satisfaction to find all this in the sequel of our Discourse confirmed to me by experience But whatsoever your behaviour is like to be I cannot but fear having been conversant in your Leviathan that your opinions will deserve reproof I have sometimes heard the substance of them comprized in twelve Articles which sound harshly to men profeâ—â—ing Christianity and they were delivered under the Title of the Hobbist's Creed in such phrase and order as followeth I believe that God is Almighty matter that in him there are three Persons he having been thrice represented on earth that it is to be decided by the Civil Power whether he created all things else that Angels are not Incorporeal substances those words implying a contradiction but preternatural impreâ—â—â—ons on the brain of man that the Soul of man is the temperament of his Body that the Liberty of Will in that Soul is physically necessary that the prime â—aw of nature in the soul of man is that of self-Love that the Law of the Civil Sovereign is the obliging Rule of good and evil just and unjust that the Books of the Old and New Testament are made Canon and Law by the Civil Powers that whatsoever is written in these Books may lawfully be denied even upon oath after the laudable doctrine and practice of the Gnosticks in times of persecution when men shall be urged by the menaces of Authority that Hell is a tolerable condition of life for a few years upon earth to begin at the general Resurrection and that Heaven is a blessed estate of good men like that of Adam beâ—ore his fall beginning at the general Resurrection to be from thenceforth eternal upon Earth in the Holy-Land These Articles as they are double in their number so do they a thousand times exceed in mischievous error those six so properly called bloody ones in the dayes of King Henry the eighth Nay Sir I beseech you set not so uneasily neither prepare to vent your passion for if it shall appear in the pursuit of this disputation that this charge which is now drawn up is false I will not persist in it but be zealous in moving all your slanderers to lay themselves at those Feet of yours at which as you your self have written so very many of our English Gentry have with excellent effect sate for instruction At present I desire to take no other advantage from that presumed Creed than may be derived from the method in which the Articles of it are propounded as also from the particular subjects contained in them without any forestalling assent or dissent of mind For from thence we may fitly borrow both the Heads and the Order of such a discourse as will lead us without confusion throughout all those Opinions with which you are said to have debauched Religion Let us then take our beginning from the first Article that fundamental principle which being removed all real Religion falls to the ground that is to say the Existence of a God Are you then convinced that God is Mr. Hobbs I am For the effects we acknowledge naturally do include a Power of their producing before they were produced and that Power presupposeth something Existent that hath such Power and the thing so existing with power to produce if it were not eternal must needs have been produced by somewhat before it and that again by somewhat else before that till we come to an eternal that is to say the First Power of all Powers and â—â—rst Cause of all Causes and this is it which all men conceive by the name of God Stud. By this argument unwary men may be perhaps deceived into a good opinion of your Philosophy as if by the aids of it you were no weak defender of natural Religion but such as with due attention search your Books they cannot miss a Key wherewith they may decypher those mysterious words and shew that in their true and proper meaning they undermine Religion in stead of laying the ground-work of it Des-Cartes in an Epistle to Father Mersennus makes mention though with much neglect of your opinion concerning a Corporeal God this it seems you had broached in a studied Letter which passed through divers hands about that time when All things Sacred began to be most rudely invaded to wit the commencement of our Civil Wars And in diver Books since that time published you have often insinuated and sometimes directly asserted that whatsoever existeth is material Seing then it is absurd to say that Matter can create Matter it followeth that the effects you speak of in your argument are not to be understood of the very Essences of bodies which in your Book de Corpore you conceive to be neither generated nor destroyed but of those various changes which by motion are caused in nature your sense then amounteth to this impious assertion that in the chain of natural causes subordinate to each other that portion of matter which in one rank of causes and effects for you admit of an eternal cause or of causes being it self eternally moved gave the first impulse to another body which also moved the neighboring Body so forward in many links of succession 'till the motion arrived at any effect which we take notice of is to be called God In the like sense the Atheist Vaninus called nature the Queen and Goddesse of Mortals being as saith a learned Writer a sottish Priest of the said Goddess and also a most infamous