in defence of the Civil Power that must be punish'd by him whose Rights he defended like Vzza that was slain because he would needs unbidden put forth his Hand to keep the Ark from falling But what if a whole Nation should revolt from the Pope at once what effect could Excommunication have upon the Nation A. Why they should have no more Mass said at least by any of the Popes Priests Besides the Pope would have no more to do with them but cast them off and so they would be in the same Case as if a Nation should be cast off by their King and left to be governed by themselves or whom they would B. This would not be taken so much for a punishment to the People as to the King and therefore when a Pope Excommunicates a whole Nation methinks he rather Excommunicates himself than them But I pray you tell me what were the Rights that the Pope pretended to in the Kingdoms of other Princes A. First An Exemption of all Priests Friars and Monks in Criminal Causes from the Cognizance of Civil Judges Secondly Collation of Benefices on whom he pleased Native or Stranger and exaction of Tenths First Fruits and other Payments Thirdly Appeals to Rome in all Causes where the Church could pretend to be concern'd Fourthly To be the Supream Judge concerning Lawfulness of Marriage i. e. concerning the Hereditary Succession of Kings and to have the Cognisance of all Causes concerning Adultery and Fornication B. Good A Monopoly of Women A. Fifthly A Power of absolving Subjects of their Duties and of their Oaths of Fidelity to their lawful Sovereigns when the Pope should think fit for the extirpation of Heresie B. This Power of absolving Subjects of their Obedience as also that other of being Judge of Manners and Doctrine is as absolute a Sovereignty as is possible to be and consequently there must be two Kingdoms in one and the same Nation and no Man be able to know which of his Masters he must obey A. For my part I should rather obey that Master that had the Right of making Laws and of inflicting Punishments than him that pretendeth only to a Right of making Canons that is to say Rules and no Right of Co-action or otherwise punishing but by Excommunication B. But the Pope pretends also that his Canons are Laws and for punishing can there be greater than Excommunication supposing it true as the Pope saith it is that he that dies Excommunicate is damn'd Which supposition it seems you believe not else you would rather have chosen to obey the Pope that would cast you Body and Soul into Hell than the King that can only kill the Body A. You say true for it were very uncharitable in me to believe that all English men except a few Papists that have been born and called Hereticks ever since the Reformation of Religion in England should be damn'd B. But for those that die Excommunicate in the Church of England at this day do you not think them also damn'd A. Doubtless he that dies in sin without repentance is damn'd and he that is Excommunicate for disobedience to the Kings Laws either Spiritual or Temporal is Excommunicate for sin and therefore if he die Excommunicate and without desire of reconciliation he dies impenitent You see what follows but to die in disobedience to the Precepts and Doctrines of those Men that have no Authority or Jurisdiction over us is quite another Case and bringeth no such danger with it B. But what is this Heresie which the Church of Rome so cruelly persecutes as to depose Kings that do not when they are bidden turn all Hereticks out of their Dominions A. Heresie is a word which when it is used without passion signifies a private Opinion So the different Sects of the old Philosophers Academians Peripateticks Epicureans Stoicks c. were called Heresies but in the Christian Church there was in the signification of that word comprehended a sinful opposition to him that was chief Judge of Doctrines in order to the salvation of Mens Souls and consequently Heresie may be said to bear the same relation to the Power Spiritual that Rebellion doth to the Power Temporal and is suitably to be persecuted by him that will preserve a Power Spiritual and Dominion over Mens Consciences B. It would be very well because we are all of us permitted to read the Holy Scriptures and bound to make them the Rule of our Actions both publick and private that Heresie were by some Law defined and the particular Opinions set forth for which a man were to be condemned and punished as a Heretick for else not only Men of mean capacity but even the wisest and devoutest Christian may fall into Heresie without any will to oppose the Church for the Scriptures are hard and the Interpretations different of different men A. The meaning of the word Heresie is by Law declared in an Act of Parliament in the first year of Queen Elizabeth wherein it is ordain'd That the persons who had by the Queens Letters Patents the Authority Spiritual meaning the High Commission shall not have Authority to adjudge any Matter or Cause to be Heresie but only such as heretofore have been adjudged to be Heresie by the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures or by the first four General Councils or by any other General Council where the same was declared Heresie by the express and plain words of the said Canonical Scriptures or such as hereafter shall be adjudged Heresie by the High Court of Parliament of this Realm with the Assent of the Clergy in their Convocation B. It seems therefore if there arise any new error that hath not yet been declared Heresie and many such may arise it cannot be judged Heresie without a Parliament for how foul soever the error be it cannot have been declar'd Heresie neither in the Scriptures nor in the Councils because it was never before heard of and consequently there can be no error unless it fall within the compass of Blasphemy against God or Treason against the King for which a man can in Equity be punished Besides who can tell what is declared by the Scripture which every man is allowed to read and interpret to himself Nay more what Protestant either of the Laity or Clergy if every General Council can be a competent Judge of Heresie is not already condemned for divers Councils have declared a great many of our Doctrines to be Heresie and that as they pretend upon the Authority of the Scriptures A. What are those Points that the first four General Councils have declared Heresie B. The first General Council held at Nicaea declared all to be Heresie which was contrary to the Nicene Creed upon occasion of the Heresie of Arrius which was the denying the Divinity of Christ. The second General Council held at Constantinople declared Heresie the Doctrine of Macedonius which was that the Holy Ghost was created The third Council assembled at Ephesus condemned the
that will voluntarily present himself to the Officers of Justice Do not we see that all men when they are led to Execution are both bound and guarded and would break loose if they could and get away Such is their Passive Obedience Christ saith The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses Chair all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and do Mat 23.3 which is a doing an Active Obedience and yet the Scribes and Pharisees appear not by the Scripture to have been such godly men as never to command any thing against the revealed Will of God B. Must Tyrants also be obeyed in every thing actively Or is there nothing wherein a lawful King's Command may be disobeyed What if he should command me with my own hands to execute my Father in case he should be condemn'd to die by the Law A. This is a Case that need not be put We never have read nor heard of any King or Tyrant so inhumane as to command it If any did we are to consider whether that Command were one of his Laws for by disobeying Kings we mean the disobeying of his Laws those his Laws that were made before they were applyed to any particular person for the King though as a Father of Children and a Master of Domestick Servants yet he commands the People in general never but by a precedent Law and as a Politick not a Natural Person And if such a Command as you speak of were contriv'd into a general Law which never was nor never will be you were bound to obey it unless you depart the Kingdom after the Publication of the Law and before the Condemnation of your Father B. Your Author says farther in refusing Active Obedience to the King that commanded any thing contrary to God's Law we must be very well assur'd that the thing is so contrary I would fain know how it is possible to be assur'd A. I think you do not believe that any of those Refusers do immediately from God's own mouth receive any command contrary to the Command of the King who is God's Lieutenant nor any other way than you and I do that is to say than by the Scriptures And because men do for the most part rather draw the Scripture to their own sense than follow the true sense of the Scripture there is no other way to know certainly and in all Cases what God commands or forbids us to do but by the Sentence of him or them that are constituted by the King to determine the sense of the Scripture upon hearing of the particular Case of Conscience which is in question And they that are so constituted are easily known in all Christian Common-wealths whether they be Bishops or Ministers or Assemblies that govern the Church under him or them that have the Sovereign Power B. Some doubts may be rais'd from this that you now say for if Men be to learn their Duty from the Sentence which other Men shall give concerning the meaning of the Scriptures and not from their own Interpretation I understand not to what end they were translated into English and every man not only permitted but also exhorted to read them For what