24 / 378
the
!tie
wers,
was,
when
Tiberius,
Caligula,
Claudius,
and
Ne-
ro
were
Roman
emperors
;
none
of
whom were
the
beftg
nor near the
belt,
even
of
Pagan
emperors
;
and
fome
of
them
were
very
monfters
of
men.
Only
it would
be
carefully looked
to, that
foundations
be not
fhaken and
put
out
of
courte,
and
that
ancient boundaries and land-
marks be
not removed
;
which
no
Chriftian
civil
love.
reigns, in
kingdoms
or
common-wealths,
keeping
them
-
felves
in
the line
of
due and
juff
fubordination
to
the
Majefly
of
God,
the
great
and abfolute Superior
and
Sovereign,
the King
of
kings,
by,
and
under whom,
all
kings
reign,
will
allow
of, or
give
way
unto,
whatever
unhallowed
Hobbits
profanely and impioufly
fuggeft
to
the
contrary
:
Whofe
principles
(whatever they pretend
to grant
to
the
civil fovereigns
of
kingdoms and
com-
mon-wealths) have
a
manifeft
tendency
to
the unhinging
and
utter
diffolving
of
all
government.
For,
let
us
in
Thort
but
fuppofe
thefe four
things,
which
Hobbs
very
magilterially,
tanquam
ex
tripode,
dietates
and takes
for
granted
in his
forecited book
:
¡fl,
That
all
religion
is
bottomed
on
human
authority,
and
precarioufly borrow-
ed
from
the
will
and
pleafure
of
men, and
hath
no
di-
vine
authority
of
its own
;
whereby
(as
ingenuous and
acute
Sir Charles I'oolfly,
in
his
Unreafonablenefs
of
Athe-
ifm,
fays)
An inroad
is
n
ade
upon
its
befi
defence;
for
in-
deed
(faith
he)
it
will
never
be
kept
up
with
any
other
in-
terefl
in the
ccnfciences
of
men;
and
where
it
is
not
fuppor-
ted
by co;nfcience,
it
is
ever
tottering, and
yields
to
the blafls
of
every
human
pleafure.
llc
once
(faith the
fame
learned
gentleman) it
be
taken for
granted,
that
the fériptures
have
no
authority but
what
the
civil power
gives
them,
they
quill
foon
come
upon
a
divine
account
to
have
none
at
all.
2dly,
That
the
apoftles
could not
make
their
writings
obligatory
canons
without the help
of
the
fovereign ci-
vil powers
;
and
that therefore the fcripture
of
the
new
tef}ament
is
the
only law
there,
where the
civil power
makes
it
fo
As
if, forfoath,
the divine
authority
ifam-
ped thereon
by
the abfblute Sovereign,
by
the great
and
-infallible
degilator, carried
with
it
no
immediate obli-
gallon
on
the
confciences
of
men,
to
whom it comes, to
receive and obey
it
as
his law,
knofoever
b
licvetb
(faith
Sir