e a.e dious, for any Chriilians,efpecially fuch as pretend to be proteflants, confidently to alfert, and boldly to publiíh to the world, as Mr. Hobbs doth in his Leviathan, (a book deigned by him, as I have been informed, to corn, element Gromwel, againft the writer's own confcience, fuch as it was) p. 168. ghat no private man is judge of good and evil actions in a common wealth, under civil laws; and that the meafure of good and evil aelions is the civil law (of aCions civilly good, why not ? but of aElions limply good and evil (as his affcrtion carries) why ? what reason, or fhadow of reafon ? God never having given, nor aíligned fuch a rule ; we may thus throw away our Bibles, as the rule of good and evil aEtions, and all be- take ourfelves to the civil law as the only rule) and the legifluitor the alone judge ; fince he may as well diveft a man of human nature and un -man him, as deprive him of a private judgment of difcretion, or of a private dif cretive judgment in reference to his own adions ; the fober exercife whereof is no affuming to himfelf in the leafs the capacity of a publick judge. And if at any time, in any thing relating to his own ads, this judgment of private difcretion fall to thwart the law or publick judg- ment, he adventures on t hat cum periculo, or on his peril; but it cannot in reafon utterly rob him of it, fince (as is faíd) he can as faon ceafe to be a man, or a rational crea- ture, as to have that quite denied him, or taken from him. And, to what end or purpofe thould he be privileged with this above brutes, if the exercife of it íhall be for ever fufpended in the members of kingdoms and com- 'mon- wealths, as almoft all men in the world are ? what found and orthodox divine,or found Chriftian lawier ever taught fuch c oa[rine ? The learned Dr. Ames tells us, in the 4th corolary, and very laf words of his firft book of Cafes of confcience, That interpretatio fcripturx, vel jug dicïum difcer ere voluntatem Dei, pertinet ad quemlibet in foro confcientix pro fcsneteip fo. And, page i 69. of the forecited book, the fame Bcbbs lays, 'That he who is fub- jec7 to río civil law, linneth all that he doth again ft his confcience ; yet it is not fo with him 2vho liveth in a com- mon-wealth, becaufe the law is the publick confcience Which Teems to be inconfitent with, if not point-blank con-
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