sacrifice Mr. Hobbes This principle that God is not incorporeal is the doctrin which I have sometimes written and when occasion serves maintain I say therefore that the world I mean not the Earth only that denominates the lovers of it worldly men but the Universe that is the whole Mass of all things that are is corporeal that is to say body and hath the dimensions of magnitude namely length breadth and depth also every part of body is likewise body and hath the like dimensions consequently every part of the universe is body that which is not body is no part of the â—niverse and because the universe iâ— all that which is no part of it is nothing and consequently no where nor do's it follow from hence that Spirits are nothing for they have dimensions and are therefore really bodies though that name in common speech be given to such bodies only as are visible or palpable that is that have some degree of opacity But for Spirits they call them incorporeal which is a name of more honor and may therefore with more piety be attributed to God himself in whom we consider not what attribute expresseth best his nature which is incomprehensible but what best expresseth our desire to honor him Stud. If every part of body be body not only â—s to us but in it self there seemeth to be such an inexhaustibleness in the least atome as will render it as infinite as the whole Mass of the
turn it to his benefit yet such events do not make it reasonably or wisely done As for the instance of attaining Soveraignty by Rebellion it is manifest that though the event follow yet because it cannot reasonably be expected but rather the contrary and because by gaining it so others are taught to gain the same in like manner the attempt thereof is against Reason Justice therefore that is to say keeping of Covenant is a rule of Reason by which we are forbidden to do any thing destructive to our life and consequently a law of Nature Stud. This then is the Doctrine of Politics in which you so much applaud your self and of the same strain with the pernicious Book entituled Natures Dowry printed the year after the Leviathan That Rebellion is not iniquity if upon probable grounds it becomes prosperous That he who usurps not like a Politician is therefore a Villain because he is a Fool That all the Usurpers in the World stepping up into the Throne by means likely to further their ascent pursue the Fundamental Law of Nature and are rightful and undoubted Soveraigns That the Earl of Essex in the Reign of Q. Elizabeth who after some stain of fame in Ireland and in the days of a popular Queen and in a time when he had potent enemies for strength and head-piece such as Cecil and Sir Walter Rawleigh appear'd with a small company upon presumption of the Queens love in case he should miscarry and upon hopes of the multitude not formed to his purpose by confederacie was a Rebel and a Traytor because he was a weak and unfortunate Politician but that Oliver who was led on by success to things he never dreamt of in the days of his Poverty and saw the power of the King declining and was as sure of being Protector as a King can be upon your grounds of remaining Soveraign by the inclination of the Souldiery and possession of the Militia and therefore usurp'd upon as sure foundations of self-interest as the nature of Civil Affairs admitteth of was by the direct consequence of your opinion a lawful Prince a man of inestimable merit and renown worthy the Government of thrice three Kingdoms of dying in his bed and of a Fame too wide to be contain'd betwixt the Deucalidonian and Brittish Ocean No no there are words more agreeable to his merit and they have nothing Poetick in them besides the genuine strain of verse Curst be the man what do I wish as though The wretch already were not so But curst on let him be who thinks it brave And great his Country to enslave Who seeks to overpoise alone The Balance of a Nation Against the whole but naked State Who in his own light scale makes up with Arms the weight Mr. Hobbes I have written concerning Oliver that his Titles and actions were equally unjust Stud. This you wrote indeed but since the return of his Sacred Majesty who if men had pursu'd your destructive Principles and judg'd his Right to have ceased with his Power had for ever been destitute of any other Throne then what had been erected in the hearts of the Loyal Mr. White also the part-boyl'd Romanist who is honour'd with the Title of Most Learned in the scurrilous Preface to your Book of Fate declar'd in English in an unhappy time that a dispossessed Prince ought neither to be desired nor to endeavour to return if the people think themselves to be well and their Trade and Employment be undisturb'd And he addeth also Who can answer they shall be better by the return of the dispossessed party Surely in common presumption the gainer is like to defend them better then he who lost it Certainly for this sentence at such a time published to this Nation if for no other cause his Books ought to be burnt in England as well as some of them have been condemned at Rome unless we suppose the crabbedness of the stile and the obscureness and weakness of the Reasoning in them may tempt the Author when better informed to save Authority the labour