praising of Gods Holy Name the hearing of his Word the receiving of his Sacraments I leave to the judgement of the Reader The next thing which I disliked was his description of repentance It is a glad returning into the right way after the grief of being out of the way Who ever heard before this of gladnesse or joy in the definition of repentance he telleth us That it is not Christian repentance without a purpose of amendment of life That is true a purpose of amendment was comprehended in the old definition of repentance A godly sorrow for sinnes past with a stedfast purpose to commit no more sinnes to be sorrowed for St. Peter found no great sense of joy when he went out and wept bitterly And some tell us that so long as he lived he did the same so often as he heard the cock crow Nor Mary Magdalene when she washed the feet of Christ with her tears and wiped them with her hairs yet she was a true penitent and purposed amendment Nor David when he washed his bed night by night and watered his couch with his tears St. Paul reckoneth all the parts of the repentance of the Corinthians Godly sorrow carefulnesse clearing of themselves indignation fear vehement desires zeal revenge here is no word of joy or gladnesse in all this Joy is a consequent of repentance after reconciliation but it is not of the essence of repentance no more than a succeeding calme is of the essence of a storm or the prodigals festival joy after his re-admission into his fathers house was a part of his conversion He is afraid that this doctrine of fasting and mourning and teares and humicubation and sackcloth and ashes pertaineth to the establishment of Romish pennance Or rather they were natural expressions of sorrow before Rome was builded Turn ye to me with all your heart with fasting and weeping and mourning Neither the Ninevits nor the Tyrians and Zidonians did learn their sackcloth and ashes at Rome But many men love to serve God now adayes with as much ease as they can as if God Almighty would be satisfied with any thing vel uva vel faba either with a grape or with a beane And with the same measure they mete to God he measureth to them again He chargeth me that I labour to bring in a concurrence of mans will with Gods will and a power in God to give repentance if man will take it but not the power to make him take it Hola It is one question utrum possit what God can do another utrum sit what God will do God can determine the will irresistibly but he doth not do it ordinarily Ye stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart ye do alwayes resist the Holy Ghost And I have called and ye refused c. The concurrence of God and man in producing the act of our believing or conversion to God is so evident in holy Scripture that it is vanity and lost labour to oppose it If God did not concurre the Scripture would not say It is God that worketh in us both the will and the deed If man did not concurre the Scripture would not say Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling If our repentance were Gods work alone God would not say to man Turn ye unto me with all your heart And if repentance were mans work alone we had no need to pray Turn us O Lord and we shall be turned We are commanded to repent and to believe In vain are commandments given to them who cannot at all concur to the acting of that which is commanded Faith and Repentance are proposed unto us as conditions to obtain blessednesse and avoid destruction If thou shalt confess with thy mouth believe with thy heart c. thou shalt be saved And except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish To propose impossible conditions which they to whom they are proposed have no power either to accept or to refuse is a meer mockery Our unbelief and impenitence is imputed to us as our own fault Because of unbelief thou wert broken off And after thy hardnesse and impenitent heart thou treasurest up unto thy self wrath Their unbelief and impenitence were not their own faults if they neither had power to concur with the grace of God to the production of faith and repentance nor yet to refuse the grace of God The holy Scripture doth teach us that God doth help us in doing workes of piety The Lord is my helper And the Spirit helpeth our infirmities If we did not co-operate at all God could not be said to help us There is therefore there must be co-operation Neither doth this concurrence or co-operation of man atall intrench upon the power or honour of God because this very liberty to co-operate is his gift and this manner of acting his own institution Those words Behold I stand at the door and knock are not understood onely of the Ministers outward knocking at the door of the ear with perswasive words but much more of God Almighties knocking at the door of the heart by his preventing grace To what end doth he knock to have it opened if he himself had shut it by an irresistible decree God first knocks at the door of our hearts by his preventing grace without which we have no desire to open unto Christ And then he helps us by his adjuvant or assisting grace that we may be able to open Yet the very name of Gods adjuvant or assistant or helping grace doth admonish us that there is something for us to do on our parts that is to open to consent to concur Why should our