this place, as making against his own tenet. _Where all the causes_,
saith he, _being joined together, and subordinate one to another, do
make but one total cause, if any one cause, much more the first, in
the whole series or subordination of causes, be necessary, it
determines the rest, and without doubt maketh the effect necessary_.
For that which I call the _necessary_ cause of any effect, is the
_joining_ together of all causes subordinate to the first, into one
total cause. _If any of these_, saith he, _especially the first,
produce its effect necessarily, then all the rest_ are determined.
Now it is manifest, that the first cause is a necessary cause of all
the effects that are next and immediate to it, and therefore by his
Lordship’s own reason all effects are necessary.
Nor is that distinction of necessary in respect of the _first
cause_, and necessary in respect of _second causes_, mine; it does,
as his Lordship well notes, imply a contradiction. But the
distinction of _free_ into _free from compulsion_, and _free from
necessitation_, I acknowledge. For to be _free from compulsion_ is
to do a thing so as _terror_ be not the cause of his _will_ to do
it; for a man is then only said to be compelled, when fear makes him
willing to it: as when a man willingly throws his goods into the sea
to save himself, or submits to his enemy for fear of being killed.
Thus all men that do anything for _love_, or _revenge_, or _lust_,
are _free from compulsion_, and yet their actions may be as
necessary as those that are done by compulsion; for sometimes other
passions work as forcibly as fear. But _free from necessitation_, I
say, no man can be, and it is that which his Lordship undertook to
disprove.
This _distinction_, his Lordship says, uses to be _fortified_ by two
reasons, but they are not mine. The first he says, is, that it is
granted by all divines, that an _hypothetical necessity_, or
necessity upon supposition, may stand with _liberty_. That you may
understand this, I will give you an example of _hypothetical
necessity_. If _I shall live, I shall eat_. This is an _hypothetical
necessity_. Indeed it is a necessary proposition, that is to say, it
is necessary that that proposition should be true whensoever
uttered, but it is not the necessity of the thing, nor is it
therefore necessary that the man should live, nor that the man
should eat. I do not use to _fortify_ my distinctions with such
reasons; let his Lordship confute them how he will, it contents me;
but I would have your Lordship take notice hereby, how easy and
plain a thing, but withal false, with the grave usage of such terms
as _hypothetical necessity_, and _necessity_ upon _supposition_, and
such like terms of Schoolmen, may be obscured and made to seem
_profound learning_.
The second reason that may confirm the distinction of _free from
compulsion_, and _free from necessitation_, he says is, that God and
good angels do good necessarily, and yet are more free than we. This
reason, though I had no need of, yet I think it so far forth good,
as it is true that God and good angels do good necessarily, and yet
are free; but because I find not in the articles of our faith, nor
in the decrees of our church, set down in what manner I am to
conceive God and good angels to work by necessity, or in what sense
they work _freely_, I suspend my sentence in that point, and am
content that there be a _freedom from compulsion_, and yet no
_freedom from necessitation_, as hath been proved, in that a man may
be necessitated to some action without threats and without fear of
danger. But how my Lord can avoid the consisting together of
_freedom_ and _necessity_, supposing God and good angels are freer
than men, and yet do good necessarily, that we must examine: _I
confess_, saith he, _that God and good angels are more free than we,
that is, intensively in degree of freedom, not extensively in the
latitude of the object, according to a liberty of exercise not of
specification_.
Again, we have here two distinctions that are no distinctions, but
made to seem so by terms invented by I know not whom to cover
ignorance, and blind the understanding of the reader: for it cannot
be conceived that there is any liberty greater, than for a man to do
what he will. One heat may be more intensive than another, but not
one liberty than another; he that can do what he will, hath all
liberty possible, and he that cannot, hath none at all. Also
_liberty_, as his Lordship says the Schools call it, of _exercise_,
which is as I have said before, a liberty to do or not to do, cannot
be without a _liberty_, which they call, of _specification_, that is
to say, a liberty to do, or not to do this or that in particular.
For how can a man conceive he hath liberty to do anything, that hath
not liberty to do this, or that, or somewhat in particular? If a man
be forbidden in Lent to eat this, and that, and every other
particular kind of flesh, how can he be understood to have a liberty
to eat flesh, more than he that hath no licence at all? You may by
this again see the vanity of distinctions used in the _Schools_, and
I do not doubt but that the imposing of them, by authority of
_doctors_ in the _Church_, hath been a great cause that men have
laboured, though by sedition and evil courses, to shake them off;
for nothing is more apt to beget hatred, than the tyrannizing over
men’s reason and understanding, especially when it is done, not by
the Scriptures, but by the pretence of learning, and more judgment
than that of other men.
In the next place his Lordship bringeth two arguments against
distinguishing between _free from compulsion_ and _free from
necessitation_.
The first is, that _election_ is opposite not only to _coaction_ or
_compulsion_, but also _necessitation_ or determination to one. This
is it he was to prove from the beginning, and therefore bringeth no
new argument to prove it; and to those brought formerly, I have
already answered. And in this place I deny again, that election is
opposite to either; for when a man is compelled, for example, to
subject himself to an enemy or to die, he hath still election left
him, and a deliberation to bethink which of the two he can better
endure. And he that is led to prison by force, hath election, and
may deliberate whether he will be hauled and trained on the ground,
or make use of his own feet: likewise when there is no _compulsion_,
but the strength of _temptation_ to do an evil action, being greater
than the motives to _abstain_, it necessarily determines him to the
doing of it; yet he deliberates while sometimes the motives to do,
sometimes the motives to forbear, are working on him, and
consequently he _electeth_ which he will. But commonly when we see
and know the strength that moves us, we acknowledge _necessity_; but
when we see not, or mark not the force that moves us, we then think
there is none, and that it is not _causes_ but _liberty_ that
produceth the action. Hence it is that they think he does not choose
this, that of necessity chooses it; but they might as well say, fire
doth not burn, because it burns of necessity.
The second argument is not so much an argument as a distinction, to
show in what sense it may be said that _voluntary_ actions are
_necessitated_, and in what sense not. And therefore his Lordship
allegeth, as from the authority of the _Schools_, and that which
rippeth up the bottom of the _question_, that there is a double act
of the _will_. The one, he says, is _actus imperatus_, an act done
at the command of the will, by some inferior faculty of the soul; as
to open or shut one’s eyes; and this act may be compelled: the
other, he says, is _actus elicitus_, an act allured or drawn forth
by allurement out of the will, as to _will_, to _choose_, to
_elect_; this he says cannot be compelled. Wherein, letting pass
that metaphorical speech of attributing command and subjection to
the faculties of the soul, as if they made a commonwealth or family
within themselves, and could speak one to another, which is very
improper in searching the truth of a question, you may observe,
first, that to compel a _voluntary_ act, is nothing else but to will
it; for it is all one to say, my will commands the shutting of my
eyes, or the doing of any other action; and to say, I have the will
to shut my eyes: so that _actus imperatus_, here, might as easily
have been said in English a _voluntary action_, but that they that
invented the term, understood not anything it signified.
Secondly, you may observe, that _actus elicitus_, is exemplified by
these words, to _will_, to _elect_, to _choose_, which are all one,
and so to will is here made an act of the will; and indeed as the
will is a faculty or power in a man’s soul, so to will is an act of
it according to that power; but as it is absurdly said, that to
dance is an act allured or drawn by fair means out of the ability to
dance; so is it also to say, that to will is an act allured or drawn
out of the power to will, which power is commonly called the will.
Howsoever it be, the sum of his Lordship’s distinction is, that a
_voluntary_ act may be done by _compulsion_, that is to say, by foul
means, but to will that, or any act, cannot be but by _allurement_,
or fair means. Now seeing fair means, allurements, and enticements,
produce the action which they do produce, as _necessarily_ as foul
means and threatening; it follows, that to _will_ may be made as
_necessary_ as anything that is done by _compulsion_. So that
distinction of _actus imperatus_ and _actus elicitus_ are but words,
and of no effect against necessity.
His Lordship in the rest of his discourse, reckoneth up the opinion
of certain professions of men, touching the causes wherein the
necessity of things, which they maintain, consisteth. And first he
saith, the _astrologer_ deriveth his _necessity_ from the _stars_;
secondly, that the _physician_ attributeth it to the _temper_ of the
body. For my part, I am not of their opinion, because, neither the
stars alone, nor the temperature of the patient alone, is able to
produce any effect, without the concurrence of all other agents. For
there is hardly any one action, how casual soever it seem, to the
causing whereof concur not whatsoever is _in rerum naturâ_, which
because it is a great paradox, and depends on many antecedent
speculations, I do not press in this place. Thirdly, he disputeth
against the opinion of them that say, _external objects_ presented
to men of such and such temperatures, do make their actions
_necessary_; and says, the power such objections have over us,
proceeds from our own fault: but that is nothing to the purpose, if
such fault of ours proceedeth from causes not in our own power, and
therefore that opinion may hold true for all that answer.
Further he says, _prayer_, _fasting_, &c. may alter our _habits_;
it is true, but when they do so, they are _causes_ of the contrary
_habit_, and make it _necessary_, as the former habit had been
necessary, if _prayer_, _fasting_, &c. had not been. Besides, we
are not moved or disposed to prayer or any other action, but by
outward objects, as pious company, godly preachers, or something
equivalent. Fourthly, he says a resolved mind is not easily
surprised, as the mind of Ulysses, who when others wept, alone
wept not; and of the philosopher, that abstained from striking,
because he found himself angry; and of him that poured out the
water when he was thirsty, and the like. Such things I confess
have, or may have been done, and do prove only that it was not
necessary for Ulysses then to weep, nor for that philosopher to
strike, nor for that other man to drink; but it does not prove
that it was not necessary for Ulysses then to abstain, as he did,
from weeping, nor for the philosopher to abstain, as he did, from
striking, nor for the other man to forbear drinking, and yet that
was the thing his Lordship ought to have proved. Lastly his
Lordship confesses, that the _dispositions_ of objects may be
_dangerous_ to _liberty_, but cannot be _destructive_. To which I
answer, it is impossible: for _liberty_ is never in any other
danger than to be lost; and if it cannot be lost, which he
confesses, I may infer, it can be in no danger at all.
The fourth opinion his Lordship rejecteth, is of them that make the
will necessarily to follow the last dictate of the understanding;
but it seems his Lordship understands that tenet in another sense
than I do; for he speaketh as if they that held it, did suppose men
must dispute the sequel of every action they do, great and small, to
the least grain; which is a thing his Lordship, with reason, thinks
untrue. But I understand it to signify, that the _will_ follows the
_last_ opinion or _judgment_ immediately preceding the _action_,
concerning whether it be good to do it or not, whether he have
weighed it long before, or not at all, and that I take to be the
meaning of them that hold it. As for example, when a man strikes,
his will to strike follows necessarily that thought he had of the
sequel of his stroke, immediately before the lifting up of his hand.