could that produce but diversity of opinion and consequently as Man's Nature is Disputation breach of Charity Disobedience and at last Rebellion Again since the Scripture was allowed to be read in English why were not the Translations such as might make all that 's read understood even by mean Capacities Did not the Jews such as could read understand their Law in the Jewish Language as well as we do our Statute Laws in English And as for such places of the Scripture as had nothing of the Nature of a Law it was nothing to the Duty of the Jews whether they were understood or not seeing nothing is punishable but the Transgression of some Law The same Question I may ask concerning the New Testament for I believe that those Men to whom the Original Language was natural did understand sufficiently what Commands and Counsels were given them by our Saviour and his Apostles and his immediate Disciples Again how will you answer that Question which was put by St. Peter and St. John Acts 4.19 when by Annas the High Priest and others of the Councel of Jerusalem they were forbidden to teach any more in the Name of Jesus Whether is it right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God A. The Case is not the same Peter and John had seen and daily conversed with our Saviour and by the Miracles he wrought did know he was God and consequently knew certainly that their disobedience to the High-Priests present Command was just Can any Minister now say that he hath immediately from God's own Mouth receiv'd a Command to disobey the King or know otherwise than by the Scripture that any Command of the King that hath the Form and Nature of a Law is against the Law of God which in divers places directly and evidently commandeth to obey him in all things The Text you cite does not tell us that a Minister's Authority rather than a Christian King's shall decide the Questions that arise from the different Interpretations of the Scripture And therefore where the King is Head of the Church and by consequence to omit that the Scripture it self was not received but by the Authority of Kings and States Chief Judge of the rectitude of all Interpretations of the Scripture To obey the Kings Laws and publick Edicts is not to disobey but to obey God A Minister ought not to think that his skill in the Latin Greek or Hebrew Tongues if he have any gives him a Priviledge to impose upon all his Fellow-Subjects his own sense or what he pretends to be his sense of every obscure place of Scripture nor ought he as oft as he hath found out some fine Interpretation not before thought on by others to think he had it by Inspiration for he cannot be assur'd of that no nor that his Interpretation as fine as he thinks it is not false and then all his stubbornness and contumacy toward the King and his Laws is nothing but Pride of Heart and Ambition or else Imposture And whereas you think it needless or perhaps hurtful to have the Scriptures in English I am of another mind There are so many places of Scripture easie to be understood that teach both true Faith and good Morality and that as fully as is necessary to salvation of which no Seducer is able to dispossess the mind of any ordinary Readers that the reading of them is so profitable as not to be forbidden without great damage to them and the Common-wealth B. All that is requir'd both in Faith and Manners for Man's Salvation is I confess set down in Scripture as plainly as can be Children obey your Parents in all things Servants obey your Masters Let all Men be subject to the Higher Powers whether it be the King or those that
which is a Person indued with Authority universal to govern all Christian men on Earth no more than there is one Universal Soveraign 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 permits or can lawfully assemble themselves unless by the command or by the leave of the Soveraign Civil Power I say further that the denyal of this point tendeth in England towards the taking away of the Kings Supremacy in causes Ecclesiastical But his Lordship has not here denyed any thing of mine because he has done no more but set down my words He says further that this Doctrine destroyes 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 Soveraign 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 Soveraign 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 Soveraign Judge of all Doctrines that is the Soveraign 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 Soveraigns of different Communications do clash one with another in their interpretations or misinterpretation of Scripture as they do daily then the word of God is contradictory to it self or that is the word of God in one Common-wealth which is the word of the Devil in another Common-wealth And the same thing may be true and not true at the same time Which is the peculiar priviledge 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 required 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 lye 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 Kings Authority that the Scripture is Law what other Authority makes it Law Here some man being of his Lordships judgment will perhaps laugh and say 't 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 mans own Will are able to take away Faith though they can compel to an external obedience and though I may blame the Ethnick 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 Councels 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 Kings Supremacy Oh but says he if two Kings interpret a place of Scripture in contrary sences it will follow that both sences 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 sence be necessary to Salvation then they that hold the other must dye in their sins and be Damned But if the Doctrine in neither sence 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 vertue 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 acknowledgeth nothing The same he saith particularly of Baptism Upon which grounds a Cardinals 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 Cardinals 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 Soveraign 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
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 Denn because they refused to comply with the Idolatrous Decree of their Soveraign 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 signifie 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 it self 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 Common-wealth for that is to obey both God and man But if divine Law and humane 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 denyes but it is alwayes and in all causes better to obey God than Man But there is no Law neither divine nor humane 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 'T 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 it self 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 Soveraign Lord both in Temporals and Spirituals The Kings 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 humane 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 humane 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 Caesar 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 Soveraign 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 falshood 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 Country-men 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 Soveraign 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 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 Aegypt But by the
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 no where 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 Church-yards and to be the Souls of men buried they 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 equivolent 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 easie 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 Praescience 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 Lordship's 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 Heresie and some others have not doubted to say publickly that there be many Heresies in my Leviathan I will add hereunto for a general answer an Historical relation concerning the word Heresie from the first use of it amongst the Graecians till this present time FINIS AN Historical Narration CONCERNING HERESIE AND THE Punishment thereof BY THOMAS HOBBES OF MALMESBURY At veluti Pueri trepidant atque omnia caecis In tenebris metuunt Sic nos in luce timemus Interdum nihilo quae sunt metuenda magis quà m Quae Pueri in tenebris pavitant metuuntque futura Lucr. lib. 2.3 6. LONDON Printed in the Year 1682. Haereseωs Larvas Sectarum immania Monstra Hobbius invicto dispulit ingenio AN Historical Narration CONCERNING HERESIE AND THE Punishment thereof THE word Heresie is Greek and signifies a taking of any thing and particularly the taking of an Opinion After the study of Philosophy begun 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 Heresie which signified no more than a private Opinion without reference to truth or falshood 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 admir'd Philosophers and pretending to take after them made use thereof to get their Living by the teaching of Rich mens Children that happened to be in love with those great Names Tho' by their impertinent Discourse sordid and ridiculous Manners they were generally despised of what Sect or Heresie soever whether they were Pythagoreans or Academicks Followers of Plato or Peripateticks Followers of Aristotle Epicureans or Stoicks Followers of Zeno For these were the names of Heresies or as the Latines call them Sects à sequendo so much talkt 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 Heresie of Aristotle by the Revolutions of time has had the good fortune to be predominant over the rest However originally the name of Heresie was no disgrace nor the word Heretick at all in use Tho' the several Sects especially the Epicureans and the Stoicks hated one another and the Stoicks being the fiercer men used to revile those that differed from them with the most despightful 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 Heresie And thus at first entred Heresie 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 tho' 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
