_T. H._ To remove his Lordship’s doubt in the first place, I confess

there was true prophesy and true prophets in the church of God, from

Abraham down to our Saviour, the greatest prophet of all, and the

last of the Old Testament, and first of the New. After our Saviour’s

time, till the death of St. John the apostle, there were true

prophets in the church of Christ, prophets to whom God spake

supernaturally, and testified the truth of their mission by

miracles. Of those that in the Scripture are called prophets without

miracles, (and for this cause only, that they spake in the name of

God to men, and in the name of men to God), there are, have been,

and shall be in the church, innumerable. Such a prophet was his

Lordship, and such are all pastors in the Christian church. But the

question here is of those prophets that from the mouth of God

foretell things future, or do other miracle. Of this kind I deny

there has been any since the death of St. John the Evangelist. If

any man find fault with this, he ought to name some man or other,

whom we are bound to acknowledge that they have done a miracle, cast

out a devil, or cured any disease by the sole invocation of the

Divine Majesty. We are not bound to trust to the legend of the Roman

saints, nor to the history written by Sulpitius of the life of St.

Martin, or to any other fables of the Roman clergy, nor to such

things as were pretended to be done by some divines here in the time

of king James. Secondly, he says I make little difference between a

_prophet_, and a _madman_ or _demoniac_; to which I say, he accuses

me falsely. I say only thus much, _that I see nothing at all in the

Scripture that requireth a belief, that demoniacs were any other

thing than madmen_. And this is also made very probable out of

Scripture, by a worthy divine, Mr. Mede. But concerning prophets, I

say only that the Jews, both under the Old Testament and under the

New, took them to be all one with _madmen_ and _demoniacs_; and

prove it out of Scripture by many places, both of the Old and New

Testament. Thirdly, that the pretence or arrogating to one’s-self

Divine inspiration, is argument enough to show a man is _mad_, is my

opinion; but his Lordship understands not _inspiration_ in the same

sense that I do. He understands it properly of God’s breathing into

a man, or pouring into him the Divine substance, or Divine graces.

And in that sense, he that arrogateth inspiration unto himself,

neither understands what he saith, nor makes others to understand

him: which is properly madness in some degree. But I understand

_inspiration_ in the Scripture metaphorically, for God’s guidance of

our minds to truth and piety. Fourthly, whereas he says, I make the

pretence of _inspiration_ to be pernicious to peace; I answer, that

I think his Lordship was of my opinion; for he called those men,

which in the late civil war pretended the spirit, and new light, and

to be the only faithful men, _fanatics_; for he called them in his

book, and did call them in his life-time, _fanatics_. And what is a

_fanatic_ but a _madman_? And what can be more pernicious to peace,

than the revelations that were by these _fanatics_ pretended? I do

not say there were not doctrines of other men, not called

_fanatics_, as pernicious to peace as their’s were, and in great

part a cause of those troubles. Fifthly, from that I make

prophetical revelations subject to the examination of the lawful

sovereign, he inferreth, that 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. This consequence

is not good: for seeing they teach different doctrines, they cannot

both of them confirm their doctrine with miracles. But this I prove,

in the place (vol. iii. p. 426) he citeth, that whether either of

their doctrines shall be taught publicly or not, it is in the power

of the sovereign of the place only to determine. Nay, I say now

further, if a prophet come to any private man in the name of God,

that man shall be judge whether he be a true prophet or not, before

he obey him. See 1 John, iv. 1. Sixthly, whereas he says that, upon

my grounds, Christ was to be reputed a false prophet every where,

because his doctrine was received no where; his Lordship had read my

book more negligently, than was fit for one that would confute it.

My ground is this; that Christ in right of his Father was king of

the Jews, and consequently supreme prophet, and judge of all

prophets. What other princes thought of his prophesies, is nothing

to the purpose. I never said that princes can make doctrines or

prophesies true or false; but I say every sovereign prince has a

right to prohibit the public teaching of them, whether false or

true. But what an oversight is it in a divine, to say that Christ

had the approbation of no sovereign prince, when he had the

approbation of God, who was king of the Jews, and Christ his

viceroy, and the whole Scripture written (John, xx. 31) to prove it;

when his miracles declared it; when Pilate confessed it; and when

the apostles' office was to proclaim it? Seventhly, if we must not

consider, in points of Christian faith, who is the sovereign

prophet, that is, who is next under Christ our supreme head and

governor, I wish his Lordship would have cleared, ere he died, these

few questions. Is there not need of some judge of controverted

doctrines? I think no man can deny it, that has seen the rebellion

that followed the controversy here between Gomar and Arminius. There

must therefore be a judge of doctrines. But, says the Bishop, not

the king. Who then? Shall Dr. Bramhall be this judge? As profitable

an office as it is, he was more modest than to say that. Shall a

private layman have it? No man ever thought that. Shall it be given

to a Presbyterian minister? No; it is unreasonable. Shall a synod of

Presbyterians have it? No; for most of the Presbyters in the

primitive church were undoubtedly subordinate to bishops, and the

rest were bishops. Who then? A synod of bishops? Very well. His

Lordship being too modest to undertake the whole power, would have

been contented with the six-and-twentieth part. But, suppose it in a

synod of bishops, who shall call them together? The king. What if he

will not? Who should excommunicate him, or if he despise your

excommunication, who shall send forth a writ of _significavit_? No;

all this was far from his Lordship’s thoughts. The power of the

clergy, unless it be upheld legally by the king, or illegally by the

multitude, amounts to nothing. But for the multitude, Suarez and the

Schoolmen will never gain them, because they are not understood.

Besides there be very few bishops that can act a sermon, which is a

puissant part of _rhetoric_, so well as divers Presbyterians, and

fanatic preachers can do. I conclude therefore, that his Lordship

could not possibly believe that the supreme judicature in matter of

religion could any where be so well placed as in the head of the

church, which is the king. And so his Lordship and I think the same

thing; but because his Lordship knew not how to deduce it, he was

angry with me because I did it. He says, further, that _by my

principles, he that blasphemeth Christ at Constantinople, is a true

prophet_: as if a man that blasphemeth Christ, to approve his

blasphemy can procure a miracle. For by my principles, no man is a

prophet whose prophesy is not confirmed by God with a miracle. In

the last place, out of this, that the lawful sovereign is the judge

of prophesy, he deduces that then Samuel and other prophets were

false prophets, that contested with their sovereigns. As for Samuel,

he was at that time the judge, that is to say, the sovereign prince

in Israel, and so acknowledged by Saul. For Saul received the

kingdom from God himself, who had right to give and take it, by the

hands of Samuel. And God gave it to himself only, and not to his

seed; though if he had obeyed God, he would have settled it also

upon his seed. The commandment of God was, that he should not spare

Agag. Saul obeyed not. God therefore sent to Samuel to tell him that

he was rejected. For all this, Samuel went not about to resist Saul.

That he caused Agag to be slain, was with Saul’s consent. Lastly,

Saul confesses his sin. Where is this contesting with Saul? After

this God sent Samuel to anoint David, not that he should depose

Saul, but succeed him, the sons of Saul having never had a right of

succession. Nor did ever David make war on Saul, or so much as

resist him, but fled from his persecution. But when Saul was dead,

then indeed he claimed his right against the house of Saul. What

rebellion or resistance could his Lordship find here, either in

Samuel or in David? Besides, all these transactions are

supernatural, and oblige not to imitation. Is there any prophet or

priest now, that can set up in England, Scotland, or Ireland,

another king by pretence of prophecy or religion? What did Jeroboam

to the man of God (1 Kings xiii.) that prophesied against the altar

in Bethel without first doing a miracle, but offer to seize him for

speaking, as he thought, rashly of the king’s act; and after the

miraculous withering of his hand, desire the prophet to pray for

him? The sin of Jeroboam was not his distrust of the prophet, but

his idolatry. He was the sole judge of the truth which the man of

God uttered against the altar, and the process agreeable to equity.

What is the story of Elijah and Ahab (1 Kings xviii.), but a

confirmation of the right even of Ahab to be judge of prophecy?

Elijah told Ahab, he had transgressed the commandment of God. So may

any minister now tell his sovereign, so he do it with sincerity and

discretion. Ahab told Elijah he troubled Israel. Upon this

controversy Elijah desired trial. Send, saith he, and assemble all

Israel; assemble also the prophets of Baal, four hundred and fifty.

Ahab did so. The question is stated before the people thus: if the

Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, follow him. Then upon the

altars of God and Baal were laid the wood and the bullocks; and the

cause was to be judged by fire from heaven, to burn the sacrifices;

which Elijah procured, the prophets of Baal could not procure. Was

not this cause here pleaded before Ahab? The sentence of Ahab is not

required; for Elijah from that time forward was no more persecuted

by Ahab, but only by his wife, Jezabel. The story of Micaiah (2

Chron. xviii.) is this. Ahab King of Israel consulted the prophets,

four hundred in number, whether he should prosper or not, in case he

went with Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, to fight against the Syrians

at Ramoth-gilead. The prophet Micaiah was also called, and both the

kings, Ahab and Jehoshaphat, sat together to hear what they should

prophecy. There was no miracle done. The four hundred pronounced

victory; Micaiah alone the contrary. The king was judge, and most

concerned in the event; nor had he received any revelation in the

business. What could he do more discreetly than to follow the

counsel of four hundred, rather than of one man? But the event was

contrary; for he was slain; but not for following the counsel of the

four hundred, but for his murder of Naboth, and his idolatry. It was

also a sin in him, that he afflicted Micaiah in prison. But an

unjust judgment does not take away from any king his right of

judicature. Besides, what is all this, or that of Jeremiah which he

cites last, to the question of who is judge of Christian doctrine?

_J. D._ Neither doth he use God the Holy Ghost, more favourably

than God the Son. Where St. Peter saith, holy men of God spake as

they were moved by the Holy Spirit; he saith, _By the spirit, is

meant the voice of God in a dream or vision supernatural_; which

dreams or visions, he maketh to be no more than _imaginations

which they had in their sleep, or in an extasy, which in every

true prophet were supernatural, but in false prophets were either

natural or feigned_, and more likely to be false than true. To

say, _God hath spoken to him in a dream, is no more than to say,

he dreamed that God spake to him, &c. To say, he hath seen a

vision or heard a voice, is to say, that he hath dreamed between

sleeping and waking._ So St. Peter’s Holy Ghost, is come to be

their own imaginations, which might be either feigned, or

mistaken, or true. As if the Holy Ghost did enter only at their

eyes, and at their ears, not into their understandings, nor into

their minds; or as if the Holy Ghost did not seal unto their

hearts the truth and assurance of their prophecies. Whether a new

light be infused into their understandings, or new graces be

inspired into their heart, they are wrought, or caused, or created

immediately by the Holy Ghost; and so are his _imaginations_, if

they be supernatural.

_T. H._ For the places of my _Leviathan_ he cites, they are all,

as they stand, both true and clearly proved. The setting of them

down by fragments is no refutation; nor offers he any arguments

against them. His consequences are not deduced. I never said that

the Holy Ghost was an imagination, or a dream, or a vision, but

that the Holy Ghost spake most often in the Scripture by dreams

and visions supernatural. The next words of his, _as if the Holy

Ghost did enter only at their eyes, and at their ears, not into

their understandings, nor into their minds_, I let pass, because I

cannot understand them. His last words, _Whether new light, &c._ I

understand and approve.

_J. D._ But he must needs fall into these absurdities, who maketh

but a jest of inspiration. _They who pretend Divine inspiration to

be a supernatural entering of the Holy Ghost into a man, are_, as he

thinks, _in a very dangerous dilemma; for if they worship not the

men whom they conceive to be inspired, they fall into impiety; and

if they worship them, they commit idolatry_. So mistaking the Holy

Ghost to be corporeal, something that is blown into a man, and the

graces of the Holy Ghost to be corporeal graces. And the words,

_inpoured or infused virtue_, and, _inblown or inspired virtue, are

as absurd and as insignificant, as a round quadrangle_. He reckons

it as a common error, that _faith and sanctity are not attained by

study and reason, but by supernatural inspiration or infusion_. And

layeth this for a firm ground; _faith and sanctity are indeed not

very frequent, but yet they are not miracles, but brought to pass by

education, discipline, correction, and other natural ways_. I would

see the greatest Pelagian of them all, fly higher.