co-operation seem so strange which the Apostle doth assert so positively We are labourers together with God And I laboured more abundantly than they all yet not I that is not I alone but the grace of God which was with me The last part of his Section is concerning prayer which he mesnageth no better than the rest First he accuseth me for saying that prayer is a signification that we expect that which we pray for from God which he calleth a presumption in me and a detraction from the honour of God But it is so far from being a presumption that it is a necessary requisite in prayer S. James will have us pray without wavering Let him ask in faith nothing wavering S. Paul will have men to lift up holy hands without wrath or doubting And our Saviour commands What things soever ye desire when ye pray believe that ye shall receive them and shall have them I cited many Texts of Scripture to prove the efficacy of prayer whereof he is pleased to take notice of three and to deny that helping means efficacy availing do signifie any causation contrary both to the words and scope of those Texts and contrary to the tenor of the whole Scripture The prayer of faith shall save the sick And I
without appointing or constituting a subjection without subjection an authorising without authorising What is this He saith that it cannot be said honourably of God that he hath parts or totality which are the attributes of finite things If it cannot be said honourably of God that he hath parts or totality then it cannot be said honourably of God that he is a body for every body hath parts and totality Now hear what he saith Every part of the Universe is body And that which is no body is no part of the Universe And because the Universe is all that which is no part of it is nothing Then if God have no parts and totality God is nothing Let him judge how honourable this is for God He saith We honour not God but dishonour him by any value lesse than infinite And how doth he set an infinite value upon God who every where maketh him to subsist by successive duration Infinite is that to which nothing can be added but to that which subsisteth by successive duration something is added every minute He saith Christ had not a Kingly authority committed to him by his Father in the World but onely consiliary and doctrinal He saith on the contrary That the kingdom of Iudaea was his hereditary right from King David c. And when it pleased him to play the King he required entire obedience Math. 21. 2. Go into the village over against you and streightway ye shall find an assetied and a colt with her loose them and bring them unto me And if any man say ought unto you ye shall say The Lord hath need of them He saith The institution of eternal punishment was before sin And if the command be such as cannot be obeyed without being damned to eternal death then it were madnesse to obey it And what evil hath excommunicatien in it but the consequent eternal punishment At other times he saith there is no eternal punishment It is evident that there shall be a second death of every one that shall be condemned at the day of Iudgement after which he shall die no more He who knoweth no soul nor spirit may well be ignorant of a spiritual death He saith It is a doctrine repugnant to civil society that whatsoever a man does against his conscience is sin Yet he himself saith It is a sin whatsoever one doth against his conscience for they that do that despise the Law He saith That all power secular and spiritual under Christ is united in the Christian Common-wealth that is the Christian Soveraign Yet he himself saith on the contrary It cannot be doubted of that the power of binding and loosing that is of remotting and retaining sins which we call the power of the keyes was given by Christ to future Pastours in the same manner as to the present Apostles And all power of remitting sin which Christ himself had was given to the Apostles All spiritual power is in the Christian Magistrate Some spiritual power that is the power of the keyes is in the successours of the Apostles that is not in the Christian Magistrate is a contradiction He confesseth That it is manifest that from the ascension of Christ until the conversion of Kings the power Ecclesiastical was in the Apostles and so delivered unto their successours by imposition of hands And yet straight forgetting himself he taketh away all power from them even in that time when there were no Christian Kings in the World He alloweth them no power to make any Ecclesiastical laws or constitutions or to impose any manner of commands upon Christians The office of the Apostles was not to command but teach As Schoole-Masters not as Commanders Yet Schoole-Masters have some power to command He suffereth not the Apostles to ordain but those whom the Church appointeth nor to excommunicate or absolve but whom the Church pleaseth He maketh the determination of all controversies to rest in the Church not in the Apostles And resolveth all questions into the authority of the Church The election of Doctours and Prophets did rest upon the authority of the Church of Antioch And if it be inquired by what authority it came to passe that it was received for the command of the Holy Ghost which those Prophets and Doctors said proceeded from the