of such a nature in his Reign by Lanfranke the Archâ—B of Canterbury who had the greatest credit and autority with him as cannot be parallell'd by the like don or permitted in any State and impossible to be don or permitted in any State that was in any degree subject to the Pope which was the Canonization of a Saint There being at that time very great fame of Aldelmus who first brought in the composition of Latine verse into England and besides his eminent Piety had so great a faculty in singing that by the music of his voice he wrought wonderful effects upon the barbarous and savage humor of that People insomuch as when they were in great multitudes engag'd in a rude or licentious action he would put him self in their way and sing which made them all stand still to listen and he so captivated them by the melody that he diverted them from their purpose and by degrees got so much credit with them that he reduc'd them to more civility and instructed them in the duties of Religion into which tho they had bin baptiz'd they had made little enquiry He lived a little before the time of Edward the Confessor and the general testimony of the Sanctity of his Life and some miracles wrought by him which it may be were principally the effects of his Music being reported and believ'd by Lanfrank Edicto sancivit ut per totam deinde Angliam Adelmus inter eos qui civibus coelestibus ascripti erant honoraretur coleretur as by the authors neerest that time is remembred and at large related by Harps-Field in his Ecclesiastical History of England without any disapprobation Nor is it probable that Lanfrank who was an Italian born and bred in Lombardly and of great reputation for learning and piety would have assum'd that autority if he had believ'd that he had intrenched upon the Province of the Bishop of Rome The truth is Canonizations in that age were not the chargeable commodities they have since grown to be since the Pope hath engross'd the disposal of them to himself and it is very probable that the Primitive Saints whose memories are preserv'd in the Martyrologies very erroneously were by the joint acknowledgment of the upon the notorious sanctity of their lives and of their deaths not by any solemn declaration of any particular autority of Rome otherwise we should find the Records of old Canonizations there as well as we do of so many new But of so many of this Nation who suffer'd in the ten first persecutions under the Roman Governors more then of any other especially if St. Vrsula and her Eleven thousand Virgins be reckon'd into the number there is no other Record but of the daies assign'd for their Festivities And in their whole Bullarium which for these latter hundred years so much abounds in Canonizations the first that is extant is of Vldricke Bishop of Ausburg by Iohn the Fifteenth Anno Nine hundred ninety three in a very different form and much different circumstances from those which are now used Finally if the Popes inhibition or interposition could have bin of any moment in that time of William the Conqueror he would have bin sure to have heard of it when he seiz'd upon the Plate and Jewels of all the Monasteries and laid other great impositions upon the Clergy which they had not bin accustom'd to and of which they would have complain'd if they had known whither to have addressed their complaints The two next Kings who succeeded him and reigned long for Henry the First reigned no less then five and thirty years wore not their Crowns so fast on their heads in respect of the juster title in their Brother Robert as prudently to provoke more enemies then they had and therefore they kept very fair quarter with Paschal who was Pope likewise many years and were content to look on unconcern'd in the fierce quarrels between the Emperour and him for he was very powerful in France tho not in Italy And Anselme the Arch-bishop of Canterbury had great contests with them both upon the priviledges of the Clergy and had fled to Paschal to engage him in his quarrel yet the Pope pretended to no jurisdiction in the point but courteously interceded so far with Henry the First on the behalf of Anselme that he made his peace with the King but when he afterwards desir'd to send a Legate into England the King by the advice of the Bishops and Nobles positively refus'd to admit him And whosoever takes a view of the constitution of Christendom as far as had reference to Europe at that time how far the greatest Kingdoms and Principalities which do now controul and regulate that ambition were from any degree of strength and power that Italy was then crumbled into more distinct Governments then it is at present that France that is now intire was then under the command of very many Soveraign Princes and the Crown it self so far from any notable superiority that the King himself was somtimes excommunicated by his own Bishops and Clergy without and against the Popes direction and somtimes excommunicated and the Kingdom interdicted by the Pope even whilst he resided in