CHAP. VII.

1. Of Man's Relation to God, his Owner.

SECT. 1. God being our undoubted, absolute Owner, it followeth, undeniably, that we are his own.

The relations are mutual, and the thing needeth no proof. Sect. 2. Therefore, man being an intelligent creature, that can know this his relation to his Maker, is bound by nature to consent to it, and absolutely resign himself to the will, disposal, and use of his Creator, h

For there is nothing more reasonable, than that every one should have his own: and the understanding of man should conceive of things as they are, and the will of man should consent to his Maker's interest and right, or else it were most crooked, irregular, and unjust. Therefore, it must needs be the duty of every reasonable creature to bethink him, that God is his absolute Owner, and thereupon to make a deliberate, resolved resignation of himself to God, without any exceptions or re

serves.

Sect. 3. Therefore, man should labour to know wherein he may be most useful to his Maker's interest, (which is his pleasure in our perfection,) and therein he should willingly and joyfully lay out himself. i

For it is undeniable that God should be served with his own, and that entirely, without dividing: for we are not in part, but wholly his.

Sect. 4. Therefore, no man can have any propriety in himself, but what is derived from his absolute Lord, and standeth in full subordination to his propriety.

For there can be but one full and absolute proprietor. I can have no other propriety in myself, but by derivation and trust from my Creator.

Sect. 5. Therefore, also, no creature can have any propriety in

Prima pietatis magistra natura est.-Cic.

Omnis est Deorum vita beata, hominum autem quatenus in ea lucet quoddam ejus actionis exemplar.-Aristot. Eth. 10. c. 8.

i Agri ne cousecrentur Platoni assentior: qui his fere verbis utitur: terra igitur, ut focus domicilium sacrum omnium Deorum est: quocirca nequis iterum idem consécrato. Aurum autem et argentum in urbibus et privatim et in fanis, invidiosa res est.-Cicer, de Leg. 1. 2. p. 245.

another creature, but only derivatively subordinate, et secundum quid.

No parent hath any propriety in his children, nor the most absolute and potent prince in his people, but as God's stewards under him; no, not in themselves, and therefore not in others. And a steward hath no propriety in his master's goods, but derivative, dependent, subordinate and improper, and only the usum fructuum, and such possession as is necessary thereto, and such an imperfect propriety as will justify that possession.

Sect. 6. And as I am not my own, so nothing is properly my own which I possess, but all that I have is God's as well as I.

For no man can have more title to any thing else than to himself. He that is not owner of himself, is owner of nothing. And we have not any thing, nor can have, which is not as much from God as we, and therefore is not as much his.

Sect. 7. Therefore, no man should repine at God's disposal of him, but all men should acquiesce in the disposing will of God.

For it is unreasonable and unjust to murmur at God, for doing as he list with his own, and using any thing to his ends.

Sect. 8. And, therefore, all men should avoid all selfish affections, and partiality, and be more affected with God's interest than their own.

For we are not so much our own as his, and our interest is not so considerable in comparison of his.

Sect. 9. Therefore, no man should do any thing for selfish ends, which is injurious to the will and interest of God, our absolute Owner.

Sect. 10. And, therefore, no man should dispose of his estate, or any thing he hath, in any way, but for the interest of his absolute Lord.

Sect. 11. And, therefore, all men should make it the very care and labour of their lives to serve the will and interest of this their absolute Owner.

Sect. 12. And, therefore, no man should prefer the will or interest of the greatest mortal man, or the dearest friend, before the will and interest of God.

Sect. 13. Nor should the public interest of states or kingdoms be pleaded against his will and interest.

But yet we must take heed how we oppose or neglect this last, especially, because the will of God doth take most pleasure in the public or common benefit of his creatures; and therefore these

two are very seldom separated; nor ever at all as to their real good, though as to carnal, lower good, it may so fall out.

All these are so plain, that to stand to prove or illustrate them, were but to be unnecessarily and unprofitably tedious.

Sect. 14. It being a God of infinite wisdom and goodness, as well as power, who is our Owner, his title to us is a great consolation to the upright.

For as he hath taught men (and brutes too) to love their own, it intimateth that he will not despise his own and therefore his interest in us is our comfort.

Sect. 15. No man is capable of giving any thing properly to God, but only by obediential reddition of his own: no, nor to man, but as God's steward, and according to our propriety, secundum quid, in respect to other claimers.

CHAP. VIII.

2. Of God's Relation to Man, as his Governor.

SECT. 1. God having made man a rational free-agent, and sociable, among sensible objects, and out of sight of his invisible Creator, and so infirm and defectible, it followeth, necessarily, that he is a creature which must be governed by moral means, and not only moved by natural necessitation, as inanimates and brutes. *

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The thing that I am first to prove is, that man's Creator hath made him such a creature, whose nature requireth a government, that he hath a necessity of government, and an aptitude to it.