Holy Ghost we must necessarily answer By the authority of the Church of Antioch Thus every where he ascribeth all authority to the Church none at all to the Apostles even in those times before there were Christian Kings He saith not tell it to the Apostles but tell it to the Church that we may know the definitive sentence whether sin or no sin is not left to them but to the Church And it is manifest that all authority in spiritual things doth depend upon the authority of the Church Thus not contented with single contradictions he twisteth them together for according to his definition of a Church there was no Christian Church at Antioch or in those parts of the World either then or long after Hear him A Church is a company of men professing Christian Religion united in the person of one Soveraign at whose command they ought to assemble and without whose authority they ought not to assemble Yet there was no Christian Soveraign in those parts of the World then or for two hundred years after and by consequence according to his definition no Church He teacheth That when the civil Soveraign is an infidel every one of his own subjects that resisteth him sinneth against the Laws of God and rejecteth the counsel of the Apostles that admonisheth all Christians to obey their Princes and all children and servants to obey their Parents and Masters in all things As for not resisting he is in the right but for obeying in all things in his sense it is an abominable errour Upon this ground he alloweth Christians to deny Christ to sacrifice to idols so they preserve faith in their hearts He telleth them They have the license that Naaman had and need not put themselves into danger for their faith That is they have liberty to do any external acts which their infidel Soveraigns shall command them Now hear the contrary from himself When Soveraigns are not Christians in spiritual things that is in those things which pertain to the manner of worshipping God some Church of Christians is to be followed Adding that when we may not obey them yet we may not resist them but eundum est ad Christum per martyrium we ought to suffer for it He confesseth That matter and power are indifferent to contrary forms and contrary acts And yet maintaineth every where that all matter is necessitated by the outward causes to one individual form that is it is not indifferent And all power by his Principles is limitted and determined to one particular act Thus he scoffeth at me for the contrary very learnedly
him to it and reason to restrain 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 Siego dignus hac contumelia Sum maxime at tu indignus qui faceres tamen If I deserved a reproofe he was a most unfit man to be my reprover who maintaineth That no law can be unjust That in the State of nature it was lawful for any man to kill another and particularly for mothers to expose or make away their children at their pleasure Ita ut illum vel educare vel exponere suo arbitrio jure possit De Cive c. 9. d. 2. That Parents to their children and Soverigns to their subjects cannot be injurious whether they kill them or whatsoever they do unto them But what is it that I have said I have delivered no judgement or opinion of mine own in the case I know what hath been practiced by some persons in some places at some times I know what reasons have been pretended for such practices Soveraign dominion The law of retaliation Psal. 137. 8 9. The common safety The satisfaction or contentment of persons or families injuried But if I have delivered any opinion of mine own it was on the contrary Though I affirm not but that it may be sometimes lawful to punish Parents for acts truly treasonable in their posterity with lesser punishments as losse of liberty or the losse of the fathers estate which was at the time of the delinquency in the fathers power to dispose that they who will not forbear to offend for their own sakes may forbear for their posterities sakes Though I know the practice of many Countries even in this to be otherwise But for death I know no warrant Pliny observeth of the Lion that he preyeth first upon men more rarely upon women and not upon children except he be extremely pressed with hunger Private right and private justice is between particular men Publick right and publick justice is either between Common-wealths as in forreign war or between Common-wealths and Subjects as in case of Law-giving or civil war Many things are lawful in the way of publick justice which are not lawful in the way of private justice But this inquisition hath no relation to our present controversie My exception Except there be some mixture of publick justice in the case is as much as to say Unlesse there be some thing more in the case that doth nearly concern the safety of the Common-wealth It is not impossible but before the ordinary age of attaining to the perfect use of reason a child may be drawn into very treasonable attempts so far as to act a ministerial part And in such cases there is a rule in law Malitia supplet aetatem He hath confessed here enough to spoile his cause if it were not spoiled already That want of reason takes away both crime and punishment and maketh agents innocent If want of reason do it without doubt antecedent extrinsecal necessity doth much