Now if it be understood in that sense, the _last_ dictate of the
understanding does _necessitate_ the _action_, though not as the
whole cause, yet as the last cause, as the last feather necessitates
the breaking of a horse’s back, when there are so many laid on
before, as there needed but the addition of one to make the weight
sufficient.
That which his Lordship allegeth against this, is first, out of a
poet, who in the person of Medea says,
“Video meliora, proboque,
Deteriora sequor.”
But that saying, as pretty as it is, is not true; for though Medea
saw many reasons to forbear killing her children, yet the last
dictate of her judgment was, that the present revenge on her husband
outweighed them all, and thereupon the wicked action _necessarily_
followed. Then the story of the Roman, who of two competitors, said,
one had the better reason, but the other must have the office. This
also maketh against his Lordship, for the last dictate of his
judgment that had the bestowing of the office, was this, that it was
better to take a great bribe, than reward a great merit.
Thirdly, he objects that things nearer the sense, move more
powerfully than reason; what followeth thence but this, the sense of
the present good is commonly more immediate to the action, than the
foresight of the evil consequence to come? Fourthly, whereas his
Lordship says, that do what a man can, he shall sorrow more for the
death of his son than for the sin of his soul, makes nothing to the
last dictate of the understanding; but it argues plainly, that
sorrow for sin is not _voluntary_, and by consequence, that
_repentance_ proceedeth from causes.
The last part of this discourse containeth his Lordship’s opinions
about reconciling _liberty_ with the _prescience_ and _decrees_ of
God, otherwise than some _divines_ have done, against whom, he says,
he had formerly written a treatise, out of which he repeateth only
two things: one is, _That we ought not to desert a certain truth,
for not being able to comprehend the certain manner of it_. And I
say the same, as for example, that his Lordship ought not to desert
this certain truth, _that there are certain and_ necessary causes
_which make every man to_ will _what he willeth, though he do not_
yet conceive in what manner the _will_ of man is _caused_. And yet I
think the manner of it is not very hard to conceive, seeing we see
daily, that _praise_, _dispraise_, _reward_, and _punishment_,
_good_ and _evil_, sequels of men’s _actions_ retained in _memory_,
do frame and make us to the _election_ of whatsoever it be that we
elect, and that the memory of such things proceeds from the
_senses_, and _sense_ from the operation of the objects of sense,
which are external to us, and governed only by God Almighty; and by
consequence all _actions_, even of _free_ and _voluntary_ agents,
are necessary.
The other thing that he repeateth, is, that the best way to
reconcile _contingence_ and _liberty_ with _prescience_ and the
_decrees_ of _God_, is to subject future _contingencies_ to the
_aspect of God_. The same is also my opinion, but contrary to what
his Lordship all this while laboured to prove. For hitherto he held
_liberty_ and _necessity_, that is to say, _liberty_ and the
_decrees_ of _God_, irreconcileable, unless the _aspect of God_,
which word appeareth now the first time in this discourse, signify
somewhat else besides _God’s will_ and _decree_, which I cannot
understand. But he adds that we must subject them, according to that
_presentiality_ which they have in eternity, which he says cannot be
done by them that conceive _eternity_ to be an _everlasting
succession_, but only by them that conceive it as an _indivisible
point_. To which I answer, that as soon as I can conceive _eternity_
to be an _indivisible point_, or anything but an _everlasting
succession_, I will renounce all that I have written on this
subject. I know St. Thomas Aquinas calls _eternity_, _nunc stans_,
an _ever-abiding now_; which is easy enough to say, but though I
fain would, yet I could never conceive it: they that can, are more
happy than I. But in the mean time his Lordship alloweth all men to
be of my opinion, save only those that can conceive in their minds a
_nunc stans_, which I think are none. I understand as little how it
can be true his Lordship says, that God is not _just_, but _justice_
itself; not _wise_, but _wisdom_ itself; not _eternal_, but
_eternity_ itself; nor how he concludes thence, that _eternity_ is a
_point indivisible_, and not a _succession_, nor in what sense it
can be said, that an _infinite point_, and wherein is no
_succession_, can comprehend all _time_, though time be
_successive_. These phrases I find not in the Scripture; I wonder
therefore what was the design of the Schoolmen to bring them up,
unless they thought a man could not be a true Christian unless his
understanding be first strangled with such hard sayings. And thus
much for answer to his Lordship’s discourse, wherein I think not
only his _squadrons of arguments_, but also his _reserve of
distinctions_, are defeated. And now your Lordship shall have my
doctrine concerning the same question, with my _reasons_ for it,
positively, and as briefly as I can, without any terms of _art_, in
plain English.
MY OPINION ABOUT LIBERTY AND NECESSITY.
First I conceive, that when it cometh into a man’s mind to do or not
to do some certain action, if he have no time to _deliberate_, the
doing it or abstaining _necessarily_ follow the _present_ thought he
hath of the _good_ or _evil_ consequence thereof to himself. As for
example, in sudden _anger_, the _action_ shall follow the thought of
_revenge_; in sudden _fear_, the thought of _escape_. Also when a
man hath time to _deliberate_, but deliberates not, because never
anything appeared that could make him doubt of the consequence, the
_action_ follows his opinion of the _goodness_ or _harm_ of it.
These actions I call VOLUNTARY, my Lord, if I understand him aright
that calls them SPONTANEOUS. I call them _voluntary_, because those
_actions_ that follow immediately the _last_ appetite, are
_voluntary_, and here where is one only appetite, that one is the
last. Besides, I see it is reasonable to punish a _rash_ action,
which could not be justly done by man to man, unless the same were
_voluntary_. For no _action_ of a man can be said to be without
_deliberation_, though never so sudden, because it is supposed he
had time to _deliberate_ all the precedent time of his life, whether
he should do that kind of action or not. And hence it is, that he
that killeth in a sudden passion of _anger_, shall nevertheless be
justly put to _death_, because all the time, wherein he was able to
consider whether to kill were good or evil, shall be held for one
continual _deliberation_, and consequently the killing shall be
judged to proceed from _election_.
Secondly, I conceive when a man _deliberates_ whether he shall do a
thing or not do it, that he does nothing else but consider whether
it be better for himself to do it or not to do it. And to _consider_
an action, is to imagine the _consequences_ of it, both _good_ and
_evil_. From whence is to be inferred, that _deliberation_ is
nothing else but _alternate_ imagination of the _good_ and _evil_
sequels of an _action_, or, which is the same thing, alternate
_hope_ and _fear_, or alternate _appetite_ to do or quit the action
of which he _deliberateth_.
Thirdly, I conceive that in all _deliberations_, that is to say, in
all alternate _succession_ of contrary _appetites_, the last is that
which we call the WILL, and is immediately next before the doing of
the action, or next before the doing of it become impossible. All
other _appetites_ to do, and to quit, that come upon a man during
his deliberations, are called _intentions_ and _inclinations_, but
not _wills_, there being but one _will_, which also in this case may
be called the _last will_, though the _intentions_ change often.
Fourthly, I conceive that those _actions_, which a man is said to do
upon _deliberation_, are said to be _voluntary_, and done upon
_choice_ and _election_, so that _voluntary_ action, and action
proceeding from _election_ is the same thing; and that of a
_voluntary agent_, it is all one to say, he is _free_, and to say,
he hath not made an end of _deliberating_.
Fifthly, I conceive _liberty_ to be rightly defined in this manner:
_Liberty is the absence of all the impediments to action that are
not contained in the nature and intrinsical quality of the agent_.
As for example, the water is said to descend _freely_, or to have
_liberty_ to descend by the channel of the river, because there is
no impediment that way, but not across, because the banks are
impediments. And though the water cannot ascend, yet men never say
it wants the _liberty_ to ascend, but the _faculty_ or _power_,
because the impediment is in the nature of the water, and
intrinsical. So also we say, he that is tied, wants the _liberty_ to
go, because the impediment is not in him, but in his bands; whereas
we say not so of him that is sick or lame, because the impediment is
in himself.
Sixthly, I conceive that nothing taketh beginning from _itself_, but
from the _action_ of some other immediate _agent_ without itself.
And that therefore, when first a man hath an _appetite_ or _will_ to
something, to which immediately before he had no appetite nor will,
the _cause_ of his _will_, is not the _will_ itself, but _something_
else not in his own disposing. So that whereas it is out of
controversy, that of _voluntary_ actions the _will_ is the
_necessary_ cause, and by this which is said, the _will_ is also
_caused_ by other things whereof it disposeth not, it followeth,
that _voluntary_ actions have all of them _necessary_ causes, and
therefore are _necessitated_.
Seventhly, I hold that to be a _sufficient cause_, to which nothing
is wanting that is needful to the producing of the _effect_. The
same also is a _necessary_ cause. For if it be possible that a
_sufficient_ cause shall not bring forth the _effect_, then there
wanteth somewhat which was needful to the producing of it, and so
the _cause_ was not _sufficient_; but if it be impossible that a
_sufficient_ cause should not produce the _effect_, then is a
_sufficient_ cause a _necessary_ cause, for that is said to produce
an effect _necessarily_ that cannot but produce it. Hence it is
manifest, that whatsoever is produced, is produced _necessarily_;
for whatsoever is produced hath had a _sufficient_ cause to produce
it, or else it had not been; and therefore also _voluntary_ actions
are _necessitated_.
Lastly, that ordinary _definition_ of a _free agent_, namely, _that
a_ free agent _is that, which, when all things are present which are
needful to produce the_ effect, _can nevertheless not produce it_,
implies a contradiction, and is nonsense; being as much as to say,
the cause may be _sufficient_, that is to say, _necessary_, and yet
the _effect_ shall not follow.
-------
MY REASONS.
For the first five points, wherein it is explicated I, what
_spontaneity_ is; II, what _deliberation_ is; III, what _will_,
_propension_, and _appetite_ are; IV, what a _free agent_ is: V,
what _liberty_ is; there can no other proof be offered but every
man’s own experience, by reflection on himself, and remembering what
he useth in his mind, that is, what he himself meaneth when he saith
an action is _spontaneous_, a man _deliberates_; such is his _will_,
that _agent_ or that _action_ is _free_. Now he that reflecteth so
on himself, cannot but be satisfied, that _deliberation_ is the
_consideration of the good and evil sequels of an action to come_;
that by _spontaneity_ is meant _inconsiderate action_, or else
nothing is meant by it; that _will_ is the _last act of our
deliberation_; that a _free agent_ is he _that can do if he will_,
and _forbear if he will_; and that _liberty is the absence of
external impediments_. But to those that out of custom speak not
what they conceive, but what they hear, and are not able, or will
not take the pains to consider what they think when they hear such
words, no argument can be sufficient, because _experience_ and
_matter of fact_ are not verified by other men’s arguments, but by
every man’s own _sense_ and _memory_. For example, how can it be
proved that to _love_ a thing and to think it _good_ is all one, to
a man that doth not mark his own meaning by those words? Or how can
it be proved that _eternity_ is not _nunc stans_, to a man that says
those words by custom, and never considers how he can conceive the
thing in his mind?
