Durham - BV4615 D87 1732

o dd the 1Veder xix by ; that aEtion is not his, but his foverei rn's ; nor is it he, that in this cafe deníeth Chr /, but his fovereign and the law of his country. And, p. 309. The civil fovereign may make laws fuitable to his doc`Irine (for he will have him to be the only fovereign teacher of the people, that are under him jure divino ; which quite nulls the divine right of all the minifters of the Gofpel) which may oblige men to fuch actions, as they would not otherwife do, and which he ought not to command ; and when they are com- manded, they are laws, and the external anions that are done in obedience to them, without the inward approbation, are the actions of the fovereign, and not of the fubjet, who, in that cafe, is but the inflrument, without any motion of his own at all, becaufe God hath commanded to obey them. Alas, the poor fubje &, is here by him, not only robbed of his judgment of privare difcretion and confcience, as to his own ads, which is hard enough ; but, in a manner, ofa human rational foul, if not alto of a fentitive one ; and fo degraded and detruded below the very beajls that pe- ril!) : For he makes him a mere innflrument without any ?notion at all ; only he fomewhat recovers him from his brutal, yea, infra - brutal {tare, by making him capable to obey commands, tho' againfl his confcience. The o- ther Hobbifb DoEtor, who will not be outflript by his snafler, according to his manner, di&ateth very magifle- rially, That, if there be any fin in the command of the fove- reign power, he that impofed it ¡ball anfwer it, and not Ì, whole whole duty is to obey ; the command of authority will warrant my obedience, my obedience will hallow, at leafs, excufe my anion, and fo fecure me from fin, if not from er- ror. Very eafy, loft and fmooth dodrìne indeed, for private perlons and fubje &s, if its teachers could affure us of its certain and infallible truth, and of its confo-- nancy and agreeablenefs with the fcriptures of truth ; but fubje&s muff nor call their fouls at hap- hazard, on the bare and unproved afferts of thefe gentlemen, who give us no great proof of either their truth or tendernen in other great concerns of religion ; efpecially fince the divinely infpired apoille teacheth us quite other do&rine,- while he tells us, more generally, z Cor. 5.1 o. That we muß all appear (or be made manifelî) before the judgment

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=