Soveraign is the Judge of Prophesie he deduces That then Samuel and other Prophets were false Prophets that contested with their Soveraigns As for Samuel he was at that time the Judge that is to say the Soveraign Prince in Israel and so acknowledged by Saul For Saul received the Kingdom from God himself who had right to give and take it by the hands of Samuel And God gave it him to himself only and not to his Seed though if he had obeyed God he would have setled it also upon his Seed The Commandement of God was that he should not spare Agag Saul obeyed not God therefore sent Samuel to tell him that he was rejected For all this Samuel went not about to resist Saul That he caused Agag to be slain was with Sauls consent Lastly Saul confesses his sin Where is this contesting with Saul After this God sent Samuel to anoint David not that he should depose Saul but succeed him the Sons of Saul having never had a right of Succession Nor did ever David make War on Saul or so much as resist him but fled from his persecution But when Saul was dead then indeed he claimed his right against the House of Saul What Rebellion or Resistance could his Lordship find here either in Samùel or in David Besides all these Transactions are supernatural and oblige not to imitation Is there any Prophet or Priest now that can set up in England Scotland or Ireland another King by pretence of Prophesie or Religion What did Jeroboam to the man of God 1 Kings 13 that prophesied against the Altar in Bethel without first doing a Miracle but offer to seize him for speaking as he thought rashly of the Kings Act and after the miraculous withering of his Hand desire the Prophet to pray for him The sin of Jeroboam was not his distrust of the Prophet but his Idolatry He was the sole Judge of the truth which the man of God uttered against the Altar and the process agreeable to equity What is the story of Eliah and Ahab 1 Kings 18. but a confirmation of the Right even of Ahab to be the Judge of Prophesie Eliah told Ahab he had transgressed the Commandement of God So may any Minister now tell his Soveraign so he do it with sincerity and discretion Ahab told Eliah he troubled Israel Upon this controversie Eliah desired tryal Send saith he and assemble all Israel Assemble also the Prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty Ahab did so The Question is stated before the People thus If the Lord be God follow him but if Baal follow him Then upon the Altars of God and Baal were laid the Wood and the Bullocks and the cause was to be judged by Fire from Heaven to burn the Sacrifices which Eliah procured the Prophets of Baal could not procure Was not this cause here Pleaded before Ahab The Sentence of Ahab is not required for Eliah from that time forward was no more persecuted by Ahab but only by his Wife Jezabel The story of Micaiah 2 Cron. 18. is this Ahab King of Israel consulted the Prophets four hundred in number whether he should prosper or not in case he went with Jehosaphat King of Judah to fight against the Syrians at Ramoth-gilead The Prophet Micaiah was also called and both the Kings Ahab and Jehosaphat sat together to hear what they should prophecy There was no Miracle done The 400 pronounced Victory Micaiah alone the contrary The King was Judge and most concern'd in the event nor had he received any Revelation in the business What could he do more discreetly than to follow the Counsel of 400 rather than of one Man But the event was contrary for he was slain but not for following the Counsel of the 400 but for his Murder of Naboth and his Idolatry It was also a sin in him that he afflicted Micaiah in Prison but an unjust Judgment does not take away from any King his right of Judicature Besides what 's all this or that of Jeremiah which he cites last to the Question of who is Judge of Christian Doctrine J. D. Neither doth he use God the Holy Ghost more favourably than God the Son Where St. Peter saith Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit He saith By the Spirit is meant the Voice of God in a Dream or Vision Supernatural which Dreams or Visions he maketh to be no more than imaginations which they had in their sleep or in an 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
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
them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for Honour Glory and Immortality Eternal Life But unto them that be contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath Here it is plain that God gives Eternal Life only to well doers and to them that seek not to them that have already Immortality Again 1 Tim. 1.10 Christ hath abolished Death and brought Life and Immortality to light through the Gospel Therefore before the Gospel of Christ nothing was Immortal but God And St. Paul speaking of the day of Judgment 1 Cor. 15.54 saith that This Mortal shall put on Immortality and that then Death is swallowed in Victory There was no Immortality of any thing Mortal till Death was overcome and that was at the Resurrection And John 8.52 Verily Verily if a man keep my sayings he shall never see Death that is to say he shall be Immortal but it is no where said that he which keeps not Christ's sayings shall never see Death nor be Immortal and yet they that say that the wicked Body and Soul shall be tormented everlastingly do therein say they are Immortal Mat. 10.28 Fear not them that can kill the Body but are not able to kill the Soul but fear him that is able to destroy both Soul and Body