and with the mouth is confession made unto salvation If a man deny Christ with his mouth the faith of the heart will not serve his turn Sixthly Christ denounceth damnation to all those who for saving of their lives do deny their Religion and promiseth eternal life to all those who do seale the truth of their Christian faith with their blood against the commands of heathenish Magistrates Who soever will save his life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it Christ doth not promise eternal life for violation of true Religion Lastly no Christian Soveraign or Common-wealth did ever assume any such authority to themselves Never any subjects did acknowledge any such power in their Soveraigns Never any Writer of Politicks either waking or dreaming did ever phansie such an unlimitted power and authority in Princes as this which he ascribeth to them not onely to make but to justifie all doctrines all laws all religions all actions of their Subjects by their commands as if God Almighty had reserved onely Soveraign Princes under his own Jurisdiction and quitted all the rest of mankind to Kings and Common-wealths In vain ye worship me teaching for doctrine the commandments of men that is to say making true religion to consist in obedience to the commands of men If Princes were heavenly Angels free from all ignorance and passions such an unlimited power might better become them But being mortal men it is dangerous least Phaeton-like by their violence or unskilfulnesse they put the whole Empire into a flame It were too too much to make their unlawful commands to justifie their Subjects If the blind lead the blind both fall into the ditch He who imposeth unlawful commands and he who obeyeth them do both subject themselves to the judgements of God But if true religion do consist in active obedience to their commands it justifieth both their Subjects and themselves True religion can prejudice no man He taketh upon him to refute the distinction of obedience into active and passive As if a sin against the law of nature could be expiated by arbitrary punishments imposed by men Thus it happeneth to men who confute that which they do not understand Passive obedience is not for the expiation of any fault but for the maintenance of innocence When God commands one thing and the soveraign Prince another we cannot obey them both actively therefore we chuse to obey God rather than men and yet are willing for the preservation of peace to suffer from man rather than to resist If he understood this distinction well it hath all those advantages which he fancieth to himself in his new platform of government without any of those inconveniences which do attend it And whereas he intimateth that our not obeying our Soveraign actively is a sin against the law of nature meaning by the violation of our promised obedience it is nothing but a grosse mistake no Subjects ever did nor ever could make any such pact to obey the commands of their Soveraign actively contrary to the law of God or nature This reason drawn from universal practise was so obvious that he could not misse to make it an objection The greatest objection is that of the practice when men ask where and when such power has by Subjects been acknowledged A shrewd objection indeed which required a more solid answer then to say That though in all places of the World men should lay the foundation of their houses on the sand it could not thence be inferred that so it ought to be As if there were no more difficulty in founding and regulating a Common-wealth then in distinguishing between a loose sand and a firm rock or as if all Societies of men of different tempers of different humours of different manners and of different interests must of necessity be all ordered after one and the same manner If all parts of the World after so long experience do practise the contrary to that which he fancieth he must give me leave to suspect that his own grounds are the quick-sands and that his new Common-wealth is but a Castle founded in the aire That a Soveraign Prince within his own dominions is custos utriusque tabulae the keeper of both the Tables of the Law to see that God be duely served and justice duely administred between man and man and to punish such as transgresse in either kind with civil punishment That he hath an Architectonical power to see that each of his Suctjects do their duties in their several callings Ecclesiasticks as well as Seculars That the care and charge of seeing that no doctrine be taught his Subjects but such as may consist with the general peace and the authority to prohibit seditious practices and opinions do reside in him That a Soveraign Prince oweth no account of his actions to any mortal man That the Kings of England in particular have been justly declared by Act of Parliament Supreme Governours in their own kingdoms in all causes over all persons as well Ecclesiastical as Civil is not denyed nor so much as questioned by me Otherwise a kingdom or a Common-wealth should be destitute of necessary means for its own preservation To all this I do readily assent all this I have vindicated upon surer grounds than those desperate and destructive principles which he supposeth But I do utterly deny that true religion doth consist in obedience to Soveraign Magistrates or that all their