Soveraign Princes are often contradictory one to another One commandeth to worship Christ another forbiddeth it One forbiddeth to offer sacrifice to idols another commandeth it Yea the same person may both forbid idolatry in general and yet authorise it in particular Or forbid it by the publick laws of the Country and yet authorise it by his personal commands Thirdly true Religion is alwayes justified in the sight of God But obedience to the commands of Soveraign Princes is not always justified in the sight of God This is clearly proved out of his own expresse words Whatsoever is commanded by the Soveraign power is as to the Subject though not so alwayes in the sight of God justified by their command VVhence it is evident by his own confession that the wicked commands of Soveraigne Princes are not justified by their Royal authority but are wicked and repugnant to the Law of God And consequently that of the Apostle hath place here Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge ye True Religion hath alwayes reference unto God Fourthly true Religion doth not consist in obedience to any laws whatsoever which are repugnant to the Moral Law of God or to the law of Nature This Proposition is granted by himself The laws of nature are immutable and eternal And all Writers do agree that the law of nature is the same with the moral Law Again Soveraigns are all Subjects to the law of nature because such laws be Divine and cannot by any man or Common-wealth be abrogated And in all things not contrary to the moral Law that is to say to the law of nature all Subjects are bound to obey that of Divine Law which is declared to be so by the laws of the Common-wealth But the commands of a Soveraign Prince may be repugnant not onely to the Moral Law or the law of nature but even to the laws of the Common-wealth This assumption is proved four wayes First by his own confession It is manifest enough that when a man receiveth two contrary commands and knows that one of them is Gods he ought to obey that and not the other If there can be no such contrary commands then it is not manifest nor yet true Secondly this is pâ—…oved by his resolution of two queres The fist is this Whether the City or the Soveraign Prince be to be obeyd if he command directly to do any thâ—…ng to the contumely of God or forbid to worship God To which he answereth directly non esse obediendam that he ought not to be obeyed And he gives this reason Because the subjects before the constitution of the Common-wealth had no right to deny the honour due unto God and therefore could transferre no right to command such things to the common-wealth The like he hath in his Leviathan Actions which do naturally signifie contumely cannot by humane power be made a part of Divine Worship As if the denial of Christ upon a Soveraigns command which he justifieth were not contumelious to Christ or as if subjects before the constitution of the common-wealth had any right themselves to deny Christ. But such palpable contradictions are no novelties with him How doth true Religion consist in obedience to the commands of a Soveraign if his commands may be contumelious to God and deny him that worship which is due unto him by the eternal and immutable law of nature and if he be not to be obeyed in such commands His second question is If a Soveraign Prince should command himself to be worshipped with Divine Worship and Attributes whether he ought to be obeyed To which he answereth That although Kings should command it yet we ought to abstain from such attributes as signifie his independence upon God or inmortality or infinite power or the like And from such actions as do signifie the same As to pray unto him being absent to aske those things of him which none but God can give as rain and fair weather or to offer sacrifice to him Then true Religion may sometimes consist in disobedience to the commands of Soveraign Princes Thirdly that the commands of Soveraign Princes in point of Religion may be contrary to the law of nature which needeth no new promulgation or reception doth appear by all those duties internal and external which by his own confession nature doth injoyn us to perform towards God and all which may be and have been countermanded by Soveraign Princes as to acknowledge the existence of God his unity his infinitenesse his providence his creation of the World his omnipotence his eternity his incomprehensibility his ub quity To worship him and him onely with Divine worship with prayes with thanksgivings with oblations and with all expressions of honour Lastly this is proved by examples Nebuchadnezar commanded to worship a golden image And Darius made a decree that no man should ask any petition of any God or man for thirty dayes save of the King onely Yet the transgression of both these commands of Soveraign Princes was justified by God as true Religion Fiftly Christ will deny no man before his Father for true Religion But those who deny Christ before men to fulfil the commands of an earthly Prince he will deny before his father which is in Heaven And therefore Christ encourageth his Disciples against these dangers which might fall upon them by disobedience to such unlawful commands Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell But Mr. Hobs hath found out an evasion for such Renegadoes Whatsoever a Subject is compelled to in obedience to his Soveraign and doth it not in order to his own mind but in order to the lawes of his country that action is not his but his Soveraigns nor is it he that in this case denieth Christ before men but his Governour and the law of his