But a man is then also said to be justified when his plea,though in itself insufficient,is accepted;as when we plead our will,our endeavour to fulfil the law,and repent us of our failings,and God accepteth it for the performance itself.And because God accepteth not the will for the deed,but only in the faithful,it is therefore,faith that makes good our plea;and in this sense it is that faith only justifies:so that faith and obedience are both necessary to salvation,yet in several senses each of them is said to justify.
Having thus shown what is necessary to salvation,it is not hard to reconcile our obedience to God with our obedience to the civil sovereign,who is either Christian or infidel.If he be a Christian,he alloweth the belief of this article,that Jesus is the Christ;and of all the articles that are contained in,or are by evident consequence deduced from it:which is all the faith necessary to salvation.And because he is a sovereign,he requireth obedience to all his own,that is,to all the civil laws;in which also are contained all the laws of nature,that is,all the laws of God:for besides the laws of nature,and the laws of the Church,which are part of the civil law (for the Church that can make laws is the Commonwealth),there be no other laws divine.Whosoever therefore obeyeth his Christian sovereign is not thereby hindered neither from believing nor from obeying God.But suppose that a Christian king should from this foundation,Jesus is the Christ,draw some false consequences,that is to say,make some superstructions of hay or stubble,and command the teaching of the same;yet seeing St.Paul says he shall be saved;much more shall he be saved that teacheth them by his command;and much more yet,he that teaches not,but only believes his lawful teacher.And in case a subject be forbidden by the civil sovereign to profess some of those his opinions,upon what just ground can he disobey?Christian kings may err in deducing a consequence,but who shall judge?Shall a private man judge,when the question is of his own obedience?Or shall any man judge but he that is appointed thereto by the Church,that is,by the civil sovereign that representeth it?Or if the Pope or an Apostle judge,may he not err in deducing of a consequence?Did not one of the two,St.Peter or St.Paul,err in a superstructure,when St.Paul withstood St.Peter to his face?There can therefore be no contradiction between the laws of God and the laws of a Christian Commonwealth.
And when the civil sovereign is an infidel,every one of his own subjects that resisteth him sinneth against the laws of God (for such are the laws of nature),and rejecteth the counsel of the Apostles that admonisheth all Christians to obey their princes,and all children and servants to obey their parents and masters in all things.And for their faith,it is internal and invisible;they have the license that Naaman had,and need not put themselves into danger for it.But if they do,they ought to expect their reward in heaven,and not complain of their lawful sovereign,much less make war upon him.For he that is not glad of any just occasion of martyrdom has not the faith he professeth,but pretends it only,to set some colour upon his own contumacy.But what infidel king is so unreasonable as,knowing he has a subject that waiteth for the second coming of Christ,after the present world shall be burnt,and intendeth then to obey Him (which is the intent of believing that Jesus is the Christ),and in the meantime thinketh himself bound to obey the laws of that infidel king,which all Christians are obliged in conscience to do,to put to death or to persecute such a subject?
And thus much shall suffice,concerning the kingdom of God and policy ecclesiastical.Wherein I pretend not to advance any position of my own,but only to show what are the consequences that seem to me deducible from the principles of Christian politics (which are the Holy Scriptures),in confirmation of the power of civil sovereigns and the duty of their subjects.And in the allegation of Scripture,I have endeavoured to avoid such texts as are of obscure or controverted interpretation,and to allege none but in such sense as is most plain and agreeable to the harmony and scope of the whole Bible,which was written for the re-establishment of the kingdom of God in Christ.
For it is not the bare words,but the scope of the writer,that giveth the true light by which any writing is to be interpreted;and they that insist upon single texts,without considering the main design,can derive no thing from them clearly;but rather,by casting atoms of Scripture as dust before men's eyes,make everything more obscure than it is,an ordinary artifice of those that seek not the truth,but their own advantage.