By government, I mean, the exercise of the moral means of laws, and execution by a ruler, for the right ordering of the subject's actions, to the good of the society, and the honour of the governor.

* Stoici dicunt mundum regi et administrari secundum mentem et providentiam.-Laert. in Zenone.

Note, that all Cicero's unanswerable reasons for the law of nature (lib. de Leg.) prove, that God governeth us by laws: for the law of nature is God's law, who is the Maker of nature.

Omnium quæ in hominum doctorum disputatione versantur, nihil est profecto præstabilius, quàm plane intelligi nos ad justitiam esse natos; neque opinione sed naturâ, constitutum esse jus. Id jam patebit, si hominum inter ipsos societatem conjunctionemque prospexeris, &c.-Cicer.de Leg. 1. p. 221.

I distinguish laws from all mere, natural motions and necessitation; for though, analogically, the shepherd is said to rule his sheep, and the rider his horse, yea, and the pilot his ship, and the ploughman his plough, and the archer his arrow, yet this is but equivocally called government, and is not that which we here mean, which is the proposal of duty, seconded with rewards or punishment for the neglects, by those in authority, for the right governing of those that are committed to their care and trust: so that it is not all moral means neither which is called government, for the instruction or persuasion of an equal is not such. Laws, and judgment, and execution, are the constitutive parts of government; but by laws I mean the whole kind, and not only written laws, nor those only which are made by sovereign rulers of commonwealths, which, by excellency, are called laws, but I mean the signification of the will of a governor, making the subject's duty, and determining of rewards to the obedient, and punishments to the disobedient; or, an authoritative constitution, de debito officii, præmii pœnæ, for the ends of government: so that as parents, and tutors, and masters, do truly govern, as well as kings, so they have truly laws, though not in such eminency as the laws of republics. The will of a parent, a tutor, or master, manifested concerning duty, is truly a law to a child, a scholar, or a servant. If any dislike the use of the word, 'law,' in so large a sense, it sufficeth now for me to tell them in what sense I use it, and so it will serve to the understanding of my mind: I take it for such an instrument of government. The parts of it are: 1. The constituting of the debitum officii, or what shall be due from the subject; 2. The debitum præmii vel pœnæ, or what shall be due to the subject, which is in order to the promoting of obedience; though as to the performances, obedience may be in order to the reward. Now, that man is a creature made to be governed by such a proper, moral government, I prove.

1. The several parts of government are necessary, therefore government is necessary: from all the parts of government to the whole is an unquestionable consequence. It is necessary that man have duty prescribed and imposed, else man shall have nothing which he ought to do. Take away duty, and we are good for nothing, nor have any employment fit for reason; and take away all reward and punishment, and you take away duty in effect experience teacheth us that it will not be done, for a rational agent will have ends and motives for what he doth.

2. From the imbecility of our younger state, so weak is our infant understanding, and so strong our sensitive inclination, that if parents should leave all their children ungoverned, abused reason would make man worse than beasts.

3. From the common infirmity and badness of all the world; the wise are so few, and the ignorant so many, that if all the ignorant were left ungoverned to do what they list, they would be like an army of blind men in a fight, or like a world of men bewildered in the dark. What a confused, loathsome spectacle would the world be! And the rather, because men are bad, as well as foolish. Would all the sensual, vicious persons in the world be ordered like men, without any government, by such as are wiser than themselves?

4. From the power of sensitive objects, the baits of sense are so numerous, so near, and so powerful, that they would bear down reason in the most, without the help of laws: nay, laws themselves, even of God and man, do so little with the most, as tell us what they would be without them.

5. The variety of men's minds, and interests, and dispositions, is such, as that the world ungoverned would be utterly in confusion: as many minds and ways as men. No two men are in all things of the same apprehensions.

6. From the nature of man's powers; he is a noble creature, and therefore hath answerable ends to be attained, and therefore must have the conduct of answerable means. He is a rational free-agent, and therefore must have his end and means proposed to his reason, and is not to be moved by sense alone; his chief end, as well as his chief governor, being out of his sight.

7. The experience of all mankind constraineth them to consent to this that man is a creature made for government. Therefore, even among cannibals, parents govern their children, and husbands govern their wives; and in all the rational world there are rulers and subjects, masters and servants, tutors and scholars, which are all governors or governed. Few men are to be found alive on earth, who would have all men, or any men, save themselves, ungoverned; otherwise, men would be worse to men, I say not than serpents, and toads, and tigers, are to one another, but than any of them are to men. Every man that hath strength and opportunity would make a prey of the life or welfare of his brother. Men's own necessity forceth them everywhere to set up governments, that they may not live as in