Doctrine of Nestorius that there were two Persons in Christ. The fourth held at Chalcedon condemned the error of Eutyches that there was but one Nature in Christ. I know of no other Points condemned in these four Councils but such as concern Church-Government or the same Doctrines taught by other Men in other words and these Councils were all called by the Emperors and by them their Decrees confirmed at the Petition of the Councils themselves A. I see by this that both the calling of the Council and the Confirmation of their Doctrine and Church-Government had no obligatory force but from the Authority of the Emperor How comes it then to pass that they take upon them now a Legislative Power and say their Canons are Laws That Text All Power is given to me in Heaven and Earth had the same force then as it hath now and conferred a Legislative Power on the Councils not only over Christian Men but over all Nations in the World B. They say no for the Power they pretend to is derived from this that when a King was converted from Gentilisme to Christianity he did by that very submission to the Bishop that converted him submit to the Bishops Government and became one of his Sheep which Right therefore he could not have over any Nation that was not Christian. A. Did Sylvester which was Pope of Rome in the time of Constantine the great converted by him tell the Emperor his new Disciple before hand that if he became a Christian he must be the Popes Subject B. I believe not for it is likely enough if he had told him so plainly or but made him suspect it he would either have been no Christian at all or but a counterfeit one A. But if he did not tell him so and that plainly it was foul play not only in a Priest but in any Christian and for this derivation of their Right from the Emperors consent it proceeds only from this that they dare not challenge a Legislative Power nor call their Canons Laws in any Kingdom in Christendome farther than the Kings make them so But in Peru when Atabalipa was King the Frier told him that Christ being King of all the World had given the disposing of all the Kingdoms therein to the Pope and that the Pope had given Peru to the Roman Emperor Charles the 5 th and requir'd Atabalipa to resign it and for refusing it seized upon his person by the Spanish Army there present and murdered him you see by this how much they claim when they have power to make it good B. When began the Popes to take this Authority upon them first A. After the Inundation of Northern People had overflowed the Western parts of the Empire and possessed themselves of Italy the People of the City of Rome submitted themselves as well in Temporals as Spirituals to their Bishop and then first was the Pope a Temporal Prince and stood no more in so great fear of the Emperors which lived far off at Constantinople In this time it was that the Pope began by pretence of his Power Spiritual to encroach upon the Temporal Rights of all other Princes of the West and so continued gaining upon them till his Power was at the highest in that 300 years or thereabout which passed between the 8 th and 11 th Century that is between the time of Pope Leo the third and Pope Innocent the third For in this time Pope Zachary the first deposed Chilperic then King of France and gave the Kingdom to one of his Subjects Pepin and Pepin took from the Lombards a great part of their Territory and gave it to the Church Shortly after the Lombards having recover'd their Estate Charles the Great retook it and gave it to the Church again and Pope Leo the third made Charles Emperor B. But what Right did the Pope then pretend for the creating of an Emperor A. He pretended the Right of being Christ's Vicar and what Christ could give his Vicar might give and you know that Christ was King of all the World B. Yes as God and so he gives all the Kingdoms of the World which nevertheless proceed from the consent of People either for fear or hope A. But this Gift of the Empire was in a more special manner in such a manner as Moses had the Government of Israel given him or rather as Joshuah had it given him to go in and out before the People as the High-Priest should direct him and so the Empire was understood to be given him on condition to be directed by the Pope for when the Pope invested him with the Regal Ornaments the People all cried out Deus dat that is to say 't is God that gives it and the Emperor was contented so to take it And from that time all or most of the Christian Kings do put into their Titles the words Dei gratia that is by the Gift of God and their Successors use still to receive the Crown and Scepter from a Bishop B. 'T is certainly a very good Custom for Kings to be put in mind by whose Gift they Reign but it cannot from that Custom be inferr'd that they receive the Kingdom by mediation of the Pope or by any other Clergy for the Popes themselves receiv'd the Papacy from the Emperor The first that ever was elected Bishop of Rome after Emperors were Christians and without the Emperors consent excused himself by Letters to the Emperor with this That the People and Clergy of Rome forced him to take it upon him and prayed the Emperor to confirm it which the Emperor did but with reprehension of their proceedings and prohibition of the like for the time to come The Emperor was Lotharius and the Pope Calixtus the first A. You see by this the Emperor never acknowledged this Gift of God was the Gift of the Pope but maintained the Popedom was the Gift of the Emperor but in process of time by the negligence of the Emperors for the greatness of Kings makes them that they cannot easily descend into the obscure and narrow Mines of an ambitious Clergy they found means to make the People believe there was a Power in the Pope and Clergy which they ought to submit unto rather than to the Commands of their own Kings whensoever it should come into controversie And to that end devised and decreed many new Articles of Faith to the diminution of the Authority of Kings and to the disjunction of them and their Subjects and to a closer adherence of their Subjects to the Church of Rome Articles either not at all found in or not well founded upon the Scriptures As first that it should not be lawful for a Priest to marry B. What influence could that have upon the Power of Kings A. Do you not see that by this the King must of necessity either want the Priesthood and therewith a great part of the Reverence due to him from the most religious part of his Subjects or
Learning there was none erected till that time thoogh it be not unlikely there might be then some that taught Philosophy Logick and other Arts in divers Monasteries the Monks having little else to do but to study After some Colledges were built to that purpose it was not long time before many more were added to them by the devotion of Princes and Bishops and other wealthy Men and the Discipline therein was confirmed by the Popes that then were and abundance of Scholars sent thither by their Friends to study as to a place from whence the way was open and easie to Preferment both in Church and Common-wealth The profit the Church of Rome expected from them and in effect receiv'd was the maintenance of the Popes Doctrine and of his Authority over Kings and their Subjects by School-Divines who striving to make good many Points of Faith incomprehensible and calling in the Philosophy of Aristotle to their assistance wrote great Books of School-Divinity which no man else nor they themselves were able to understand as any man may perceive that shall consider the Writings of Peter Lombard or Scotus or of him that wrote Commentaries upon him or of Suarez or any other School-Divine of later times which kind of Learning nevertheless hath been much admir'd by two sorts of Men otherwise prudent enough the one of which sorts were of those that were already devoted and really affectionate to the Roman Church for they believed the Doctrine before but admir'd the Arguments because they understood them not and yet found the Conclusions to their mind The other sort were negligent Men that had rather admire with others than take the pains to examine So that all sorts of People were fully resolv'd that both the Doctrine was true and the Pope's Authority no more than what was due to him B. I see that a Christian King or State how well soever provided he be of Money and Arms where the Church of Rome hath such Authority will have but a hard match of it for want of Men for their Subjects will hardly be drawn into the Field and fight with courage against their Consciences A. It is true that great Rebellions have been raised by Church-men in the Popes quarrel against Kings as in England against King John and in France against King Henry the 4 th wherein the Kings had a more considerable part on their sides than the Pope had on his and shall always have so if they have Money for there are but few whose Consciences are so tender as to refuse Money when they want it But the great mischief done to Kings upon pretence of Religion is when the Pope gives power to one King to invade another B. I wonder how King Henry the 8 th could then so utterly extinguish the Authority