but not drawn from Aristotle,nor from any other of the heathen philosophers.For none of them deny but that in the power of ****** laws is comprehended also the power of explaining them when there is need.And are not the Scriptures,in all places where they are law,made law by the authority of the Commonwealth and,consequently,a part of the civil law?
Of the same kind it is also when any but the sovereign restraineth in any man that power which the Commonwealth hath not restrained;as they do that impropriate the preaching of the gospel to one certain order of men,where the laws have left it free.If the state give me leave to preach or teach;that is,if it forbid me not,no man can forbid me.If I find myself amongst the idolaters of America,shall I that am a Christian,though not in orders,think it a sin to preach Jesus Christ,till I have received orders from Rome?Or when I have preached,shall not I answer their doubts and expound the Scriptures to them;that is,shall I not teach?But for this may some say,as also for administering to them the sacraments,the necessity shall be esteemed for a sufficient mission;which is true.
But this is true also,that for whatsoever a dispensation is due for the necessity,for the same there needs no dispensation when there is no law that forbids it.Therefore to deny these functions to those to whom the civil sovereign hath not denied them is a taking away of a lawful liberty,which is contrary to the doctrine of civil government.
More examples of vain philosophy,brought into religion by the doctors of School divinity,might be produced;but other men may if they please observe them of themselves.I shall only add this,that the writings of School divines are nothing else,for the most part,but insignificant trains of strange and barbarous words,or words otherwise used than in the common use of the Latin tongue;such as would pose Cicero,and Varro,and all the grammarians of ancient Rome.
Which,if any man would see proved,let him (as I have said once before)see whether he can translate any School divine into any of the modern tongues,as French,English,or any other copious language:for that which cannot in most of these be made intelligible is not intelligible in the Latin.Which insignificancy of language,though I cannot note it for false philosophy,yet it hath a quality,not only to hide the truth,but also to make men think they have it,and desist from further search.
Lastly,for the errors brought in from false or uncertain history,what is all the legend of fictitious miracles in the lives of the saints;and all the histories of apparitions and ghosts alleged by the doctors of the Roman Church,to make good their doctrines of hell and purgatory,the power of exorcism,and other doctrines which have no warrant,neither in reason nor Scripture;as also all those traditions which they call the unwritten word of God;but old wives'
fables?Whereof,though they find dispersed somewhat in the writings of the ancient Fathers,yet those Fathers were men that might too easily believe false reports.And the producing of their opinions for testimony of the truth of what they believed hath no other force with them that,according to the counsel of St.John,examine spirits than in all things that concern the power of the Roman Church (the abuse whereof either they suspected not,or had benefit by it),to discredit their testimony in respect of too rash belief of reports;which the most sincere men without great knowledge of natural causes,such as the Fathers were,are commonly the most subject to:
for naturally,the best men are the least suspicious of fraudulent purposes.Gregory the Pope and St.Bernard have somewhat of apparitions of ghosts that said they were in purgatory;and so has our Bede:but nowhere,I believe,but by report from others.But if they,or any other,relate any such stories of their own knowledge,they shall not thereby confirm the more such vain reports,but discover their own infirmity or fraud.
With the introduction of false,we may join also the suppression of true philosophy by such men as neither by lawful authority nor sufficient study are competent judges of the truth.Our own navigations make manifest,and all men learned in human sciences now acknowledge,there are antipodes:and every day it appeareth more and more that years and days are determined by motions of the earth.
Nevertheless,men that have in their writings but supposed such doctrine,as an occasion to lay open the reasons for and against it,have been punished for it by authority ecclesiastical.But what reason is there for it?Is it because such opinions are contrary to true religion?That cannot be,if they be true.Let therefore the truth be first examined by competent judges,or confuted by them that pretend to know the contrary.Is it because they be contrary to the religion established?Let them be silenced by the laws of those to whom the teachers of them are subject;that is,by the laws civil:for disobedience may lawfully be punished in them that against the laws teach even true philosophy.Is it because they tend to disorder in government,as countenancing rebellion or sedition?Then let them be silenced,and the teachers punished,by virtue of his power to whom the care of the public quiet is committed;which is the authority civil.For whatsoever power ecclesiastics take upon themselves (in any place where they are subject to the state)in their own right,though they call it God's right,is but usurpation.