in Hell Man cannot kill a Soul for the Man kill'd shall revive again But God can destroy the Soul and Body in Hell as that it shall never return to life In the Old Testament we read Gen. 7.4 I will destroy every living Substance that I have made from off the face of the Earth therefore if the Souls of them that perished in the Flood were Substances they were also destroyed in the Flood and were not Immortal Math. 25.41 Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels These words are to be spoken in the day of Judgment which Judgment is to be in the Clouds And there shall stand the men that are reprobated alive where Souls according to his Lordships Doctrine were sent long before to Hell Therefore at that present day of Judgment they had one Soul by which they were there alive and another Soul in Hell How his Lordship could have maintained this I understand not But by my Doctrine that the Soul is not a separated Substance but that the Man at his Resurrection shall be revived by God and raised to Judgment and afterwards Body and Soul destroyed in Hell-fire which is the second death there is no such consequence or difficulty to be inferred Besides it avoids the unnecessary disputes about where the Soul of Lazarus was for four dayes he lay dead And the order of the Divine Process is made good of not inflicting torments before the Condemnation pronounced Now as to the harmony of the two Testaments it is said in the old Gen. 2.17 In the day that thou eatest of the Tree of Knowledge dying thou shalt dye Moriendo morieris that is when thou art dead thou shalt not revive for so hath Athanasius expounded it Therefore Adam and Eve were not Immortal by their Creation Then Gen. 3.22 Behold the man is become as one of us Now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the Tree of Life and eat and live for ever c. Here they had had an Immortality by the gift of God if they had not sinned It was therefore sin that lost them Eternal-life He therefore that redeemed them from sin was the Author of their Immortality and consequently began in the day of Judgment when Adam and Eve were again made alive by admission to the new Tree of Life which was Christ Now let us compare this with the New Testament Where we find these words 1 Cor. 15.21 since by Man came Death by Man came also the Resurrection of the dead Therefore all the Immortality of the Soul that shall be after the Resurrection is by Christ and not by the nature of the Soul verse 22. As by Adam all dye even so in Christ shall all be made alive Therefore since we dyed by Adam's sin so we shall live by Christ's Redemption of us that is after the Resurrection Again verse 23. But every man in his order Christ the first Fruits afterwards they that are Christs at his coming Therefore none shall be made alive till the coming of Christ Lastly as when God had said That day that thou eatest of the Tree of Knowledg of Good and Evil thou shalt dye though he condemned him then yet he suffered him to live a long time after so when Christ had said to the Thief on the Cross this day thou shalt be with me in Paradise yet he suffered him to lye dead till the General Resurrection for no man rose again from the dead before our Saviours coming and conquering death If God bestowed Immortality on every man then when he made him and he made many to whom he never purposed to give his saving Grace what did his Lordship think that God gave any man Immortality with purpose only to make him capable of Immortal Torments 'T is a hard saying and I think cannot piously be believed I am sure it can never be proved by the Canonical Scripture But though I have made it clear that it cannot be drawn by lawful consequence from Scripture that Man was Created with a Soul Immortal and that the Elect only by the Grace of God in Christ shall both Bodies and Souls from the Resurrection forward be Immortal yet there may be a Consequence well drawn from some words in the Rites of Burial that prove the contrary as these Forasmuch as it hath pleased Abmighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the Soul of our dear Brother here departed c. And these Almighty God with whom do live the Spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord. Which are words Authorised by the Church I wonder his Lordship that had so often pronounced them took no notice of them here But it often happens that men think of those things least which they have most perfectly learnt by rote I am sorry I could not without deserting the sence of Scripture and mine own Conscience say the same But I see no just cause yet why the Church should be offended at it For the Church of England pretendeth not as doth the Church of Rome to be above the Scripture nor forbiddeth any man to Read the Scripture nor was I forbidden when I Wrote my Leviathan to Publish any thing which the Scriptures suggested For when I Wrote it I may safely say there was no lawful Church in England that could have maintained me in or prohibited me from Writing any thing There was no Bishop and though there were Preaching such as it was yet no Common-Prayer For Extemporary Prayer though made in the Pulpit is not Common-Prayer There was then no Church in England that any man living was bound to obey What I Write here at this
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 Indels 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 succesful 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 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