of the Pope in England and that without any Rebellion at home or any Invasion from abroad A. First the Priests Monks and Friars being in the heighth of their power were now for the most part grown insolent and licentious and thereby the force of their Arguments was now taken away by the scandal of their Lives which the Gentry and Men of good Education easily perceived and the Parliament consisting of such persons were therefore willing to take away their Power and generally the Common People which from a long Custom had been in love with Parliaments were not displeased therewith Secondly the Doctrine of Luther beginning a little before was now by a great many men of the greatest Judgments so well received as that there was no hope to restore the Pope to his Power by Rebellion Thirdly the Revenue of Abbies and all other Religious Houses falling hereby into the Kings Hands and by him being disposed of to the most Eminent Gentlemen in every County could not but make them do their best to confirm themselves in the possession of them Fourthly King Henry was of a Nature quick and severe in the punishing of such as should be the first to oppose his Designs Lastly as to Invasion from abroad in case the Pope had given the Kingdom to another Prince it had been in vain for England is another manner of Kingdom than Navarre Besides the French and Spanish Forces were employed at that time one against another and though they had been at leisure they would have found perhaps no better success than the Spaniards found afterwards in 1588. Nevertheless notwithstanding the Insolence Avarice and Hypocrisie of the then Clergy and notwithstanding the Doctrine of Luther if the Pope had not provoked the King by endeavouring to cross his Marriage with his second Wife his Authority might have remained in England till there had risen some other quarrel B. Did not the Bishops that then were and had taken an Oath wherein was amongst other things that they should defend and maintain the Regal Rights of St. Peter the words are Regalia Sancti Petri which nevertheless some have said are Regulas Sancti Petri that is to say St. Peter's Rules or Doctrine and that the Clergy afterward did read it being perhaps written in Short-hand by a mistake to the Pope's advantage Regalia Did not I say the Bishops oppose that Act of Parliament against the Pope and against the taking of the Oath of Supremacy A. No I do not find the Bishops did many of them oppose the King for having no power without him it had been great imprudence to provoke his anger There was besides a Controversie in those times between the Pope and the Bishops most of which did maintain that they exercised their Jurisdiction Episcopal in the Right of God as immediately as the Pope himself did exercise the same over the whole Church And because they saw that by this Act of the King in Parliament they were to hold their Power no more of the Pope and never thought of holding it of the King they were perhaps better content to let that Act of Parliament pass In the Reign of King Edward the 6 th the Doctrine of Luther had taken so great root in England that they threw out also a great many of the Popes new Articles of Faith which Queen Mary succeeding him restored again together with all that had been abolished by Henry the 8 th saving that which could not be restored the Religious Houses and the Bishops and Clergy of King Edward were partly burnt for Hereticks partly fled and partly recanted and they that fled betook themselves to those places beyond Sea where the Reformed Religion was either protected or not persecuted who after the decease of Queen Mary returned again to favour and preferment under Queen Elizabeth that restored the Religion of her Brother King Edward And so it hath continued till this day excepting the Interruption made in this late Rebellion of the Presbyterians and other Democratical Men. But though the Romish Religion were now cast out by the Law yet there were abundance of people and many of them of the Nobility that still retained the Religion of
when they sent unto him 19 Propositions whereof above a dozen were Demands of several Powers essential parts of the Power Sovereign But before that time they had demanded some of them in a Petition which they called a Petition of Right which nevertheless the King had granted them in a former Parliament though he deprived himself thereby not only of the Power to levy Money without their consent but also of his ordinary Revenue by Custom of Tonnage and Poundage and of the Liberty to put into Custody such Men as he thought likely to disturb the Peace and raise Sedition in the Kingdom As for the Men that did this 't is enough to say they were the Members of the last Parliament and of some other Parliaments in the beginning of King Charles and the end of King James his Reign to name them all is not necessary farther than the Story shall require Most of them were Members of the House of Commons some few also of the Lords but all such as had a great opinion of their sufficiency in Politicks which they thought was not sufficiently taken notice of by the King B. How could the Parliament when the King had a great Navy and a great number of Train'd Soldiers and all the Magazines of Ammunition in his power be able to begin the War A. The King had these things indeed in his right but that signifies little when they that had the Custody of the Navy and Magazines and with them all the Train'd Soldiers and in a manner all his Subjects were by the preaching of Presbyterian Ministers and the seditious whisperings of false and ignorant Politicians made his Enemies And when the King could have no Money but what the Parliament should give him which you may be sure should not be enough to maintain his Regal Power which they intended to take from him And yet I think they would never have adventured into the Field but for that unlucky business of imposing upon the Scots who were all Presbyterians our Book of Common-Prayer for I believe the English would never have taken well that the Parliament should make War upon the King upon any provocation unless it were in their own defence in case the King should first make War upon them and therefore it behooved them to provoke the King that he might do something that might look like Hostility It happened in the Year 1637. that the King by the Advice as it is thought of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury sent down a Book of Common-Prayer into Scotland not differing in substance from ours nor much in words besides the putting of the word Presbyter for that of Minister commanding it to be used for conformity to this Kingdom by the Ministers there for an ordinary Form of Divine Service This being read in the Church at Edenburgh caused such a Tumult there that he that read it had much ado to escape with his life and gave occasion to the greatest part of the Nobility and others to enter by their own Authority into a Covenant amongst themselves which impudently they called a Covenant with God to put down Episcopacy without consulting with the King which they presently did animated thereto by their own confidence or by assurance from some of the Democratical English-men that in former Parliaments had been the greatest opposers of the King's Interest that the King would not be able to raise an Army to chastise them without calling a Parliament which would be sure to favour them For the thing which those Domocraticals chiefly then aimed at was to force the King to call a Parliament which he had not done of ten years before as having found no help but hinderance to his Designs in the Parliaments he had formerly called Howsoever contrary to their expectation by the help of his better affected Subjects of the Nobility and Gentry he made a shift to raise a sufficient Army to have reduced the Scots to their former obedience if it had proceeded to battle and with this Army he marched himself into Scotland where the Scotch Army was also brought into the Field against him as if they meant to fight but then the Scoth sent to the King for leave to treat by Commissioners on both sides and the King willing to avoid the destruction of his own Subjects condescended to it The Issue was peace and the King thereupon went to Edenburgh and passed an Act of Parliament there to their satisfaction B. Did he not then confirm Episcopacy A. No but yielded to the abolishing of it but by this means the English were cross'd in their hope of a Parliament but the said Democraticals formerly opposers of the King's Interest ceased not to endeavour still to put the two Nations into a War to the end the King might buy the Parliaments help at no less a price than Sovereignty it self B. But what was the cause that the Gentry and Nobility of Scotland were so averse from the Episcopacy for I can hardly believe that their Consciences were extraordinarily tender nor that they were so very great Divines as to know what was the true Church-discipline established by our Saviour and his Apostles nor yet so much in love with their Ministers as to be over-rul'd by them in the Government either Ecclesiastical or Civil for in their lives they were just as other Men are pursuers of their own Interests and Preferments wherein they were not more opposed by the Bishops than by their Presbyterian Ministers A. Truly I do not know I cannot enter into other Mens thoughts farther than I am led by the consideration of Humane Nature in general But upon this consideration I see first that Men of ancient Wealth and Nobility are not apt to brook that poor Scholars should as they must when they are made Bishops be their fellows Secondly That from the Emulation of Glory between the Nations they might be willing to see this Nation afflicted by Civil War and might hope by aiding the Rebels here to acquire some power over the English at least so far as to establish here the Presbyterian Discipline which was also one of the Points they afterwards openly demanded Lastly They might hope for in the War some great Sum of Money as a reward of their assistance besides great booty which they afterwards obtained But whatsoever was the cause of their hatred to Bishops the pulling of them down was not all they aimed at If it had now that Episcopacy was abolished by Act of Parliament they would have rested satisfied which they did not for after the King was returned to London the English Presbyterians and Democraticals by whose favour they had put down Bishops in Scotland thought it reason to have the assistance of the Scotch for the pulling down of Bishops in England And in order thereunto they might perhaps deal with the Scots secretly to rest unsatisfied with that Pacification which they were before contented with Howsoever it was not long after the King was returned to London