injunctions ought to be obeyed not onely passively but actively or that he is infallible in his laws and commands or that his Soveraign authority doth justifie the active obedience of his Subjects to his unlawful commands Suppose a King should command his Judges to set Naboth on high among the people and to set two sons of Belial before him to bear witnesse against him saying Thou didst blaspheme God and the King and then carry him out and stone him that he may dye The regal authority could neither justifie such an unlawful command in the King nor obedience in the Judges Suppose a King should set up a golden Image as Nebucadnezar did and command all his Subjects to adore it his command could not excuse his Subjects from idolatry much lesse change idolatry into true religion His answer to the words of Peter and John do signifie nothing The High Priest and his Councel commanded the Apostles not to teach in the name of Jesus Here was sufficient humane authority yet say the Apostles Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge ye The question was not what were the commands that was clear enough what God commanded and what man commanded but who was to be obeyed which could admit no debate He asketh What has the Bishop to doe with what God sayes to me when I read the Scriptures more than I have to do with what God sayes to him when he reads them
without appointing or constituting a subjection without subjection an authorising without authorising What is this He saith that it cannot be said honourably of God that he hath parts or totality which are the attributes of finite things If it cannot be said honourably of God that he hath parts or totality then it cannot be said honourably of God that he is a body for every body hath parts and totality Now hear what he saith Every part of the Universe is body And that which is no body is no part of the Universe And because the Universe is all that which is no part of it is nothing Then if God have no parts and totality God is nothing Let him judge how honourable this is for God He saith We honour not God but dishonour him by any value lesse than infinite And how doth he set an infinite value upon God who every where maketh him to subsist by successive duration Infinite is that to which nothing can be added but to that which subsisteth by successive duration something is added every minute He saith Christ had not a Kingly authority committed to him by his Father in the World but onely consiliary and doctrinal He saith on the contrary That the kingdom of Iudaea was his hereditary right from King David c. And when it pleased him to play the King he required entire obedience Math. 21. 2. Go into the village over against you and streightway ye shall find an assetied and a colt with her loose them and bring them unto me And if any man say ought unto you ye shall say The Lord hath need of them He saith The institution of eternal punishment was before sin And if the command be such as cannot be obeyed without being damned to eternal death then it were madnesse to obey it And what evil hath excommunicatien in it but the consequent eternal punishment At other times he saith there is no eternal punishment It is evident that there shall be a second death of every one that shall be condemned at the day of Iudgement after which he shall die no more He who knoweth no soul nor spirit may well be ignorant of a spiritual death He saith It is a doctrine repugnant to civil society that whatsoever a man does against his conscience is sin Yet he himself saith It is a sin whatsoever one doth against his conscience for they that do that despise the Law He saith That all power secular and spiritual under Christ is united in the Christian Common-wealth that is the Christian Soveraign Yet he himself saith on the contrary It cannot be doubted of that the power of binding and loosing that is of remotting and retaining sins which we call the power of the keyes was given by Christ to future Pastours in the same manner as to the present Apostles And all power of remitting sin which Christ himself had was given to the Apostles All spiritual power is in the Christian Magistrate Some spiritual power that is the power of the keyes is in the successours of the Apostles that is not in the Christian Magistrate is a contradiction He confesseth That it is manifest that from the ascension of Christ until the conversion of Kings the power Ecclesiastical was in the Apostles and so delivered unto their successours by imposition of hands And yet straight forgetting himself he taketh away all power from them even in that time when there were no Christian Kings in the World He alloweth them no power to make any Ecclesiastical laws or constitutions or to impose any manner of commands upon Christians The office of the Apostles was not to command but teach As Schoole-Masters not as Commanders Yet Schoole-Masters have some power to command He suffereth not the Apostles to ordain but those whom the Church appointeth nor to excommunicate or absolve but whom the Church pleaseth He maketh the determination of all controversies to rest in the Church not in the Apostles And resolveth all questions into the authority of the Church The election of Doctours and Prophets did rest upon the authority of the Church of Antioch And if it be inquired by what