Country If this Fig-leafe would have served the turn Shedrach Meshach and Abednego needed not to have been cast into the fiery Furnace For though they had worshipped the golden image by this doctrine they had not been idolaters but Nebuchadnezar onely and his Princes If this were true Daniel might have escaped the Lions Den If he had forborne his praises to God Darius had been faulty and not he But these holy Saints were of another minde I hope though he might in his baste and passion censure the blessed Martyrs to be fooles which were so many that there were five thousand for every day in the year except the calends of January when the Heathens were so intent upon their devotions that they neglected the slaughter of the poor Christians yet he will not esteem himself wiser than Daniel Behold thou art wiser than Daniel was an hyperbolical or rather an ironical expression With the heart man believeth unto righteousnesse
as himself that accused the Church of England ofâ—… Arminianisme for holding those truths which they ever professed before Arminius was born If Arminius were alive Mr. Hobbes out of conscience ought to ask him forgivenesse Let him speak for himself De libero hominis arbitrio ita sentio c In statu vero lapsus c This is my sentence of free will That man fallen can neither think nor will nor do that which is truly good of himself and from himself But that it is needfull that he be regenerated and renewed in his understanding will affections and all his powers from God in Christ by the Holy Ghost to understand esteem consider will and do aright that which is truely good It was not the speculative doctrine of Arminius but the seditious tenets of Mr. Hobbes and such like which opened a large window to our troubles How is it possible to pack up more errours together in so narrow a compasse If I were worthy to advise Mr. Hobbes he should neveâ—… have more to do with these old Philosopheâ—… except it were to weed them for some obsâ—…lete opinions Chrysippus used to say He sometimes wanted opinions but never wanted arguments but to stand upon his own bottom and make himself both Party Jurer and Judge in his own cause Concerning the stating of the question THe righ stating of the question is commonly the mid way to the determination of the difference and he himself confesseth that I have done that more than once saving that he thinketh I have done it over cautiously with as much caution as I would draw up a lease Abundant caution was never thought hurtfull until now Doth not the truth require as much regard as a lease On the other side I accuse him to have stated it too carelessely loosly and confusedly He saith He understands not these words the contversion of a sinner concerns not the question I do really believe him But in concluding That whatsoever he doth not understand is unintelligible he doth but abuse himself and his readers Let him study better what is the different power of the will in naturall or civill actions which is the subject of our discourse and morall or supernaturall acts which concernes not this question and the necessiâ—…y of adding these words will clearly appear to him Such another pitifull piece is his other exception against these words without their own concurrence which he saith are unsignificant unlesse I mean that the events themselves should concur to their own production Either these words were unsignificant or he was blind or worse than blind when he transcribed them My words were these Whether all Agents and all Events be predetermined He fraudulently leaves out these words all Agents and makes me to state the question thus Whether all Events be predetermined without their own concurrence Whereas those words without their own concurrence had no reference at all to all Events but to all Agents which words he hath omitted The state of the question being agreed upon it were vanity and meer beating of the air in me to weary my self and the reader with the serious examination of all his extravagant and impertinent fancies As this Whether there be a morall efficacy which is not naturall which is so far from being the question between us that no man makes any question of it except one who hath got a blow upon his head with a mill-saile Naturall causes produce their effects by a true reall influence which implies an absolute determination to one as a father begets a son or fire produceth fire Morall causes have no naturall influence into the effect but move or induce some other cause without themselves to produce it As when a Preacher perswadeth his hearers to give almes here is no absolute necessitation of his hearers nor any thing that is opposite to true liberty Such another question is that which followes Whether the object of the sight be the cause of seeing meaning if he mean aright the subjective cause Or how the understanding doth propose the object to the will which though it be blind as Philosophers agree yet not so blind as he that will not see but is ready to follow the good advice of the intellect I may not desert that which is generally approved to satisfie the phantastick humour of a single conceited person No man would take exceptions at these phrases the will willeth the understanding understandeth the former term expressing the faculty the later the elicite act but one who is resolved to pick quarrels with the whole World To permit a thing willingly to be done by another that is evil not for the evils sake which is permitted but for that goods sake which is to be drawn out of it is not to will it positively nor to determine it to evil by a natural influence which whosoever