Also the sixth point, that a man cannot imagine anything to begin
_without a cause_, can no other way be made known, but by trying how
he can imagine it; but if he try, he shall find as much reason, if
there be no cause of the thing, to conceive it should begin at one
time as another, that he hath equal reason to think it should begin
at all times, which is impossible, and therefore he must think there
was some special cause why it began then, rather than sooner or
later; or else that it began never, but was _eternal_.
For the seventh point, which is, that all _events_ have _necessary_
causes, it is there proved, in that they have _sufficient_ causes.
Further let us in this place also suppose any event never so casual,
as the throwing, for example, _ames ace_ upon a pair of dice, and
see, if it must not have been _necessary_ before it was thrown. For
seeing it was thrown, it had a _beginning_, and consequently a
_sufficient_ cause to produce it, consisting partly in the _dice_,
partly in outward things, as the posture of the parts of the _hand_,
the measure of _force_ applied by the caster, the posture of the
parts of the _table_, and the like. In sum, there was nothing
wanting which was necessarily requisite to the producing of that
particular cast, and consequently the cast was necessarily thrown;
for if it had not been thrown, there had wanted somewhat requisite
to the throwing of it, and so the cause had not been _sufficient_.
In the like manner it may be proved that every other accident, how
_contingent_ soever it seem, or how _voluntary_ soever it be, is
produced _necessarily_, which is that that my Lord Bishop disputes
against. The same may be proved also in this manner. Let the case be
put, for example, of the weather. _It is necessary that to-morrow it
shall rain or not rain._ If therefore it be not _necessary_ it shall
rain, it is _necessary_ it shall not rain, otherwise there is no
necessity that the proposition, _it shall rain or not rain_, should
be true. I know there be some that say, it may necessarily be true
that one of the two shall come to pass, but not, singly that it
shall rain, or that it shall not rain, which is as much to say,
_one_ of them is _necessary_, yet neither of them is _necessary_;
and therefore to seem to avoid that absurdity, they make a
distinction, that neither of them is true _determinate_, but
_indeterminate_; which distinction either signifies no more but
this, one of them is true, but we know not which, and so the
necessity remains, though we know it not; or if the meaning of the
distinction be not that, it hath no meaning, and they might as well
have said, one of them is true _Titirice_, but neither of them, _Tu
patulice_.
The last thing, in which also consisteth the whole controversy,
namely that there is no such thing as an agent, _which when all
things requisite to action are present, can nevertheless forbear to
produce it_; or, which is all one, that there is no such thing as
_freedom from necessity_, is easily inferred from that which hath
been before alleged. For if it be an _agent_, it can _work_; and if
it _work_, there is nothing wanting of what is requisite to produce
the _action_, and consequently the cause of the action is
_sufficient_; and if _sufficient_, then also _necessary_, as hath
been proved before.
And thus you see how the _inconveniences_, which his Lordship
objecteth must follow upon the holding of _necessity_, are avoided,
and the _necessity_ itself _demonstratively_ proved. To which I
could add, if I thought it good logic, the _inconvenience_ of
denying _necessity_, as that it destroyeth both the _decrees_ and
the _prescience_ of God Almighty; for whatsoever God hath _purposed_
to bring to pass by _man_, as an instrument, or foreseeth shall come
to pass; a man, if he have _liberty_, such as his Lordship
affirmeth, from _necessitation_, might frustrate, and make not to
come to pass, and God should either not _foreknow_ it, and not
_decree_ it, or he should _foreknow_ such things shall be, as shall
never be, and _decree_ that which shall never _come to pass_.
This is all that hath come into my mind touching this question since
I last considered it. And I humbly beseech your Lordship to
communicate it only to my Lord Bishop. And so praying God to prosper
your Lordship in all your designs, I take leave, and am,
My most noble and most obliging Lord,
Your most humble servant,
THOMAS HOBBES.
Rouen, _Aug. 20, 1652_.[A]
Footnote A:
In the first edition of 1654 this date is 1646.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AN
ANSWER
TO A BOOK PUBLISHED BY
DR. BRAMHALL,
LATE BISHOP OF DERRY;
CALLED THE
“CATCHING OF THE LEVIATHAN.”
TOGETHER WITH AN
HISTORICAL NARRATION CONCERNING
HERESY,
AND THE PUNISHMENT THEREOF.
TO THE READER.
-------
As in all things which I have written, so also in this piece, I have
endeavoured all I can to be perspicuous; but yet your own attention
is always necessary. The late Lord Bishop of Derry published a book
called _The Catching of the Leviathan_, in which he hath put
together divers sentences picked out of my _Leviathan_, which stand
there plainly and firmly proved, and sets them down without their
proofs, and without the order of their dependance one upon another;
and calls them atheism, blasphemy, impiety, subversion of religion,
and by other names of that kind. My request unto you is, that when
he cites my words for erroneous, you will be pleased to turn to the
place itself, and see whether they be well proved, and how to be
understood. Which labour his Lordship might have saved you, if he
would have vouchsafed as well to have weighed my arguments before
you, as to have shown you my conclusions. His book containeth two
chapters, the one concerning Religion, the other concerning
Politics. Because he does not so much as offer any refutation of any
thing in my _Leviathan_ concluded, I needed not to have answered
either of them. Yet to the first I here answer, because the words
_atheism_, _impiety_, and the like, are words of the greatest
defamation possible. And this I had done sooner, if I had sooner
known that such a book was extant. He wrote it ten years since, and
yet I never heard of it till about three months since; so little
talk there was of his Lordship’s writings. If you want leisure or
care of the questions between us, I pray you condemn me not upon
report. To judge and not examine is not just.
Farewell.
T. HOBBES.
-------
AN ANSWER,
ETC.
-------
THAT THE HOBBIAN PRINCIPLES ARE DESTRUCTIVE TO CHRISTIANITY AND ALL
RELIGION.
_J. D._ The image of God is not altogether defaced by the fall of
man, but that there will remain some practical notions of God and
goodness; which when the mind is free from vagrant desires, and
violent passions, do shine as clearly in the heart, as other
speculative notions do in the head. Hence it is, that there was
never any nation so barbarous or savage throughout the whole world,
which had not their God. They who did never wear clothes upon their
backs, who did never know magistrate but their father, yet have
their God, and their religious rights and devotions to him. Hence it
is, that the greatest atheists in any sudden danger do unwittingly
cast their eyes up to heaven, as craving aid from thence, and in a
thunder creep into some hole to hide themselves. And they who are
conscious to themselves of any secret crimes, though they be secure
enough from the justice of men, do yet feel the blind blows of a
guilty conscience, and fear Divine vengeance. This is acknowledged
by T. H. himself in his lucid intervals. _That we may know what
worship of God natural reason doth assign, let us begin with his
attributes, where it is manifest in the first place, that existency
is to be attributed to him._ To which he addeth, _infiniteness_,
_incomprehensibility_, _unity_, _ubiquity_. Thus for attributes;
next for actions. _Concerning external actions, wherewith God is to
be worshipped, the most general precept of reason is, that they be
signs of honour_; under which are contained _prayers, thanksgivings,
oblations, and sacrifices_.
_T. H._ Hitherto his Lordship discharges me of atheism. What need he
to say that _all nations, how barbarous soever, yet have their Gods
and religious rites, and atheists are frighted with thunder, and
feel the blind blows of conscience_? It might have been as apt a
preface to any other of his discourses as this. I expect therefore
in the next place to be told, that I deny again my afore-recited
doctrine.
_J. D._ Yet, to let us see how inconsistent and irreconcileable he
is with himself, elsewhere reckoning up all the laws of nature at
large, even twenty in number, he hath not one word that concerneth
religion, or hath the least relation in the world to God. As if a
man were like the colt of a wild ass in the wilderness, without any
owner or obligation. Thus in describing the laws of nature, this
great clerk forgetteth the God of nature, and the main and principal
laws of nature, which contain a man’s duty to his God, and the
principal end of his creation.
_T. H._ After I had ended the discourse he mentions of the laws of
nature, I thought it fittest in the last place, once for all, to say
they were the laws of God, then when they were delivered in the word
of God; but before, being not known by men for any thing but their
own natural reason, they were but theorems, tending to peace, and
those uncertain, as being but conclusions of particular men, and
therefore not properly laws. Besides, I had formerly in my book _De
Cive_, cap. IV, proved them severally, one by one, out of the
Scriptures: which his Lordship had read and knew. It was therefore
an unjust charge of his to say, I had not one word in them that
concerns religion, or that hath the least relation in the world to
God; and this upon no other ground than that I added not to every
article, _this law is in the Scripture_. But why he should call me
(ironically) a great clerk, I cannot tell. I suppose he would make
men believe, I arrogated to myself all the learning of a great
clerk, bishop, or other inferior minister. A learned bishop, is that
bishop that can interpret all parts of Scripture truly, and
congruently to the harmony of the whole; that has learnt the history
and laws of the Church, down from the apostles' time to his own; and
knows what is the nature of a law civil, divine, natural, and
positive; and how to govern well the parochial ministers of his
diocese, so that they may both by doctrine and example keep the
people in the belief of all articles of faith necessary to
salvation, and in obedience to the laws of their country. This is a
learned bishop. A learned minister, is he that hath learned the way
by which men may be drawn from avarice, pride, sensuality,
profaneness, rebellious principles, and all other vices, by eloquent
and powerful disgracing of them, both from Scripture and from
reason; and can terrify men from vice, by discreet uttering of the
punishments denounced against wicked men, and by deducing,
rationally, the damage they receive by it in the end. In one word,
he is a learned minister that can preach such sermons as St.
Chrysostom preached to the Antiochians, when he was presbyter in
that city. Could his Lordship find in my book, that I arrogated to
myself the eloquence or wisdom of St. Chrysostom, or the ability of
governing the church? It is one thing to know what is to be done,
another thing to know how to do it. But his Lordship was pleased to
use any artifice to disgrace me in any kind whatsoever.
_J. D._ Perhaps he will say that he handleth the laws of nature
there, only so far as may serve to the constitution or settlement of
a commonwealth. In good time, let it be so. He hath devised us a
trim commonwealth, which is founded neither upon religion towards
God, nor justice towards man; but merely upon self-interest, and
self-preservation. Those rays of heavenly light, those natural seeds
of religion, which God himself hath imprinted in the heart of man,
are more efficacious towards preservation of a society, whether we
regard the nature of the thing, or the blessing of God, than all his
_pacts_, and _surrenders_, and _translations of power_. He who
unteacheth men their duty to God, may make them eye-servants, so
long as their interest doth oblige them to obey; but is no fit
master to teach men conscience and fidelity.