of it Dr. Baily likewise revolting from the Church of England forsook his Loyalty at the same time and caressed Oliver and hop'd that by his means the Pope might come again and set his Imperial feet upon the neck of English Princes For he concludes his Legend of the Bishop of Rochester after this manner Thus we see Gods Justice in the destruction of the Churches Enemies meaning Thomas Cromwel Vicar-General of the Church under Henry the eighth and spoiler of Religious Houses who knows but that he may help her to such Friends though not such as may restore her own Jewels yet such as may heal her of her wounds And who knows but that it may be effected by the same name Oliva vera is not so hard to be construed Oliverus as that it may not be believed that a Prophet rather then an Herald gave the common Father of Christendom the now Pope of Rome Innocent the Tenth such Ensignes of his Nobility viz. a Dove holding an Olive-branch in her mouth since it falls short in nothing of being both a Prophecy and fulfilled but only his Highness running into her arms whose Embleme of Innocence bears him alreadie in her mouth These Romanists and your self agree too well in owning of Uâ—â—rpers and measuring right by the length of the sword and therefore when such Politiâ—ians say that Olivers Titles and Actions were equally unjust they are to be understood in such a sense as when we say of a very Dâ—nce that he is as good a Logician as Grammarian that is in truth neither Mr. Hobbes Believe me Sir my Leviathan was written when Oliver was but General who had not yet cheated the Parliament of their usurped power and I never had a kindness for him or them I lived peaceably under his Government at my return from France and so did the Kings Bishops also Of the Bishops that then were there was not one that followed the King out of the Land though they loved him but lived quietly under the protection first of the Parliament and then of Oliver whose Titles and Actions were equally unjust without treachery Stud. That this is false your own Conscience will inform you for the then Lord Bishop of London-derry a man of whom to your cost you have heard convey'd himself beyond the Seas and was not there unmindful of the Kings interest although he hath not boasted of his Travels as you are wont to do of your living at Paris Let the testimony of Bishop Taylor who was as likely as any man to know and report the truth decide the controversie his words are these God having still resolved to afflict us the good man was forc'd into the fortune of the Patriarchs to leave his Country and his charges and seek for safety and bread in a strange Land This worthy man took up his Cross and followed his Master At his
Euphemus delivered there might first hint to you your sandy Politicks for that Athenian Embassadour to the Camarinâ—i amongst other things tending much that way at last plainly told them that to a Governour nothing which was profitable was dishonest or unreasonable which Doctrine because it invites ambitious men to step into Authority when the door is open and mercenary soldiers to decide a dispute not in favour of the right but the most profitable side because it moveth them that are supream to become Tyrants in the exercise of that power which Religion ought to limit though the people may not and to make their passions their chief rules and to govern with Armies rather then Laws or if with both to dy their Flags and to write their Edicts in the blood of whom they please because I say it taketh off all sence of what we call humanity from the supream powers and so not unlike to a Porta Sabina calls in innumerable evils upon such people as are quiet and modest it therefore ought no more to be sucked in by Prince or People then pernicious air in time of common Pestilence Mr. Hobbes Name not Tyranny as a word of reproach for the name of Tyranny signifieth nothing more nor less then the name of Soveraignty be it in one or many men saving that they that use the former word are understood to be angry with them they call Tyrants and I think the toleration of a professed hatred of Tyranny is a toleration of hatred to Common-wealth in general So that here I must say to you Peace down for you bark now at the Supream Legislative power therefore 't is not I but the Laws which must rate you off And now me thinks my endeavour to advance the civil power should not be by the civil power condemned nor private men by reprehending it declare they think that power too great and after what manner I endeavour the advancement of it I think it worth the time to declare to you I shew that the Scripture requireth absolute obedience I teach that the people have made artificial chains called civil laws which they themselves by mutual Covenants have fastned at one end to the lips of that man or Assembly to whom they have given the Soveraign power and at the other end to their own ears that nothing the Soveraign can do to the Subject can properly be called Injustice or injury because every subject is Author of every Act the Soveraign doth That the proprietie of a subject excludeth not the dominion of the Soveraign but only of another subject Stud. Remember Sir the case of Ahab and Naboth unless you suppose it in times of publick necessitie