_T. H._ I make here no jest of inspiration. Seriously, I say, that

in the proper signification of the words _inspiration_ and

_infusion_, to say virtue is inspired, or infused, is as absurd as

to say a quadrangle is round. But metaphorically, for God’s

bestowing of faith, grace, or other virtue, those words are

intelligible enough.

_J. D._ Why should he trouble himself about the Holy Spirit, who

acknowledgeth no spirit, but either a subtle fluid body, or a ghost,

or other idol or phantasm of the imagination; who knoweth no inward

grace or intrinsical holiness? _Holy is a word which in God’s

kingdom answereth to that, which men in their kingdoms use to call

public, or the king’s._ And again, _wheresoever the word, holy, is

taken properly, there is still something signified of propriety

gotten by consent_. His holiness is a relation, not a quality; for

inward sanctification, or real infused holiness, (in respect whereof

the third person is called the Holy Ghost, because he is not only

holy in himself, but also maketh us holy), he is so great a stranger

to it, that he doth altogether deny it, and disclaim it.

_T. H._ The word _holy_ I had defined in the words which his

Lordship here sets down, and by the use thereof in the Scripture

made it manifest, that that was the true signification of the word.

There is nothing in learning more difficult than to determine the

signification of words. That difficulty excuses him. He says that

_holiness_, in my sense, is a relation, not a quality. All the

learned agree that quality is an accident: so that in attributing to

God _holiness_, as a quality, he contradicts himself. For he has in

the beginning of this his discourse denied, and rightly, that any

accident is in God; saying, whatsoever is in God is the Divine

substance. He affirms also, that to attribute any accident to God,

is to deny the simplicity of the Divine substance. And thus his

Lordship makes God, as I do, a corporeal spirit. Both here, and

throughout, he discovers so much ignorance, as had he charged me

with error only, and not with atheism, I should not have thought it

necessary to answer him.

_J. D._ We are taught in our creed to believe the catholic or

universal church. But T. H. teacheth us the contrary: _That if there

be more Christian churches than one, all of them together are not

one church personally_. And more plainly: _Now if the whole number

of Christians be not contained in one commonwealth, they are not one

person, nor is there an universal church, that hath any authority

over them_. And again: _The universal church is not one person, of

which it can be said, that it hath done, or decreed, or ordained, or

excommunicated, or absolved_. This doth quite overthrow all the

authority of general councils.

All other men distinguish between the church and the commonwealth;

only T. H. maketh them to be one and the same thing. _The

commonwealth of Christian men, and the church of the same, are

altogether the same thing, called by two names for two reasons. For

the matter of the church and of the commonwealth is the same,

namely, the same Christian men; and the form is the same, which

consisteth in the lawful power of convocating them._ And hence he

concludeth, that _every Christian commonwealth is a church endowed

with all spiritual authority_. And yet more fully: _The church if it

be one person, is the same thing with the commonwealth of

Christians; called a commonwealth, because it consisteth of men

united in one person their sovereign; and a church, because it

consisteth in Christian men united in one Christian sovereign_. Upon

which account there was no Christian church in these parts of the

world, for some hundreds of years after Christ, because there was no

Christian sovereign.

_T. H._ For answer to this period, I say only this; that taking the

church, as I do, in all those places, for a company of Christian men

on earth incorporated into one person, that can speak, command, or

do any act of a person, all that he citeth out of what I have

written is true; and that all private conventicles, though their

belief be right, are not properly called churches; and that there is

not any one universal church here on earth, which is a person indued

with authority universal to govern all Christian men on earth, no

more than there is one universal sovereign prince or state on earth,

that hath right to govern all mankind. I deny also that the whole

clergy of a Christian kingdom or state being assembled, are the

representative of that church further than the civil laws permit; or

can lawfully assemble themselves, unless by the command or by the

leave of the sovereign civil power. I say further, that the denial

of this point tendeth in England towards the taking away of the

king’s supremacy in causes ecclesiastical. But his Lordship has not

here denied any thing of mine, because he has done no more but set

down my words. He says further, that this doctrine destroys the

authority of all general councils; which I confess. Nor hath any

general council at this day in this kingdom the force of a law, nor

ever had, but by the authority of the king.

_J. D._ Neither is he more orthodox concerning the holy Scriptures:

_hitherto_, that is, for the books of Moses, _the power of making

the Scripture canonical, was in the civil sovereign_. The like he

saith of the Old Testament, made canonical by Esdras. And of the New

Testament, that _it was not the apostles which made their own

writings canonical, but every convert made them so to himself_: yet

with this restriction, that _until the sovereign ruler had

prescribed them, they were but counsel and advice, which whether

good or bad, he that was counselled might without injustice refuse

to observe, and being contrary to the laws established, could not

without injustice observe_. He maketh the primitive Christians to

have been in a pretty condition. Certainly the gospel was contrary

to the laws then established. But most plainly, _The word of the

interpreter of the Scripture is the word of God_. And the _same is

the interpreter of the Scripture, and the sovereign judge of all

doctrines_, that is, the sovereign magistrate, _to whose authority

we must stand no less, than to theirs, who at first did commend the

Scripture to us for the canon of faith_. Thus if Christian

sovereigns, of different communications, do clash one with another,

in their interpretation, or misinterpretation of Scripture, as they

do daily, then the word of God is contradictory to itself; or that

is the word of God in one commonwealth, which is the word of the

Devil in another commonwealth. And the same thing may be true, and

not true at the same time: which is the peculiar privilege of T. H.

to make contradictories to be true together.

_T. H._ There is no doubt but by what authority the Scripture or

any other writing is made a law, by the same authority the

Scriptures are to be interpreted, or else they are made law in

vain. But to obey is one thing, to believe is another; which

distinction perhaps his Lordship never heard of. To obey is to do

or forbear as one is commanded, and depends on the will; but to

believe, depends not on the will, but on the providence and

guidance of our hearts that are in the hands of God Almighty. Laws

only require obedience; belief requires teachers and arguments

drawn either from reason, or from some thing already believed.

Where there is no reason for our belief, there is no reason we

should believe. The reason why men believe, is drawn from the

authority of those men whom we have no just cause to mistrust,

that is, of such men to whom no profit accrues by their deceiving

us, and of such men as never used to lie, or else from the

authority of such men whose promises, threats, and affirmations,

we have seen confirmed by God with miracles. If it be not from the

king’s authority that the Scripture is law, what other authority

makes it law? Here some man being of his Lordship’s judgment, will

perhaps laugh and say, it is the authority of God that makes them

law. I grant that. But my question is, on what authority they

believe that God is the author of them? Here his Lordship would

have been at a nonplus, and turning round, would have said the

authority of the Scripture makes good that God is their author. If

it be said we are to believe the Scripture upon the authority of

the universal church, why are not the books we call Apocrypha the

word of God as well as the rest? If this authority be in the

church of England, then it is not any other than the authority of

the head of the church, which is the king. For without the head

the church is mute. The authority therefore is in the king; which

is all that I contended for in this point. As to the laws of the

Gentiles, concerning religion in the primitive times of the

church, I confess they were contrary to Christian faith. But none

of their laws, nor terrors, nor a man’s own will, are able to take

away faith, though they can compel to an external obedience; and

though I may blame the _Ethnic_ princes for compelling men to

speak what they thought not, yet I absolve not all those that have

had the power in Christian churches from the same fault. For I

believe, since the time of the first four general councils, there

have been more Christians burnt and killed in the Christian church

by ecclesiastical authority, than by the heathen emperors' laws,

for religion only without sedition. All that the Bishop does in

this argument is but a heaving at the King’s supremacy. Oh, but,

says he, if two kings interpret a place of Scripture in contrary

senses, it will follow that both senses are true. It does not

follow. For the interpretation, though it be made by just

authority, must not therefore always be true. If the doctrine in

the one sense be necessary to salvation, then they that hold the

other must die in their sins, and be damned. But if the doctrine

in neither sense be necessary to salvation, then all is well,

except perhaps that they will call one another atheists, and fight

about it.

_J. D._ All the power, virtue, use, and efficacy, which he ascribeth

to the holy sacraments, is to be _signs or commemorations_. As for

any sealing, or confirming, or conferring of grace, he acknowledged!

nothing. The same he saith particularly of baptism: upon which

grounds a cardinal’s red hat, or a serjeant-at-arms his mace, may be

called sacraments as well as baptism, or the holy eucharist, if they

be only signs and commemorations of a benefit. If he except, that

baptism and the eucharist are of Divine institution; but a

cardinal’s red hat or a serjeant-at-arms his mace are not: he saith

truly, but nothing to his advantage or purpose, seeing he deriveth

all the authority of the word and sacraments, in respect of

subjects, and all our obligation to them, from the authority of the

sovereign magistrate, without which these words, _Repent and be

baptized in the name of Jesus_, are but counsel, no command. And so

a serjeant-at-arms his mace, and baptism, proceed both from the same

authority. And this he saith upon this silly ground, _that nothing

is a command, the performance whereof tendeth to our own benefit_.

He might as well deny the Ten Commandments to be commands, because

they have an advantageous promise annexed to them, _Do this and thou

shalt live_; and _cursed is every one that continueth not in all the

words of this law to do them_.

_T. H._ Of the sacraments I said no more, than that they are _signs_

or _commemorations_. He finds fault that I add not _seals_,

_confirmations_, and that they _confer grace_. First, I would have

asked him, if a seal be any thing else besides a sign, whereby to

remember somewhat, as that we have promised, accepted, acknowledged,

given, undertaken somewhat. Are not other _signs_, though without a

_seal_, of force sufficient to convince me or oblige me? A writing

obligatory, or release, signed only with a man’s name, is as

obligatory as a bond signed and sealed, if it be sufficiently

proved, though peradventure it may require a longer process to

obtain a sentence; but his Lordship I think knew better than I do

the force of bonds and bills; yet I know this, that in the court of

heaven there is no such difference between saying, signing, and

sealing, as his Lordship seemeth here to pretend. I am baptized for

a commemoration that I have enrolled myself. I take the sacrament of

the Lord’s Supper to commemorate that Christ’s body was broken, and

his blood shed for my redemption. What is there more intimated

concerning the nature of these sacraments, either in the Scripture

or in the book of Common Prayer? Have bread and wine and water in

their own nature, any other quality than they had before the

consecration? It is true that the consecration gives these bodies a

new relation, as being a giving and dedicating of them to God, that

is to say a making of them holy, not a changing of their quality.

But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken

English, to be thought perfect in the French language; so his

Lordship, I think, to seem a perfect understander of the

unintelligible language of the Schoolmen, pretends an ignorance of

his mother-tongue. He talks here of _command_ and _counsel_, as if

he were no Englishman, nor knew any difference between their

significations. What Englishman, when he commandeth, says more than,

_Do this_; yet he looks to be obeyed, if obedience be due unto him.

But when he says, _Do this, and thou shalt have such or such a

reward_, he encourages him, or advises him, or bargains with him;

but commands him not. Oh, the understanding of a Schoolman!

_J. D._ Sometimes he is for holy orders, and giveth to the pastors

of the church the right of ordination and absolution, and

infallibility, too much for a particular pastor, or the pastors of

one particular church. _It is manifest, that the consecration of the

chiefest doctors in every church, and imposition of hands, doth

pertain to the doctors of the same church._ And, _it cannot be

doubted of, but the power of binding and loosing was given by Christ

to the future pastors, after the same manner as to his present

apostles_. And, _our Saviour hath promised this infallibility in

those things which are necessary to salvation, to his apostles,

until the day of judgment, that is to say, to the apostles, and

pastors to be consecrated by the apostles successively, by the

imposition of hands_.

But at other times he casteth all this meal down with his foot.

_Christian sovereigns are the supreme pastors, and the only persons

whom Christians now hear speak from God, except such as God speaketh

to in these days supernaturally._ What is now become of the promised

infallibility? And, _it is from the civil sovereign that all other

pastors derive their right of teaching, preaching, and all other

functions pertaining to that office; and they are but his ministers

in the same manner as the magistrates of towns, or judges in courts

of justice, and commanders of armies_. What is now become of their

ordination? Magistrates, judges, and generals, need no precedent

qualifications. He maketh _the pastoral authority of sovereigns to

be_ jure divino, _of all other pastors_ jure civili: he addeth,

_neither is there any judge of heresy among subjects, but their own

civil sovereign_.