do maintaine do undeniably make God the authour of sin Between positive willing and nilling there is a meane of abnegation that is not to will That the will doth determine it self is a truth not to be doubted of what different degrees of aide or assistance the will doth stand in need of in different Acts natural moral supernatural where a general assistance is sufficent and where a special assistance is necessary is altogether impertinent to this present controversie or to the right stating of this question In the last place he repeateth his old distinction between a mans freedom to do those things which are in his power if he will and the freedom to will what he will which he illustrateth for similitudes prove nothing by a comparison drawn from the natural appetite to the rational appetite Will is appetite but it is one question Whether he be free to eate that hath an appetite And another question whether he be free to have an appetite In the former he saith He agreeth with me That a man is free to do what he will In the later he saith He dissents from me That a man is not free to will And as if he had uttered some profound mystery he addeth in a triumphing manner That if I have not been able to distinguish between thâ—…se two questions I have not done well to meddle with either And if I have understood them to bring arguments to prove that a man is free to do if he will is to deale uningenuously and fraudulently with my readers Yet let us have good words Homini homino quid praestat What difference is there between man and man That so many wits before Mr. Hobbes in all Ages should beate their brains about this question all their lives long and never meet with this distinction which strikes the question dead What should hinder him from crying out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have found it I have found it But stay a little the second thoughts are wiser and the more I look upon this distinction the lesse I like it It seemeth like the
shew such another grant for the Lions to devour men When God said Whoso sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed for in the Image of God made he man Was it intended onely that his blood should be preserved for the Lions or do not their teeth deface Gods Image as much as mans weapons But the Lion had liberty to eat man long before He is mistaken the creatures did beare a more awful respect to the Image of God in man before his fall But mans rebellion to God was punished with their rebellion of the creatures to him He saith it was impossible for most men to have Gods license to use the creatures for their sustenance Why so as if all the world were not then comprised in the family of Noah Or as if the Commandments and dispensations of God were not then delivered from father to son by tradition as they were long after by writing He asketh how I would have been offended if he should have spoken of man as Pliny doth Then whom there is no living creature more wretched or more proud Not half so much as now Pliny taxeth onely the faults of men he vilifieth not their humane nature Most wretched What is that but an argument of the immortality of the soul God would never have created the most noble of his creatures for the most wretched being Or more proud that is then some men Corruptio optimi pessima The best things being corrupted turn the worst But he acknowledgeth two advantages which man hath above other creatures his tongue and his hand Is it possible that any man who believeth that he hath an immortal soul or that reason and understanding are any thing but empty names should so far forget himself and his thankfulnesse to God as to prefer his tongue and his hands before an immortal soul and reason Then we may well change the definition of a man which those old dunses the Philosophers left us Man is a reasonable creature into this new one Man is a prating thing with two hands How much more was the humane nature beholden to Tully an Heathen who said That man differed from other creatures in reason and speech Or to Ovid who stileth man Sanctius his animal mentâ—…sque capacius altae If he have no better luck in defending his Leviathan he will have no great cause to boast of his making men examples And now it seemeth he hath played his masterprise For in the rest of his Animadversions in this Section we find a low ebbe of matter Concerning consultations he saith nothing but this That my writing was caused physically antecedently extrinsecally by his answer In good time By which I see right well that he understandeth not what a physical cause is Did he think his answer was so Mathematical to compel or necessitate me to write No I confesse I determined my self And his answer was but a slender occasion which would have had little weight with me but for a wiser mans advice to prevent his over-weening opinion of his own abilities And then followeth his old dish of twice sodden colewortes about free and necessary and contingent and free to do if he will which we have had often enough already His distinction between seen and unseen necessity deserveth more consideration The meaning is that seen necessity doth take away consultation but unseen necessity doth not take away consultation or humane indeavours Unseen necessity is of two sorts either it is altogether unseen and unknown either what it is or that it is Such a necessity doth not take away consultation or humane endeavours Suppose an office were privately disposed yet he who knoweth nothing of the disposition of it may be as solicitous and industrious to obtain it as though it were not disposed at all But the