_T. H._ He has not yet found the place where I contradict either the
existence, or infiniteness, or incomprehensibility, or unity, or
ubiquity of God. I am therefore yet absolved of atheism. But I am,
he says, inconsistent and irreconcileable with myself; that is, I am
(though he says not so) he thinks, a forgetful blockhead. I cannot
help that: but my forgetfulness appears not here. Even his Lordship,
where he says, “those rays of heavenly light, those seeds of
religion, which God himself hath imprinted in the heart of man
(meaning natural reason), are more efficacious to the preservation
of society, than all the _pacts, surrenders_, and _translating of
power_,” had forgotten to except the old pact of the Jews, and the
new pact of Christians. But pardoning that, did he hope to make any
wise man believe, that when this nation very lately was an anarchy,
and dissolute multitude of men, doing every one what his own reason
or imprinted light suggested, they did again out of the same light
call in the king, and peace again, and ask pardon for the faults,
which that their illumination had brought them into, rather than out
of fear of perpetual danger and hope of preservation?
_J. D._ Without religion, societies are like but soapy bubbles,
quickly dissolved. It was the judgment of as wise a man as T. H.
himself, though perhaps he will hardly be persuaded to it, that Rome
owed more of its grandeur to religion, than either to strength or
stratagems. _We have not exceeded the Spaniards in number, nor the
Gauls in strength, nor the Carthaginians in craft, nor the Grecians
in art, &c. but we have overcome all nations by our piety and
religion._
_T. H._ Did not his Lordship forget himself here again, in approving
this sentence of Tully, which makes the idolatry of the Romans, not
only better than the idolatry of other nations; but also better than
the religion of the Jews, whose law Christ himself says he came not
to destroy but to fulfil? And that the Romans overcame both them and
other nations by their piety, when it is manifest that the Romans
overran the world by injustice and cruelty, and that their victories
ought not to be ascribed to the piety of the Romans, but to the
impiety as well of the Jews as of other nations? But what meant he
by saying “Tully was as wise a man as T. H. himself, though perhaps
he will hardly be persuaded to it?” Was that any part of the
controversy? No: then it was out of his way. God promiseth to assist
good men in their way, but not out of their way. It is therefore the
less wonder that his Lordship was in this place deserted of the
light, which God imprints in the hearts of rudest savages.
_J. D._ Among his laws he inserteth _gratitude_ to men as the third
precept of the law of nature; but of the gratitude of mankind to
their Creator, there is a deep silence. If men had sprung up from
the earth in a night, like mushrooms or excrescences, without all
sense of honour, justice, conscience, or gratitude, he could not
have vilified the human nature more than he doth.
_T. H._ My Lord discovers here an ignorance of such method as is
necessary for lawful and strict reasoning, and explication of the
truth in controversy. And not only that, but also how little able he
is to fix his mind upon what he reads in other men’s writings. When
I had defined ingratitude universally, he finds fault that I do not
mention ingratitude towards God, as if his Lordship knew not that an
universal comprehends all the particulars. When I had defined equity
universally, why did he not as well blame me for not telling what
that equity is in God? He is grateful to the man of whom he receives
a good turn, that confesseth, or maketh appear he is pleased with
the benefit he receiveth. So also gratitude towards God is to
confess his benefits. There is also, in gratitude towards men, a
desire to requite their benefits; so there is in our gratitude
towards God, so far to requite them, as to be kind to God’s
ministers, which I acknowledged in making sacrifices a part of
natural divine worship; and the benefit of those sacrifices is the
nourishment of God’s ministers. It appears therefore, that the
bishop’s attention in reading my writings, was either weak in
itself, or weakened by prejudice.
_J. D._ From this shameful omission or preterition of the main duty
of mankind, a man might easily take the height of T. H. his
religion. But he himself putteth it past all conjectures. His
principles are brim full of prodigious impiety. _In these four
things, opinions of ghosts, ignorance of second causes, devotion to
what men fear, and taking of things casual for prognostics,
consisteth the natural seed of religion_; the culture and
improvement whereof, he referreth only to _policy_. Human and divine
politics, are but politics. And again, _mankind hath this from the
conscience of their own weakness, and the admiration of natural
events, that the most part of men believe that there is an invisible
God, the maker of all visible things_. And a little after he telleth
us, that _superstition proceedeth from fear without right reason,
and atheism from an opinion of reason without fear_; making atheism
to be more reasonable than superstition. What is now become of that
divine worship which natural reason did assign unto God, the honour
of existence, infiniteness, incomprehensibility, unity, ubiquity?
What is now become of that dictate or precept of reason, concerning
_prayers_, _thanksgivings_, _oblations_, _sacrifices_, if uncertain
opinions, ignorance, fear, mistakes, the conscience of our own
weakness, and the admiration of natural events, be the only seeds of
religion?
He proceedeth further, that _atheism itself, though it be an
erroneous opinion, and therefore a sin, yet it ought to be numbered
among the sins of imprudence or ignorance_. He addeth, that _an
atheist is punished not as a subject is punished by his king,
because he did not observe laws: but as an enemy, by an enemy,
because he would not accept laws_. His reason is, because _the
atheist never submitted his will to the will of God, whom he never
thought to be_. And he concludeth that man’s obligation to obey God
proceedeth from his weakness, (De Cive, XV. 7: vol. II. p. 336):
_Manifestum est obligationem ad prestandam ipsi_ (Deo) _obedientiam,
incumbere hominibus propter imbecilitatem_. First, it is impossible
that should be a sin of mere ignorance or imprudence, which is
directly contrary to the light of natural reason. The laws of nature
need no new promulgation, being imprinted naturally by God in the
heart of man. _The law of nature was written in our hearts by the
finger of God, without our assent_; or rather, _the law of nature is
the assent itself_. Then if nature dictate to us that there is a
God, and that this God is to be worshipped in such and such a
manner, it is not possible that atheism should be a sin of mere
ignorance.
Secondly, a rebellious subject is still a subject _de jure_, though
not _de facto_; by right, though not by deed: and so the most cursed
atheist that is, ought by right to be the subject of God, and ought
to be punished not as a just enemy, but as a disloyal traitor. Which
is confessed by himself: _this fourth sin_ (that is, of those who do
not by word and deed confess one God, the supreme King of Kings) _in
the natural kingdom of God is the crime of high treason, for it is a
denial of Divine power, or atheism_. Then an atheist is a traitor to
God, and punishable as a disloyal subject, not as an enemy.
Lastly, it is an absurd and dishonourable assertion, to make our
obedience to God to depend upon our weakness, because we cannot help
it, and not upon our gratitude, because we owe our being and
preservation to him. _Who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the
fruit thereof? And who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk
of the flock?_ And again, _Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive
glory, and honour and power; for thou hast created all things, and
for thy pleasure they are and were created_. But it were much
better, or at least not so ill, to be a downright atheist, than to
make God to be such a thing as he doth, and at last thrust him into
the Devil’s office, to be the cause of all sin.
_T. H._ Though this bishop, as I said, had but a weak attention in
reading, and little skill in examining the force of an argument, yet
he knew men, and the art, without troubling their judgments, to win
their assents by exciting their passions. One rule of his art was to
give his reader what he would have him swallow, a part by itself,
and in the nature of news, whether true or not. Knowing that the
unlearned, that is most men, are content to believe, rather than be
troubled with examining, therefore, a little before, he put these
words, _T. H. no friend to religion_, in the margin. And in this
place, before he offer at any confutation, he says my principles are
brim full of _prodigious impieties_. And at the next paragraph, in
the margin, he puts that _I excuse atheism_. This behaviour becomes
neither a bishop, nor a Christian, nor any man that pretends to good
education. Fear of invisible powers, what is it else in savage
people, but the fear of somewhat they think a God? What invisible
power does the reason of a savage man suggest unto him, but those
phantasms of his sleep, or his distemper, which we frequently call
ghosts, and the savages thought gods; so that the fear of a God,
though not of the true one, to them was the beginning of religion,
as the fear of the true God was the beginning of wisdom to the Jews
and Christians? Ignorance of second causes made men fly to some
first cause, the fear of which bred devotion and worship. The
ignorance of what that power might do, made them observe the order
of what he had done; that they might guess by the like order, what
he was to do another time. This was their prognostication. What
prodigious impiety is here? How confutes he it? Must it be taken for
impiety upon his bare calumny? I said superstition was fear without
reason. Is not the fear of a false God, or fancied demon, contrary
to right reason? And is not atheism boldness grounded on false
reasoning, such as is this, _the wicked prosper, therefore there is
no God_? He offers no proof against any of this; but says only I
make atheism to be more reasonable than superstition; which is not
true: for I deny that there is any reason either in the atheist or
in the superstitious. And because the atheist thinks he has reason,
where he has none, I think him the more irrational of the two. But
all this while he argues not against any of this; but enquires only,
what is become of my natural worship of God, and of his existency;
infiniteness, incomprehensibility, unity, and ubiquity. As if
whatsoever reason can suggest, must be suggested all at once. First,
all men by nature had an opinion of God’s existency; but of his
other attributes not so soon, but by reasoning, and by degrees. And
for the attributes of the true God, they were never suggested but by
the Word of God written. In that I say atheism is a sin of
ignorance, he says I excuse it. The prophet David says, _the fool
hath said in his heart, there is no God_. Is it not then a sin of
folly? It is agreed between us, that right reason dictates, there is
a God. Does it not follow, that denying of God is a sin proceeding
from misreasoning. If it be not a sin of ignorance, it must be a sin
of malice. Can a man malice that which he thinks has no being? But
may not one think there is a God, and yet maliciously deny him? If
he think there is a God, he is no atheist; and so the question is
changed into this, whether any man that thinks there is a God, dares
deliberately deny it? For my part I think not. For upon what
confidence dares any man, deliberately I say, oppose the Omnipotent?
David saith of himself, _My feet were ready to slip when I saw the
prosperity of the wicked_. Therefore it is likely the feet of men
less holy slip oftener. But I think no man living is so daring,
being out of passion, as to hold it as his opinion. Those wicked men
that for a long time proceeded so successfully in the late horrid
rebellion, may perhaps make some think they were constant and
resolved atheists: but I think rather that they forgot God, than
believed there was none. He that believes there is such an atheist,
comes a little too near that opinion himself; nevertheless if words
spoken in passion signify a denial of a God, no punishment
preordained by law, can be too great for such an insolence; because
there is no living in a commonwealth with men, to whose oaths we
cannot reasonably give credit. As to that I say, _an atheist is
punished by God not as a subject by his king, but as an enemy_; and
to my argument for it, namely, _because he never acknowledged
himself God’s subject_, he opposeth, that if nature dictate that
there is a God, and to be worshipped in such and such manner, then
atheism is not a sin of mere ignorance: as if either I or he did
hold that nature dictates the manner of God’s worship, or any
article of our creed, or whether to worship with or without a
surplice. Secondly, he answers that a rebel is still a subject _de
jure_, though not _de facto_: and it is granted. But though the king
lose none of his right by the traitor’s act, yet the traitor loseth
the privilege of being punished by a precedent law; and therefore
may be punished at the king’s will, as Ravaillac was for murdering
Henry IV of France. An open enemy and a perfidious traitor are both
enemies. Had not his Lordship read in the Roman story, how Perseus
and other just enemies of that state were wont to be punished? But
what is this trifling question to my _excusing of atheism_? In the
seventh paragraph of chapter XV. of my book _De Cive_, he found the
words in Latin, which he here citeth. And to the same sense I have
said in my _Leviathan_, that the right of nature whereby God
reigneth over men, is to be derived not from his creating them, as
if he required obedience, as of gratitude; but from his irresistible
power. This he says is absurd and dishonourable. Whereas first all
power is honourable, and the greatest power is most honourable. Is
it not a more noble tenure for a king to hold his kingdom, and the
right to punish those that transgress his laws, from his power, than
from the gratitude or gift of the transgressor. There is nothing
therefore here of dishonour to God Almighty. But see the subtilty of
his disputing. He saw he could not catch _Leviathan_ in this place,
he looks for him in my book _De Cive_, which is Latin, to try what
he could fish out of that: and says I make our obedience to God,
depend upon our weakness; as if these words signified the
_dependence_, and not the _necessity_ of our submission, or that
_incumbere_ and _dependere_ were all one.