Mr. Hobbes Interrupt me not I teach also that the King is the absolute Representative and that it is dangerous to give such a title to those men who are sent up by the people to carry their Petitions and give him if he permit it their advice That the Soveraign is sole Legislator and not subject to civil laws That to him there cannot be any knot in the law insoluble either by finding out the ends to undo it by or else by making what ends he will as Alexander did with his sword in the Gordian-knot by the Legislative power which no other Interpreter can doe That there is no common Rule of good and evil to be taken from the Nature of the objects themselves but from the Person of the man where there is no Common-wealth or in a Common-wealth from the Person that representeth it or from an Arbitrator or Judge whom men disagreeing shall by consent set up and make his sentence the rule thereof That where there is no law there no killing or any thing else can be unjust That the civil Soveraign is Judge of what doctrines are fit to be taught I also maintain that Soveraigns being in their own Dominions the sole Legislators those books only are Canâ—nical that is Law in every Nation which are established for such by the Soveraign Authority Stud. In some things you are just to the Praerogative of Kings but in others you ought to have remembred the words of our Lord who adviseth us to give to Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods For your cavil at the name Tyrant it is in the sense I us'd it for exercise of unlimited power unbecoming a Prince but I know how very frequently it is misapply'd by those who will call the very bridling of their licentiousness hateful Tyranny and find fault with the law for no other reason but because it is a râ—straint upon their supposed freedome whereas the hedges which the law sets down are to keep them only in the truest and safest way The absolute Princes of Syracuse were called Tyrants though some of them deserved the title of Benefactors and amongst our selves the best of Kings was branded with that ignominious character For that which you have justly said in favour of a Monarch had it bin Printed before Forty eight it might have bin of good effect at least it might have shewed a disposition to promote Loyalty But being published after the Kings Martyrdom and his Sons exile it served the purposes of those people who had then the Militia in their hands For you say that the Rights of a Common-wealth by acquisition are the same with those by Institution or Succession That the power of the Representative whether in one or many cannot without consent be transferr'd forfeited accus'd punish'd and that such a person is Supreme Judge The Parliament therefore ought to have return'd you thanks for ascribing to them the strength of the Leviathan and for keeping their nostrils free from the books of the right Heir and his adherents They ought especially to have given you the thanks of the House for saying I maintain nothing in any Paradox of Religion but attend the end of that dispute of the Sword concerning the Authority not yet amongst my Country-men decided by which all sorts of Doctrine are to be approved or rejected and whose commands both in speech and writing whatsoever be the opinions of private men must by all men that mean to be protected by their Laws be obeyed But notwithstanding all this what you seem to build up on the side of the Soveraign you pull down on the side of the People For whilst you found all upon single Self-interest to the advancement of which all safe means are by you esteemed lawful these specious rights are no longer his then by main force he can keep possession of them That will not be long if great Delinquents call'd in question and miserable people who like such as stake their Cloak in an over-hot day are willing to hazard the life they would be rid of and are easily misled not looking upon the stumbling-blocks in the way but on the light that others carry
being well consider'd you ought not to have ascrib'd as somewhere you have done the very rights of the Priestly Function to the Civil Powers Grotius who has not had thanks from all for his liberality to the Civil Magistrate in relation to the Affairs of the Church hath yet made it his whole designe in the second Chapter of his Book De Imperio summarum potestatum circa Sacra to make it manifest that Authority about Holy things and the Sacred Function are distinct In the same person they may be as in Anius the King and Priest of Phoebus but not without Ordination For the Power depending upon our Lords Commission is not convey'd but by Succession through the hands of the Commissioned Our thirty seventh Article doth attribute to the King a Power of outward Rule in Ecclesiastical matters yet granteth not to him either the ministring of Gods Word or of the Sacraments And under the Law it was said unto Vzziah the King It pertaineth not unto thee Vzziah to burn incense unto the Lord but to the Priests the sons of Aaron that are consecrated to burn incense And because he would use his force in usurping the rights of the Priest God Almighty smote him with immediate Leprosie and taught him to discern betwixt might and right Yet the Kings of Iudah had power in the