Lastly, _the church excommunicateth no man but whom she

excommunicateth by the authority of the prince_. And, _the effect of

excommunication hath nothing in it, neither of damage in this world,

nor terror upon an apostate, if the civil power did persecute or not

assist the church: and in the world to come, leaves them in no worse

estate, than those who never believed. The damage rather redoundeth

to the church. Neither is the excommunication of a Christian

subject, that obeyeth the laws of his own sovereign, of any effect._

Where is now their power of binding and loosing?

_T. H._ Here his Lordship condemneth, first my too much kindness to

the pastors of the church; as if I ascribed infallibility to every

particular minister, or at least to the assembly of the pastors of a

particular church. But he mistakes me; I never meant to flatter them

so much. I say only that the ceremony of consecration, and

imposition of hands, belongs to them; and that also no otherwise

than as given them by the laws of the commonwealth. The bishop

consecrates, but the king both makes him bishop and gives him his

authority. The head of the church not only gives the power of

consecration, dedication, and benediction, but may also exercise the

act himself if he please. Solomon did it; and the book of canons

says, that the King of England has all the right that any good king

of Israel had; it might have added, that any other king or sovereign

assembly had in their own dominions. I deny that any pastor or any

assembly of pastors in any particular church, or all the churches on

earth though united, are infallible: yet I say, the pastors of a

Christian church assembled are, in all such points as are _necessary

to salvation_. But about what points are _necessary to salvation_,

he and I differ. For I, in the forty-third chapter of my

_Leviathan_, have proved that this article, _Jesus is the Christ_,

is the _unum necessarium_, _the only article necessary to

salvation_; to which his Lordship hath not offered any objection.

And he, it seems, would have necessary to salvation every doctrine

he himself thought so. Doubtless in this article, _Jesus is the

Christ_, every church is infallible; for else it were no church.

Then he says, I overthrow this again by saying that Christian

sovereigns are the _supreme pastors_, that is, heads of their own

churches; _That they have their authority jure divino; that all

other pastors have it jure civili_. How came any Bishop to have

authority over me, but by letters patent from the king? I remember a

parliament wherein a bishop, who was both a good preacher and a good

man, was blamed for a book he had a little before published in

maintenance of the _jus divinum_ of bishops; a thing which before

the reformation here, was never allowed them by the pope. Two _jus

divinums_ cannot stand together in one kingdom. In the last place he

mislikes that the church should excommunicate by authority of the

king, that is to say, by authority of the head of the church. But he

tells not why. He might as well mislike that the magistrates of the

realm should execute their offices by the authority of the head of

the realm. His Lordship was in a great error, if he thought such

encroachments would add any thing to the wealth, dignity, reverence,

or continuance of his order. They are pastors of pastors, but yet

they are the sheep of him that is on earth their sovereign pastor,

and he again a sheep of that supreme pastor which is in heaven. And

if they did their pastoral office, both by life and doctrine, as

they ought to do, there could never arise any dangerous rebellion in

the land. But if the people see once any ambition in their teachers,

they will sooner learn that, than any other doctrine; and from

ambition proceeds rebellion.

_J. D._ It may be some of T. H. his disciples desire to know what

hopes of heavenly joys they have upon their master’s principles.

They may hear them without any great contentment: _There is no

mention in Scripture, nor ground in reason, of the cœlum empyræum_,

that is, the heaven of the blessed, where the saints shall live

eternally with God. And again, _I have not found any text that can

probably be drawn to prove any ascension of the saints into heaven,

that is to say, into any cœlum empyræum_. But he concludeth

positively, that _Salvation shall be upon earth, when God shall

reign at the coming of Christ in Jerusalem_. And again, _In short,

the kingdom of God is a civil kingdom_, &c. called also _the kingdom

of heaven, and the kingdom of glory_. All the Hobbians can hope for,

is, to be restored to the same condition which Adam was in before

his fall. So saith T. H. himself: _From whence may be inferred, that

the elect, after the resurrection, shall be restored to the estate

wherein Adam was before he had sinned_. As for the beatifical

vision, he defineth it to be a word unintelligible.

_T. H._ This _cœlum empyræum_ for which he pretendeth so much zeal,

where is it in the Scripture, where in the book of Common Prayer,

where in the canons, where in the homilies of the church of England,

or in any part of our religion? What has a Christian to do with such

language? Nor do I remember it in Aristotle. Perhaps it may be in

some Schoolman or commentator on Aristotle, and his Lordship makes

it in English the _heaven of the blessed_, as if _empyræum_

signified _that which belongs to the blessed_. St. Austin says

better; that after the day of judgment all that is not heaven shall

be hell. Then for _beatifical vision_, how can any man understand

it, that knows from the Scripture that no man ever saw or can see

God. Perhaps his Lordship thinks that the happiness of the life to

come is not real, but a vision. As for that which I say

(_Leviathan_, p. 625), I have answered to it already.

_J. D._ But considering his other principles, I do not marvel much

at his extravagance in this point. To what purpose should a _cœlum

empyræum_, or heaven of the blessed, serve in his judgment, who

maketh the blessed angels that are the inhabitants of that happy

mansion, to be either idols of the brain, that is in plain English,

nothing, or thin, subtile, fluid bodies, destroying the angelical

nature. _The universe being the aggregate of all bodies, there is no

real part thereof that is not also body._ And elsewhere, _Every part

of the universe is body, and that which is not body, is no part of

the universe. And because the universe is all, that which is no part

of it is nothing, and consequently nowhere._ How? By this doctrine

he maketh not only the angels, but God himself to be nothing.

Neither doth he salve it at all, by supposing erroneously angels to

be corporeal spirits, and by attributing the name of incorporeal

spirit to God, _as being a name of more honour, in whom we consider

not what attribute best expresseth his nature, which is

incomprehensible, but what best expresseth our desire to honour

him_. Though we be not able to comprehend perfectly what God is, yet

we are able perfectly to comprehend what God is not, that is, he is

not imperfect, and therefore he is not finite, and consequently he

is not corporeal. This were a trim way to honour God indeed, to

honour him with a lie. If this that he says here be true, that

_every part of the universe is a body, and whatsoever is not a body

is nothing_, then, by this doctrine, if God be not a body, God is

nothing: not an incorporeal spirit, but _one of the idols of the

brain_, a mere nothing, though they think they dance under a net,

and have the blind of God’s incomprehensibility between them and

discovery.

_T. H._ This of _incorporeal substance_ he urged before, and there I

answered it. I wonder he so often rolls the same stone. He is like

Sisyphus in the poet’s hell, that there rolls a heavy stone up a

hill, which no sooner he brings to day-light, than it slips down

again to the bottom, and serves him so perpetually. For so his

Lordship rolls this and other questions with much ado, till they

come to the light of Scripture, and then they vanish; and he vexing,

sweating, and railing, goes to it again, to as little purpose as

before. From that I say of the universe, he infers, that I make God

to be nothing: but infers it absurdly. He might indeed have inferred

that I make him a corporeal, but yet a pure spirit. I mean by the

universe, the aggregate of all things that have being in themselves;

and so do all men else. And because God has a being, it follows that

he is either the whole universe, or part of it. Nor does his

Lordship go about to disprove it, but only seems to wonder at it.

_J. D._ To what purpose should a _cœlum empyræum_ serve in his

judgment, who denieth the immortality of the soul? _The doctrine is

now, and hath been a long time, far otherwise; namely, that every

man hath eternity of life by nature, inasmuch as his soul is

immortal._ Who supposeth that _when a man dieth, there remaineth

nothing of him but his carcase_? Who maketh the word _soul_ in Holy

Scripture to signify always either the life, or the living creature;

and expoundeth the casting of body and soul into hell-fire, to be

_the casting of body and life into hell-fire_? Who maketh this

orthodox truth, that the souls of men are substances distinct from

their bodies, to be _an error contracted by the contagion of the

demonology of the Greeks, and a window that gives entrance to the

dark doctrine of eternal torments_? Who expoundeth these words of

Solomon (_Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the

spirit shall return to God that gave it_) thus, _God only knows what

becometh of a man’s spirit when he expireth_? He will not

acknowledge that there is a spirit, or any substance distinct from

the body. I wonder what they think doth keep their bodies from

stinking.

_T. H._ He comes here to that which is a great paradox in

School-divinity. The grounds of my opinion are the canonical

Scripture, and the texts which I cited I must again recite, to which

I shall also add some others. My doctrine is this: first, _that the

elect in Christ, from the day of judgment forward, by virtue of

Christ’s passion and victory over death, shall enjoy eternal life,

that is, they shall be immortal_. Secondly, _that there is no living

soul separated in place from the body, more than there is a living

body separated from the soul_. Thirdly, _that the reprobate shall be

revived to judgment, and shall die a second death in torments, which

death shall be everlasting_. Now let us consider what is said to

these points in the Scripture, and what is the harmony therein of

the Old and New Testament.

And first, because the word _immortal soul_, is not found in the

Scriptures, the question is to be decided by evident consequences

from the Scripture. The Scripture saith of God expressly (1 Tim. vi.

16) that _He only hath immortality, and dwelleth in inaccessible

light_. Hence it followeth that the soul of man is not of its own

nature immortal, but by grace, that is to say, by the gift of God.

And then the question will be, whether this grace or gift of God

were bestowed on the soul in the creation and conception of the man,

or afterwards by his redemption. Another question will be, in what

sense immortality of torments can be called a gift, when all gifts

suppose the thing given to be grateful to the receiver. To the first

of these, Christ himself saith (Luke xiv. 13, 14): _When thou makest

a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: and thou

shalt be blessed, for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be

recompensed at the resurrection of them that be just_. It follows

hence that the reward of the elect is not before the resurrection.

What reward then enjoys a separated soul in heaven, or any where

else, till that day come, or what has he to do there till the body

rise again? Again, St. Paul says (Rom. ii. 6-8): _God will render to

every man according to his works. To them, who by patient

continuance in well doing seek for honour, glory, and immortality,

eternal life. But unto them that be contentious, and do not obey the

truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath._ Here it is

plain that God gives eternal life only to well doers, and to them

that seek, not to them that have already, immortality. Again (2 Tim.

i. 10): _Christ hath abolished death, and brought life and

immortality to light, through the Gospel_. Therefore before the

Gospel of Christ, nothing was immortal but God. And St. Paul,

speaking of the day of judgment (1 Cor. xv. 54), saith, that _this

mortal shall put on immortality_, and _that then death is swallowed

up in victory_. There was no immortality of any thing mortal till

death was overcome, and that was at the resurrection. And John,

viii. 51: _Verily, verily, if a man keep my sayings he shall never

see death_; that is to say, he shall be immortal. But it is nowhere

said, that he which keeps not Christ’s sayings shall never see

death, nor be immortal: and yet they that say that the wicked, body

and soul, shall be tormented everlastingly, do therein say they are

immortal. Matth. x. 28: _Fear not them that can kill the body, but

are not able to kill the soul; but fear him that is able to destroy

both soul and body in hell_. Man cannot kill a soul; for the man

killed shall revive again. But God can destroy the soul and body in

hell, as that it shall never return to life. In the Old Testament

(Gen. vii. 4) we read: _I will destroy every living substance that I

have made, from off the face of the earth_; therefore, if the souls

of them that perished in the Flood were substances, they were also

destroyed in the Flood, and were not immortal. Matth. xxv. 41:

_Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the

devil and his angels_. These words are to be spoken in the day of

judgment, which judgment is to be in the clouds. And there shall

stand the men that are reprobated alive, where souls, according to

his Lordship’s doctrine, were sent long before to hell. Therefore at

that present day of judgment they had one soul by which they were

there alive, and another soul in hell. How his Lordship could have

maintained this, I understand not. But by my doctrine, that the soul

is not a separated substance, but that the man at his resurrection

shall be revived by God, and raised to judgment, and afterwards body

and soul destroyed in hell-fire, which is the second death, there is

no such consequence or difficulty to be inferred. Besides, it avoids

the unnecessary disputes about where the soul of Lazarus was for

four days he lay dead. And the order of the divine process is made

good, of not inflicting torments before the condemnation pronounced.