more do it How then hath he taught us all this while That voluntary faults are justly punishable though they be necessary A childs fault may be as voluntary as a mans How a child may justly be put to death to satisfie a vow or to save a great number of people or for reason of State I know not This I do know That it is not lawful to do evil that good may come of it Castigations of the Animadversions Num. 26. IT seemeth by the Animadversion which T. H. hath in this Section wherein he maketh Consideration understanding reason and all the passions or affections of the mind to be imaginations And by some other passages in this Treatise where he attributeth to bees and spiders not onely election but also art prudence pollicy very near equal to that of mankind And where he denieth to man all dominion over the creatures making him like a toppe or a foot-ball or a pair of scales and his chiefest difference from brute beasts to consist in his language and in his hand And his liberty to consist in an absence of outward impediments ascribing to brute beasts deliberation such as if it were constant there were no cause to call men more rational than beasts That he maketh the reason and understanding of men to be nothing else but refined and improved sense or the sense of brute beasts to include reason It was an old Stoical opinion that the affections were nothing else but imaginations but it was an old groundlesse errour Imaginations proceed from the brain affections from the heart But to make reason and understanding to be imaginations is yet grosser Imagination is an act of the sensitive phantasie Reason and understanding are proper to the intellectual soul. Imagination is onely of particulars Reason of universals also In the time of sleep or some raging fit of sicknesse when the imagination is not governed by reason we see what absurd and monstrous and inconsistent shapes and phansies it doth collect remote enough from true deliberation Doth the Physitian cure his Patient by imaginations or the Statesman govern the Common-wealth by imaginations or the Lawyer determine differences by imaginations Are Logical arguments reduced into due forme and an orderly method nothing but imaginations Is prudence it selfe turned to imagination And are the dictates of right reason which God hath given as a light to preserve us from moral vices and to lead us to virtuous actions now become meere imaginations We see the understanding doth often contrary and correct the imaginations of sense I do not blame the pusled Schoole-men if they dissented from such new-fangled speculations And the ground of all these vain imaginations is imagination As any man may perceive as easily as he can look into his own thoughts His Argument may be thus reduced That which we imagine is true but we imagine all these to be imaginations I deny both his propositions First Our imaginations are not alwayes true but many times such as are suggested to us by our working phantasies upon some sleight grounds or by our fond or deceitful instructers or by our vain hopes or fears For one Whittington that found his imagination to prove true when the Bells rang him back to his Master Turn again Whittington thou shalt be Lord Mayor of London a thousand have been grossely abused by their vain imaginations Secondly No man can imagine any such thing who knoweth the difference between the reasonable and the sensitive soul between the understanding and the phantasie between the brain and the heart but confident assertions credulity may doe much among simple people So we have heard or read of some who were contented to renounce their eye-sight and to affirm for company that they saw a Dragon flying in the aire where there was not so much as a Butterflie out of a mannerly simplicity rather than to seem to doubt of the truth of that which was
and with the mouth is confession made unto salvation If a man deny Christ with his mouth the faith of the heart will not serve his turn Sixthly Christ denounceth damnation to all those who for saving of their lives do deny their Religion and promiseth eternal life to all those who do seale the truth of their Christian faith with their blood against the commands of heathenish Magistrates Who soever will save his life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it Christ doth not promise eternal life for violation of true Religion Lastly no Christian Soveraign or Common-wealth did ever assume any such authority to themselves Never any subjects did acknowledge any such power in their Soveraigns Never any Writer of Politicks either waking or dreaming did ever phansie such an unlimitted power and authority in Princes as this which he ascribeth to them not onely to make but to justifie all doctrines all laws all religions all actions of their Subjects by their commands as if God Almighty had reserved onely Soveraign Princes under his own Jurisdiction and quitted all the rest of mankind to Kings and Common-wealths In vain ye worship me teaching for doctrine the commandments of men that is to say making true religion to consist in obedience to the commands of men If Princes were heavenly Angels free from all ignorance and passions such an unlimited power might better become them But being mortal men it is dangerous least Phaeton-like