authority it came to passe that it was received for the command of the Holy Ghost which those Prophets and Doctors said proceeded from the Holy Ghost we must necessarily answer By the authority of the Church of Antioch Thus every where he ascribeth all authority to the Church none at all to the Apostles even in those times before there were Christian Kings He saith not tell it to the Apostles but tell it to the Church that we may know the definitive sentence whether sin or no sin is not left to them but to the Church And it is manifest that all authority in spiritual things doth depend upon the authority of the Church Thus not contented with single contradictions he twisteth them together for according to his definition of a Church there was no Christian Church at Antioch or in those parts of the World either then or long after Hear him A Church is a company of men professing Christian Religion united in the person of one Soveraign at whose command they ought to assemble and without whose authority they ought not to assemble Yet there was no Christian Soveraign in those parts of the World then or for two hundred years after and by consequence according to his definition no Church He teacheth That when the civil Soveraign is an infidel every one of his own subjects that resisteth him sinneth against the Laws of God and rejecteth the counsel of the Apostles that admonisheth all Christians to obey their Princes and all children and servants to obey their Parents and Masters in all things As for not resisting he is in the right but for obeying in all things in his sense it is an abominable errour Upon this ground he alloweth Christians to deny Christ to sacrifice to idols so they preserve faith in their hearts He telleth them They have the license that Naaman had and need not put themselves into danger for their faith That is they have liberty to do any external acts which their infidel Soveraigns shall command them Now hear the contrary from himself When Soveraigns are not Christians in spiritual things that is in those things which pertain to the manner of worshipping God some Church of Christians is to be followed Adding that when we may not obey them yet we may not resist them but eundum est ad Christum per martyrium we ought to suffer for it He confesseth That matter and power are indifferent to contrary forms and contrary acts And yet maintaineth every where that all matter is necessitated by the outward causes to one individual form that is it is not indifferent And all power by his Principles is limitted and determined to one particular act Thus he scoffeth at me for the contrary very learnedly
confirmed to them by the testimony and authority of such persons whose judgment and veracity they esteemed We have had enough of his understanding understandeth and will willeth or too much unlesse it were of more weight What a stir he maketh every other Section about nothing All the World are agreed upon the truth in this particular and understand one another well Whether they ascribe the act to the Agent or to the form or to the faculty by which he acteth it is all one They know that actions properly are of Individuums But if an Agent have lost his natural power or acquired habit as we have instances in both kinds he will act but madly He that shall say that natural faculties and acquired habits are nothing but the acts that flow from them That reason and deliberation are the same thing he might as well say that wit and discourse are the same thing deserveth no other answer but to be sleighted That a man deliberating of fit means to obtain his desired end doth consider the means singly and successively there is no doubt And there is as little doubt that both the inquiry and the result or veredict may sometimes be definite or prescribe the best means or the only means and sometimes indefinite determining what means are good without defining which are the best but leaving the election to the free Agent Castigations of the Animadversions Num. 27. I Do not know what the man would have done but for his trifling homonymy about the name of Will which affoardeth him scope to play at fast and loose between the faculty and the act of willing We ended with it in the last Section and we begin again with it in this Section The faculty of the will saith he is no will the act only which he calleth volition is the will As a man that sleepeth hath the power of seeing and seeth not nor hath for that time any sight so also he hath the power of willing but willeth nothing nor hath for that time any will Quantum est in rebus inane What profound mysteries he uttereth to shew that the faculty of willing and the act of willing are not the same things Did ever any Creature in the World think they were And that the faculty doth not alwayes act Did ever any man think it did Let him leave these impertinencies and tell us plainly whether the faculty of willing and the act of willing be not distinct things And whether the faculty of the will be not commonly called the will by all men but himself and by himself also when he is in his lucidae intervalles Hear his own confession To will to elect to chuse are all one and so to will is here made an act of the will and indeed as the will is a faculty or power of a mans soul so the will is an act of it according to that