they may nevertheless be saved; much more that they may be saved, who being no pastors, but hearers, believe that which is by their lawful pastors taught them. Therefore the belief of this article is sufficient; and by consequence, there is no other article of faith necessarily required to salvation.

Now for the part which is allegorical, as "that the fire shall try every man's work," and that "they shall be saved, but so as by fire," or "through fire" (for the original is dià Tupòs), it maketh nothing against this conclusion which I have drawn from the other words, that are plain. Nevertheless, because upon this place there hath been an argument taken, to prove the fire of purgatory, I will also here offer you my conjecture concerning the meaning of this trial of doctrines, and saving of men as by fire. The apostle here seemeth to allude to the words of the prophet Zechariah (xiii. 8, 9), who speaking of the restoration of the kingdom of God, saith thus: "Two parts therein shall be cut off, and die, but the third shall be left therein; and I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried; they shall call on the name of the Lord, and I will hear them." The day of judgment is the day of the restoration of the kingdom of God; and at that day it is, that St. Peter tells us (2 Pet. iii. 7, 10, 12) shall be the conflagration of the world, wherein the wicked shall perish; but the remnant which God will save, shall pass through that fire unhurt, and be therein (as silver and gold are refined by the fire from their dross) tried, and refined from their idolatry, and be made to call upon the name of the true God. Alluding whereto, St. Paul here saith, that "the day," that is, the day of judgment, the great day of our Saviour's coming to restore the kingdom of God in Israel, shall try every man's doctrine, by judging which are gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; and then they that have built false consequences on the true foundation, shall see their doctrines condemned; nevertheless they themselves shall be saved, and pass unhurt through this universal fire, and live eternally, to call upon the name of the true and only God. In which sense there is nothing that accordeth not with the rest of Holy Scripture, or any glimpse of the fire of purgatory.

But a man may here ask, whether it be not as necessary to salvation, to believe, that God is omnipotent; Creator of the world; that Jesus Christ is risen; and that all men else shall rise again from the dead at the last day; as to believe that "Jesus is the Christ." To which I answer, they are and so are many more articles: but they are such as are contained in this one, and may be deduced from it, with more or less difficulty. For who is there that does not see that they who believe Jesus to be the Son of the God of Israel, and that the Israelites had for God the Omnipotent Creator of all things, do therein also believe that God is the Omnipotent

Creator of all things? Or how can a man believe that Jesus is the king that shall reign eternally, unless he believe Him also risen again from the dead? For a dead man cannot exercise the office of a king. In sum, he that holdeth this foundation, "Jesus is the Christ," holdeth expressly all that he seeth rightly deduced from it, and implicitly all that is consequent thereunto, though he have not skill enough to discern the consequence. And therefore holdeth still good, that the belief of this one article is sufficient faith to obtain remission of sins to the "penitent," and consequently to bring them into the kingdom of heaven.

Now that I have shown that all the obedience required to salvation consisteth in the will to obey the law of God, that is to say, in repentance; and all the faith required to the same is comprehended in the belief of this article, "Jesus is the Christ;" I will further allege those places of the Gospel that prove that all that is necessary to salvation is contained in both these joined together. The men to whom St. Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, next after the ascension of our Savionr, asked him and the rest of the apostles, saying (Acts ii. 37), "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" To whom St. Peter answered (in the next verse), "Repent, and be baptized every one of you, for the remission of sins, and ye thall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Therefore repentance and baptism, that is, believing that "Jesus is the Christ," is all that is necessary to salvation. Again, our Saviour being asked by a certain ruler (Luke xviii. 18), "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" answered (verse 20), "Thou knowest the commandments, do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honour thy father and thy mother." Which when he said he had observed, our Saviour added (verse 22), "Sell all thou hast, give it to the poor, and come and follow me:" which was as much as to say, Rely on me that am the king. Therefore to fulfil the law, and to believe that Jesus is the king, is all that is required to bring a man to eternal life. Thirdly, St. Paul saith (Rom. i. 17), The just shall live by faith;" not every one, but the "just;" therefore "faith" and "justice" (that is, the "will to be just," repentance") are all that is necessary to life eternal. And (Mark i. 15) our Saviour preached, saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the evangile," that is, the good news that the Christ was come. Therefore, to repent, and to believe that Jesus is the Christ, is all that is required to salvation.

or

Seeing then it is necessary that faith and obedience, implied in the word repentance, do both concur to our salvation; the question by which of the two we are justified, is impertinently disputed. Nevertheless, it will not be impertinent to make manifest in what manner each of them contributes thereunto; and in what sense it is said, that we are to be justified by the one, and by the other. And first, if by righteousness be understood the justice of the works themselves, there is no man that can be saved; for there is none that hath not transgressed the law of God. And therefore when we are said to be justified by works, it is to be understood of the will, which God doth always accept for the work itself, as well in good as in evil men. And in this sense only it is that a man is called "just or "unjust;" and that his justice justifies him, that is, gives him the title, in God's acceptation, of "just;" and renders him capable of "living by his faith," which before he was not. So that justice justifies in that sense in which to "justify" is the same as that to "denominate a man just ;" and not in the signification of discharging the law; whereby the punishment of his sins should be unjust.