are sent by him Love God with all your Soul and your Neighbour as your self are words of the Scripture which are well enough understood but neither Children nor the greatest part of Men do understand why it is their Duty to do so They see not that the safety of the Common-wealth and consequently their own depends upon their doing it Every man by nature without discipline does in all his Actions look upon as far as he can see the benefit that shall redound to himself from his obedience He reads that Covetousness is the root of all evil but he thinks and sometimes finds it is the root of his Estate And so in other Cases the Scripture says one thing and they think another weighing the Commodities or Incommodities of this present life only which are in their sight never putting into the Scales the Good and Evil of the Life to come which they see not A. All this is no more than happens where the Scripture is seal'd up in Greek and Latin and the People taught the same things out of them by Preachers But they that are of a Condition and Age fit to examine the sense of what they read and that take a delight in searching out the Grounds of their Duty certainly cannot choose but by their reading of the Scriptures come to such a sense of their Duty as not only to obey the Laws themselves but also to induce others to do the same for commonly Men of Age and Quality are followed by their inferior Neighbours that look more upon the Example of those Men whom they reverence and whom they are unwilling to displease than upon Precepts and Laws B. These Men of the Condition and Age you speak of are in my opinion the unfittest of all others to be trusted with the reading of the Scriptures I know you mean such as have studied the Greek or Latin or both Tongues and that are withal such as love knowledge and consequently take delight in finding out the meaning of the most hard Texts or in thinking they have found it in case it be new and not found out by others These are therefore they that pretermitting the easie places which teach them their Duty fall to scanning only of the Mysteries of Religion such as are How it may be made out with wit that there be three that bear Rule in Heaven and those three but One How the Deity could be made Flesh How that Flesh could be really present in many places at once Where 's the Place and what the Torments of Hell and other Metaphysical Doctrines Whether the Will of Man be free or governed by the Will of God Whether Sanctity comes by Inspiration or Education By whom Christ now speaks to us Whether by the King or by the Clergy or by the Bible to every man that reads it and interprets it to himself or by a private Spirit to every private Man These and the like Points are the study of the Curious and the cause of all our late mischief and the cause that makes the plainer sort of Men whom the Scripture had taught belief in Christ Love towards God Obedience to the King and sobriety of behaviour forget it all and place their Religion in the disputable Doctrines of these your wise Men. A. I do not think these men fit to interpret the Scripture to the rest nor do I say that the rest ought to take their Interpretation for the Word of God Whatsoever is necessary for them to know is so easie as not to need Interpretation Whatsoever is more does them no good But in case any of those unnecessary Doctrines shall be authorized by the Laws of the King or other State I say it is the Duty of every Subject not to speak against them in as much as it is every man's Duty to obey Him or Them that have the Sovereign Power and the Wisdom of all such Powers to punish such as shall publish or teach their private Interpretations when they are contrary to the Law and likely to incline men to Sedition or Disputing against the Law B. They must punish then the most of those that have had their breeding in the Universities for such curious Questions in Divinity are first started in the Universities and so are all those Politick Questions concerning the Rights of Civil and Ecclesiastick Government and there they are furnished with Arguments for Liberty out of the Works of Aristotle Plato Cicero Seneca and out of the Histories of Rome and Greece for their Disputation against the necessary Power of their Sovereigns Therefore I despair of any lasting Peace amongst our selves till the Universities here shall bend and direct their Studies to the setling of it that is to the teaching of absolute Obedience to the Laws of the King and to his Publick Edicts under the Great Seal of England for I make no doubt but that solid Reason back'd with the Authority of so many Learned Men will more prevail for the keeping of us in peace within our selves than any Victory can do over the Rebels but I am afraid that 't is impossible to bring the Universities to such a compliance with the Actions of State as is necessary for the business A. Seeing the Universities have heretofore from time to time maintain'd the Authority of the Pope contrary to all Laws Divine Civil and Natural against the Right of our Kings why can they not as well when they have all manner of Laws and Equity on their side maintain the Rights of him that is both Sovereign of the Kingdom and Head of the Church B. Why then were they not in all Points for the King's Power presently after that King Henry the 8 th was in Parliament declared Head of the Church as much as they were before for the Authority of the Pope A. Because the Clergy in the Universities by whom all things there are governed and the Clergy without the Universities as well Bishops as inferior Clerks did think that the pulling down of the Pope was the setting up of them as to England in his place and made no question the greatest part of them but that their Spiritual Power did depend not upon the Authority of the King but of Christ himself derived to them by a successive Imposition of Hands from Bishop to Bishop notwithstanding they knew that this derivation passed through the Hands of Popes and Bishops whose Authority they had cast off For though they were content that the Divine Right which the Pope pretended to in England should be denied him yet they thought it not so fit to be taken from the Church of England whom they now supposed themselves to represent It seems they did not think it reasonable that a Woman or a Child or a Man that could not construe the Hebrew Greek or Latin Bible nor know perhaps the Declensions and Conjugations of Greek or Latin Nouns and Verbs should take upon him to govern so many learned Doctors in matters of Religion meaning matters
to perform July the 11 th the Parliament sent their Propositions to the King at New-Castle which Propositions they pretended to be the only way to a setled and well grounded Peace They were brought by the Earl of Pembroke the Earl of Suffolk Sir Walter Earle Sir John Hyppesly Mr. Goodwin and Mr. Robinson whom the King asked if they had power to Treat and when they said no why they might not as well have been sent by a Trumpeter The Propositions were the same dethroning ones which they used to send and therefore the King would not assent to them Nor did the Scots swallow them at first but made some exceptions against them only it seems to make the Parliament perceive they meant not to put the King into their hands gratis And so at last the bargain was made between them and upon the payment of 200000 l. the King was put into the hands of the Commissioners which the English Parliament sent down to receive him B. What a vile Complexion has this Action compounded of feigned Religion and very Covetousness Cowardice Perjury and Treachery A. Now the War that seemed to justifie many unseemly things is ended you will see almost nothing else in these Rebels but baseness and falseness besides their folly By this time the Parliament had taken in all the rest of the Kings Garrisons whereof the last was Pendennis Castle whither Duke Hamilton had been sent Prisoner by the King B. What was done during this time in Ireland and Scotland A. In Ireland there had been a Peace made by order from his Majesty for a time which by Divisions amongst the Irish was ill kept the Popish Party the Pope's Nuntio being then there took this to be the time for delivering themselves from their subjection to the English Besides the time of the Peace was now expir'd B. How were they subject to the English more than the English to the Irish They were subject to the King of England but so also were the English to the King of Ireland A. This Distinction is somewhat too subtil for common Understandings In Scotland the Marquess of Montrosse for the King with a very few Men and miraculous Victories had over-run all Scotland where