France and in Councils assembled by them there as in the Council of Clermont that Spain that is now under one Monarch was then divided into the several Kingdoms of Castile Arragon Valentia Catalonia Navarr and Leon when the Moors were possess'd of a greater part of the whole then all the other Christian Kings the whole Kingdom of Granada with the greatest part of Andoluzia and Estremadura and a great part of Portugal being then under the Dominion of those Infidels that Genmany was under as many Soveraign Princes as it had names of Cities and Provinces and that England which hath now Scotland and Ireland annex'd to it was then besides the unsettlement of the English Provinces upon the contests in the Norman Family without any pretence to the Dominion of Wales at least without any advantage by it I say whosoever considers this will not wonder at the starts made by many Popes in that Age into a kind of power and autority in many Kingdoms that they had not before and which was then still interrupted and contradicted and that when Alexander the Third came to be Pope who reigned about twenty years he proceeded so imperiously with our Henry the Second upon the death of Thomas Beckett even in a time when there was so great a Schism in the Church that Victor the Fifth was chosen by a contrary party and by a Council called at Pavia by the Emperour there own'd and declar'd to be Canonically chosen and Alexander to be no Pope who thereupon fled into France so that if our King Henry the Second had not found such a condescention to be very suitable to his affairs both in England and in France it is probable he would have declin'd so unjust and unreasonable an imposition I am afraid of giving
Mr. Hobbes an occasion to reproch me with impertinency in this digression tho he hath given me a just provocation to it and since the Roman Writers are so solicitous in the collecting and publishing the Records of that odious Process and strangers are easily induc'd to believe that the exercise of so extravagant a jurisdiction in the Reign of so Heroical a Prince who had extended his Dominions farther by much then any of his Progenitors had don must be grounded upon some fix'd and confess'd right over the Nation and not from an original Usurpation entred upon in that time and when the Usurper was not acknowledged by so considerable a part of Christendom it may not prove ungrateful to many men to make a short view of that very time that we may see what unheard of motives could prevail with that high spirited King to submit to so unheard of Tyranny That it was not from the constitution of the Kingdom or any preadmitted power of the Pope formerly incorporated into the Laws and Customs of the Kingdom is very evident by the like having bin before attemted For tho the Clergy enjoied those great priviledges and immunities which are mention'd before whereby they had so great an influence upon the hearts of the people that the Conqueror himself had bin glad to make use of them and William the Second Henry the First and King Stephen had more need of them to uphold their Usurpation yet those priviledges how great soever depended not at all upon the Bishop of Rome nor was any rank of men more solicitous then the Clergy to keep the Pope from a pretence of power in the Kingdom And the Bishops themselves had in the beginning of that Arch-bishops contumacious and rebellious contests with the King don all they could to discountenance and oppose him and had given their consent in Parliament that for his disobedience all his goods and moveables should be at the Kings mercy and it was also enacted with their consent after the Arch-bishop had fled out of the Kingdom and was known to make some application to the Pope that if any were found carrying a Letter or Mandate from the Pope or the Arch-bishop containing any interdiction of Christianity in England he should be taken and without delay executed as a Traitor both to the King and Kingdom that whatsoever Bishop Priest or Monk should have and retain any such Letters should forfeit all their Possessions Goods and Chattels to the King and be presently banish'd the Realm with their kin that none should appeal to the Pope and many other particulars which enough declare the temper of that Catholic time and their aversion to have any dependance upon a foreign jurisdiction And after the death of Beckett and that infamous submission of the King to the Popes Sentence thereupon which yet was not so scandalous as it is vulgarly reported as if it had bin made and undergon by the King in Person when the same King desir'd to assist the Successor of that Pope Lucius the Third who was driven out of Rome and to that purpose endeavour'd to raise a collection from the Clergy which the Popes Nuntio appear'd in and hoped to advance the Clergy was so jealous of having to do with the Pope or his Ministers that they declar'd and advised the King that his Majesty would supply the Pope in such a proportion as he thought fit and that whatever they gave