Truth and Innocence Vindicated, Part 5
A Survey of the Fourth Chapter.
IN the fourth Chapter we have no concern; The Hypothesis whose Confutation he hath undertaken, as it is in it self false, so it is rather suited to promote what he aims at, than what he opposeth; And the principles which himself proceedeth on, do seem to some to border on, if not to be borrowed from his, and those which are here confuted. And thence it is that the foundations, which he layes down in the entrance of this discourse, are as destructive of his own pretensions, as of those, against which they are by himself improved. For it is granted, and asserted by him, that there are Actions, and Duties in, and about which, the Consciences of men are not to be obliged by humane Authority, but have an antecedent Obligation on them from the Authority of God himself; So that disobedience unto the contrary commands of humane Authority is no sin, but an indispensible Duty; And although he seems at first to restrain things of this nature, unto things natural, and of an essential Rectitude; that is, the prime dictates of the Law of Nature; yet he expresly extends it i… Instances, unto the belief of the truth of th… Gospel, which is a matter of meer and purr Revelation: And hereon he adds, The formall, and adequate reason of this exemption of Conscience from humane Authority, and i… obligation unto duty, before its consideration without it, and against it, which is, not because Subjects are in any thing free from the Authority of the Supream power on earth, but because they are Subject to a Superiour i… Heaven, and they are then only excused from the Duty of obedience to their Soveraign, when they cannot give it without rebellion against God; so that it is not originally any right of their own, that exempts them from a Subjection to the Soveraign power in all things, but it is purely Gods right of governing his own Creatures, that Magistrates then invade, when they make Edicts to violate, or controll His Laws.
It is about Religion, and the Worship of God that we are discoursing; Now in these things no man ever thought that it was originally a right of Subjects, as Subjects, abstracting from the Consideration of the Authority of God, that should exempt them from a subjection to the Soveraign Power. For though some of the Antients discourse at large, that it is of natural Right and Equity, that every one should Worship God as he would himself, yet they founded this Equity in the nature of God, and the Authority of his Commands. This Exemption then ariseth merely, as our Author observes, because they are subject to a Superiour Power in Heaven, which excuseth them from the Duty of Obedience to their Superiours on Earth, when they cannot give it without Rebellion against God; whence it undeniably follows that that Supream Power in Heaven hath exempted these things from all inferiour Powers on earth. Extend this now unto all things wherein men have, and ought to have a regard unto that Superiour Power in Heaven, as it must be extended, or the whole is ridiculous, (for that heavenly Supremacy is made the formall reason of the exemption here granted,) and all that our Author hath been so earnestly contending for in the preceeding Chapters, falls to the ground. For no man pleads exemption from subjection unto, yea from giving active obedience unto the Authority, and Commands of the Magistrate, even in things Religious, but merely on the account of his subjection to the Authority of God Heaven; and, where this is so, he is set… Liberty by our Author from all contra… commands of men. This is Bellarmine's … tissimum est, which, as King James obse…ved, overthrows all, that he had contened for in his five Books de Justificatione.