necessity which he laboureth to introduce is no such unseen unknown necessity For though he know not what the causes have determined particularly or what the necessity is yet he believeth that he knoweth in general that the causes are determined from eternity and that there is an absolute necessity The second sort of unseen necessity is that which is unseen in particular what it is but it is not unknown in general that it is And this kind of unseen necessity doth take away all consultation and endeavours and the use of means as much as if it were seen in particular As supposing that the Cardinals have elected a Pope in private but the declaration of the person who is elected is kept secret Here is a necessity the Papacy is full and this necessity is unseen in particular whilest no man knoweth who it is Yet for as much as it is known that it is it taketh away all indeavours and consultations as much as if the Pope were publickly enthroned Or suppose a Jury have given in a privy veredict no man knoweth what it is until the next Court-day yet it is known generally that the Jurers are agreed and the veredict is given in Here is an unseen necessity Yet he who should use any further consultations or make further applications in the case were a fool So though the particular determination of the causes be not known to us what it is yet if we know that the causes are particularly determined from eternity we know that no consultation or endeavour of ours can alter them But it may be further objected that though they cannot alter them yet they may help to accomplish them It was necessary that all who sailed with St. Paul should be saved from shipwrack Yet St. Paul told them that except the shipmen did abide in the ship they could not be saved So though the event be necessarily determined yet consultation or the like means may be necessary to the determination of it I answer the question is not whether the means be necessary to the end for that is agreed upon by all parties But the question is to whom the ordering of the means which are necessary to the production of the event doth properly belong whether to the first cause or to the free Agent If it belong to the free Agent under God as we say it doth then it concerneth him to use consultations and all good endeavours as requisite means to obtain the desired end But if the disposition of the means belong soly and wholly to God as he saith it doth and if God have ordered all means as well as ends and events particularly and precisely then it were not onely a thanklesse and superfluous office to consult what were the fittest means to obtain an end when God hath determined what must be the onely means and no other but also a saucinesse and a kind of tempting of God for a man to intrude himself into the execution of God Almighties decrees whereas he ought rather to cast away all care and all thought on his part and resign himself up wholly to the disposition of the second causes which act nothing but by
hand from Father to Son This That mankind was ever without all law is the most drowsie dream that ever dropped from pen. Whereas he saith That I allow that the nature of sin doth consist in this that it is an action proceeding from our will against the law and thence inferreth That the formal reason of sin lieth not in the liberty of willing he doth wrong himself and mis-inform his Reader for I never allowed it nor never shall allow it in that sense but said expressely the contrary My words were these which in our sense is most true if he understand a just law and a free rational will And then I added further That the law which he understandeth is a most unjust law the will which is intended by him an irrational necessitated will Where did he learn to take that for granted which is positively denied He saith indeed if the Reader could trust him That he hath shewed that no law can be unjust But I expect arguments not his own authority which I value not He neither hath shewed that all laws are just nor ever will be able to shew it until the Greek Calends Likewise where he seemeth not to understand what the rationall will is I do think there is scarcely any one Authour who did ever write upon this subject but he hath this distinction between the rationall and the sensitive appetite And hath particularly made this main difference between them that the rational appetite is free but the sensitive appetite is necessary If he alone will not understand that which is so evident and universally received by all Schollers it is no great matter It is as unjust to command a man to do that which is impossible for man to do as to command him contradictions This silly evasion will not serve his turn Those things are said to be impossible to us in themselves which are not made impossible to us by our own defaults And those things which we make impossible by our defaults are not impossible in themselves Those impossibilities and onely those which we by our defaults have made may lawfully be punished Where he confesseth That law-makers not knowing the secret necessities of things to come do sometimes injoyne things that are made impossible from eternity it cometh every way short of the truth First in limiting it to humane law-makers who only know not the necessities of things to come for my Argument That law which commandeth impossibilities is an unjust law doth hold as well of Gods law as of mans law not that we believe any law of God can be unjust God forbid but to demonstrate to him undeniably that all those things which he conceiveth to be impossible from eternity are not impossible from eternity