might be to the King himself and not to the Popes Nuntio which might be drawn into example to the detriment of the King The King himself first shewed the way to Thomas a Beckett to apply himself to the Pope till when the Arch-bishop insisted only upon his own Ecclesiastical rights and power in which he found not the concurrence of the other Bishops or Clergy and the King not being able to bear the insolence of the man and finding that he could well enough govern his other Bishops if they were not subjected to the autority and power of that perverse Arch bishop was willing to give the Pope autority to assist him and did all he could to perswade him to make the Arch-bishop of York his Legate meaning thereby to devest the other Arch-bishop of that Superiority over the Clergy that was so troublesom to him and which he exercis'd in his own right as Metropolitan But the Pope durst not gratifie the King therein knowing the spirit of Beckett and that he would contemn the Legate and knew well the Ecclesiastical superiority in that Kingdom to reside in his person as Arch-bishop of Canterbury who had bin reputed tanquam alterius Orbis Papa yet he sent to him to advise him to submit to the King whereupon the haughty Prelate then fled out of the Kingdom and was too hard for the King with the Pope who was perswaded by him to make use of this opportunity to enlarge his own power and to curb and subdue that Clergy that was indevoted to him and so by his Bull he suspended the Arch-bishop of York and the other Bishops who adher'd to the King in the execution of his commands which so much incens'd the King that he let fall those words in his passion that encouraged those rash Gentlemen to commit that assassination that produc'd so much trouble It must also be remembred that the King when he bore all this from the Pope was indeed but half a King having caused his son Henry to be crown'd King with him who thereupon gave him much trouble and join'd with the French King against him and that he had so large and great Territories in France that as the Popes power was very great there so his friendship was the more behovefull and necessary to the King Lastly and which it may be is of more weight then any thing that hath bin said in this disquisition it may seem a very natural judgment of God Almighty that the Pope should exercise that unreasonable power over a King who had given him an absurd and unlawful power over himself and for an unjust end when he obtain'd from our Country-man Pope Adrian who immediatly preceded Alexander a Dispensation not to perform the Oath which he had taken that his Brother Geoffery should enjoy the County of Anjoy according to the Will and desire of his Father and by vertue of that Dispensation which the Pope had no power to grant defrauded his Brother of his inheritance and broke his Oath to God Almighty and so was afterwards forced himself to yield to the next Pope when he assum'd a power over him in a case he had nothing to do with and where he had no mind to obey And this unadvised address of many other Princes to the Pope for Dispensations of this kind to do what the Law of God did not permit them to do hath bin a principal inlet of his Supremacy to make them accept of other Dispensations from him of which they stand not in need and to admit other his incroachments from
their own hands and it is a marvellous thing that any man can believe that he can be as vigorously assisted by people who have nothing to lose as by men who defending him defend their own Goods and Estates which if they do not believe their own they will never care into what hands they fall Nor is the Soveraign power divided by the Soveraigns consenting that he will not exercise such a part of it but in such and such a manner and with such circumstances for he hath not parted with any of his Soveraignty since no other man can exercise that which he forbears to exercise himself which could be don if he had divided it And it is much a greater crime in those who are totally ignorant of the laws to endeavour by their wit and presumtion to undermine them then that they who are learn'd in the study and profession of the Law do all they can to support that which only supports the Government Much less is the Soveraign power divided by the Soveraigns own communicating part of it to be executed in his name to those who by their education and experience are qualified to do it much better then he himself can be presumed to be able to do as to appoint Judges to administer Justice to his people upon all the pretences of right which may arise between themselves or between him and them according to the Rules of the Law which are manifest to them and must be unknown to him who yet keeps the Soveraign power in his hands to punish those Deputies if they swerve from their duty To the mischiefs which have proceeded from the reading the Histories of the ancient Greeks and Romans I shall say no more in this place then that if Mr. Hobbes hath bin alwaies of this opinion he was