But a man is then also said to be justified when his plea, though in itself insufficient, is accepted; as when we plead our will, our endeavour to fulfil

the law, and repent us of our failings, and God accepteth it for the performance itself. And because God accepteth not the will for the deed, but only in the faithful; it is therefore faith that makes good our plea; and in this sense it is that faith only justifies. So that "faith" and "obedience" both necessary to salvation; yet in several senses each of them is said to justify.

are

Having thus shown what is necessary to salvation, it is not hard to reconcile our obedience to God with our obedience to the civil sovereign; who is either Christian or infidel. If he be a Christian, he alloweth the belief of this article, that "Jesus is the Christ ;" and of all the articles that are contained in, or are by evident consequence deduced from it: which is ail the faith necessary to salvation. And because he is a sovereign, he requireth odedience to all his own, that is, to all the civil laws; in which also are contained all the laws of Nature, that is, all the laws of God: for besides the laws of Nature, and the laws of the Church, which are part of the civil law (for the Church that can make laws is the commonwealth), there be no other laws divine. Whosoever therefore obeyeth his Christian sovereign, is not thereby hindered, neither from believing, nor from obeying God. But suppose that a Christian king should from this foundation "Jesus is the Christ," draw some false consequences, that is to say, make some superstructions of hay or stubble, and command the teaching of the same; yet seeing St. Paul says he shall be saved; much more shall he be saved, that teacheth them by his command; and much more yet, he that teaches not, but only believes his lawful teacher. And in case a subject be forbidden by the civil sovereign to profess some of those his opinions, upon what just ground can he disobey? Christian kings may err in deducing a consequence, but who shall judge? Shall a private man judge, when the question is of his own obedience? Or shall any man judge but he that is appointed thereto by the Church, that is, by the civil sovereign that representeth it? Or if the Pope, or an apostle judge, may he not err in deducing of a consequence? Did not one of the two, St. Peter or St. Paul, err in a superstructure, when St. Paul withstood St. Peter to his face? There can therefore be no contradiction between the laws of God and the laws of a Christian commonwealth.

And when the civil sovereign is an infidel, every one of his own subjects that resisteth him, sinneth against the laws of God (for such are the laws of Nature), and rejecteth the counsel of the apostles, that admonisheth all Christians to obey their princes, and all children and servants to obey their parents and masters in all things. And for their "faith," it is internal and invisible; they have the license that Naaman had, and need not put themselves into danger for it. But if they do, they ought to expect their reward in heaven, and not complain of their lawful sovereign; much less make war upon him. For he that is not glad of any just occasion of martyrdom. has not the faith he professeth, but pretends it only, to set some colour upon his own contumacy. But what infidel king is so unreasonable, as knowing he has a subject, that waiteth for the second coming of Christ, after the present world shall be burnt, and intendeth then to obey him (which is the intent of believing that Jesus is the Christ), and in the meantime thinketh himself bound to obey the laws of that infidel king (which all Christians are obliged in conscience to do), to put to death or to persecute such a subject?

And thus much shall suffice concerning the kingdom of God and policy ecclesiastical. Wherein I pretend not to advance any position of my own, but only to show what are the consequences that seem to me deducible from the principles of Christian politics (which are the Holy Scriptures), in con

firmation of the power of civil sovereigns, and the duty of their subjects. And in the allegation of Scripture I have endeavoured to avoid such texts as are of obscure or controverted interpretation; and to allege none, but in such sense as is most plain and agreeable to the harmony and scope of the whole Bible; which was written for the re-establishment of the kingdom of God in Christ. For it is not the bare words, but the scope of the writer, that giveth the true light by which any writing is to be interpreted; and they that insist upon single texts, without considering the main design, can derive nothing from them clearly; but rather by casting atoms of Scripture, as dust before men's eyes, make everything more obscure than it is; an ordinary artifice of those that seek not the truth, but their own advantage.

PART IV.-OF THE KINGDOM OF

DARKNESS.

CHAPTER XLIV.

Of Spiritual Darkness, from Misinterpretation of Scripture. BESIDES these sovereign powers, "divine" and "human," of which I have hitherto discoursed, there is mention in Scripture of another power, namely (Eph. vi. 12), that of "the rulers of the darkness of this world; " (Matt.. xii. 26), "the kingdom of Satan ;" and (Matt. ix. 34), "the principality of Beelzebub over demons," that is to say, over phantasms that appear in the air: for which cause Satan is also called (Eph. ii. 2), "the prince of the power of the air;" and, because he ruleth in the darkness of this world (John xvi. 11), "the prince of this world; " and in consequence hereunto, they who are under his dominion, in opposition to the faithful (who are the "children of the light"), are called the "children of darkness." For seeing Beelzebub is prince of phantasms, inhabitants of his dominion of air and darkness, the children of darkness, and these demons, phantasms, or spirits of illusion, signify allegorically the same thing. This considered, the kingdom of darkness, as it is set forth in these and other places of the Scripture, is nothing else but a "confederacy of deceivers, that to obtain dominion over men in this present world endeavour by dark and erroneous doctrines to extinguish in them the light both of Nature and of the Gospel, and so to disprepare them for the kingdom of God to come."

As men that are utterly deprived from their nativity of the light of the bodily eye have no idea at all of any such light; and no man conceives in his imagination any greater light than he hath at some time or other perceived by his outward senses: so also is it of the light of the Gospel, and of the light of the understanding, that no man can conceive there is any greater degree of it than that which he hath already attained unto. And from hence it comes to pass that men have no other means to acknowledge their own darkness but only by reasoning from the unforeseen mischances that befall them in their ways. The darkest part of the kingdom of Satan is that which is without the Church of God; that is to say, amongst them that believe not in Jesus Christ. But we cannot say that therefore the Church enjoyeth, as the land of Goshen, all the light which to the performance of the work enjoined us by God is necessary. Whence comes it that in Christendom there has been, almost from the time of the apostles, such justling of one another out of their places, both by foreign and civil war; such stumbling at every little asperity of their own fortune, and every little eminence of that of other men, and such diversity of ways in running to the same mark, felicity," if it be not night amongst us, or at least a mist? We are therefore yet in the dark.