Now as to the harmony of the two Testaments, it is said in the Old

(Gen. ii. 17): _In the day that thou eatest of the tree of

knowledge, dying thou shalt die: moriendo morieris_: that is, when

thou art dead thou shalt not revive; for so hath Athanasius

expounded it. Therefore Adam and Eve were not immortal by their

creation. Then (Gen. iii. 22): _Behold the man is become as one of

us: now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of

life, and eat, and live for ever, &c._ Here they had had an

immortality by the gift of God if they had not sinned. It was

therefore sin that lost them eternal life. He therefore that

redeemed them from sin was the author of their immortality, which

consequently began in the day of judgment, when Adam and Eve were

again made alive by admission to the new tree of life, which was

Christ.

Now let us compare this with the New Testament; where we find these

words (1 Cor. xv. 21): _since by man came death, by man came also

the resurrection of the dead_. Therefore all the immortality of the

soul, that shall be after the resurrection, is by Christ, and not by

the nature of the soul. Verse 22: _As by Adam all die, even so in

Christ shall all be made alive_. Therefore since we died by Adam’s

sin, so we shall live by Christ’s redemption of us, that is, after

the resurrection. Again (verse 23): _But every man in his own order;

Christ the first-fruits, afterwards they that are Christ’s, at his

coming_. Therefore none shall be made alive till the coming of

Christ. Lastly, as when God had said, _that day that thou eatest of

the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt die_, though he

condemned him then, yet he suffered him to live a long time after;

so when Christ had said to the thief on the cross, _this day thou

shalt be with me in Paradise_, yet he suffered him to lie dead till

the general resurrection, for no man rose again from the dead before

our Saviour’s coming, and conquering death.

If God bestowed immortality on every man then when he made him, and

he made many to whom he never purposed to give his saving grace,

what did his Lordship think that God gave any man immortality with

purpose only to make him capable of immortal torments? It is a hard

saying, and I think cannot piously be believed. I am sure it can

never be proved by the canonical Scripture.

But though I have made it clear that it cannot be drawn by lawful

consequence from Scripture, that man was created with a soul

immortal, and that the elect only, by the grace of God in Christ,

shall both bodies and souls from the resurrection forward be

immortal; yet there may be a consequence well drawn from some words

in the rites of burial, that prove the contrary, as these:

_Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy, to

take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed_, &c.

And these: _Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of them that

depart hence in the Lord_: which are words authorised by the church.

I wonder his Lordship, that had so often pronounced them, took no

notice of them here. But it often happens that men think of those

things least, which they have most perfectly learnt by rote. I am

sorry I could not, without deserting the sense of Scripture and mine

own conscience, say the same. But I see no just cause yet, why the

church should be offended at it. For the church of England

pretendeth not, as doth the church of Rome, to be above the

Scripture; nor forbiddeth any man to read the Scripture; nor was I

forbidden, when I wrote my _Leviathan_, to publish anything which

the Scriptures suggested. For when I wrote it, I may safely say

there was no lawful church in England, that could have maintained me

in, or prohibited me from writing anything. There was no bishop; and

though there was preaching, such as it was, yet no common prayer.

For extemporary prayer, though made in the pulpit, is not common

prayer. There was then no church in England, that any man living was

bound to obey. What I write here at this present time I am forced to

in my defence, not against the church, but against the accusations

and arguments of my adversaries. For the church, though it

excommunicates for scandalous life, and for teaching false

doctrines, yet it professeth to impose nothing to be held as faith,

but what may be warranted by Scripture: and this the church itself

saith in the twentieth of the Thirty-nine Articles of religion. And

therefore I am permitted to allege Scripture at any time in the

defence of my belief.

_J. D._ But they that in one case are grieved, in another must be

relieved. If perchance T. H. hath given his disciples any discontent

in his doctrine of _heaven_ and the _holy angels_, and _the

glorified souls of the saints_, he will make them amends in his

doctrine of _hell_, and the _devils_, and the _damned spirits_.

First of the devils; he fancieth that all those devils which our

Saviour did cast out, were phrenzies; and all _demoniacs_, or

persons possessed, _no other than madmen_: and to justify _our

Saviour’s speaking to a disease as to a person_, produceth the

example of enchanters. But he declareth himself most clearly upon

this subject, in his animadversions upon my reply to his defence of

fatal destiny. _There are in the Scripture two sorts of things which

are in English translated devils. One is that which is called Satan,

Diabolus Abaddon, which signifieth in English an enemy, an accuser,

and a destroyer of the church of God; in which sense the devils are

but wicked men. The other sort of devils are called in the Scripture

Dæmonia, which are the feigned Gods of the heathen, and are neither

bodies nor spiritual substances, but mere fancies, and fictions of

terrified hearts, feigned by the Greeks, and other heathen people,

which St. Paul calleth nothings._ So T. H. hath killed the great

infernal Devil, and all his black angels, and left no devils to be

feared, but devils incarnate, that is, wicked men.

_T. H._ As for the first words cited (_Leviathan_, vol. iii. p. 68)

I refer the reader to the place itself; and for the words concerning

Satan, I leave them to the judgment of the learned.

_J. D._ And for _hell_, he describeth the _kingdom of Satan_, or the

_kingdom of darkness_, to be _a confederacy of deceivers_. He

telleth us that the places, which set forth the torments of hell in

holy Scripture, _do design metaphorically a grief and discontent of

mind, from the sight of that eternal felicity in others, which they

themselves, through their own incredulity and disobedience, have

lost_. As if metaphorical descriptions did not bear sad truths in

them, as well as literal; as if final desperation were no more than

a little fit of grief or discontent; and a guilty conscience were no

more than a transitory passion; as if it were a loss so easily to be

borne, to be deprived for evermore of the beatifical vision; and

lastly, as if the damned, besides that unspeakable loss, did not

likewise suffer actual torments, proportionable in some measure to

their own sins, and God’s justice.

_T. H._ That metaphors bear sad truths in them, I deny not. It is a

sad thing to lose this present life untimely. Is it not therefore

much more a sad thing to lose an eternal happy life? And I believe

that he which will venture upon sin, with such danger, will not

stick to do the same notwithstanding the doctrine of eternal

torture. Is it not also a sad truth, that the kingdom of darkness

should be a confederacy of deceivers?

_J. D._ Lastly, for the damned spirits, he declareth himself every

where, that their sufferings are not eternal. _The fire shall be

unquenchable, and the torments everlasting; but it cannot be thence

inferred, that he who shall be cast into that fire, or_ _be

tormented with those torments, shall endure and resist them, so as

to be eternally burnt and tortured, and yet never be destroyed nor

die. And though there be many places, that affirm everlasting fire,

into which men may be cast successively one after another for ever;

yet I find none that affirm that there shall be an everlasting life

therein of any individual person._ If he had said, and said only,

that the pains of the damned may be lessened, as to the degree of

them, or that they endure not for ever, but that after they are

purged by long torments from their dross and corruptions, as gold in

the fire, both the damned spirits and the devils themselves should

be restored to a better condition; he might have found some ancients

(who are therefore called _the merciful doctors_) to have joined

with him; though still he should have wanted the suffrage of the

Catholic church.

_T. H._ Why does not his Lordship cite some place of Scripture here

to prove, that all the reprobates which are dead, live eternally in

torment? We read indeed, that everlasting torments were prepared for

the Devil and his angels, whose natures also are everlasting; and

that the _Beast_ and the _false prophet_ shall be tormented

everlastingly; but not that every reprobate shall be so. They shall

indeed be cast into the same fire; but the Scripture says plainly

enough, that they shall be both body and soul destroyed there. If I

had said that the devils themselves should be restored to a better

condition, his Lordship would have been so kind as to have put me

into the number of the _merciful doctors_. Truly, if I had had any

warrant for the possibility of their being less enemies to the

church of God than they have been, I would have been as merciful to

them as any doctor of them all. As it is, I am more merciful than

the Bishop.

_J. D._ But his shooting is not at rovers, but altogether at random,

without either precedent or partner. All that _eternal fire_, all

those torments which he acknowledgeth, is but this, that _after the

resurrection, the reprobate shall be in the estate that Adam and his

posterity were in, after the sin committed, saving that God promised

a redeemer to Adam and not to them_: adding, _that they shall live

as they did formerly, marry and give in marriage; and consequently

engender children perpetually after the resurrection, as they did

before_: which he calleth _an immortality of the kind, but not of

the persons of men_. It is to be presumed, that in those their

second lives, knowing certainly from T. H. that there is no hope of

redemption for them from corporal death upon their well-doing, nor

fear of any torments after death for their ill-doing, they will pass

their times here as pleasantly as they can. This is all the

damnation which T. H. fancieth.

_T. H._ This he has urged once before, and I answered to it, that

the whole paragraph was to prove, that for any text of Scripture to

the contrary, men might, after the resurrection, live as Adam did on

earth; and that, notwithstanding the text of St. Luke, (chap. xx.

34-36), _Marry and propagate_. But that they shall do so, is no

assertion of mine. His Lordship knew I held, that after the

resurrection there shall be at all no wicked men; but the elect (all

that are, have been, and hereafter shall be) shall live on earth.

But St. Peter (2 Epist. iii. 13) says, there shall then be _a new

heaven and a new earth_.

_J. D._ In sum I leave it to the free judgment of the understanding

reader, by these few instances which follow, to judge what the

Hobbian principles are in point of religion. _Ex ungue leonem._

First, that no man needs to put himself to any hazard for his faith,

but may safely comply with the times. _And for their faith it is

internal and invisible. They have the licence that Naaman had, and

need not put themselves into danger for it._

Secondly, he alloweth subjects, being commanded by their sovereign,

to deny Christ. _Profession with the tongue is but an external

thing, and no more than any other gesture, whereby we signify our

obedience: and wherein a Christian, holding firmly in his heart the

faith of Christ, hath the same liberty which the prophet Elisha

allowed to Naaman, &c. who by bowing before the idol Rimmon, denied

the true God as much in effect, as if he had done it with his lips._

Alas, why did St. Peter weep so bitterly for denying his master, out

of fear of his life or members? It seems he was not acquainted with

these Hobbian principles. And in the same place he layeth down this

general conclusion: _This we may say, that whatsoever a subject is

compelled to, in obedience to his sovereign, and doth it not in

order to his own mind, but in order to the laws of his country, that

action is not his, but his sovereign’s; nor is it he, that in this

case denieth Christ before men, but his governor and the law of his

country_. His instance, in a Mahometan commanded by a Christian

prince to be present at divine service, is a weak mistake, springing

from his gross ignorance in case-divinity, not knowing to

distinguish between an erroneous conscience, as the Mahometan’s is,

and a conscience rightly informed.

_T. H._ In these his two first instances, I confess his Lordship

does not much belie me. But neither does he confute me. Also I

confess my ignorance in his case-divinity, which is grounded upon

the doctrine of the Schoolmen; who to decide cases of conscience,

take in, not only the Scriptures, but also the decrees of the popes

of Rome, for the advancing of the dominion of the Roman church over

consciences; whereas the true decision of cases of consciences ought

to be grounded only on Scripture, or natural equity. I never allowed

the denying of Christ with the tongue in all men, but expressly say

the contrary (_Leviathan_, vol. iii. p. 656) in these words: _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, 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._ Therefore

St. Peter, in denying Christ, sinned, as being an apostle. And it is

sin in every man that should now take upon him to preach against the

power of the Pope, to leave his commission unexecuted for fear of

the fire; but in a mere traveller, not so. The three children and

Daniel were worthy champions of the true religion. But God requireth

not of every man to be a champion. As for his Lordship’s words of

_complying with the times_, they are not mine, but his own spiteful

paraphrase.