because the contrary is commanded from God and God never commandeth impossibilities Secondly he cometh short of the truth in this also That he saith human law-givers do sometimes injoyne impossibilities for by his leave upon his grounds they do allwayes injoyn either absolute impossibilities or absolute necessities both which are equally ridiculous Lastly whereas I argued thus If the will of man be determined by God without the will of man then it is not mans will but Gods will he denieth my consequence because it may be both Gods will and mans will I answer It is Gods will effectively because he maketh it necessarily and subjectively because he willeth it but upon his grounds it is the will of man onely subjectively because he is necessitated to will it but not effectively because he had no hand in the production of it and therefore how faulty soever it may be yet it cannot be imputed to man Concerning his instance in a civil Judge Fist I shewed that it was impertinent because neither is a civill Judge the Judge of sin nor the law of the land the rule of sin To my reasons he answereth nothing in particular but in general That whereas I said that the law cannot justly punish a crime that proceedeth from necessity it was no impertinent answer to say That the Iudge looketh no higher than the will of the doer Here are so many imperfections that I scarcely know where to begin First I never said that the law cannot justly punish a crime that proceedeth from necessity I allwayes said and do still say That if it be antecedently necessitated it is no crime either punishable or unpunishable Secondly he did make the civill Judge to be the Judge of sinne and the law of the land to be the rule of sin in expresse terms A Iudge in judging whether it be sin or not which is done against the law Thirdly That will which the law and the Judge do regard is not his brutish necessitated irrationall appetite but our free rational will after deliberation determined intrinsecally by the Agent himself Secondly I shewed That his instance in a civill Judge was against himself because this which he saith That the Iudge looketh no higher than the will of the doer doth prove that the will of the doer did determine it self freely and that the malefactor had liberty to have kept the law if he would To this he answers That it proveth indeed that the malefactor had liberty to have kept the law if he would but it proveth not that he had the liberty to keep the law Hath not this silly senselesse distinction been canvased sufficiently yet but it must once more appear upon the stage Agreed Thus I argue first If the Malefactour had liberty to have kept the law if he would then the Malefactour had liberty to have contradicted the absolute will of God if he would then he had liberty to have changed the unalterable decrees of God if he would But he had not liberty to have contradicted the absolute will of God if he would he had not liberty to have changed the unalterable decrees of God if he would The assumtion is so evident that it were great shame to question it The consequence is as clear as the Sun For upon Mr. Hobbes his grounds it was the absolute will of God and the unalterable decree of God that the Malefactor should do as he did and not do otherwise And therefore if the Malefactor had liberty to have kept the law and to have done otherwise if he would he had liberty to have contradicted the will of God and to have changed the decree of God if he would But this is too absurd Secondly to have liberty to have kept the law if he would implieth necessarily a conditionall possibility But the will of God and the decree of God that the Malefactor should do as he did and not keep the law implieth an absolute impossibility Now it is a rule in Logick that impossibile habet in se vim Adverbii universaliter negantis An impossibility hath the force of an universall negative But an universal negative and a particular affirmative are contradictory That it was impossible for the Malefactor to have
finite and consists of parts and consequently is no God This That there is no incorporal spirit is that main root of Atheisme from which so many lesser branches are daily sprouting up When they have taken away all incorporal spirits what do they leave God himself to be He who is the fountain of all being from whom and in whom all creatures have their being must needs have a real being of his own And what real being can God have among bodies and accidents for they have left nothing else in the universe Then T. H. may move the same question of God which he did of devils I would gladly know in what classis of entities the Bishop ranketh God Infinite being and participated being are not of the same nature Yet to speak according to humane apprehension apprehension and comprehension differ much T. H. confesseth that natural reason doth dictate to us that God is infinite yet natural reason cannot comprehend the infinitenesse of God I place him among incorporeal substances or spirits because he hath been pleased to place himself in that rank God is a spirit Of which place T. H. giveth his opinion that it is unintelligible and all others of the same nature and fall not under humane understanding They who deny all incorporeal substances can understand nothing by God but either nature not naturam naturantem that is a real authour of nature but naturam naturatam that is the orderly concourse of natural causes as T. H. seemeth to intimate or a fiction of the brain without real being cherished for advantage and politick ends as a profitable error howsoever dignified with the glorious title