_J. D._ For T. H. his God is not the God of Christians, nor of any
rational men. Our God is every where, and seeing he hath no parts,
he must be wholly here, and wholly there, and wholly every where.
So nature itself dictateth. _It cannot be said honourably of God
that he is in a place; for nothing is in a place, but that which
hath proper bounds of its greatness._ But T. H. his God is not
wholly every where. _No man can conceive that any thing is all in
this place, and all in another place at the same time, for none of
these things ever have or can be incident to sense._ So far well,
if by _conceiving_ he mean _comprehending_; but then follows,
_That these are absurd speeches taken upon credit, without any
signification at all, from deceived philosophers, and deceived or
deceiving Schoolmen_. Thus he denieth the ubiquity of God. A
_circumscriptive_, a definitive, and a repletive being in a place,
is some heathen language to him.
_T. H._ Though I believe the omnipotence of God, and that he can do
what he will, yet I dare not say how every thing is done, because I
cannot conceive nor comprehend either the Divine substance, or the
way of its operation. And I think it impiety to speak concerning God
any thing of my own head, or upon the authority of philosophers or
Schoolmen, which I understand not, without warrant in the Scripture:
and what I say of omnipotence, I say also of ubiquity. But his
Lordship is more valiant in this place, telling us that God is
_wholly here_, and _wholly there_, and _wholly every where_; because
he has no parts. I cannot comprehend nor conceive this. For methinks
it implies also that the whole world is also in the whole God, and
in every part of God. Nor can I conceive how any thing can be called
_whole_, which has no parts, nor can I find anything of this in the
Scripture. If I could find it there, I could believe it; and if I
could find it in the public doctrine of the Church, I could easily
abstain from contradicting it. The Schoolmen say also, that the soul
of man (meaning his upper soul, which they call the rational soul)
is also _wholly_ in _the whole man_, and _wholly_ in _every part_ of
the man. What is this, but to make the human soul the same thing in
respect of man’s body, that God is in respect of the world? These
his Lordship calls here rational men, and some of them which applaud
this doctrine, would have the high court of parliament corroborate
such doctrines with a law. I said in my _Leviathan_, that it is no
honourable attribute to God, to say he is _in a place_, because
infinite is not confined within a place. To which he replies, _T. H.
his God is not wholly every where_. I confess the consequence. For I
understand in _English_, he that says any thing to be _all here_,
means that _neither all nor any of the same thing is elsewhere_. He
says further, I take a _circumscriptive, a definitive, and a
repletive_ being in a place to be heathen language. Truly, if this
dispute were at the bar, I should go near to crave the assistance of
the court, lest some trick might be put upon me in such obscurity.
For though I know what these Latin words singly signify, yet I
understand not how any thing is in a _place definitively_ and not
_circumscriptively_. For _definitively_ comes from _definio_, which
is to set bounds. And therefore to be in a place definitively, is
when the bounds of the _place_ are every way marked out. But to be
in a place circumscriptively, is when the bounds of the place are
described round about. To be in a place repletively, is to fill a
place. Who does not see that this distinction is canting and fraud?
If any man will call it pious fraud, he is to prove the piety as
clearly as I have here explained the fraud. Besides, no fraud can be
pious in any man, but him that hath a lawful right to govern him
whom he beguileth; whom the Bishop pretends to govern, I cannot
tell. Besides, his Lordship ought to have considered, that every
Bishop is one of the great Council, trusted by the King to give
their advice with the Lords temporal, for the making of good laws,
civil and ecclesiastical, and not to offer them such obscure
doctrines, as if, because they are not versed in School-divinity,
therefore they had no learning at all, nor understood the English
tongue. Why did the divines of England contend so much heretofore to
have the Bible translated into English, if they never meant any but
themselves should read it? If a lay-man be publicly encouraged to
search the Scriptures for his own salvation, what has a divine to do
to impose upon him any strange interpretation, unless, if he make
him err to damnation, he will be damned in his stead?
_J. D._ Our God is immutable without any shadow of turning by
change, to whom all things are present, nothing past, nothing to
come. But T. H. his God is measured by time, losing something that
is past, and acquiring something that doth come every minute. That
is as much as to say, that our God is infinite, and his God is
finite; for unto that which is actually infinite, nothing can be
added, neither time nor parts. Hear himself: _Nor do I understand
what derogation it can be to the Divine perfection, to attribute to
it potentiality, that is in English, power_ (so little doth he
understand what potentiality is) _and successive duration_. And he
chargeth it upon us as a fault, that we will not have eternity to be
an _endless succession of time_. How, _successive duration, and an
endless succession of time in God_? Then God is not infinite, then
God is older to-day than he was yesterday. Away with blasphemies!
Before, he destroyed the ubiquity of God, and now he destroyeth his
eternity.
_T. H._ I shall omit both here and henceforth his preambulatory,
impertinent, and uncivil calumnies. The thing he pretends to prove
is this. That it is a derogation to the Divine power to attribute to
it potentiality (that is in English power) and successive duration.
One of his reasons is, God is infinite, and nothing can be added to
infinite, neither of time nor of parts: it is true. And therefore I
said, God is infinite and eternal, without beginning or end, either
of time or place; which he has not here confuted, but confirmed. He
denies potentiality and power to be all one, and says I little
understand what potentiality is. He ought therefore in this place to
have defined what potentiality is: for I understand it to be the
same with _potentia_, which is in English power. There is no such
word as potentiality in the Scriptures, nor in any author of the
Latin tongue. It is found only in School-divinity, as a word of art,
or rather as a word of craft, to amaze and puzzle the laity. And
therefore I no sooner read than interpreted it. In the next place he
says, as wondering: _How, an endless succession of time in God_! Why
not? _God’s mercy endureth for ever_, and surely God endureth as
long as his mercy; therefore there is duration in God, and
consequently endless succession of time. _God who in sundry times
and divers manners spake in time past_, &c. But in a former dispute
with me about free-will, he hath defined eternity to be _nunc
stans_, that is an _ever standing now_, or _everlasting instant_.
This he thinks himself bound in honour to defend. What reasonable
soul can digest this? We read in Scripture, that a thousand years
with God, is but as yesterday. And why? but because he sees as
clearly to the end of a thousand years, as to the end of a day. But
his Lordship affirms, that both a thousand years and a day are but
one instant, the same _standing now_, or eternity. If he had showed
an holy text for this doctrine, or any text of the book of _Common
Prayer_ (in the Scripture and book of _Common Prayer_ is contained
all our religion), I had yielded to him; but School-divinity I value
little or nothing at all. Though in this he contradict also the
School-men, who say the soul is eternal only _a parte post_, but God
is eternal both _a parte post_, and _a parte ante_. Thus there are
parts in eternity; and eternity being, as his Lordship says, the
Divine substance, the Divine substance has parts, and _nunc stans_
has parts. Is not this darkness? I take it to be the kingdom of
darkness, and the teachers of it (especially of this doctrine, that
God, who is not only _optimus_, but also _maximus_, is no greater
than to be wholly contained in the least atom of earth, or other
body, and that his whole duration is but an instant of time) to be
either grossly ignorant or ungodly deceivers.
_J. D._ Our God is a perfect, pure, simple, indivisible, infinite
essence; free from all composition of matter and form, of
substance and accidents. All matter is finite, and he who acteth
by his infinite essence, needeth neither organs nor faculties (_id
est_, _no power, note that_), nor accidents, to render him more
complete. But T. H. his God is a divisible God, a compounded God,
that hath matter, or qualities, or accidents. Hear himself. I
argue thus: _The Divine substance is indivisible; but eternity is
the Divine substance. The major is evident, because God is_ actus
simplicissimus; _the minor is confessed by all men, that
whatsoever is attributed to God, is God_. Now listen to his
answer: _The major is so far from being evident, that_ actus
simplicissimus _signifieth nothing. The minor is said by some men,
thought by no man; whatsoever is thought is understood._ The major
was this, _the Divine substance is indivisible_. Is this far from
being evident? Either it is indivisible, or divisible. If it be
not indivisible, then it is divisible, then it is materiate, then
it is corporeal, then it hath parts, then it is finite by his own
confession. _Habere partes, aut esse totum aliquid, sunt attributa
finitorum._ Upon this silly conceit he chargeth me for saying,
that _God is not just_, but justice itself; not eternal, but
eternity itself; which he calleth _unseemly words to be said of
God_. And he thinketh he doth me a great courtesy in not adding
_blasphemous and atheistical_. But his bolts are so soon shot, and
his reasons are such vain imaginations, and such drowsy
phantasies, that no sober man doth much regard them. Thus he hath
already destroyed the ubiquity, the eternity, and the simplicity
of God. I wish he had considered better with himself, before he
had desperately cast himself upon these rocks.
But _paulo majora canamus_. My next charge is, that he destroys the
very being of God, and leaves nothing in his place, but an empty
name. For by taking away all incorporeal substances, he taketh away
God himself. The very name, saith he, of an incorporeal substance,
is a _contradiction_. And _to say that an angel or spirit, is an
incorporeal substance, is to say in effect, that there is no angel
or spirit at all_. By the same reason to say, that God is an
incorporeal substance, is to say there is no God at all. Either God
is incorporeal; or he is finite, and consists of parts, and
consequently is no God. This, that there is no incorporeal spirit,
is that main root of atheism, from which so many lesser branches are
daily sprouting up.
_T. H._ God is indeed a perfect, pure, simple, infinite substance;
and his name incommunicable, that is to say, not divisible into this
and that individual God, in such manner as the name of man is
divisible into Peter and John. And therefore God is individual;
which word amongst the Greeks is expressed by the word indivisible.