Synagogue They had â—o de facto neither in many things wherein they ordered Religion were they reproved Yet to say the truth the having such right is no where commanded in the Old Law which enjoyn'd not the people to have a King but upon conditions permitted one to them if they should prefer the customs of the Heathen-nations before the most excellent estate of Theocracie Wherefore let them see whether they build closely who establish the Ecclesiastical Power of Christian Princes upon the exercise of it amongst the Kings of Iudah It concerneth you also to consider whether you have not unduly ascrib'd unto the Prince as such the Power of the Keys and the Right of Ordination and Ministration of the Sacraments and Word of Christ. The Monarch say you or the Soveraign Assembly onely hath immediate Authority from God to teach and instruct the people and no man but the Soveraign receiveth his Power Dei Gratia simply He it is that hath authority not onely to preach which perhaps no man will deny but also to baptize and to administer the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and to consecrate both Temples and Pastors to Gods service If the Soveraign Power give me command though without the ceremony of imposition of hands to teach the Doctrine of my Leviathan in the Pulpit why am not I if my Doctrine and life be as good as yours a Minister as well as you This is saying and not proving and because the Power was from Christ derived to the Apostles and from them in Succession by Ordination and can be in none to whom it is not convey'd in such a Channel what you have said had you been versed in the several Writings of a Divine of the Church of England a man of greater and better Learning then either your self or Mr. Selden whose Doctrine you seem to have swallow'd down together with the good provisions of his Table and who is said to have mistaken the very staâ—e of the Erastian-Controversie whilst he defined Excommunication to be a censure inferring a civil penalty you would have either altered your opinion or aggravated your error It appeareth by what hath been delivered that there is Authority enough without the civil Sanction to make the Doctrines of the Apostles to become Laws to wit the Kingly Power of Christ whose Commissioners they were and who had power to cause their rights to descend to others by Ordination And before the days of Constantine there wanted not the Fountain of outward force not onely in our Lord who could dash in pieces Soveraigns of the finest mold but also in his Members who as is manifest from Ecclesiastical story had often strength enough to have check'd the fury of their persecutors and to have forc'd the yoke of Christ upon their necks But it seemed good to our blessed Lord during this state of mans probation to deal chiefly with him according to his reasonable nature and to invite rather then compel And yet methinks the threatnings of eternal vengeance seem to carry more force with them then all the prisons in the world And it is time to think that the Gospel obligeth when we hazard perpetual misery by disobeying it whether we be Jews or Greeks if its sound hath reached us Mr. Hobbes The Jews and Gentiles were to be damned not for their infidelity but their old sins If the Apostles Acts of Council were Laws they could not without sin be disobeyed But we read not any where that they who receiv'd not the Doctrine of Christ did therein sin but that they dyed in their sins that is that the sins against the Laws to which they owed obedience were not pardoned And those Laws were the Laws of Nature and the Civil Laws of the State whereto every Christian man had by pact submitted himself And therefore by the burthen which the Apostles might lay on such as they had converted are not to be understood Laws but Conditions proposed to those that sought Salvation which they might accept or refuse at their own peril without a new sin though not without the hazard of being condemned and excluded out of the Kingdom of God for their sins past And therefore of Infidels St. Iohn saith not the wrath of God shall come upon them but the wrath of God remaineth upon them and not that they shall be condemned but that they are condemned alreadie Stud. What will not a man say rather then acknowledge himself in an errour though the thing it self speaketh it Here 's mistake clap'd upon mistake yet the scales of the Leviathan are not so close but a blinde Archer may shoot between them Have you not read what our Lord said to his disciples after his resurrection Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned The Author also to the Hebrews exhorteth the Jews to believe in Christ and telleth them they shall for ever be excluded the Kingdom of heaven for their unbelief it they persevere in it as their forefathers came short of Canaan for the same reason And although S. Iohn in the places cited doth speak in the present tense yet in others of the same Chapter he speaketh in the future and in that very verse which you cite partially concealing the words which are against you he maketh their unbelief the cause of that severe decree which already was gone forth V. 18. He that believeth on him is not condemned but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in