of the eternal causes of all things We have seen what his principles are concerning the Deity they are full as bad or worse concerning the Trinity Hear himself A person is he that is represented as often as he is represented And therefore God who has been represented that is personated thrice may properly enough be said to be three Persons though neither the word Person nor Trinity be ascribed to him in the Bible And a little after to concludethe doctrine of the Trinity as far as can be gathered directly from the Scripture is in substance this that the God who is alwayes one and the same was he person represented by Moses the person represented by his Son incarnate and the person represented by the Apostles As represented by the Apostles the holy spirit by which they spake is God As represented by his son that was God and Man the Son is that God As represented by Moses and the High Priests the Father that is to say the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ is that God From whence we may gather the reason why those names Father Son and Holy Ghost in the signification of the Godhead are never used in the Old Testament For they are persons that is they have their names from representing which could not be till diverse men had represented Gods person in ruling or in directing under him Who is so bold as blind Bayard The emblime of a little boy attempting to lade all the water out of the sea with a Coccleshel doth fit T. H. as exactly as if it had been shaped for him who thinketh to measure the profound and inscrutable mysteries of religion by his own silly shallow conceits What is now become of the great adorable mysterie of the blessed undivided Trinity it is shrunk into nothing Upon his grounds there was a time when there was no Trinity And we must blot these words out of our Creed The Father eternal the Son eternal the Holy Ghost eternal And these other words out of our Bibles Let us make man after our image Unlesse we mean that this was a consultation of God with Moses and the Apostles What is now become of the eternal generation of the Son of God if this Sonship did not begin until about four thousand years after the creation were expired Upon these grounds every King hath as many persons as there be Justices of Peace and petty Constables in his kingdom Upon this account God Almighty hath as many persons as there have been Soveraign Princes in the World since Adam According to this reckoning each one of us like so many Gerious may have as many persons as we please to make procurations Such bold presumption requireth another manner of confutation Concerning God the Son forgetting what he had said elsewhere where he calleth him God and man and the Son of God incarnate he doubteth not to say that the word hypostatical is canting As if the same person could be both God and man without a personal that is an hypostatical union of the two natures of God and man He alloweth every man who is commanded by his lawful Soveraign to deny Christ with his tongue before men He deposeth Christ from his true kingly office making his kingdom not to commence or begin before the day of judgement 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 onely consiliary and doctrinall 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 iustice 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 Crosse between the blood of a Calf and the precious blood of the Son of God 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 saith he that bewrayed their madnesse yet that very arrogating such inspiration to themselves is argument enough He maketh the pretence of inspiration in any man to be and alwayes to have been an 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 prophesying the same thing at the same time in the dominions of two different Princes
that Soveraigns are all subject to the laws of nature because such laws be divine and cannot by any man or Common-woalth be abrogated In one place hemaintaineth that all men by nature are equal among themselvs In another place that the father of every man was originally his Soveraign Lord with power over him of life death He acknowledgeth that God is not onely good and just and merciful but the best That nature doth dictate to us that God is to be honoured and that to honour is to think as highly of his power and goodnesse as is possible and that nothing ought to be attributed to him but what is honourable Nothing can be more contrary to this goodnesse or more dishonourable to God than to make him to be the cause of all the sinne in the World Perhaps he will say that this opinion maketh God the cause of sin But doth not the Bishop think him the cause of all actions And are not sins of commission actions Is murder no action And doth not God himself say Non est malum in civitate quod ego non feci And was not murder one of those evils The like doctrine he hath Qu. p. 108. and 234. I chanced to say that if a child before he have the use of reason shall kill a man in his passion yet because he had no malice to incite him to it nor reason to restrein him from it he shall not die for it in the strict rules of particular justice unlesse there be some mixture of publick justice in the case shewing onely what was the law not what was my opinion An innocent child for terrour to others in some cases may be deprived of those honours and inheritances which were to have discended upon him from his father but not of his life Amazia slew the murderers of the King his father but he slew not their children but did as it is written in the Law in the book of Moses The fathers shall not dye for