Certain heretics in the primitive church, because special and
individual are called particulars, maintained that Christ was a
particular God, differing in number from God the Father. And this
was the doctrine that was condemned for heresy in the first council
of Nice, by these words, _God hath no parts_. And yet many of the
Latin fathers, in their explications of the Nicene creed, have
expounded the word _consubstantial_, by the community of
nature, which different species have in their genus, and
different individuals in the species; as if Peter and John were
_consubstantial_, because they agree in one human nature; which is
contrary, I confess, to the meaning of the Nice fathers. But that in
a substance infinitely great, it should be impossible to consider
any thing as not infinite, I do not see it there condemned. For
certainly he that thinks God is in every part of the church, does
not exclude him out of the churchyard. And is not this a considering
of him by parts? For dividing a thing which we cannot reach nor
separate one part thereof from another, is nothing else but
considering of the same by parts. So much concerning indivisibility
from natural reason; for I will wade no further, but rely upon the
Scriptures. God is nowhere said in the Scriptures to be indivisible,
unless his Lordship meant division to consist only in separation of
parts, which I think he did not. St. Paul indeed saith (1 Cor. i.
13): _Is Christ divided?_ Not that the followers of Paul, Apollos,
and Cephas, followed some one part, some another of Christ; but that
thinking differently of his nature, they made as it were different
kinds of him. Secondly, his Lordship expounds simplicity, by not
being compounded of matter and form, or of substance and accidents,
unlearnedly. For nothing can be so compounded. The matter of a
_chair_ is _wood_; the form is the figure it hath, apt for the
intended use. Does his Lordship think the chair compounded of the
wood and the figure? A man is rational: does it therefore follow
that reason is a part of the man? It was Aristotle deceived him, who
told him that _a rational living creature_, is the definition of a
man, and that the definition of a man was his essence; and therefore
the Bishop and other Schoolmen, from this that the word rational is
a part of these words, _man is a rational living creature_,
concluded that the essence of man was a part of the man, and a
_rational man_ the same thing with a rational soul. I should wonder
how any man, much more a doctor of divinity, should be so grossly
deceived, but that I know naturally the generality of men speak the
words of their masters by rote, without having any ideas of the
things, which the words signify. Lastly, he calls God an _essence_.
If he mean by _essence_ the same with _ens_, τὸ ὄν, I approve it.
Otherwise, what is _essence_? There is no such word in the Old
Testament. The Hebrew language, which has no word answerable to the
copulative _est_, will not bear it. The New Testament hath οὐσία,
but never for _essence_, nor for _substance_, but only for riches. I
come now to his argument in mood and figure, which is this, _the
Divine substance is indivisible_. That is the _major_. _Eternity is
the Divine substance._ That is the _minor_. _Ergo_, the Divine
substance is indivisible. The major, he says, is evident, because
God is _actus simplicissimus_. The minor is confessed, he thinks, by
all men, because whatsoever is attributed to God, is God. To this I
answered, that the major was so far from being evident, that _actus
simplicissimus_ signifieth nothing, and that the minor was
understood by no man. First, what is _actus_ in the _major_? Does
any man understand _actus_ for a substance, that is, for a thing
subsisting by itself? Is not _actus_, in English, either an _act_ or
an _action_, or nothing? Or is any of these _substance_? If it be
evident, why did he not explain _actus_ by a definition? And as to
the minor, though all men in the world understand that the _Eternal_
is God, yet no man can understand that the _eternity_ is God.
Perhaps he and the Schoolmen mean by _actus_, the same that they do
by _essentia_. What is the _essence_ of a _man_, but his _humanity_;
or of God, but his _Deity_; of _great_, but _greatness_; and so of
all other denominating attributes? And the words, God and Deity, are
of different signification. John Damascene, a father of the church,
expounding the Nicene creed, denies plainly that the Deity was
incarnate; but all true Christians hold that God was incarnate.
Therefore God and the Deity signify divers things; and therefore
_eternal_ and _eternity_ are not the same, no more than a wise man
and his wisdom are the same; nor God and his justice the same thing:
and universally it is false, that the attribute in the abstract is
the same with the substance, to which it is attributed. Also it is
universally true of God, that the attribute in the concrete, and the
substance to which it is attributed, is not the same thing.
I come now to his next period or paragraph, wherein he would fain
prove, that by denying incorporeal substance, I take away God’s
existence. The words he cites here are mine: _to say an angel or
spirit is an incorporeal substance, is to say in effect there is no
angel nor spirit at all_. It is true also, that to say that God is
an incorporeal substance, is to say in effect there is no God at
all. What alleges he against it, but the School-divinity which I
have already answered? Scripture he can bring none, because the word
incorporeal is not found in Scripture. But the Bishop, trusting to
his Aristotelian and Scholastic learning, hath hitherto made no use
of Scripture, save only of these texts: 1 Cor. ix. 7: _Who hath
planted a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof; or who
feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?_ and Rev.
iv. 11: _Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, honour, and
power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they
were created_: thereby to prove that the right of God to govern and
punish mankind is not derived from his omnipotence. Let us now see
how he proves incorporeity by his own reason without Scripture.
_Either God_, he saith, _is incorporeal or finite_. He knows I deny
both, and say he is _corporeal_ and _infinite_: against which he
offers no proof, but only, according to his custom of disputing,
calls it the root of atheism; and interrogates me, what real thing
is left in the world, if God be incorporeal, but body and accidents?
I say there is nothing left but corporeal substance. For I have
denied, as he knew, that there is any reality in accidents; and
nevertheless maintain God’s existence, and that he is a most pure,
and most simple corporeal spirit. Here his Lordship catching
nothing, removes to the eternity of the Trinity, which these my
grounds, he says, destroy. How so? I say the Trinity, and the
persons thereof, are that one pure, simple, and eternal corporeal
spirit; and why does this destroy the Trinity, more than if I had
called it incorporeal? He labours here and seeketh somewhat to
refresh himself in the word _person_; _by the same grounds_, he
saith, _every king hath as many persons as there be justices of
peace in his kingdom, and God Almighty hath as many persons as there
be kings_. Why not? For I never said that all those kings were that
God; and yet God giveth that name to the kings of the earth. For the
signification of the word _person_, I shall expound it by and by in
another place. Here ends his Lordship’s School-argument; now let me
come with my Scripture-argument. St. Paul, concerning Christ (Col.
ii. 9) saith thus: _In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead
bodily_. This place Athanasius, a great and zealous doctor in the
Nicene Council, and vehement enemy of Arius the heretic, who allowed
Christ to be no otherwise God, than as men of excellent piety were
so called, expoundeth thus: _The fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in
him bodily_, (Greek σωματικῶς), _id est_ θεϊκῶς, _id est, realiter_.
So there is one Father for corporality, and that God was in Christ
in such manner as body is in body. Again, there were in the
primitive church a sort of heretics who maintained that Jesus Christ
had not a true real body, but was only a phantasm or spright, such
as the Latins call _spectra_. Against the head of this sect, whose
name I think was Apelles, Tertullian wrote a book, now extant
amongst his other works, intituled _De Carne Christi_; wherein after
he had spoken of the nature of phantasms, and showed that they had
nothing of reality in them, he concludeth with these words,
“whatsoever is not _body_, is _nothing_.” So here is on my side a
plain text of Scripture, and two ancient and learned Fathers. Nor
was this doctrine of Tertullian condemned in the Council of Nice;
but the division of the divine substance into God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. For these words, _God has no
parts_, were added, for explication of the word _consubstantial_, at
the request of the dissenting Fathers, and are further explained
both in Athanasius his creed, in these words, _not three Gods but
one God_, and by the constant attribute ever since of the
_individual_ Trinity. The same words nevertheless do condemn the
Anthropomorphites also; for though there appeared no Christians that
professed that God had an organical body, and consequently that the
persons were three individuals, yet the Gentiles were all
Anthropomorphites, and there condemned by these words, _God has no
parts_.
And thus I have answered his accusation concerning the eternity and
existence of the Divine substance, and made it appear that in truth,
the question between us, is whether God be a phantasm (_id est_, an
idol of the fancy, which St. Paul saith is nothing) or a corporeal
spirit, that is to say, something that has magnitude.
In this place I think it not amiss, leaving for a little while this
theological dispute, to examine the signification of those words
which have occasioned so much diversity of opinion in this kind of
doctrine.
The word _substance_, in Greek ὑπόστασις, ὑποσταν, ὑποσταμενον,
signify the same thing, namely, a ground, a base, any thing that has
existence or subsistence _in itself_, anything that upholdeth that
which else would fall, in which sense God is properly the
hypostasis, base, and substance that upholdeth all the world, having
subsistence not only _in himself_, but _from himself_; whereas other
substances have their subsistence only in themselves, not from
themselves. But metaphorically, faith is called (Heb. xi. 1) a
substance, because it is the foundation or base of our hope; for
faith failing, our hope falls. And (2 Cor. ix. 4) St. Paul having
boasted of the liberal promise of the Corinthians towards the
Macedonians, calls that promise the ground, the hypostasis of that
his boasting. And (Heb. i. 3) Christ is called the image of the
substance (the hypostasis) of his Father, and for the proper and
adequate signification of the word hypostasis, the Greek Fathers did
always oppose it to apparition or phantasm; as when a man seeth his
face in the water, his real face is called the hypostasis of the
phantastic face in the water. So also in speaking, the thing
understood or named is called hypostasis, in respect of the name; so
also a body coloured is the hypostasis, substance and subject of the
colour; and in like manner of all its other accidents. Essence and
all other abstract names, are words artificial belonging to the art
of logic, and signify only the manner how we consider the substance
itself. And of this I have spoken sufficiently in my _Leviathan_
(vol. III. page 672). _Body_ (Latin, _corpus_, σῶμα) is that
substance which hath magnitude indeterminate, and is the same with
corporeal substance; but _a body_ is that which hath magnitude
determinate, and consequently is understood to be _totum_ or
_integrum aliquid_. _Pure_ and _simple body_, is body of one and the
same kind, in every part throughout; and if mingled with body of
another kind, though the total be compounded or mixed, the parts
nevertheless retain their simplicity, as when water and wine are
mixed, the parts of both kinds retain their simplicity. For water
and wine can not both be in one and the same place at once.
_Matter_ is the same with _body_; but never without respect to a
body which is made thereof. _Form_ is the aggregate of all accidents
together, for which we give the matter a new name; so _albedo_,
_whiteness_, is the form of _album_, or _white body_. So also
humanity is the essence of man, and Deity the essence of Deus.
Spirit is thin, fluid, transparent, invisible body. The word in
Latin signifies breath, air, wind, and the like. In Greek πνεῡμα
from πνέω, _spiro_, _flo_.