_J. D._ Thirdly, if this be not enough, he giveth licence to a

Christian to commit idolatry, or at least to do an idolatrous act,

for fear of death or corporal danger. _To pray unto a king

voluntarily for fair weather, or for anything which God only can do

for us, is Divine worship, and idolatry. On the other side, if a

king compel a man to it by the terror of death, or other great

corporal punishment, it is not idolatry._ His reason is, because _it

is not a sign, that he doth inwardly honour him as a God, but that

he is desirous to save himself from death, or from a miserable

life_. It seemeth T. H. thinketh there is no Divine worship but

internal: and that it is lawful for a man to value his own life or

his limbs more than his God. How much is he wiser than the three

children, or Daniel himself, who were thrown, the first into a fiery

furnace, the last into the lions' den, because they refused to

comply with the idolatrous decree of their sovereign prince?

_T. H._ Here also my words are truly cited. But his Lordship

understood not what the word _worship_ signifies; and yet he knew

what I meant by it. To think highly of God, as I had defined it, is

to honour him. But _to think_ is internal. To worship, is to signify

that honour, which we inwardly give, by signs _external_. This

understood, as by his Lordship it was, all he says to it, is but a

cavil.

_J. D._ A fourth aphorism may be this, _that, which is said in the

Scripture, it is better to obey God than man, hath place in the

kingdom of God by pact, and not by nature_. Why? Nature itself doth

teach us it is better to obey God than men. Neither can he say that

he intended this only of obedience in the use of indifferent actions

and gestures, in the service of God, commanded by the commonwealth:

for that is to obey both God and man. But if Divine law and human

law clash one with another, without doubt it is evermore better to

obey God than man.

_T. H._ Here again appears his unskilfulness in reasoning. Who

denies, but it is always, and in all cases, better to obey God than

man? But there is no law, neither Divine nor human, that ought to be

taken for a law, till we know what it is; and if a Divine law, till

we know that God hath commanded it to be kept. We agree that the

Scriptures are the word of God. But they are a law by pact, that is,

to us who have been baptized into the covenant. To all others it is

an invitation only to their own benefit. It is true that even nature

suggesteth to us that the law of God is to be obeyed rather than the

law of man. But nature does not suggest to us that the Scripture is

the law of God, much less how every text of it ought to be

interpreted. But who then shall suggest this? Dr. Bramhall? I deny

it. Who then? The stream of divines? Why so? Am I, that have the

Scripture itself before my eyes, obliged to venture my eternal life

upon their interpretation, how learned soever they pretend to be,

when no counter-security, that they can give me, will save me

harmless? If not the stream of divines, who then? The lawful

assembly of pastors, or of bishops? But there can be no lawful

assembly in England without the authority of the King. The

Scripture, therefore, what it is, and how to be interpreted, is made

known unto us here, by no other way than the authority of our

sovereign lord both in temporals and spirituals, the King’s Majesty.

And where he has set forth no interpretation, there I am allowed to

follow my own, as well as any other man, bishop or not bishop. For

my own part, all that know me, know also it is my opinion, that the

best government in religion is by episcopacy, but in the King’s

right, not in their own. But my Lord of Derry, not contented with

this, would have the utmost resolution of our faith to be into the

doctrine of the Schools. I do not think that all the bishops be of

his mind. If they were, I would wish them to stand in fear of that

dreadful sentence, _all covet, all lose_. I must not let pass these

words of his Lordship, _if Divine law and human law clash one with

another, without doubt it is better evermore to obey God than man_.

Where the king is a Christian, believes the Scripture, and hath the

legislative power both in church and state, and maketh no laws

concerning Christian faith, or Divine worship, but by the counsel of

his bishops whom he trusteth in that behalf; if the bishops counsel

him aright, what clashing can there be between the Divine and human

laws? For if the civil law be against God’s law, and the bishops

make it clearly appear to the king that it clasheth with Divine law,

no doubt he will mend it by himself, or by the advice of his

parliament; for else he is no professor of Christ’s doctrine, and so

the clashing is at an end. But if they think that every opinion they

hold, though obscure and unnecessary to salvation, ought presently

to be law, then there will be clashings innumerable, not only of

laws, but also of swords, as we have found it too true by late

experience. But his Lordship is still at this, that there ought to

be, for the Divine laws, that is to say for the interpretation of

Scripture, a legislative power in the church, distinct from that of

the King, which under him they enjoy already. This I deny. Then for

clashing between the civil laws of infidels with the law of God, the

apostles teach that those their civil laws are to be obeyed, but so

as to keep their faith in Christ entirely in their hearts; which is

an obedience easily performed. But I do not believe that Augustus

Cæsar or Nero was bound to make the holy Scripture law; and yet

unless they did so, they could not attain to eternal life.

_J. D._ His fifth conclusion may be, that the sharpest and most

successful sword, in any war whatsoever, doth give sovereign power

and authority to him that hath it, to approve or reject all sorts of

theological doctrines, concerning the kingdom of God, not according

to their truth or falsehood, but according to that influence which

they have upon political affairs. Hear him: _but because this

doctrine will appear to most men a novelty, I do but propound it,

maintaining nothing in this or any other paradox of religion, but

attending the end of that dispute of the sword concerning the

authority (not yet amongst my countrymen decided) by which all sorts

of doctrine are to be approved or rejected_, &c. _For, the points of

doctrine concerning the kingdom of God, have so great influence upon

the kingdom of man, as not to be determined, but by them that under

God have the sovereign power._

“———————— Careat successibus opto,

Quisquis ab eventu facta notanda putat.”

Let him evermore want success who thinketh actions are to be judged

by their events. This doctrine may be plausible to those who desire

to fish in troubled waters. But it is justly hated by those which

are in authority, and all those who are lovers of peace and

tranquillity.

The last part of this conclusion smelleth rankly of Jeroboam (1

Kings xii. 26-28): _Now shall the kingdom return to the house of

David, if this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord

at Jerusalem; whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves

of gold, and said unto them, it is too much for you to go up to

Jerusalem, behold thy Gods, O Israel, which brought thee out of the

land of Egypt_. But by the just disposition of Almighty God, this

policy turned to a sin, and was the utter destruction of Jeroboam

and his family. It is not good jesting with edge-tools, nor playing

with holy things: where men make their greatest fastness, many times

they find most danger.

_T. H._ His Lordship either had a strange conscience, or understood

not English. Being at Paris when there was no bishop nor church in

England, and every man writ what he pleased, I resolved (when it

should please God to restore the authority ecclesiastical) to submit

to that authority, in whatsoever it should determine. This his

Lordship construes for a temporizing and too much indifferency in

religion; and says further, that the last part of my words do smell

of Jeroboam. To the contrary, I say my words were modest, and such

as in duty I ought to use. And I profess still, that whatsoever the

church of England (the church, I say, not every doctor) shall forbid

me to say in matter of faith, I shall abstain from saying it,

excepting this point, _that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for

my sins_. As for other doctrines, I think it unlawful, if the church

define them, for any member of the church to contradict them.

_J. D._ His sixth paradox is a rapper: _The civil laws are the rules

of good and evil, just and unjust, honest and dishonest; and

therefore what the lawgiver commands, that is to be accounted good,

what he forbids, bad_. And a little after: _Before empires were,

just and unjust were not, as whose nature is relative to a command,

every action in its own nature is indifferent_. That is, _just or

unjust proceedeth from the right of him that commandeth. Therefore

lawful kings make those things which they command just, by

commanding them, and those things which they forbid, unjust by

forbidding them._ To this add his definition of a sin, _that which

one doth, or omitteth, saith, or willeth, contrary to the reason of

the commonwealth, that is, the (civil) laws_. Where by the laws he

doth not understand the written laws, elected and approved by the

whole commonwealth, but the verbal commands or mandates of him that

hath the sovereign power, as we find in many places of his writings.

_The civil laws are nothing else but the commands of him, that is

endowed with sovereign power in the commonwealth, concerning the

future actions of his subjects. And the civil laws are fastened to

the lips of that man who hath the sovereign power._

Where are we? In Europe? or in Asia, where they ascribed a divinity

to their kings, and, to use his own phrase, made _them mortal gods;

O king, live for ever_? Flatterers are the common moths of great

palaces, where Alexander’s friends are more numerous than the king’s

friends. But such gross, palpable, pernicious flattery as this is, I

did never meet with, so derogatory both to piety and policy. What

deserveth he who should do his uttermost endeavour to poison a

common fountain, whereof all the commonwealth must drink? He doth

the same who poisoneth the mind of a sovereign prince.

Are _the civil laws the rules of good and bad, just and unjust,

honest and dishonest_? And what, I pray you, are the rules of the

civil law itself? Even the law of God and Nature. If the civil laws

swerve from these more authentic laws, they are Lesbian rules. _What

the lawgiver commands is to be accounted good, what he forbids,

bad._ This was just the garb of the Athenian sophisters, as they are

described by Plato. Whatsoever pleased the great beast, the

multitude, they call holy, and just, and good. And whatsoever the

great beast disliked, they called evil, unjust, profane. But he is

not yet arrived at the height of his flattery. _Lawful kings make

those things, which they command, just by commanding them._ At other

times, when he is in his right wits, he talketh of sufferings, and

_expecting their reward in heaven. And going to Christ by martyrdom.

And if he had the fortitude to suffer death he should do better._

But I fear all this was but said in jest. How should they expect

their reward in heaven, if his doctrine be true, _that there is no

reward in heaven_? Or how should they be martyrs, if his doctrine be

true, that _none can be martyrs, but those who conversed with Christ

upon earth_? He addeth, _before empires were, just and unjust were

not_. Nothing could be written more false in his sense, more

dishonourable to God, more inglorious to the human nature; than that

God should create man, and leave him presently without any rules, to

his own ordering of himself, as the ostrich leaveth her eggs in the

sand. But in truth there have been empires in the world ever since

Adam. And Adam had a law written in his heart by the finger of God,

before there was any civil law. Thus they do endeavour to make

goodness, and justice, and honesty, and conscience, and God himself,

to be empty names, without any reality, which signify nothing,

further than they conduce to a man’s interest. Otherwise he would

not, he could not, say, that _every action as it is invested with

its circumstances, is indifferent in its own nature_.

_T. H._ My sixth paradox he calls a rapper. A rapper, a swapper, and

such like terms, are his Lordship’s elegancies. But let us see what

this rapper is: it is this; the civil laws are the rules of good and

evil, just and unjust, honest and dishonest. Truly, I see no other

rules they have. The Scriptures themselves were made law to us here,

by the authority of the commonwealth, and are therefore part of the

law civil. If they were laws in their own nature, then were they

laws over all the world, and men were obliged to obey them in

America, as soon as they should be shown there, though without a

miracle, by a friar. What is unjust, but the transgression of a law?

_Law_ therefore was before unjust: and the law was made known by

sovereign power before it was a law: therefore _sovereign power_ was

antecedent both to _law_ and _injustice_. Who then made unjust but

sovereign kings or sovereign assemblies? Where is now the wonder of

this rapper, _that lawful kings make those things which they command

just, by commanding them, and those things which they forbid unjust,

by forbidding them_? Just and unjust were surely made. If the king

made them not, who made them else? For certainly the breach of a

civil law is a sin against God. Another calumny which he would fix

upon me, is, that I make the King’s verbal commands to be laws. How

so? Because I say, _the civil laws are nothing else but the commands

of him that hath the sovereign power, concerning the future actions

of his subjects_. What verbal command of a king can arrive at the

ears of all his subjects, which it must do ere it be a law, without

the seal of the person of the commonwealth, which is here the Great

Seal of England? Who, but his Lordship, ever denied that the command

of England was a law to Englishmen? Or that any but the King had

authority to affix the Great Seal of England to any writing? And who

did ever doubt to call our laws, though made in Parliament, the

King’s laws? What was ever called a law, which the King did not

assent to? Because the King has granted in divers cases not to make

a law without the advice and assent of the lords and commons,

therefore when there is no parliament in being, shall the Great Seal

of England stand for nothing? What was more unjustly maintained

during the Long Parliament, besides the resisting and murdering of

the King, than this doctrine of his Lordship’s? But the Bishop

endeavoured here to make the multitude believe I maintain, that the

King sinneth not, though he bid hang a man for making his apparel

otherwise than he appointed, or his servant for negligent

attendance. And yet he knew I distinguished always between the

King’s natural and politic capacity. What name should I give to this

wilful slander? But here his Lordship enters into passion, and

exclaims: _Where are we, in Europe or in Asia? Gross, palpable,

pernicious flattery, poisoning of a commonwealth, poisoning the

King’s mind._ But where was his Lordship when he wrote this? One

would not think he was in France, nor that this doctrine was written

in the year 1658, but rather in the year 1648, in some cabal of the

King’s enemies. But what did put him into this fit of choler?