the children nor the children for the fathers And he presently taxed me for it The Bishop would make but an ill Iudge of innocent children And the same merciful opinion he maintaineth elsewhere All punishments of innocent Subjects be they great or little are against the law of nature For punishment is only for transgression of the law and therefore there can be no punishment of the innocent Yet within few lines after he changeth his note In Subjects who deliberately deny the authority of the Common-wealth established the vengeance is lawfully extended not onely to the fathers but also to the third and fourth generation His reason is because this offence consisteth in renouncing of subjection so they suffer not as Subjects but as enemies Well but the children were born subjects as well as the father and they never renounced their subjection how come they to lose their birth-right and their lives for their fathers fault if there can be no punishment of the innocent so the contradiction stands still But all this is but a copy of his countenance I have shewed formerly expressely out of his principles That the foundation of the right of punishing exercised in every Common-wealth is not the just right of the Soveraign for crimes committed but that right which every man by nature had to kill every man Which right he saith every Subject hath renounced but the Soveraign by whose authority punishment is inflicted hath not So if he do examine the crime in justice and condemn the delinquent then is properly punishment If he do not then it is an hostile act but both waies just and allowable Reader if thou please to see what a slippery memory he hath for thine own satisfaction read over the beginning of the eight and twentieth Chapter of his Leviathan Innocents cannot be justly punished but justly killed upon his principles But this very man who would seem so zealous sometimes for humane justice that there can be no just punishment of innocents no just punishment but for crimes committed how standeth he affected to divine justice He reguardeth it not at all grounding every where Gods right to afflict the Creatures upon his omnipotence and maintaining that God may as justly afflict with eternal torments without sin as for sin Though God have power to afflict a man and not for sinne without in justice Shall we think God so cruel as to afflict a man and not for sinne with extream and endlesse torments Is it not cruelty No more than to do the same for sinne when he that afflicteth might without trouble have kept him from sinning Whether God do afflict eternally or punish eternally whether the Soveraign proceed judciially or in an hostile way so it be not for any crime committed it is all one as to the justice of God and the Soveraign and all one as to the sufferings of the innocent But it may and doth often happen in Common-wealths that a Subject may be put to death by the command of the Soveraign power and yet neither do the other wrong that is to say both be innocent for that is the whole scope of the place It is against the law of nature to punish innocent Subjects saith one place but innocent Subjects may lawfully be killed or put to death saith another Sometimes he maketh the institution of Soveraignty to be only the laying down the right of Subjects which they had by nature For he who renounceth or passeth away his right giveth not to any other man a right which he had not before because there is nothing to which every man had not right by nature but onely standeth out of his way that he may enjoy his own original right without hinderance from him not without hinderance from another And elsewhere The Subjects did not give the Soveraign that right but onely in laying down theirs strengthened him to use his own c. So it was not given but left to him and to him only And the translation of right doth consist onely in not resisting He might as well have said and with as much sense the transferring of right doth consist in not transferring of right At other times he maketh it to be a surrender or giving up of the subjects right to govern himself to this man A conferring of all their power and strength upon one man that may reduce all their wills by plurality of voices to one wil. An appointing of one man to bear their person and acknowledging themselves to be the authours of whatsoever the Soveraign shall act or cause to be acted in those things which concerne the common safety a submission of their wills to his will their judgements to his judgement And David did no injury to Uriah because the right to do what he pleased was given him by Uriah himself Before we had a transferring without transferring now we have a giving up without giving up an appointing or constituting
that the subsequent commands of a Sovereign contrary to his former lawes is an abrogation of them And that it is an opinion repugnant to the nature of a commonwealth that he that hath the soveraign power is subject to the civill lawes The determinations of Scripture upon his grounds do bind the hands of Kings when they themselves please to be bound no longer To conclude sometimes he doth admit the soule to be a distinct substance from the body sometimes he denieth it Sometimes he maketh reason to be a naturall faculty sometimes he maketh it to be an acquired habit In some places he alloweth the will to be a rationall appetite in other places he disallowes it Sometimes he will have it to be a law of nature that men must stand to their pacts Sometimes he maketh covenants of mutuall trust in the state of nature to be void Sometimes he will have no punishment but for crimes