Page images
PDF
EPUB

known.

cient. If a prophet rise amongst you, or a dreamer PART III. of dreams, and shall pretend the doing of a mira- 32. cle, and the miracle come to pass; if he say, Let By what marks us follow strange Gods, which thou hast not known, prophets are thou shalt not hearken to him, &c. But that prophet and dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he hath spoken to you to revolt from the Lord your God. (Deut. xiii. 1-5.) In which words two things are to be observed; first, that God will not have miracles alone serve for arguments, to approve the prophet's calling; but, as it is in the third verse, for an experiment of the constancy of our adherence to himself. For the works of the Egyptian sorcerers, though not so great as those of Moses, yet were great miracles. Secondly, that how great soever the miracle be, yet if it tend to stir up revolt against the king, or him that governeth by the king's authority, he that doth such miracle, is not to be considered otherwise than as sent to make trial of their allegiance. For these words, revolt from the Lord your God, are in this place equivalent to revolt from your king. For they had made God their king by pact at the foot of Mount Sinai; who ruled them by Moses only; for he only spake with God, and from time to time declared God's commandments to the people. In like manner, after our Saviour Christ had made his disciples acknowledge him for the Messiah, (that is to say, for God's anointed, whom the nation of the Jews daily expected for their king, but refused when he came,) he omitted not to advertise them of the danger of miracles. There shall arise, saith he, false Christs, and false prophets, and shall do great wonders and miracles,

32.

The marks of a

prophet in the

even to the seducing, if it were possible, of the very elect. (Matt. xxiv. 24.) By which it appears, that false prophets may have the power of miracles; yet are we not to take their doctrine for God's word. St. Paul says farther to the Galatians, (Gal. i. 8.) that if himself, or an angel from heaven preach another gospel to them, than he had preached, let him be accursed. That gospel was, that Christ was King; so that all preaching against the power of the king received, in consequence to these words, is by St. Paul accursed. For his speech is addressed to those, who by his preaching had already received Jesus for the Christ, that is to say, for King of the Jews.

And as miracles, without preaching that doctrine old law, mira- which God hath established; so preaching the true trine comform- doctrine, without the doing of miracles, is an inable to the law. sufficient argument of immediate revelation. For

cles, and doc

if a man that teacheth not false doctrine, should
pretend to be a prophet without showing any
miracle, he is never the more to be regarded for his
pretence, as is evident by Deut. xviii. v. 21, 22,
If thou
say in thy heart, How shall we know that
the word (of the prophet) is not that which the
Lord hath spoken? when the prophet shall have
spoken in the name of the Lord, that which shall
not come to pass, that is the word which the Lord
hath not spoken, but the prophet has spoken it
out of the pride of his own heart, fear him not.
But a man may here again ask, when the prophet
hath foretold a thing, how shall we know whether
it will come to pass or not? For he may foretell
it as a thing to arrive after a certain long time,
longer than the time of man's life; or indefinitely,

32.

that it will come to pass one time or other: in PART III. which case this mark of a prophet is unuseful; and therefore the miracles that oblige us to believe a prophet, ought to be confirmed by an immediate, or a not long deferred event. So that it is manifest, that the teaching of the religion which God hath established, and the showing of a present miracle, joined together, were the only marks whereby the Scripture would have a true prophet, that is to say, immediate revelation, to be acknowledged ; neither of them being singly sufficient to oblige any other man to regard what he saith.

ing, prophets cease, and the Scripture supplies their place

Seeing therefore miracles now cease, we have Miracles ceasno sign left, whereby to acknowledge the pretended revelations or inspirations of any private man ; nor obligation to give ear to any doctrine, farther than it is conformable to the Holy Scriptures, which since the time of our Saviour, supply the place, and sufficiently recompense the want of all other prophecy; and from which, by wise and learned interpretation, and careful ratiocination, all rules and precepts necessary to the knowledge of our duty both to God and man, without enthusiasm or supernatural inspiration, may easily be deduced. And this Scripture is it, out of which I am to take the principles of my discourse, concerning the rights of those that are the supreme governors on earth of Christian commonwealths and of the duty of Christian subjects towards their sovereigns. And to that end, I shall speak in the next chapter, of the books, writers, scope and authority of the Bible.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

OF THE NUMBER, ANTIQUITY, SCOPE, AUTHORITY
AND INTERPRETERS OF THE BOOKS OF

HOLY SCRIPTURE.

PART III. By the Books of Holy SCRIPTURE, are understood 33. those, which ought to be the canon, that is to say, Of the books of the rules of Christian life.

Holy Scripture.

And because all rules of life, which men are in conscience bound to observe, are laws; the question of the Scripture, is the question of what is law throughout all Christendom, both natural and civil. For though it be not determined in Scripture, what laws every Christian king shall constitute in his own dominions; yet it is determined what laws he shall not constitute. Seeing therefore I have already proved, that sovereigns in their own dominions are the sole legislators; those books only are canonical, that is, law, in every nation, which are established for such by the sovereign authority. It is true, that God is the sovereign of all sovereigns; and therefore, when he speaks to any subject, he ought to be obeyed, whatsoever any earthly potentate command to the contrary. But the question is not of obedience to God, but of when and what God hath said; which to subjects that have no supernatural revelation, cannot be known, but by that natural reason, which guideth them, for the obtaining of peace and justice, to obey the authority of their several commonwealths, that is to say, of their lawful sovereigns. According to this obligation, I can acknowledge no other books of the Old

Testament, to be Holy Scripture, but those which PART III. have been commanded to be acknowledged for 33. such, by the authority of the Church of England. Of the books of Holy Scripture. What books these are, is sufficiently known, without a catalogue of them here; and they are the same that are acknowledged by St. Jerome, who holdeth the rest, namely, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Tobias, the first and the second of Maccabees, (though he had seen the first in Hebrew,) and the third and fourth of Esdras, for Apocrypha. Of the canonical, Josephus, a learned Jew, that wrote in the time of the emperor Domitian, reckoneth twenty-two, making the number agree with the Hebrew alphabet. St. Jerome does the same, though they reckon them in different manner. For Josephus numbers five Books of Moses, thirteen of Prophets that writ the history of their own times, (which how it agrees with the prophets' writings contained in the Bible we shall see hereafter,) and four of hymns and moral precepts. But St. Jerome reckons five books of Moses, eight of Prophets, and nine of other Holy Writ, which he calls of ȧyóypapa. The Septuagint, who were seventy learned men of the Jews, sent for by Ptolemy, king of Egypt, to translate the Jewish law out of the Hebrew into the Greek, have left us no other for Holy Scripture in the Greek tongue, but the same that are received in the Church of England.

As for the Books of the New Testament, they are equally acknowledged for canon by all Christian churches, and by all sects of Christians, that admit any books at all for canonical.

Who were the original writers of the several Books of Holy Scripture, has not been made evi

« PreviousContinue »