Partly, this very thing, that he could not answer my reasons; but

chiefly, that he had lost upon me so much School-learning in our

controversy touching _Liberty and Necessity_: wherein he was to

blame himself, for believing that the obscure and barbarous language

of School-divinity, could satisfy an ingenuous reader, as well as

plain and perspicuous English. Do I flatter the King? Why am I not

rich? I confess his Lordship has not flattered him here.

_J. D._ Something there is which he hath a confused glimmering of,

as the blind man sees _men walking like trees_, which he is not able

to apprehend and express clearly. We acknowledge, that though the

laws or commands of a sovereign prince be erroneous, or unjust, or

injurious, such as a subject cannot approve for good in themselves;

yet he is bound to acquiesce, and may not oppose or resist,

otherwise than by prayers and tears, and at the most by flight. We

acknowledge that the civil laws have power to bind the conscience of

a Christian, in themselves, but not from themselves, but from him

who hath said, _Let every soul be subject to the higher powers_.

Either they bind Christian subjects to do their sovereign’s

commands, or to suffer for the testimony of a good conscience. We

acknowledge that in doubtful cases, _semper præsumitur pro rege et

lege_, the sovereign and the law are always presumed to be in the

right. But in plain evident cases, which admit no doubt, it is

always better to obey God than man. Blunderers, whilst they think to

mend one imaginary hole, make two or three real ones. They who

derive the authority of the Scriptures or God’s law from the civil

laws of men, are like those who seek to underprop the heavens from

falling, with a bulrush. Nay, they derive not only the authority of

the Scripture, but even the law of nature itself, from the civil

law. _The laws of nature_ (which need no promulgation) _in the

condition of nature are not properly laws, but qualities which

dispose men to peace and obedience. When a commonwealth is once

settled, then are they actually laws, and not before._ God help us,

into what times are we fallen, when the immutable laws of God and

nature are made to depend upon the mutable laws of mortal men, just

as one should go about to control the sun by the authority of the

clock.

_T. H._ Hitherto he never offered to mend any of the doctrines he

inveighs against; but here he does. He says I have a glimmering of

something I was not able to apprehend and express clearly. Let us

see his Lordship’s more clear expression. _We acknowledge_, saith

he, _that though the laws or commands of a sovereign prince be

erroneous, or unjust, or injurious, such as a subject cannot approve

for good in themselves, yet he is bound to acquiesce, and may not

oppose or resist otherwise than by prayers and tears, and at the

most by flight_. Hence it follows clearly, that when a sovereign has

made a law, though erroneous, then, if his subject oppose it, it is

a sin. Therefore I would fain know, when a man has broken that law

by doing what it forbad, or by refusing to do what it commanded,

whether he have opposed this law or not. If to break the law be to

oppose it, he granteth it. Therefore his Lordship has not here

expressed himself so clearly, as to make men understand the

difference between breaking a law and opposing it. Though there be

some difference between breaking of a law, and opposing those that

are sent with force to see it executed; yet between breaking and

opposing the law itself, there is no difference. Also, though the

subject think the law just, as when a thief is by law condemned to

die, yet he may lawfully oppose the execution, not only by prayers,

tears, and flight, but also (as I think) any way he can. For though

his fault were never so great, yet his endeavour to save his own

life is not a fault. For the law expects it, and for that cause

appointeth felons to be carried bound and encompassed with armed men

to execution. Nothing is opposite to law, but sin: nothing opposite

to the sheriff, but force. So that his Lordship’s sight was not

sharp enough to see the difference between the law and the officer.

Again, _We acknowledge_, says he, _that the laws have power to bind

the conscience of a Christian in themselves, but not from

themselves_. Neither do the Scriptures bind the conscience because

they are Scriptures, but because they were from God. So also the

book of English Statutes bindeth our consciences in itself, but not

from itself, but from the authority of the king, who only in the

right of God has the legislative powers. Again he saith, _We

acknowledge that in doubtful cases, the sovereign and the law are

always presumed to be in the right_. If he presume they are in the

right, how dare he presume that the cases they determine are

doubtful? _But_, saith he, _in evident cases which admit no doubt,

it is always better to obey God than man_. Yes, and in doubtful

cases also, say I. But not always better to obey the inferior

pastors than the supreme pastor, which is the king. But what are

those cases that admit no doubt? I know but very few, and those are

such as his Lordship was not much acquainted with.

_J. D._ But it is not worthy of my labour, nor any part of my

intention, to pursue every shadow of a question which he springeth.

It shall suffice to gather a posy of flowers (or rather a bundle of

weeds) out of his writings, and present them to the reader, who will

easily distinguish them from healthful plants by the rankness of

their smell. Such are these which follow.

_T. H._ As for the following posy of flowers, there wants no more to

make them sweet, than to wipe off the venom blown upon some of them

by his Lordship’s breath.

_J. D._ 1. _To be delighted in the imagination only of being

possessed of another man’s goods, servants, or wife, without any

intention to take them from him by force or fraud, is no breach of

the law which saith: Thou shalt not covet._

_T. H._ What man was there ever, whose imagination of anything he

thought would please him, was not some delight? Or what sin is

there, where there is not so much as an intention to do injustice?

But his Lordship would not distinguish between delight and purpose,

nor between a wish and a will. This was venom. I believe that his

Lordship himself, even before he was married, took some delight in

the thought of it, and yet the woman then was not his own. All love

is delight, but all love is not sin. Without this love of that which

is not yet a man’s own, the world had not been peopled.

_J. D._ 2. _If a man by the terror of present death be compelled to

do a fact against the law, he is totally excused, because no law can

oblige a man to abandon his own preservation; nature compelleth him

to the fact._ The like doctrine he hath elsewhere. _When the actor

doth anything against the law of nature by the command of the

author, if he be obliged by former covenants to obey him, not he,

but the author breaketh the law of nature._

_T. H._ The second flower is both sweet and wholesome.

_J. D._ 3. _It is a doctrine repugnant to civil society, that

whatsoever a man does against his conscience, is sin._

_T. H._ It is plain, that to do what a man thinks in his own

conscience to be sin, is sin; for it is a contempt of the law

itself; and from thence ignorant men, out of an erroneous

conscience, disobey the law, which is pernicious to all government.

_J. D._ 4. _The kingdom of God is not shut but to them that sin,

that is, to them who have not performed due obedience to the laws of

God; nor to them, if they believe the necessary articles of the

Christian faith._

5. _We must know that the true acknowledging of sin is repentance

itself._

6. _An opinion publicly appointed to be taught cannot be heresy; nor

the sovereign princes that authorized the same, heretics._

_T. H._ The fourth, fifth, and sixth smell well. But to say, that

the sovereign prince in England is a heretic, or that an act of

parliament is heretical, stinks abominably; as it was thought _primo

Elizabethæ_.

_J. D._ 7. _Temporal and spiritual government are but two words to

make men see double, and mistake their lawful sovereign, &c. There

is no other government in this life, neither of state nor religion,

but temporal._

8. _It is manifest, that they, who permit a contrary doctrine to

that which themselves believe and think necessary_ (to salvation),

_do against their consciences, and will, as much as in them lieth,

the eternal destruction of their subjects_.

_T. H._ The seventh and eighth are roses and jessamine. But his

leaving out the words (_to salvation_) was venom.

_J. D._ 9. _Subjects sin if they do not worship God according to the

laws of the commonwealth._

_T. H._ The ninth he hath poisoned, and made it not mine. He quotes

my book _De Cive_, cap. XV. 19, where I say, _regnante Deo per solam

rationem naturalem_, that is, _before the Scripture was given_, they

sinned that refused to worship God, according to the rites and

ceremonies of the country; which hath no ill scent, but to undutiful

subjects.

_J. D._ 10. _To believe in Jesus (in Jesum), is the same as to

believe that Jesus is Christ._

_T. H._ And so it is always in the Scripture.

_J. D._ 11. _There can be no contradiction between the laws of God,

and the laws of a Christian commonwealth._ Yet, we see Christian

commonwealths daily contradict one another.

_T. H._ The eleventh is also good. But his Lordship’s instance,

_that Christian commonwealths contradict one another_, has nothing

to do here. Their laws do indeed contradict one another, but

contradict not the law of God. For God commands their subjects to

obey them in all things, and his Lordship himself confesseth that

their laws, though erroneous, bind the conscience. But Christian

commonwealths would seldom contradict one another, if they made no

doctrine law, but such as were necessary to salvation.

_J. D._ 12. _No man giveth but with intention of some good to

himself. Of all voluntary acts, the object is to every man his own

good._ Moses, St. Paul, and the Decii were not of his mind.

_T. H._ That which his Lordship adds to the twelfth, namely, that

Moses, St. Paul, and the Decii were not of my mind, is false. For

the two former did what they did for a good to themselves, which was

eternal life; and the Decii for a good fame after death. And his

Lordship also, if he had believed there is an eternal happiness to

come, or thought a good fame after death to be anything worth, would

have directed all his actions towards them, and have despised the

wealth and titles of the present world.

_J. D._ 13. _There is no natural knowledge of man’s estate after

death, much less of reward which is then to be given to breach of

faith, but only a belief grounded upon other men’s saying, that they

know it supernaturally, or that they know those that knew them that

knew others that knew it supernaturally._

_T. H._ The thirteenth is good and fresh.

_J. D._ 14. _David’s killing of Uriah was no injury to Uriah;

because the right to do what he pleased, was given him by Uriah

himself._

_T. H._ David himself makes this good, in saying, _to thee only have

I sinned_.

_J. D._ 15. _To whom it belongeth to determine controversies which

may arise from the divers interpretations of Scripture, he hath an

imperial power over all men, which acknowledge the Scripture to be

the word of God._

16. _What is theft, what is murder, what is adultery, and

universally what is an injury, is known by the civil law, that is,

by the commands of the sovereign._

_T. H._ For the fifteenth, he should have disputed it with the head

of the church. And as to the sixteenth, I would have asked him by

what other law his Lordship would have it determined what is theft,

or what is injury, than by the laws made in parliament, or by the

laws which distinguish between _meum_ and _tuum_? His Lordship’s

ignorance smells rankly ('tis his own phrase in this and many other

places, which I have let pass) of his own interest. The King tells

us what is sin, in that he tells us what is law. He hath authorized

the clergy to dehort the people from sin, and to exhort them, by

good motives both from Scripture and reason, to obey the laws; and

supposeth them (though under forty years old), by the help they have

in the university, able, in case the law be not written, to teach

the people, old and young, what they ought to follow in doubtful

cases of conscience; that is to say, they are authorized to expound

the laws of nature; but not so as to make it a doubtful case,

whether the King’s laws be to be obeyed or not. All they ought to

do, is from the King’s authority. And therefore this my doctrine is

no weed.

_J. D._ 17. He admitteth incestuous _copulations_ of the heathens,

_according to their heathenish laws, to have been lawful marriages_.

Though the Scripture teach us (Levit. xviii. 28) expressly, that for

those abominations the land of Canaan spued out her inhabitants.

_T. H._ The seventeenth he hath corrupted with a false

interpretation of the text. For in that chapter, from the beginning

to verse twenty, are forbidden marriages in certain degrees of

kindred. From verse twenty, which begins with _Moreover_, to the

twenty-eighth, are forbidden sacrificing of children to Moloch, and

profaning of God’s name, and buggery with man and beast, with this

cause expressed, (_For all these abominations have the men of the

land done which were before you, and the land is defiled_,) _that

the land spue not you out also_. As for marriages within the degrees

prohibited, they are not referred to the abominations of the

heathen. Besides, for some time after Adam, such marriages were

necessary.

_J. D._ 18. _I say that no other article of faith besides this, that

Jesus is Christ, is necessary to a Christian man for salvation._

19. _Because Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, therefore

neither can his ministers, unless they be kings, require obedience

in his name. They have no right of commanding, no power to make

laws._

_T. H._ These two smell comfortably, and of Scripture. The contrary

doctrine smells of ambition and encroachment of jurisdiction, or

rump of the Roman tyranny.