many of his Forces out of too much security were permitted to be absent for a while of which the Enemy having Intelligence suddenly came upon them and forced them to fly back into the Highlands to recruit where he began to recover strength when he was commanded by the King then in the hands of the Scots at New-Castle to disband and he departed from Scotland by Sea In the end of the same year 1646. the Parliament caused the Kings Great Seal to be broken also the King was brought to Holmeby and there kept by the Parliaments Commissioners and here was an end of that War as to England and Scotland but not to Ireland About this time also died the Earl of Essex whom the Parliament had discarded B. Now that there was peace in England and the King in prison in whom was the Sovereign Power A. The Right was certainly in the King but the Exercise was yet in no body but contended for as in a Game at Cards without fighting all the years 1647. and 1648. between the Parliament and Oliver Cromwel Lieutenant-General to Sir Thomas Fairfax You must know that when King Henry the 8 th abolished the Popes Authority here and took upon him to be the Head of the Church the Bishops as they could not resist him so neither were they discontented with it For whereas before the Pope allowed not the Bishops to claim Jurisdiction in their Diocesses Jure Divino that is of Right immediately from God but by the Gift and Authority of the Pope now that the Pope was outed they made no doubt but the Divine Right was in themselves After this the City of Geneva and divers other places beyond Sea having revolted from the Papacy set up Presbyteries for the Government of their several Churches and divers English Scholars that went beyond Sea during the persecution in the time of Queen Mary were much taken with this Government and at their return in the time of Queen Elizabeth and ever since have endeavour'd to the great trouble of the Church and Nation to set up that Government here wherein they might domineer and applaud their own Wit and Learning and these took upon them not only a Divine Right but also a Divine Inspiration and having been connived at and countenanced sometimes in their frequent preaching they introduced many strange and many pernicious Doctrines out-doing the Reformation as they pretended both of Luther and Calvin receding from the former Divinity or Church-Philosophy for Religion is another thing as much as Luther and Calvin had receded from the Pope and distracted their Auditors into a great number of Sects as Brownists Anabaptists Independents Fifth-monarchy-men Quakers and divers others all commonly called by the name of Fanaticks in so much as there was no so dangerous an Enemy to the Presbyterians as this brood of their own hatching These were Cromwel's best Cards whereof he had a very great number in the Army and some in the House whereof he himself was thought one though he were nothing certain but applying himself always to the Faction that was strongest was of a colour like it There were in the Army a great number if not the greatest part that aimed only at rapine and sharing the Lands and Goods of their Enemies and these also upon the opinion they had of Cromwel's Valor and Conduct thought they could not any way better arrive at their ends than by adhering to him Lastly in the Parliament it self though not the Major part yet a considerable number were Fanaticks enough to put in doubts and cause delay in the resolutions of the House and sometimes also by advantage of a thin House to carry a Vote in favour of Cromwel as they did upon the 26 th of July For whereas on the fourth of May precedent the Parliament had voted that the Militia of London should be in the hands of a Committee of Citizens whereof the Lord Major for the time being should be one shortly after the Independents chancing to be the major made an Ordinance by which it was put into hands more favourable to the Army The best Cards the Parliament had were the City of London and the Person of the King The General Sir Tho. Fairfax was right Presbyterian but in the hands of the Army and the Army in the hands of Cromwel but which Party should prevail depended on the playing of the Game Cromwel protested still obedience and fidelity to the Parliament but meaning nothing less bethought him and resolv'd on a way to excuse himself of all that he should do to the contrary upon the Army Therefore he and his Son-in-law Commissary-General Ireton as good at contriving as himself and at speaking and writing better contrive how to mutiny the Army against the Parliament To
God He offers no proof against any of this but says only I make Atheism to be more reasonable than Superstition which is not true For I deny that there is any reason either in the Atheist or in the Superstitious And because the Atheist thinks he has reason where he has none I think him the more irrational of the two But all this while he argues not against any of this but enquires only what is become of my natural Worship of God and of his Existency Infiniteness Incomprehensibility Unity and Ubiquity As if whatsoever reason can suggest must be suggested all at once First all men by nature had an opinion of Gods Existency but of his other Attributes not so soon but by reasoning and by degrees And for the Attributes of the true God they were never suggested but by the Word of God written In that I say Atheism is a sin of ignorance he says I excuse it The Prophet David says The fool hath said in his heart There is no God Is it not then a sin of folly 'T is agreed between us that right reason dictates There is a God Does it not follow that denying of God is a sin proceeding from mis-reasoning If it be not a sin of ignorance it must be a sin of malice Can a man malice that which he thinks has no being But may not one think there is a God and yet maliciously deny him If he think there is a God he is no Atheist and so the question is changed into this whether any man that thinks there is a God dares deliberately deny it For my part I think not For upon what confidence dares any man deliberately I say oppose the Omnipotent David saith of himself My feet were ready to slip when I saw the prosperity of the wicked Therefore it is likely the feet of men less holy slip oftner But I think no man living is so daring being out of passion as to hold it as his opinion Those wicked men that for a long time proceeded so succesfully in the late horrid Rebellion may perhaps make some think they were constant and resolved Atheists but I think rather that they forgot God than believed there was none He that believes there is such an Atheist comes a little too near that opinion himself Nevertheless if words spoken in passion signifie a denial of a God no punishment praeordained by Law can be too great for such an insolence because there is no living in a Common-wealth with men to whose oaths we cannot reasonably give credit As to that I say An Atheist is punished by God not as a Subject by his King but as an Enemy and to my argument for it namely because he never acknowledged himself Gods Subject He opposeth That if nature dictate that there is a God and to be worshiped in such and such manner then Atheism is not a sin of meer ignorance as if either I or he did hold that Nature dictates the manner of Gods Worship or any article of our Creed or whether to worship with or without a Surplice Secondly he answers that a Rebel is still a Subject de Jure though not de Facto And 't is granted But though the King lose none of his right by the Traytors act yet the Traytor loseth the priviledg of being punisht by a praecedent Law and therefore may be punish'd at the Kings will as Ravillac was for murdering Henry the 4th of France An open Enemy and a perfidious Traytor are both enemies Had not his Lordship read in the Roman story how Perseus and other just enemies of that State were wont to be punished But what is this trifling question to my excusing of Atheism In the seventh Paragraph of my Book de Cive he found the words in Latin which he here citeth And to the same sense I have said in my Leviathan That the right of nature whereby God raigneth over men is to be derived not from his creating them as if he required obedience as of Gratitude but from his irresistable Power This he says is absurd and dishonourable Whereas first all power is honourable and greatest power is most honourable Is it not a more noble tenure for a King to hold his Kingdom and the right to punish those that transgress his Laws from his Power than from the gratitude or gift of the Transgressor There is nothing therefore here of dishonour to God Almighty But see the subtility of his disputing He saw he could not catch Leviathan in this place he looks for him in my Book de Cive which is Latine to try what he could fish out of that And says I make our obedience to God depend upon our weakness as if these words signified the Dependence and not the necessity of our submission or that incumbere and dependere were all one J. D. For T. H. his God is not the God of Christians nor of any rational men Our God is every where and seeing he hath no parts he must be wholly here and wholly there and wholly every where So Nature it self dictateth It cannot be said honourably of God that he is in a place for nothing is in a place but that which hath proper bounds of its greatness But T. H. his God is not wholly every where No man can conceive that any thing is all in this place and all in another place at the same time for none of these things ever have or can be incident to sense So far well if by conceiving he mean comprehending but then follows That these are absurd Speeches taken upon credit without any signification at all from deceived Philosophers and deceived or deceiving School-men Thus he denieth the Ubiquity of God A Circumscriptive a Definitive and a Repletive being in a place is some heathen language to him T. H. Though I believe the Omnipotence of God and that he can do what he will yet I dare not say how every thing is done because I cannot conceive nor comprehend either the Divine substance or the way of its operation And I think it Impiety to speak concerning God any thing of my own head or upon the Authority of Philosophers or School-men which I understand not without warrant in the Scripture And what I say of Omnipotence I say also of Ubiquity But his Lordship is more valiant in this place telling us that God is wholly here and wholly there and wholly every where because he has no parts I cannot comprehend nor conceive this For methinks it implies also that the whole World is also in the whole God and in every part of God nor can I conceive how any thing can be called Whole which has no parts nor can I find any thing of this in the Scripture If I could find it there I could believe it and if I could find it in the publick Doctrine of the Church I could easily abstain from contradicting it The School-men say also that the Soul of Man meaning his upper Soul which