by their violence or unskilfulnesse they put the whole Empire into a flame It were too too much to make their unlawful commands to justifie their Subjects If the blind lead the blind both fall into the ditch He who imposeth unlawful commands and he who obeyeth them do both subject themselves to the judgements of God But if true religion do consist in active obedience to their commands it justifieth both their Subjects and themselves True religion can prejudice no man He taketh upon him to refute the distinction of obedience into active and passive As if a sin against the law of nature could be expiated by arbitrary punishments imposed by men Thus it happeneth to men who confute that which they do not understand Passive obedience is not for the expiation of any fault but for the maintenance of innocence When God commands one thing and the soveraign Prince another we cannot obey them both actively therefore we chuse to obey God rather than men and yet are willing for the preservation of peace to suffer from man rather than to resist If he understood this distinction well it hath all those advantages which he fancieth to himself in his new platform of government without any of those inconveniences which do attend it And whereas he intimateth that our not obeying our Soveraign actively is a sin against the law of nature meaning by the violation of our promised obedience it is nothing but a grosse mistake no Subjects ever did nor ever could make any such pact to obey the commands of their Soveraign actively contrary to the law of God or nature This reason drawn from universal practise was so obvious that he could not misse to make it an objection The greatest objection is that of the practice when men ask where and when such power has by Subjects been acknowledged A shrewd objection indeed which required a more solid answer then to say That though in all places of the World men should lay the foundation of their houses on the sand it could not thence be inferred that so it ought to be As if there were no more difficulty in founding and regulating a Common-wealth then in distinguishing between a loose sand and a firm rock or as if all Societies of men of different tempers of different humours of different manners and of different interests must of necessity be all ordered after one and the same manner If all parts of the World after so long experience do practise the contrary to that which he fancieth he must give me leave to suspect that his own grounds are the quick-sands and that his new Common-wealth is but a Castle founded in the aire That a Soveraign Prince within his own dominions is custos utriusque tabulae the keeper of both the Tables of the Law to see that God be duely served and justice duely administred between man and man and to punish such as transgresse in either kind with civil punishment That he hath an Architectonical power to see that each of his Suctjects do their duties in their several callings Ecclesiasticks as well as Seculars That the care and charge of seeing that no doctrine be taught his Subjects but such as may consist with the general peace and the authority to prohibit seditious practices and opinions do reside in him That a Soveraign Prince oweth no account of his actions to any mortal man That the Kings of England in particular have been justly declared by Act of Parliament Supreme Governours in their own kingdoms in all causes over all persons as well Ecclesiastical as Civil is not denyed nor so much as questioned by me Otherwise a kingdom or a Common-wealth should be destitute of necessary means for its own preservation To all this I do readily assent all this I have vindicated upon surer grounds than those desperate and destructive principles which he supposeth But I do utterly deny that true religion doth consist in obedience to Soveraign Magistrates or that all their injunctions ought to be obeyed not onely passively but actively or that he is infallible in his laws and commands or that his Soveraign authority doth justifie the active obedience of his Subjects to his unlawful commands Suppose a King should command his Judges to set Naboth on high among the people and to set two sons of Belial before him to bear witnesse against him saying Thou didst blaspheme God and the King and then carry him out and stone him that he may dye The regal authority could neither justifie such an unlawful command in the King nor obedience in the Judges Suppose a King should set up a golden Image as Nebucadnezar did and command all his Subjects to adore it his command could not excuse his Subjects from idolatry much lesse change idolatry into true religion His answer to the words of Peter and John do signifie nothing The High Priest and his Councel commanded the Apostles not to teach in the name of Jesus Here was sufficient humane authority yet say the Apostles Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge ye The question was not what were the commands that was clear enough what God commanded and what man commanded but who was to be obeyed which could admit no debate He asketh What has the Bishop to doe with what God sayes to me when I read the Scriptures more than I have to do with what God sayes to him when he reads them
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