_J. D._ 20. I pass by his errors about oaths, about vows, about the

resurrection, about the kingdom of Christ, about the power of the

keys, binding, loosing, excommunication, &c., his ignorant mistakes

of _meritum congrui_ and _condigni_, active and passive obedience,

and many more, for fear of being tedious to the reader.

_T. H._ The terms of School divinity, of which number are _meritum

congrui_, _meritum condigni_, and _passive obedience_, are so

obscure, as no man living can tell what they mean; so that they that

use them may admit or deny their meaning, as it shall serve their

turns. I said not that this was their meaning, but that I thought it

was so. For no man living can tell what a Schoolman means by his

words. Therefore I expounded them according to their true

signification. Merit _ex condigno_, is when a thing is deserved by

pact; as when I say the labourer is worthy of his hire, I mean

_meritum ex condigno_. But when a man of his own grace throweth

money among the people, with an intention that what part soever of

it any of them could catch he should have, he that catcheth merits

it, not by pact, nor by precedent merit, as a labourer, but because

it was congruent to the purpose of him that cast it amongst them. In

all other meaning these words are but jargon, which his Lordship had

learnt by rote. Also _passive obedience_ signifies nothing, except

it may be called _passive obedience_ when a man refraineth himself

from doing what the law hath forbidden. For in his Lordship’s sense,

the thief that is hanged for stealing, hath fulfilled the law; which

I think is absurd.

_J. D._ His whole works are a heap of mis-shapen errors, and absurd

paradoxes, vented with the confidence of a juggler, the brags of a

mountebank, and the authority of some Pythagoras, or third Cato,

lately dropped down from heaven.

Thus we have seen how the Hobbian principles do destroy the

existence, the simplicity, the ubiquity, the eternity, and

infiniteness of God, the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, the

hypostatical union, the kingly, sacerdotal, and prophetical office

of Christ, the being and operation of the Holy Ghost, heaven, hell,

angels, devils, the immortality of the soul, the Catholic and all

national churches; the holy Scriptures, holy orders, the holy

sacraments, the whole frame of religion, and the worship of God; the

laws of nature, the reality of goodness, justice, piety, honesty,

conscience, and all that is sacred. If his disciples have such an

implicit faith, that they can digest all these things, they may feed

with _ostriches_.

_T. H._ He here concludes his first chapter with bitter reproaches,

to leave in his reader, as he thought, a sting; supposing perhaps

that he will read nothing but the beginning and end of his book, as

is the custom of many men. But to make him lose that petty piece of

cunning, I must desire of the reader one of these two things. Either

that he would read with it the places of my _Leviathan_ which he

cites, and see not only how he answers my arguments, but also what

the arguments are which he produceth against them; or else, that he

would forbear to condemn me, so much as in his thought: for

otherwise he is unjust. The name of Bishop is of great authority;

but these words are not the words of a bishop, but of a passionate

Schoolman, too fierce and unseemly in any man whatsoever. Besides,

they are untrue. Who that knows me, will say that I have the

confidence of a juggler, or that I use to brag of anything, much

less that I play the mountebank? What my works are, he was no fit

judge. But now he has provoked me, I will say thus much of them,

that neither he, (if he had lived), nor I, if I would, could

extinguish the light which is set up in the world by the greatest

part of them: and for these doctrines which he impugneth, I have few

opposers, but such whose profit, or whose fame in learning is

concerned in them. He accuses me first of destroying the existence

of God; that is to say, he would make the world believe I were an

atheist. But upon what ground? Because I say, that God is a spirit,

but _corporeal_. But to say that, is allowed me by St. Paul, that

says (1 Cor. xv. 44): _There is a spiritual body, and there is an

animal body_. He that holds there is a God, and that God is really

somewhat, (for _body_ is doubtlessly a _real substance_), is as far

from being an atheist, as it is possible to be. But he that says God

is an _incorporeal substance_, no man can be sure whether he be an

atheist or not. For no man living can tell whether there be any

_substance_ at all, that is not also _corporeal_. For neither the

word _incorporeal_, nor _immaterial_, nor any word equivalent to it,

is to be found in Scripture, or in reason. But on the contrary, that

_the Godhead dwelleth bodily in Christ_, is found in Colos. ii. 9;

and Tertullian maintains that God is either a _corporeal substance_

or _nothing_. Nor was he ever condemned for it by the church. For

why? Not only Tertullian, but all the learned, call _body_, not only

that which one can see, but also whatsoever has magnitude, or that

is somewhere; for they had greater reverence for the divine

substance, than that they durst think it had no _magnitude_, or was

_nowhere_. But they that hold God to be a phantasm, as did the

exorcists in the Church of Rome, that is, such a thing as were at

that time thought to be the sprights, that were said to walk in

churchyards and to be the souls of men buried, do absolutely make

God to be nothing at all. But how? Were they atheists? No. For

though by ignorance of the consequence they said that which was

equivalent to atheism, yet in their hearts they thought God a

substance, and would also, if they had known what _substance_ and

what _corporeal_ meant, have said he was a corporeal substance. So

that this _atheism by consequence_ is a very easy thing to be fallen

into, even by the most godly men of the church. He also that says

that God is _wholly here_, and _wholly there_, and _wholly every

where_, destroys by consequence the unity of God, and the

infiniteness of God, and the simplicity of God. And this the

Schoolmen do, and are therefore _atheists by consequence_, and yet

they do not all say in their hearts that there is no God. So also

his Lordship by exempting the will of man from being subject to the

necessity of God’s will or decree, denies by _consequence_ the

Divine prescience, which also will amount to _atheism by

consequence_. But out of this, that God is a _spirit corporeal_ and

_infinitely pure_, there can no unworthy or dishonourable

consequence be drawn.

Thus far to his Lordships first chapter, in justification of my

_Leviathan_ as to matter of religion; and especially to wipe off

that unjust slander cast upon me by the Bishop of Derry. As for the

second chapter, which concerns my civil doctrines, since my errors

there, if there be any, will not tend very much to my disgrace, I

will not take the pains to answer it.

Whereas his Lordship has talked in his discourse here and there

ignorantly of heresy, and some others have not doubted to say

publicly, that there be many heresies in my _Leviathan_; I will add

hereunto, for a general answer, an historical relation concerning

the word Heresy, from the first use of it amongst the Grecians till

this present time.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

AN

HISTORICAL NARRATION

CONCERNING

HERESY,

AND

THE PUNISHMENT THEREOF.

-------

“Nam veluti pueri trepidant, atque omnia cæcis

In tenebris metuunt: sic nos in luce timemus

Interdum, nihilo quæ sunt metuenda magis, quam

Quæ pueri in tenebris pavitant, finguntque futura.”

LUCRETIUS, Lib. II. 54-57.

HÆRESEɷS LARVAS, SECTARUM IMMANIA MONSTRA

HOBBIUS INVICTO DISPULIT INGENIO.

CONCERNING HERESY,

AND

THE PUNISHMENT THEREOF.

--------------

The word _heresy_ is Greek, and signifies a taking of any thing, and

particularly the taking of an opinion. After the study of philosophy

began in Greece, and the philosophers, disagreeing amongst

themselves, had started many questions, not only about things

natural, but also moral and civil; because every man took what

opinion he pleased, each several opinion was called a _heresy_;

which signified no more than a private opinion, without reference to

truth or falsehood. The beginners of these heresies were chiefly

Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Zeno; men, who as they held

many errors, so also found they out many true and useful doctrines,

in all kinds of learning: and for that cause were well esteemed of

by the greatest personages of their own times; and so also were some

few of their followers.

But the rest, ignorant men, and very often needy knaves, having

learned by heart the opinions of these admired philosophers, and

pretending to take after them, made use thereof to get their living

by the teaching of rich men’s children that happened to be in love

with those great names: though by their impertinent discourse,

sordid and ridiculous manners, they were generally despised, of what

sect or heresy soever; whether they were Pythagoreans; or Academics,

followers of Plato; or Peripatetics, followers of Aristotle;

Epicureans; or Stoics, followers of Zeno. For these were the names

of heresies, or, as the Latins call them, _sects, a sequendo_, so

much talked of from after the time of Alexander till this present

day, and that have perpetually troubled or deceived the people with

whom they lived, and were never more numerous than in the time of

the primitive church.

The heresy of Aristotle, by the revolutions of time, has had the

good fortune to be predominant over the rest. However, originally

the name of _heresy_ was no disgrace, nor the word _heretic_ at all

in use: though the several sects, especially the Epicureans and the

Stoics, hated one another; and the Stoics, being the fiercer men,

used to revile those that differed from them, with the most

despiteful words they could invent.

It cannot be doubted, but that, by the preaching of the apostles and

disciples of Christ, in Greece and other parts of the Roman empire

full of these philosophers, many thousands of men were converted to

the Christian faith, some really, and some feignedly, for factious

ends, or for need; for Christians lived then in common, and were

charitable. And because most of these philosophers had better skill

in disputing and oratory than the common people, and thereby were

better qualified both to defend and propagate the Gospel, there is

no doubt, I say, but most of the pastors of the primitive church

were for that reason chosen out of the number of these philosophers;

who retaining still many doctrines which they had taken up on the

authority of their former masters, whom they had in reverence,

endeavoured many of them to draw the Scriptures every one to his own

heresy. And thus at first entered heresy into the church of Christ.

Yet these men were all of them Christians; as they were, when they

were first baptized. Nor did they deny the authority of those

writings which were left them by the Apostles and Evangelists,

though they interpreted them, many times, with a bias to their

former philosophy. And this dissention amongst themselves, was a

great scandal to the unbelievers, and which not only obstructed the

way of the Gospel, but also drew scorn and greater persecution upon

the church.

For remedy whereof, the chief pastors of churches did use, at the

rising of any new opinion, to assemble themselves for the examining

and determining of the same. Wherein, if the author of the opinion

were convinced of his error, and subscribed to the sentence of the

church assembled, then all was well again: but if he still persisted

in it, they laid him aside, and considered him but as an heathen

man; which to an unfeigned Christian, was a great ignominy, and of

force to make him consider better of his own doctrine; and sometimes

brought him to the acknowledgment of the truth. But other punishment

they could inflict none; that being a right appropriated to the

civil power. So that all the punishment the church could inflict,

was only ignominy; and that among the faithful, consisting in this,

that his company was by all the godly avoided, and he himself

branded with the name of _heretic_, in opposition to the whole

church, that condemned his doctrine. So that _catholic_ and

_heretic_ were terms relative; and here it was that _heretic_ came

to be a name, and a name of disgrace, both together.

The first and most troublesome heresies of the primitive church,

were about the Trinity. For, according to the usual curiosity of

natural philosophers, they could not abstain from disputing the very

first principles of Christianity, into which they were baptized, _in

the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost_. Some there

were that made them allegorical. Others would make one creator of

good, and another of evil; which was in effect to set up two Gods,

one contrary to another; supposing that causation of evil could not

be attributed to God, without impiety. From which doctrine they are

not far distant, that now make the first cause of sinful actions to

be every man as to his own sin. Others there were, that would have

God to be a body with parts organical, as face, hands, fore-parts,

and back-parts. Others, that Christ had no real body, but was a mere

phantasm: for phantasms were taken then, and have been ever since,

by unlearned and superstitious men, for things real and subsistent.

Others denied the divinity of Christ. Others, that Christ, being God

and man, was two persons. Others confessed he was one person, and

withal that he had but one nature. And a great many other heresies

arose from the too much adherence to the philosophy of those times:

whereof some were suppressed for a time by St. John’s publishing his

Gospel, and some by their own unreasonableness vanished, and some

lasted till the time of Constantine the Great, and after.

When Constantine the Great, made so by the assistance and valour of

the Christian soldiers, had attained to be the only Roman Emperor,

he also himself became a Christian, and caused the temples of the

heathen gods to be demolished, and authorised Christian religion

only to be public. But towards the latter end of his time, there

arose a dispute in the city of Alexandria, between Alexander the

Bishop, and Arius, a presbyter of the same city; wherein Arius

maintained, first, that Christ was inferior to his Father; and

afterwards, that he was no God, alleging the words of Christ, _my

Father is greater than I_: the bishop, on the contrary, alleging the

words of St. John, _and the word was God_; and the words of St.