were not only a sinful Scandal in respect of other Christian Mens Consciences but a perfidious forsaking of his Charge In which words I distinguish between a Pastor and one of the Sheep of his Flock St. Peter sinned in denying Christ and so does every Pastor that having undertaken the Charge of Preaching the Gospel in the Kingdom of an Infidel where he could expect at the undertaking of his Charge no less than Death And why but because he violates his Trust in doing contrary to his Commission St. Peter was an Apostle of Christ and bound by his voluntary undertaking of that Office not only to Confess Christ but also to Preach him before those Infidels whom he knew would like Wolves devour him And therefore when Paul and the rest of the Apostles were forbidden to preach Christ they gave this Answer We ought to obey God rather than Men. And it was to his Disciples only which had undertaken that Office that Christ saith he that denyeth me before Men shall be denyed before the Angels of God And so I think I have sufficiently answered this place and shewed that I do not allow the denying of Christ upon any colour of Torments to his Lordship nor to any other that has undertaken the Office of a Preacher Which if he think right he will perhaps in this case put himself into the number of those whom he calls merciful Doctors whereas now he extends his severity beyond the bounds of common equity He has read Cicero and perhaps this Story in him The Senate of Rome would have sent Cicero to treat of Peace with Marcus Antonius but when Cicero had shewed them the just fear he had of being killed by him he was excused and if they had forced him to it and he by terror turned Enemy to them he had in equity been excusable But his Lordship I believe did write this more valiantly than he would have acted it J. D. He Deposeth Christ from his true Kingly Office making his Kingdom not to Commence or begin before the day of Judgment And the Regiment wherewith Christ Governeth his Faithful in this Life is not properly a Kingdom but a Pastoral Office or a right to Teach And a little after Christ had not Kingly Authority committed to him by his Father in this World but only Consiliary and Doctrinal T. H. How do I take away Christs Kingly Office He neither draws it by Consequence from my Words nor offers any Argument at all against my Doctrine The words he cites are in the Contents of Chap. 17. de Cive In the Body of the Chapter it is thus The time of Christ's being upon the Earth is called in Scripture the Regeneration often but the Kingdom never When the Son of God comes in Majesty and all the Angels with him then he shall sit on the seat of Majesty My Kingdom is not of this World God sent not his Son that he should Judge the World I came not to Judge the World but to save the World Man who made me a Judge or Divider amongst you Let thy Kingdom come And other words to the same purpose out of which it is clear that Christ took upon him no Regal Power upon Earth before his Assumption But at his Assumption his Apostles asked him if he would then restore the Kingdom to Israel and he Answered it was not for them to know So that hitherto Christ had not taken that Office upon him unless his Lordship think that the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Christ be two distinct Kingdoms From the Assumption ever since all true Christians say daily in their Prayers Thy Kingdom come But his Lordship had perhaps forgot that But when then beginneth Christ to be a King I say it shall be then when he comes again in Majesty with all the Angels And even then he shall Reign as he is Man under his Father For St. Paul saith 1 Cor. 15.25 26. He must Raign till he hath put all Enemies under his feet the last Enemy that shall be destroyed is Death But when shall God the Father Raign again St. Paul saith in the same Chapter verse 28. When all things shall be subdued unto him then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him that God may be all in all And verse 24. Then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God even the Father when he shall have put down all Rule Authority and Power This is at the Resurrection And by this it is manifest that his Lordship was not so well versed in Scripture as he ought to have been J. D. He taketh away his Priestly or Propitiatory Office And although this Act of our Redemption be not alwayes in Scripture called a Sacrifice and Oblation but sometimes a Price yet by Price we are not to understand any thing by the value whereof he could claim right to a Pardon for us from his Offended Father but that Price which God the Father was pleased in mercy to demand And again Not that the Death of one Man though without sin can satisfie for the Offences of all Men in the rigour of Justice but in the mercy of God that ordained such Sacrifices for sin as he was pleased in mercy to accept He knoweth no difference between one who is meer man and one who was both God and man between a Levitical Sacrifice and the All-sufficient Sacrifice of the Cross between the Blood of a Calf and the precious Blood of the Son of God T. H. Yes I know there is a difference between Blood and Blood but not any such as can make a difference in the Case here questioned Our Saviour's Blood was most precious but still it was Humane Blood and I hope his Lordship did never think otherwise or that it was not accepted by his Father for our Redemption J. D. And touching the Prophetical Office of Christ I do much doubt whether he do believe in earnest that there is any such thing as Prophecy in the World He maketh very little difference between a Prophet and a Mad-man and a Demoniack And if there were nothing else says he that bewrayed their madness yet that very arrogating such inspiration to themselves is Argument enough He maketh the pretence of Inspiration in any man to be and always to have been on opinion pernicious to Peace and tending to the dissolution of all Civil Government He subjecteth all Prophetical Revelations from God to the sole Pleasure and Censure of the Soveraign Prince either to Authorize them or to Exauctorate them So as two Prophets prophecying the same thing at the same time in the Dominions of two different Princes the one shall be a true Prophet the other a false And Christ who had the approbation of no Soveraign Prince upon his grounds was to be reputed a false Prophet every where Every man therefore ought to consider who is the Soveraign Prophet that is to say who it is
had in their sleep or in an extasie 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 Prophesies 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 Argument 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 entring 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 some thing 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 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 wayes 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 Gods bestowing of Faith Grace or other Vertue those words are intelligible enough J. D. Why should he trouble himself about the Holy Spirit who acknowledgeth no Spirit but either a subtil fluid body or a Ghost or other Idol or Phantasm of the imagination who knoweth no inward Grace or intrinsecal Holyness Holy is a word which in Gods Kingdom answereth to that which men in their Kingdoms use to call publick or the Kings And again wheresoever the word Holy is taken properly there is still some thing 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 sence 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 denyed 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 Catholick 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 Common-wealth they are not one Person nor is there an Vniversal Church that hath any Authority over them And again The Vniversal 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 Common-wealth only T. H. maketh them to be one and the same thing The Common-wealth 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 Common-wealth 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 Common-wealth 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 Common-wealth of Christians called a Common-wealth because it consisteth of men united in one Person their Soveraign And a Church because it consisteth in Christian men united in one Christian Soveraign 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 Soveraign T. A. 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