that might have been left undone At other times he maketh all crimes to be inevitable Sometimes he will have the dependence of actions upon the will to be truly liberty At other times he ascribeth liberty to rivers which have no will Sometimes he teacheth that though an action be necessitated yet the will to break the law maketh the action to be unjust at other times he maketh the will to be much more necessitated than the action He telleth us that civill law-makers may erre and sin in making of a law And yet the law so made is an infallible rule Yes to lead a man infallibly into a ditch What should a man say to this man How shall one know when he is in earnest and when he is in jest He setteth down his opinion just as Gipsies tell fortunes both waies that if the one misse the other may be sure to hit that when they are accused of falsehood by one they may appeale to another But what did I write in such a place It was the praise of John Baptist that he was not like a reed shaken with the wind bending or inclining hither and thither this way and that way now to old truths then to new errours And it is the honour of every good Christian. St. Paul doth excellently describe such fluctuating Christians by two comparisons the one of little children the other of a ship lying at Hull Eph. 4. 14. That we henceforth be no more children tossed too and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine as a child wavers between his love and duty to his parent or nurse on the one hand and some apple or other toy which is held forth to him on the other hand or as a ship lying at anchor changeth its positure with every wave and every puffe of wind As the last company leaves them or the present occasion makes them so they vary their discourses When the time was T. H. was very kind to me to let me see the causes and grounds of my errours Arguments seldome work on men of wit and learning when they have once ingaged themselves in a contrary opinion If any thing will do it it is the shewing of them the causes of their errours One good turn requireth another Now I will do as much for him If it do not work upon himself Yet there is hope it may undeceive some of his disciples A principall cause of his errours is a fancying to himself a generall state of nature which is so far from being generall that there is not an instance to be found of it in the nature of things where mankind was altogether without laws without governours guided only by self interest without any sense of conscience justice honesty or honour He may search all the corners of America with a candle and lanthorn at noon day and after his fruitlesse paines return a non est invent us Yet all plants and living creatures are subject to degenerate and grow wild by degrees Suppose it should so happen that some remnant of men either chased by war or persecution or forced out of the habitable world for some crimes by themselves committed or being cast by shipwrack upon some deserts by long conversing with savage beasts lions beares wolves and tygers should in time become more bruitish it is his own epithite than the bruites themselves would any man in his right wits make that to be the universall condition of mankind which was onely the condition of an odd handfull of men or that to be the state of nature which was not the state of nature but an accidentall degeneration He that will behold the state of nature rightly must look upon the family of Adam and his posterity in their successive generations from the creation to the deluge and from the deluge untill Abrahams time when the first Kingdome of God by pact is supposed by T. H. to begin All this while which was a great part of that time the world hath stood from the creation lasted the Kingdom of God by nature as he phraseth it And yet in those daies there were lawes and government and more Kings in the world then there are at this present we find nine Kings engaged in one war and yet all their dominions but a narrow circuit of land And so it continued for divers hundreds of years after as we see by all those Kings which Joshua discomfited in the land of Canaan Every City had its own King The reason is evident The originall right of fathers of families was not then extinguished Indeed T. H. supposeth that men did spring out of the earth like Mushromes or Mandrakes That we may return again to the state of nature and consider men as if they were even now suddenly sprouted and grown out of the earth after the manner of Mushroms without any obligation of one to another But this supposion is both false and Atheistical howsoever it dropt from his pen. Mankind did not spring out of the earth but was created by God not many suddenly but one to whom all his posterity were obliged as to their father and ruler A second ground of his his errours is his grosse mistake of the laws of nature which he relateth most impersectly and most untruly A moral Heathen would blush for shame to see such a catalogue of the laws of nature First he maketh the laws of nature to be laws and no laws Just as a man and no man hit a bird and no bird with a stone and no stone on a tree and no tree not laws but theorems laws which required not performance but endeavours laws which were silent and could not be put in execution in the state of nature Where nothing was another mans and therefore a man could not steal where all things were common and therefore no adultery where there was a state of war and therefore it was lawfull to kill where all things were defined by a mans own judgement and therefore what honours he pleased to give unto his father and lastly