Thomas, _my Lord and my God_. This controversy presently, amongst

the inhabitants and soldiers of Alexandria, became a quarrel, and

was the cause of much bloodshed in and about the city; and was

likely then to spread further, as afterwards it did. This so far

concerned the Emperor’s civil government, that he thought it

necessary to call a general council of all the bishops and other

eminent divines throughout the Roman Empire, to meet at the city of

Nice. When they were assembled, they presented the Emperor with

libels of accusation one against another. When he had received these

libels into his hands, he made an oration to the fathers assembled,

exhorting them to agree, and to fall in hand with the settlement of

the articles of faith, for which cause he had assembled them;

saying, whatsoever they should decree therein, he would cause to be

observed. This may perhaps seem a greater indifferency, than would

in these days be approved of. But so it is in the history; and the

articles of faith necessary to salvation, were not thought then to

be so many as afterwards they were defined to be by the Church of

Rome.

When Constantine had ended his oration, he caused the aforesaid

libels to be cast into the fire, as became a wise king and a

charitable Christian. This done, the fathers fell in hand with their

business, and following the method of a former creed, now commonly

called _the Apostles' Creed_, made a confession of faith, _viz._: I

BELIEVE IN ONE GOD, THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH,

AND OF ALL THINGS VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE: in which is condemned the

polytheism of the Gentiles: AND IN ONE LORD JESUS CHRIST, THE ONLY

BEGOTTEN SON OF GOD: against the many sons of the many Gods of the

heathen: BEGOTTEN OF HIS FATHER BEFORE ALL WORLDS, GOD OF GOD:

against the Arians: VERY GOD OF VERY GOD: against the Valentinians,

and against the heresy of Apelles and others, who made Christ a mere

phantasm: LIGHT OF LIGHT: this was put in for explication, and used

before to that purpose by Tertullian: BEGOTTEN, NOT MADE, BEING OF

ONE SUBSTANCE WITH THE FATHER: in this again they condemn the

doctrine of Arius. For this word, _of one substance_, in Latin

_consubstantialis_, but in Greek ὁμοούσιος, that is, _of one

essence_, was put as a touchstone to discern an Arian from a

Catholic; and much ado there was about it. Constantine himself, at

the passing of this creed, took notice of it for a hard word; but

yet approved of it, saying, that in a divine mystery it was fit to

use _divina et arcana verba_; that is, divine words, and hidden from

human understanding: calling that word ὁμοούσιος, divine, not

because it was in the divine Scripture, (for it is not there) but

because it was to him _arcanum_, that is, not sufficiently

understood. _And in this again appeared the indifferency of the

Emperor, and that he had for his end, in the calling of the Synod,

not so much the truth, as the uniformity of the doctrine, and peace

of his people that depended on it._ The cause of the obscurity of

this word ὁμοούσιος, proceeded chiefly from the difference between

the Greek and Roman dialect, in the philosophy of the Peripatetics.

The first principle of religion in all nations, is, _that God is_,

that is to say, that God really is something, and not a mere fancy;

but that which is really something, is considerable alone by itself,

as being _somewhere_. In which sense a man is a thing real; for I

can consider him _to be_, without considering any other thing _to

be_ besides him. And for the same reason, the earth, the air, the

stars, heaven, and their parts, are all of them things real. And

because whatsoever is real here, or there, or in any place, has

dimensions, that is to say, magnitude; that which hath magnitude,

whether it be visible or invisible, finite or infinite, is called by

all the learned a _body_. It followeth, that all real things, in

that they are _somewhere_, are corporeal. On the contrary, essence,

deity, humanity, and such like names, signify nothing that can be

considered, without first considering there is an _ens_, a god, a

man, &c. So also if there be any real thing that is _white_ or

_black_, _hot_ or _cold_, the same may be considered by itself; but

whiteness, blackness, heat, coldness, cannot be considered, unless

it be first supposed that there is some real thing to which they are

attributed. These real things are called by the Latin philosophers,

_entia_, _subjecta_, _substantiæ_; and by the Greek philosophers, τὰ

ὄντα ὑποκειμενα, ὑποστάμενα. The other, which are incorporeal, are

called by the Greek philosophers, οὐσία συμβεβηχότα, φαντάσματα; but

most of the Latin philosophers used to convert οὐσία into

_substantia_, and so confound real and corporeal things with

incorporeal: which is not well; for essence and substance signify

divers things. And this mistake is received, and continues still in

these parts, in all disputes, both of philosophy and divinity; for

in truth _essentia_ signifies no more, than if we should talk

ridiculously of the _isness_ of the thing that is. BY WHOM ALL

THINGS WERE MADE. This is proved out of St. John i. 1, 2, 3, and

Heb. i. 3, and that again out of Gen. i. where God is said to create

every thing by his sole word, as when he said: _Let there be light,

and there was light_. And then, that Christ was that Word, and in

the beginning with God, may be gathered out of divers places of

Moses, David, and other of the prophets. Nor was it ever questioned

amongst Christians, except by the Arians, but that Christ was God

eternal, and his incarnation eternally decreed. But the Fathers, all

that write expositions on this creed, could not forbear to

philosophize upon it, and most of them out of the principles of

Aristotle; which are the same the Schoolmen now use; as may partly

appear by this, that many of them, amongst their treatises of

religion, have affected to publish principles of logic and physics

according to the sense of Aristotle; as Athanasius, and Damascene.

And so some later divines of note, still confound the concrete with

the abstract, _deus_ with _deitas_, _ens_ with _essentia_, _sapiens_

with _sapientia_, _æternus_ with _æternitas_. If it be for exact and

rigid truth sake, why do they not say also, that holiness is a holy

man, covetousness a covetous man, hypocrisy an hypocrite, and

drunkenness a drunkard, and the like, but that it is an error? The

Fathers agree that the Wisdom of God is the eternal Son of God, by

whom all things were made, and that he was incarnate by the Holy

Ghost, if they meant it in the abstract: for if _deitas_ abstracted

be _deus_, we make two Gods of one. This was well understood by John

Damascene, in his treatise _De Fide Orthodoxa_, which is an

exposition of the Nicene creed; where he denies absolutely that

_deitas_ is _deus_, lest seeing God was made man, it should follow,

the Deity was made man; which is contrary to the doctrine of all the

Nicene Fathers. The attributes therefore of God in the abstract,

when they are put for God, are put _metonymically_; which is a

common thing in Scripture; for example, Prov. viii. 25, where it is

said: _before the mountains were settled, before the hills, was I

brought forth_; the wisdom there spoken of, being the wisdom of God,

signifies the same with the wise God. This kind of speaking is also

ordinary in all languages. This considered, such abstracted words

ought not to be used in arguing, and especially in the deducing the

articles of our faith; though in the language of God’s eternal

worship, and in all godly discourses, they cannot be avoided; and

the creed itself is less difficult to be assented to in its own

words, than in all such expositions of the Fathers. WHO FOR US MEN

AND OUR SALVATION CAME DOWN FROM HEAVEN, AND WAS INCARNATE BY THE

HOLY GHOST OF THE VIRGIN MARY, AND WAS MADE MAN. I have not read of

any exception to this; for where Athanasius in his creed says of the

Son, _He was not made, but begotten_, it is to be understood of the

Son as he was God eternal; whereas here it is spoken of the Son as

he is man. And of the Son, also as he was man, it may be said he was

begotten of the Holy Ghost; for a woman conceiveth not, but of him

that begetteth; which is also confirmed, (Matth. i. xx): _That which

is begotten in her_, (τὸ γενεθεν), _is of the Holy Ghost_. AND WAS

ALSO CRUCIFIED FOR US UNDER PONTIUS PILATE: HE SUFFERED AND WAS

BURIED: AND THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES,

AND ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN, AND SITTETH ON THE RIGHT HAND OF THE

FATHER: AND HE SHALL COME AGAIN WITH GLORY TO JUDGE BOTH THE QUICK

AND THE DEAD. WHOSE KINGDOM SHALL HAVE NO END. Of this part of the

creed I have not met with any doubt made by any Christian. Hither

the Council of Nice proceeded in their general confession of faith,

and no further.

This finished, some of the bishops present at the Council

(seventeen or eighteen, whereof Eusebius Bishop of Cæsarea was

one) not sufficiently satisfied, refused to subscribe till this

doctrine of ὁμοούσιος should be better explained. Thereupon the

Council decreed, that whosoever shall say that God hath parts,

shall be anathematized; to which the said bishops subscribed. And

Eusebius, by order of the Council, wrote a letter, the copies

whereof were sent to every absent bishop, that being satisfied

with the reason of their subscribing, they also should subscribe.

The reason they gave of their subscription was this, _that they

had now a form of words prescribed, by which, as a rule, they

might guide themselves so, as not to violate the peace of the

church_. By this it is manifest, that no man was an heretic, but

he that in plain and direct words contradicted that form by the

church prescribed, and that no man could be made _an heretic by

consequence_. And because the said form was not put into the body

of the creed, but directed only to the bishops, there was no

reason to punish any lay-person that should speak to the contrary.

But what was the meaning of this doctrine, _that God has no parts_?

Was it made heresy to say, that God, who is a real substance, cannot

be considered or spoken of as _here_ or _there_, or any where, which

are parts of places? Or that there is any real thing without length

every way, that is to say, which hath no magnitude at all, finite,

nor infinite? Or is there any whole substance, whose two halves or

three thirds are not the same with that whole? Or did they mean to

condemn the argument of Tertullian, by which he confuted Apelles and

other heretics of his time, namely, _whatsoever was not corporeal,

was nothing but phantasm, and not corporeal_, for heretical? No,

certainly, no divines say that. They went to establish the doctrine

of _one individual God in Trinity_; to abolish the diversity of

species in God, not the distinction of _here_ and _there_ in

substance. When St. Paul asked the Corinthians, _Is Christ divided_,

he did not think they thought him impossible to be considered as

having hands and feet, but that they might think him, according to

the manner of the Gentiles, one of the sons of God, as Arius did;

but not the only-begotten Son of God. And thus also it is expounded

in the Creed of Athanasius, who was present in that council, by

these words, _not confounding the persons, nor dividing the

substances_; that is to say, that God is not divided into three

persons, as man is divided into Peter, James, and John; nor are the

three persons one and the same person. But Aristotle, and from him

all the Greek Fathers, and other learned men, when they distinguish

the general latitude of a word, they call it division; as when they

divide _animal_ into man and beast, they call these εἴδη, _species_;

and when they again divide the _species_ man into Peter and John,

they call these μίρη, _partes individuæ_. And by this confounding

the division of the substance with the distinction of words, divers

men have been led into the error of attributing to God a name, which

is not the name of any substance at all, _viz._ _incorporeal_.

By these words, _God has no parts_, thus explained, together with

the part of the _creed_ which was at that time agreed on, many of

those heresies which were antecedent to that first general Council,

were condemned; as that of Manes, who appeared about thirty years

before the reign of Constantine, by the first article, _I believe in

one God_; though in other words it seems to me to remain still in

the doctrine of the church of Rome, which so ascribeth a liberty of

the will to men, as that their will and purpose to commit sin,

should not proceed from the cause of all things, God; but originally

from themselves or from the Devil. It may seem perhaps to some, that

by the same words the Anthropomorphites also were then condemned:

and certainly, if by parts were meant not persons individual, but

pieces, they were condemned: for face, arms, feet, and the like, are

pieces. But this cannot be, for the Anthropomorphites appeared not

till the time of Valens the Emperor, which was after the Council of

Nice between forty and fifty years; and were not condemned till the

second general Council at Constantinople.

Now for the punishment of heretics ordained by Constantine, we read

of none; but that ecclesiastical officers, bishops and other

preachers, if they refused to subscribe to this faith, or taught the

contrary doctrine, were for the first fault deprived of their

offices, and for the second banished. And thus did heresy, which at

first was the name of private opinion, and no crime, by virtue of a

law of the Emperor, made only for the peace of the church, become a

crime in a pastor, and punishable with deprivation first, and next

with banishment.