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 advantagious 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 mans 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 my self I take the Sacrament of the Lords 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 English man nor knew any difference between their significations What English man 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 Soveraigns are the supream Pastors and the only persons whom Christians now hear speak from God except such as God speaketh to in these dayes supernaturally What is now become of the promised infallibility And it is from the Civil Soveraign 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 Soveraigns to be Jure divino of all other Pastors Jure civili He addeth neither is there any Judge of Heresie among Subjects but their own civil Soveraign 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 dammage 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 dammage rather redoundeth to the Church Neither is the Excommunication of a Christian Subject that obeyeth the Laws of his own Soveraign 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 Common-wealth 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 soveraign 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 43d 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 Soveraigns are the Supream 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 Patents 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 incroachments 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 soveraign Pastor and he again a Sheep of that supream 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 joyes they have upon their Masters Principles They may hear them without any great contentment There is no mention in Scripture nor ground in reason of the Coelum Empyraeum 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 Ascention of the Saints into Heaven that is to say into any Coelum Empyraeum But he concludeth positively that Salvation shall be upon earth when God shall Raign 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 Coelum Empyraeum 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 Empyraeum 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 Lev. pag. 345. 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 Coelum Empyraeum 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 subtil 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 Vniverse is Body and that which is not Body is no part of the Vniverse And because the Vniverse is all that which is no part of it is nothing and consequently no where 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 lye If this that he say here be true That every part of the Vniverse 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 meer nothing though they think they dance under a Net and have the blind of Gods 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 Sysiphus in the Poets Hell that there rolls a heavy stone up a hill which no sooner he brings to day-light then it slips down again to the bottom and serves him so perpetually For so his Lordship rolls this and other questions with much adoe till they come to the light of Scripture and then they vanish and he vexing sweating and railing goes to 't 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 inferr'd 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 Coelum Empyraeum serve in his Judgment who denyeth 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 in as much as his Soul is immortal Who supposeth that when a man dyeth there remaineth nothing of him but his Carkase who maketh the word Soul in holy Scripture to signifie 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
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 dyed for my sins As for other Doctrins 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 it 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 Vnjust 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 Common-wealth that is the Civil Laws Where by the Laws he doth not understand the Written Laws elected and approved by the whole Common-wealth but the verbal Commands or Mandates of him that hath the Soveraign 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 Soveraign Power in the Common-wealth concerning the future actions of his Subjects And the Civil Laws are fastned to the Lips of that man who hath the Soveraign 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 Pallaces 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 deserved he who should do his uttermost endeavour to poyson a common Fountain whereof all the Common-wealth must drink He doth the same who poisoneth the mind of a Soveraign Prince Are the Civil Laws the Rules of good and bad just and unjust honest and dishonest And what I pray your are the Rules of the Civil Law it self Even the Law of God and Nature If the Civil Laws swerve from these more authentick 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 prophane 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 Martyrdome 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 sence more dishonourable to God more inglorious to the humane nature That God should create Man and leave him presently without any Rules to his own ordering of himself as the Ostridg 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 signifie 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 Lordships elegancies But let us see what this Rapper is 'T 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 Common-wealth 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 Frier What is Injust but the Transgression of a Law Law therefore was before Unjust And the Law was made known by Soveraign Power before it was a Law Therefore Soveraign Power was antecedent both to Law and Injustice Who then made Injust but Soveraign Kings or Soveraign 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 Vnjust 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 Soveraign 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 Common-wealth which is here the Great Seal of England Who but his Lordship ever denyed that the command of England was a Law to English
men 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 then 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 politick 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 Common-wealth poysoning 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 Choller 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 controversie touching Liberty and Necessity wherein he was to blame himself for believing that the obscure and barbarous Language of School Divinity could satisfie 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 Soveraign 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 Soveraign's Commands or to suffer for the Testimony of a good Conscience We acknowledge that in doubtful Cases semper praesumitur pro Rege Lege the Soveraign 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 Bullrush Nay they derive not only the Authority of the Scripture but even the Law of nature it self 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 Common-wealth is once setled 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 controll 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 Soveraign 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 Soveraign 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 it self there is no difference Also though the Subject think the Law just as when a Thief is by Law Condemned to dye 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 carryed 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 it self but not from it self 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 Soveraign 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 Supream 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 Posie of Flowers or rather a bundle of Weeds
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 authorised 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 expresly that for those abominations the Land of Canaan spued out her Inhabitants Levit. 18.28 T. H. The 17 th he hath corrupted with a false interpretation of the Text. For in that Chapter from the beginning to verse 20 are forbidden Marriages in certain degrees of kindred From verse 20 which begins with Moreover to the 28 th are forbidden Sacrificing of Children to Molech and Prophaning of God's name and Buggery with Man and Beast with this cause exprest 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 tears 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 School man 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 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 hang'd for stealing hath fulfilled the Law which I think is absurd J. D. His whole works are a heap of mishapen Errors and absurd Paradoxes vented with the confidence of a Jugler 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 Catholick 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 implicite 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 School-man too fierce and unseemly in any man whatsoever Besides they are untrue Who that knows me will say I have the confidence of a Jugler or that I use to brag of any thing much less that I play the Mountebank What my works are he was no sit Judge But now he has provoked me I will say thus much of them that neither he if he had lived could nor I if I would can 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 There is a Spiritual Body and there is an Animal Body 1 Cor. 15. He that holds that there is a God and that God is really somewhat for Body is doubtlesly a real Substance is as far from being an Atheist as 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. 2.9