power That which he calleth the faculty here he calleth expressely the will there Here he will have but one will there he admitteth two distinct wills to will is an act of the will Here he will not endure that the faculty should be the will there he saith expressely That the will is a faculty All this wind shaketh no Oates Whatsoever he saith in this Section amounteth not to the weight of one graine If he had either known what concupiscence doth signifie which really he doth not or had known how familiar it is both name and thing in the most modest and pious Authours both Sacred and prophane which he doth not know he would have been ashamed to have accused this expression as unbecoming a grave person But he who will not allow me to mention it once to good purpose doth take the liberty to mention it six times in so many lines to no purpose There hath been an old question between Roman-Catholicks and Protestants Whether concupiscence without consent be a sin or not And here cometh he as bold as blind to determine the difference committing so many errours and so grosse in one short determination that it is a shame to dispute with him thrashing those Doctours soundly whom he professeth to honour and admire not for ill will but because he never read them He maintaineth that which the Romanists themselves do detest and would be ashamed of As first That concupiscence without consent is no sin contrary to all his much admired Doctours Secondly That there is no concupiscence without consent contrary to both parties which we use to call the taking away the subject of the question Thirdly That concupiscence with consent may be lawful contrary to all men Though the Church of Rome do not esteem it to be properly a sinne yet they esteem it a defect and not altogether lawful even without consent much lesse with consent Fourthly That concupiscence makes not the sin but the unlawfulnesse of satisfying such concupiscence or the designe to prosecute what he knoweth to be unlawful Which last errours are so grosse that no man ever avowed them before himself When lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin that is when a man hath consented to the suggestion of his own sensuality Though he scorn the School-men yet he should do well to advise with his Doctors whom he professeth to admire before he plunge himself again into such a Whirly-pool Castigations of the Animadversions Num. 28. IF I should give over the well known terms of the rational or intellectual will so well grounded in nature so well warranted by the authority and practise of all good Divines and Philosophers to comply with his humour or distemperd imaginations I should right well deserve a Bable The intellectual appetite and the sensitive appetite are both appetites and in the same man they both proceed from the same soul but by divers faculties the one by the intellectual the other by the sensitive And proceeding from several faculties they do differ as much as if they proceeded from several souls The sensitive appetite is organical the intellectual appetite is inorganical The sensitive appetite followeth the judgement of the senses The intellectual appetite followeth the judgement of the understanding The sensitive appetite pursueth present particular corporal delights The intellectual appetite pursueth that which is honest that which is future that which is universal that which is immortal and spiritual The sensitive appetite is determined by the object It cannot chuse but pursue that object which the senses judge to be good and flie that which the senses judge to be evill But the intellectuall appetite is free to will or nill or suspend and may reject that which the senses say to be good and pursue that which the senses judge to be evil according to the dictate of reason Then to answer what he saith in particular The appetite and the will are not alwayes the same thing Every will is an appetite but every appetite is not a will Indeed in the same man appetite and will is
unlesse he have authority given him by him whom Christ hath constituted his Lieutenant First I answer his question with a question What if the Bishop have such authority and he hath not He cannot deny but the Bishop had such authority when he had not And yet he doubted not even then to interpret the Scriptures contrary both to the Bishop and to Christs Lieutenant Secondly I answer That by his own confession there is a great difference between him and me in this particular Our Saviour hath promised this infallability in those things which are necessary to salvation to the Apostles until the day of judgement that is to say to the Apostles and to Pastors to be consecrated by them by imposition of hands Therefore the Soveraign Magistrate as he is a Christian is obliged to interpret the holy Scriptures when there is question about the mysteries of faith by Ecclesiastical persons rightly ordained Unlesse he have such ordination by imposition of hands I am better qualified then he is for the interpretation of Scripture by his own confession But he supposeth that a Bishop or a Synod of Bishops should be set up for our civil Soveraign A likely thing indeed Suppose the skie fall then we shall have Larks But to gratifie him let us suppose it What then Then that which I object against him he could object in the same words