_Direct._ XL. Take heed of mistaking the nature of that liberty of the people, which is truly valuable and desirable, and of contending for an undesirable liberty in its stead.[111] It is desirable to have liberty to do good, and to possess our own, and enjoy God's mercies, and live in peace: but it is not desirable to have liberty to sin, and abuse one another, and hinder the gospel, and contemn our governors. Some mistake liberty for government itself; and think it is the people's liberty to be governors: and some mistake liberty for an exemption from government, and think they are most free, when they are most ungoverned, and may do what they list: but this is a misery, and not a mercy, and therefore was never purchased for us by Christ. Many desire servitude and calamity under the name of liberty: _optima est reipublicæ forma_, saith Seneca, _ubi nulla libertas deest, nisi licentia pereundi_. As Mr. R. Hooker saith, lib. viii. p. 195, "I am not of opinion, that simply in kings the most, but the best limited, power is best, both for them and the people: the most limited is that which may deal in fewest things: the best, that which in dealing is tied to the soundest, perfectest, and most indifferent rule, which rule is the law: I mean not only the law of nature and of God, but the national law consonant thereunto: happier that people whose law is their king in the greatest things, than that whose king is himself their law."
Yet no doubt but the lawgivers are as such, above the law as an authoritative instrument of government, but under it as a man is under the obligation of his own consent and word: it ruleth subjects in the former sense; it bindeth the _summam potestatem_ in the latter.
_Direct._ XLI. When you have done all that you can in just obedience, look for your reward from God alone. Let it satisfy you that he knoweth and approveth your sincerity. You make it a holy work if you do it to please God; and you will be fixed and constant, if you take heaven for your reward (which is enough, and will not fail you); but you make it but a selfish, carnal work, if you do it only to please your governors, or get preferment, or escape some hurt which they may do you, and are subject only in flattery, or for fear of wrath, and not for conscience sake. And such obedience is uncertain and unconstant; for when you fail of your hopes, or think rulers deal unjustly or unthankfully with you, your subjection will be turned into passionate desires of revenge. Remember still the example of your Saviour, who suffered death as an enemy to Cæsar, when he had never failed of his duty so much as in one thought or word. And are you better than your Lord and Master? If God be all to you, and you have laid up all your hopes in heaven, it is then but little of your concernment (further than God is concerned in it) whether rulers do use you well or ill, and whether they interpret your actions rightly, or what they take you for, or how they call you; but it is your concernment that God account you loyal, and will judge you so, and justify you from men's accusations of disloyalty, and reward you with more than man can give you. Nothing is well done, especially of so high a nature as this, which is not done for God and heaven, and which the crown of glory is not the motive to.
I have purposely been the larger on this subject, because the times in which we live require it, both for the settling of some, and for the confuting the false accusations of others, who would persuade the world that our doctrine is not what it is; when through the sinful practices of some, the way of truth is evil spoken of, 2 Pet. ii. 2.
_Tit. 2. A fuller resolution of the cases, 1. Whether the laws of men do bind the conscience? 2. Especially smaller and penal laws?_
The word conscience signifieth either, 1. In general according to the notation of the word, The knowledge of our own matters; _conscire_; the knowledge of ourselves, our duties, our faults, our fears, our hopes, our diseases, &c. 2. Or more limitedly and narrowly, The knowledge of ourselves and our own matters in relation to God's law and judgment; _Judicium hominis de seipso prout subjicitur judicio Dei_, as Amesius defineth it.
2. Conscience is taken, 1. Sometimes for the act of self-knowing. 2. Sometimes for the habit. 3. Sometimes for the faculty, that is, for the intellect itself, as it is a faculty of self-knowing. In all these senses it is taken properly. 4. And sometimes it is used (by custom) improperly, for the person himself, that doth _conscire_; or for his will (another faculty).
3. The conscience may be said to be bound, 1. Subjectively, as the _subjectum quod_, or the faculty obliged. 2. Or objectively, as _conscire_, the act of conscience, is the thing _ad quod_, to which we are obliged.
And upon those necessary distinctions I thus answer to the first question.