I have seen, and so have many more, two waters, one of the river,
the other a mineral water, so like that no man could discern the one
from the other by his sight; yet when they have been both put
together, the whole substance could not by the eye be distinguished
from milk. Yet we know that the one was not mixed with the other, so
as every part of the one to be in every part of the other, for that
is impossible, unless two bodies can be in the same place. How then
could the change be made in every part, but only by the activity of
the mineral water, changing it every where to the sense, and yet not
being every where, and in every part of the water? If then such
gross bodies have so great activity, what shall we think of spirits,
whose kinds be as many as there be kinds of liquor, and activity
greater? Can it then be doubted, but that God, who is an infinitely
fine Spirit, and withal intelligent, can make and change all species
and kinds of body as he pleaseth? But I dare not say, that this is
the way by which God Almighty worketh, because it is past my
apprehension: yet it serves very well to demonstrate, that the
omnipotence of God implieth no contradiction; and is better than by
pretence of magnifying the fineness of the Divine substance, to
reduce it to a spright or phantasm, which is nothing.
A _person_ (Latin, _persona_) signifies an intelligent substance,
that acteth any thing in his own or another’s name, or by his own or
another’s authority. Of this definition there can be no other proof
than from the use of that word, in such Latin authors as were
esteemed the most skilful in their own language, of which number was
Cicero. But Cicero, in an epistle to Atticus, saith thus: _Unus
sustineo tres personas, mei, adversarii, et judicis_: that is, “I
that am but one man, sustain three persons; mine own person, the
person of my adversary, and the person of the judge.” Cicero was
here the substance intelligent, one man; and because he pleaded for
himself, he calls himself his own person: and again, because he
pleaded for his adversary, he says, he sustained the person of his
adversary: and lastly, because he himself gave the sentence, he
says, he sustained the person of the judge. In the same sense we use
the word in English vulgarly, calling him that acteth by his own
authority, his own person, and him that acteth by the authority of
another, the person of that other. And thus we have the exact
meaning of the word _person_. The Greek tongue cannot render it; for
πρὸσωπον is properly a face, and, metaphorically, a vizard of an
actor upon the stage. How then did the Greek Fathers render the word
_person_, as it is in the blessed Trinity? Not well. Instead of the
word _person_ they put _hypostasis_, which signifies substance; from
whence it might be inferred, that the three persons in the Trinity
are three Divine substances, that is, three Gods. The word πρὸσωπον
they could not use, because face and vizard are neither of them
honourable attributes of God, nor explicative of the meaning of the
Greek church. Therefore the Latin (and consequently the English)
church, renders _hypostasis_ every where in Athanasius his creed by
_person_. But the word _hypostatical union_ is rightly retained and
used by divines, as being the union of two hypostases, that is, of
two substances or natures in the person of Christ. But seeing they
also hold the soul of our Saviour to be a substance, which, though
separated from his body, subsisted nevertheless in itself, and
consequently, before it was separated from his body upon the cross,
was a distinct nature from his body, how will they avoid this
objection, that then Christ had three natures, three hypostases,
without granting, that _his resurrection was a new vivification, and
not a return of his soul out of Heaven into the grave_? The contrary
is not determined by the church. Thus far in explication of the
words that occur in this controversy. Now I return again to his
Lordship’s discourse.
_J. D._ When they have taken away all incorporeal spirits, what do
they leave God himself to be? He who is the fountain of all being,
from whom and in whom all creatures have their being, must needs
have a real being of his own. And what real being can God have among
bodies and accidents? For they have left nothing else in the
universe. Then T. H. may move the same question of God, which he did
of devils. _I would gladly know in what classes of entities, the
Bishop ranketh God?_ Infinite being and participated being are not
of the same nature. Yet to speak according to human apprehension,
(apprehension and comprehension differ much: T. H. confesseth that
natural reason doth dictate to us, that God is infinite, yet natural
reason cannot comprehend the infiniteness of God) I place him among
incorporeal substances or spirits, because he hath been pleased to
place himself in that rank, _God is a Spirit_. Of which place T. H.
giveth his opinion, that it is unintelligible, and all others of the
same nature, _and fall not under human understanding_.
They who deny all incorporeal substances, can understand nothing by
God, but either nature, (not _naturam naturantem_, that is, a real
author of nature, but _naturam naturatam_, that is, the orderly
concourse of natural causes, as T. H. seemeth to intimate,) or a
fiction of the brain, without real being, cherished for advantage
and politic ends, as a profitable error, howsoever dignified with
the glorious title of _the eternal cause of all things_.
_T. H._ To his Lordship’s question here: _What I leave God to be?_
I answer, I leave him to be a most pure, simple, invisible spirit
corporeal. By corporeal I mean a substance that has magnitude, and
so mean all learned men, divines and others, though perhaps there
be some common people so rude as to call nothing body, but what
they can see and feel. To his second question: _What real being He
can have amongst bodies and accidents?_ I answer, the being of a
spirit, not of a spright. If I should ask any the most subtile
distinguisher, what middle nature there were between an infinitely
subtile substance, and a mere thought or phantasm, by what name
could he call it? He might call it perhaps an incorporeal
substance; and so _incorporeal_ shall pass for a middle nature
between _infinitely subtile_ and _nothing_, and be less subtile
than infinitely subtile, and yet more subtile than a thought. It
is granted, he says, that the nature of God is incomprehensible.
Doth it therefore follow, that we may give to the Divine substance
what negative name we please? Because he says, the whole Divine
substance is here and there and every where throughout the world,
and that the soul of a man is here and there and every where
throughout man’s body; must we therefore take it for a mystery of
Christian religion, upon his or any other Schoolman’s word,
without the Scripture, which calls nothing a mystery but the
incarnation of the eternal God? Or is incorporeal a mystery, when
not at all mentioned in the Bible, but to the contrary it is
written, _That the fulness of the Deity was bodily in Christ_?
When the nature of the thing is incomprehensible, I can acquiesce
in the Scripture: but when the signification of words is
incomprehensible, I cannot acquiesce in the authority of a
Schoolman.
_J. D._ We have seen what his principles are concerning the Deity,
they are full as bad or worse concerning the Trinity. Hear himself:
_A person is he that is represented as often as he is represented.
And therefore God who has been represented, that is personated
thrice, may properly enough be said to be three persons, though
neither the word Person nor Trinity be ascribed to him in the
Bible._ And a little after: _To conclude, the doctrine of the
Trinity, as far as can be gathered directly from the Scripture, is
in substance this, that the God who is always one and the same, was
the person represented by Moses, the person represented by his Son
incarnate, and the person represented by the apostles. As
represented by the apostles, the holy spirit by which they spake is
God. As represented by his Son, that was God and man, the Son is
that God. As represented by Moses and the High-priests, the Father,
that is to say, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is that God.
From whence we may gather the reason why those names, Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost, in the signification of the Godhead, are never used
in the Old Testament. For they are persons, that is, they have their
names from representing, which could not be till divers persons had
represented God, in ruling or in directing under him._
Who is so bold as blind Bayard? The emblem of a little boy
attempting to lade all the water out of the sea with a cockle-shell,
doth fit T. H. as exactly as if it had been shaped for him, who
thinketh to measure the profound and inscrutable mysteries of
religion, by his own silly, shallow conceits. What is now become of
the great adorable mystery of the blessed undivided Trinity? It is
shrunk into nothing. Upon his grounds there was a time when there
was no Trinity: and we must blot these words out of our creed, _the
Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal_: and
these other words out of our Bibles, _Let us make man after our
image_: unless we mean that this was a consultation of God with
Moses and the apostles. What is now become of the eternal generation
of the Son of God, if this sonship did not begin until about four
thousand years after the creation were expired? Upon these grounds
every king hath as many _persons_, as there be justices of peace and
petty constables in his kingdom. Upon this account God Almighty hath
as many _persons_, as there have been sovereign princes in the world
since Adam. According to this reckoning each one of us, like so many
Geryons, may have as many _persons_ as we please to make
procurations. Such bold presumption requireth another manner of
confutation.
_T. H._ As for the words recited, I confess there is a fault in the
ratiocination, which nevertheless his Lordship hath not discovered,
but no impiety. All that he objecteth is, that it followeth
hereupon, that there be as many persons of a king, as there be petty
constables in his kingdom. And so there are, or else he cannot be
obeyed. But I never said that a king, and every one of his persons,
are the same substance. The fault I here made, and saw not, was
this; I was to prove that it is no contradiction, as Lucian and
heathen scoffers would have it, to say of God, he was one and three.
I saw the true definition of the word _person_ would serve my turn
in this manner; God, in his own person, both created the world, and
instituted a church in Israel, using therein the ministry of Moses:
the same God, in the person of his Son God and man, redeemed the
same world, and the same church; the same God, in the person of the
Holy Ghost, sanctified the same church, and all the faithful men in
the world. Is not this a clear proof that it is no contradiction to
say that God is three persons and one substance? And doth not the
church distinguish the persons in the same manner? See the words of
our catechism. Question. _What dost thou chiefly learn in these
articles of thy belief?_ Answer. _First, I learn to believe in God
the Father, that hath made me and all the world; Secondly, in God
the Son, who hath redeemed me and all mankind; Thirdly, in God the
Holy Ghost, that hath sanctified me and all the elect people of
God._ But at what time was the church sanctified? Was it not on the
day of Pentecost, in the descending of the Holy Ghost upon the
apostles? His Lordship all this while hath catched nothing. It is I
that catched myself, for saying, instead of _by the ministry of
Moses_, in the person of Moses. But this error I no sooner saw, than
I no less publicly corrected than I had committed it, in my
_Leviathan_ converted into Latin, which by this time I think is
printed beyond the seas with this alteration, and also with the
omission of some such passages as strangers are not concerned in.
And I had corrected this error sooner, if I had sooner found it. For
though I was told by Dr. Cosins, now Bishop of Durham, that the
place above-cited was not applicable enough to the doctrine of the
Trinity, yet I could not in reviewing the same espy the defect, till
of late, when being solicited from beyond sea, to translate the book
into Latin, and fearing some other man might do it not to my liking,
I examined this passage and others of the like sense more narrowly.
But how concludes his Lordship out of this, that I put out of the
creed these words, _the Father eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy
Ghost eternal_? Or these words, _let us make man after our image_,
out of the Bible? Which last words neither I nor Bellarmine put out
of the Bible, but we both put them out of the number of good
arguments to prove the Trinity; for it is no unusual thing in the
Hebrew, as may be seen by Bellarmine’s quotations, to join a noun of
the plural number with a verb of the singular. And we may say also
of many other texts of Scripture alleged to prove the Trinity, that
they are not so firm as that high article requireth. But mark his
Lordship’s Scholastic charity in the last words of this period:
_such bold presumption requireth another manner of confutation_.
This bishop, and others of his opinion, had been in their element,
if they had been bishops in Queen Mary’s time.
_J. D._ Concerning God the Son, forgetting what he had said
elsewhere, where he calleth him _God and man_, and _the Son of God
incarnate_, he doubteth not to say, that _the word_ hypostatical _is
canting_. As if the same person could be both God and man without a
personal, that is, an hypostatical union of the two natures of God
and man.
_T. H._ If Christian profession be (as certainly it is in England) a
law; and if it be of the nature of a law to be made known to all men
that are to obey it, in such manner as they may have no excuse for
disobedience from their ignorance; then, without doubt, all words
unknown to the people, and as to them insignificant, are canting.