against me So he might if I should be so fond as to say that true religion did consist in obedience to that single Bishop or that Synod of bishops as he saith that it doth consist in obedience to the Soveraign Prince He deceiveth himself and mistaketh us if he think that we hold any such ridiculous opinions If he could shew that Bishops do challenge an infallability to themselves by divine right and which is more than infallability a power to authorise all their commands for true religion he said something to the purpose He telleth us that he remembers there have been books written to entitle the Bishops to a divine right underived from the Civil Soveraign Very likely if the law of nature do make a divine right Perhaps a locomotive faculty or a liberty of respiration which all other men do challenge as well as Bishops But he meaneth no religion Why not They have their holy orders by succession from the Apostles not from their civil Soveraigns They have the power of the keys by the concession of Christ Whose sins yet remit they are remitted whose sins ye retain they are retained None can give that to another which they have not themselves Where did Christ give the power of the keys to the civil Magistrate I was far enough from thinking of Odes when I writ my defence of liberty That which he calleth my Ode was written about a thousand years before I was born I cited it onely to shew the sense of the primitive Christians concerning obedience to the unlawful commands of Soveraign Princes that we ought to obey God rather than them And to that it is full Iussum est Caesaris ore Gallieni Princeps quod colit ut colamus omnes Aeternum colo principem dierum Factorem dominumque Gallieni This put him into such a fit of versifying that he could not forbear to make a Parode such as it is wherein out of pure zeal if it were worth taking notice of he retaineth the errours of the presse And so confounding Regal Supremacy with a kind of omnipotence and the external Regiment of the Church with the power of the keys and jurisdiction in the inner court of conscience and forraign usurpations with the ancient rights and liberties of the English Church and a stipendiary School-master who hath neither title nor right but the meer pleasure of the master of the family with Bishops who are the successors of the Apostles in that part of their office which is of ordinary and perpetual necessity and the Kings proper councel in Ecclesiastical affairs He concludeth his Animadversion with this fair intimation to Doctor Hamond and me That if we had gone upon these his principles when we did write in defence of the Church of England against the imputation of Scisme quitting our own pretenses of jurisdiction and jus divinum we had not been so shrewdly handled as we have been by an English Papist I hope neither the Church of England nor any genuine son of the English Church hath complained to him that the Church hath suffered any disadvantage by our pains nor our adversaries in that cause boasted to him of any advantage they have gained I do rather believe that it is but his own imagination without ever reading either party Why should he interrupt his sadder meditations with reading such trifles But for his principles as he calleth them I thank him I will have nothing to do with them except it be to shew him how destructive they are both to Church and Common-wealth But this I believe in earnest that if we had gone upon his principles we should not have made our selves the object of our adversaries pity but well of their scorn In his conclusion or in his postscript chuse whether you will call it first he setteth down his censure of my defence with the same ingenuity and judgement that he hath shewed hitherto that is none at all which I esteem no more than a deaf nut Let the book justifie it self And to the manner of writing he bites first and whines doth an injury and complains The Reader will find no railing in my Treatise nor any of those faults which he objecteth I rather fear that he will censure it as too complying with such an adversary But he had not then given me so much occasion as he hath done since to make him lose that pleasure in reading which he took in writing In the next place he presenteth to the Readers view a large muster of terms and phrases such as are used in the Schools which he calleth nonsense and the language of the kingdom of darknesse that is all the confutation which he vouchsafeth them He hath served them up oft enough before to the Readers loathing Let him take it for a warning wheresoever he reneweth his complaint I shall make bold to renew my story of old Harpaste who complained that the room was dark when the poor Beldam wanted her sight There is more true judgement and solid reason in any one of the worst of those phrases which he derides then there is in one of his whole Sections Thirdly he cavilleth against a saying of mine which he repeateth thus He hath said that his opinion is demonstrable in reason though he be not able to comprehend how it consisteth together with Gods eternal prescience and though it exceed his weak capacity yet he ought to adhere to that truth which is manifest Whence he concludeth after this manner So to him that truth is manifest and demonstrable by reason which is beyond his capacity Let the Reader see what an