The word _substance_ is understood by the vulgar well enough, when
it is said of a body, but in other sense not at all, except for
their riches. But the word _hypostatical_ is understood only by
those, and but few of those that are learned in the Greek tongue,
and is properly used, as I have said before, of the union of the two
natures of Christ in one person. So likewise _consubstantial_ in the
Nicene creed, is properly said of the Trinity. But to an Englishman
that understands neither Greek nor Latin, and yet is as much
concerned as his Lordship was, the word _hypostatical_ is no less
canting than _eternal now_.
_J. D._ He alloweth every man who is commanded by his lawful
sovereign, _to deny Christ with his tongue before men_.
_T. H._ I allow it in some cases, and to some men, which his
Lordship knew well enough, but would not mention. I alleged for it,
in the place cited, both reason and Scripture, though his Lordship
thought it not expedient to take notice of either. If it be true
that I have said, why does he blame it? If false, why offers he no
argument against it, neither from Scripture nor from reason? Or why
does he not show that the text I cite is not applicable to the
question, or not well interpreted by me? First, he barely cites it,
because he thought the words would sound harshly, and make a reader
admire them for impiety. But I hope I shall so well instruct my
reader ere I leave this place, that this his petty art will have no
effect. Secondly, the cause why he omitted my arguments was, that he
could not answer them. Lastly, the cause why he urgeth neither
Scripture nor reason against it was, that he saw none sufficient. My
argument from Scripture was this, (_Leviathan_, vol. III. p. 493)
taken out of 2 Kings v. 17-19, where Naaman the Syrian saith to
Elisha the prophet: _Thy servant will henceforth offer neither
burnt-offering nor sacrifice to other Gods, but unto the Lord. In
this thing the Lord pardon thy servant, that when my master goeth
into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leaneth on my
hand, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon: when I bow myself in
the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing. And
he said unto him, Go in peace._ What can be said to this? Did not
Elisha say it from God? Or is not this answer of the prophet a
permission? When St. Paul and St. Peter commanded the Christians of
their time to obey their princes, which then were heathens and
enemies of Christ, did they mean they should lose their lives for
disobedience? Did they not rather mean they should preserve both
their lives and their faith, believing in Christ as they did, by
this denial of the tongue, having no command to the contrary? If in
this kingdom a Mahometan should be made by terror to deny Mahomet
and go to church with us, would any man condemn this Mahometan? A
denial with the mouth may perhaps be prejudicial to the power of the
church; but to retain the faith of Christ stedfastly in his heart,
cannot be prejudicial to his soul that hath undertaken no charge to
preach to wolves, whom they know will destroy them. About the time
of the Council of Nice, there was a canon made (which is extant in
the history of the Nicene Council) concerning those that being
Christians had been seduced, not terrified, to a denial of Christ,
and again repenting, desired to be readmitted into the church; in
which canon it was ordained, that those men should be no otherwise
readmitted than to be in the number of the cathechised, and not to
be admitted to the communion till a great many years' penitence.
Surely the church then would have been more merciful to them that
did the same upon terror of present death and torments.
Let us now see what his Lordship might, though but colourably, have
alleged from Scripture against it. There be three places only that
seem to favour his Lordship’s opinion. The first is where Peter
denied Christ, and weepeth. The second is, Acts v. 29: _Then Peter
and the other Apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God
rather than men_. The third is, Luke xii. 9: _But he that denieth me
before men, shall be denied before the angels of God_.
For answer to these texts, I must repeat what what I have written,
and his Lordship read in my _Leviathan_, p. 656. _For an unlearned
man that is in the power of an idolatrous king, or state, if
commanded on pain of death to worship before an idol, doing it, he
detesteth the idol in his heart, he doth well; though if he had the
fortitude to suffer death, rather than worship it, he should do
better. But if a pastor, who, as Christ’s messenger, has undertaken
to teach Christ’s doctrine to all nations, should do the same, it
were not only a sinful scandal in respect of other Christian men’s
consciences, but a perfidious forsaking of his charge._ In which
words I distinguish between a pastor and one of the sheep of his
flock. St. Peter sinned in denying Christ; and so does every pastor,
that denieth Christ, having undertaken the charge of preaching the
gospel in the kingdom of an infidel, where he could expect at the
undertaking of his charge no less than death. And why, but because
he violates his trust in doing contrary to his commission. St. Peter
was an apostle of Christ, and bound by his voluntary undertaking of
that office not only to confess Christ, but also to preach him
before those infidels who, he knew, would like wolves devour him.
And therefore, when Paul and the rest of the apostles were forbidden
to preach Christ, they gave this answer, _We ought to obey God
rather than men_. And it was to his disciples only which had
undertaken that office, that Christ saith, _he that denieth me
before men, shall be denied before the angels of God_. And so I
think I have sufficiently answered this place, and showed that I do
not allow the denying of Christ, upon any colour of torments, to his
Lordship, nor to any other that has undertaken the office of a
preacher. Which if he think right, he will perhaps in this case put
himself into the number of those whom he calls merciful doctors:
whereas now he extends his severity beyond the bounds of common
equity. He has read Cicero, and perhaps this story in him. The
senate of Rome would have sent Cicero to treat of peace with Marcus
Antonius; but when Cicero had showed them the just fear he had of
being killed by him, he was excused; and if they had forced him to
it, and he by terror turned enemy to them, he had in equity been
excusable. But his Lordship, I believe, did write this more
valiantly than he would have acted it.
_J. D._ He deposeth Christ from his true kingly office, making his
_kingdom not to commence or begin before the day of judgment_. And
_the regimen, wherewith Christ governeth his faithful in this life,
is not properly a kingdom, but a pastoral office, or a right to
teach_. And a little after, _Christ had not kingly authority
committed to him by his Father in this world, but only consiliary
and doctrinal_.
_T. H._ How do I take away Christ’s kingly office? He neither draws
it by consequence from my words, nor offers any argument at all
against my doctrine. The words he cites are in the contents of chap.
XVII. De Cive (vol. II). In the body of the chapter it is thus: _The
time of Christ’s being upon the earth is called, in Scripture, the
regeneration often, but the kingdom never. When the Son of God comes
in majesty, and all the angels with him, then he shall sit on the
seat of majesty. My kingdom is not of this world. God sent not his
Son that he should judge the world. I came not to judge the world,
but to save the world. Man, who made me a judge or divider amongst
you? Let thy kingdom come._ And other words to the same purpose. Out
of which it is clear that Christ took upon him no regal power upon
earth before his assumption. But at his assumption his Apostles
asked him if he would then restore the kingdom to Israel, and he
answered, it was not for them to know. So that hitherto Christ had
not taken that office upon him, unless his Lordship think that the
kingdom of God, and the kingdom of Christ, be two distinct kingdoms.
From the Assumption ever since, all true Christians say daily in
their prayers, _Thy kingdom come_. But his Lordship had perhaps
forgot that. But when then beginneth Christ to be a king? I say it
shall be then, when he comes again in majesty with all the angels.
And even then he shall reign (as he is man) under his Father. For
St. Paul saith (1 Cor. xv. 25, 26): _He must reign till he hath put
all enemies under his feet; the last enemy that shall be destroyed,
is death_. But when shall God the Father reign again? St. Paul saith
in the same chapter, verse 28: _When all things shall be subdued
unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that
put all things under him, that God may be all in all_. And verse 24:
_Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to
God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule,
authority, and power_. This is at the resurrection. And by this it
is manifest, that his Lordship was not so well versed in Scripture
as he ought to have been.
_J. D._ He taketh away his priestly or propitiatory office. _And
although this act of our redemption be not always in Scripture
called a sacrifice and oblation, but sometimes a price; yet by price
we are not to understand anything, by the value whereof he could
claim right to a pardon for us from his offended Father, but that
price which God the Father was pleased in mercy to demand._ And
again: _Not that the death of one man, though without sin, can
satisfy for the offences of all men in the rigour of justice, but in
the mercy of God, that ordained such sacrifices for sin, as he was
pleased in mercy to accept_. He knoweth no difference between one
who is mere man, and one who was both God and man; between a
Levitical sacrifice, and the all-sufficient sacrifice of the cross;
between the blood of a calf, and the precious blood of the Son of
God.
_T. H._ Yes, I know there is a difference between blood and blood,
but not any such as can make a difference in the case here
questioned. Our Saviour’s blood was most precious, but still it was
human blood; and I hope his Lordship did never think otherwise, or
that it was not accepted by his Father for our redemption.
_J. D._ And touching the prophetical office of Christ, I do much
doubt whether he do believe in earnest, that there is any such thing
as prophecy in the world. He maketh very little difference between a
_prophet_ and a _madman_, and a _demoniac_. _And if there were
nothing else_, says he, _that bewrayed their madness, yet that very
arrogating such inspiration to themselves is argument enough_. He
maketh the pretence of inspiration in any man to be, and always to
have been, _an opinion pernicious to peace, and tending to the
dissolution of all civil government_. He subjecteth all prophetical
revelations from God, to the sole pleasure and censure of the
sovereign prince, either to authorize them, or to exauctorate them.
So as two prophets prophecying the same thing at the same time, in
the dominions of two different princes, the one shall be a true
prophet, the other a false. And Christ, who had the approbation of
no sovereign prince, upon his grounds, was to be reputed a false
prophet everywhere. _Every man therefore ought to consider who is
the sovereign prophet; that is to say, who it is that is God’s
vicegerent upon earth, and hath next under God the authority of
governing Christian men; and to observe for a rule that doctrine,
which in the name of God he hath commanded to be taught, and thereby
to examine and try out the truth of those doctrines which pretended
prophets, with miracle or without, shall at any time advance_, &c.
_And if he disavow them, then no more to obey their voice; or if he
approve them, then to obey them as men, to whom God hath given a
part of the Spirit of their sovereign._ Upon his principles the case
holdeth as well among Jews and Turks and Heathens, as Christians.
Then he that teacheth transubstantiation in France, is a true
prophet; he that teacheth it in England, a false prophet; he that
blasphemeth Christ in Constantinople, a true prophet; he that doth
the same in Italy, a false prophet. Then Samuel was a false prophet
to contest with Saul, a sovereign prophet: so was the man of God,
who submitted not to the more Divine and prophetic spirit of
Jeroboam. And Elijah for reproving Ahab. Then Micaiah had but his
deserts, to be clapped up in prison, and fed with bread of
affliction, and water of affliction, for daring to contradict _God’s
vicegerent upon earth_. And Jeremiah was justly thrown into a
dungeon, for prophecying against Zedekiah his liege lord. If his
principles were true, it were strange indeed, that none of all these
princes, nor any other that ever was in the world, should understand
their own privileges. And yet more strange, that God Almighty should
take the part of such rebellious prophets, and justify their
prophesies by the event, if it were true that _none but the
sovereign in a Christian_ (the reason is the same for Jewish)
_commonwealth, can take notice, what is or what is not the word of
God_.