very much to blame to take the pains to translate Thucydâ—des into English in which there is so much of the Policy of the Greeks discovered and much more of that Oratory that disposes Men to Sedition then in all Tullies or Aristotles works But I suppose he had then and might still have more reason to believe that very few who have taken delight in reading the Books of Policy and Histories of the ancient Greeks and Romans have ever fallen into Rebellion and there is much more fear that the reading this and other Books writ by him and the glosses he makes upon them in his conversation may introduce thoughts of Rebellion into young men by weakning and laughing at all obligations of conscience which only can dispose men to obedience and by perswading Princes that they may safely and justly follow the extent of their own inclinations and appetites in the Government of their Subjects which must tire and wear out all Subjection at least the cheerfulness which is the strength of it by lessening the reverence to God Almighty which is the foundation of reverence to the King and undervaluing all Religion as no otherwise known and no otherwise coustituted then by the arbitriment of the Soveraign Prince whom he makes a God of Heaven as well as upon the Earth since he is upon the matter the only author of the Scripture it self the swallowing of all which opinions must be the destruction of all Government and the ruine of all obedience Tho most of his reflexions are reproches upon the Government of his own Country which he thinks is imperfectly instituted yet he cannot impute the doctrine of killing Kings whether Regicide or Tyrannicide to that Government nor the unreasonable distinction of Spiritual and Temporal jurisdiction to rob the Soveraign of any part of his Supremacy and divide one part of his Subjects from a dependance upon his justice and autority God be thanked the Laws of that Kingdom admit none of that doctrine or such distinctions to that pernicious purpose Nor do the Bishops or Clergy of that Kingdom however they are fallen from Mr. Hobbes his grace use any style or title but what is given or permitted to them by the Soveraign power And therefore this Controversy must be defended by those who justly lie under the reproch of the Church of Rome who it may be consider him the less because tho they know him not to be of theirs they think him not to be of any Religion The power of levying Mony which depending upon any general assembly he saies pag. 172. endangereth the Common-wealth for want of such nurishment as is necessary to life and motion shall be more properly enlarg'd upon in the next Chapter when I doubt not very wholsome remedies will be found for all those diseases which he will suppose may proceed from thence but t is to be hoped none will chuse his desperate prescriptions which will cure the diâ—ease by killing the Patient He concludes this Chapter after all his bountiful donatives to his Soveraign with his old wicked doctrine that would indeed irreparably destroy and dissolve all Common-wealths That when by a powerful invasion from a foreign Enemy or a prosperous Rebellion by Subjects his Soveraign is so far oppressed that he can keep the field no longer his Subjects owe him no farther assistance and may lawfully put themselves under the Conqueror of what condition soever for tho he saies pag. 174. The right of the Soveraign is not extinguished yet the obligation of the members is and so the Soveraign is left to look to himself There are few Empires of the World which at some time have not bin reduc'd by the strength and power of an outragious Enemy to that extremity that their forces have not bin able to keep the field any longer which Mr. Hobbes makes the period of their Subjects Loyalty and the dissolution of the Common wealth yet of these at last many Princes have recover'd and redeem'd themselves from that period and arrived again at their full height and glory by the constancy and vertue of their Subjects and their firmly believing that their obligations could not be extinguish'd as long as the right of their Soveraign Monarch was not So that there is great reason to believe that the old Rules which Soveraignty allwaies prescribed to it self are much better and more like to preserve it then the new ones which he would plant in their stead because it is very evident that the old subjection is much more faithful and necessary to the support and defence of the Soveraignty then that new one which he is contented with and prescribes which he will not only have determin'd as to any assistance of his natural Soveraign tho he confesses pag. 174. his right remains still in him but that he is obliged so strictly obliged that no pretâ—nce of having submitted hâ—mself out of fear can absolve him to protect and assist the Vsurper as long as he is able So that the entire loss of one Battel according to his judgment of subjection and the duty of Subjects shall or may put an end to the Soveraignty of any Prince in Europe And this
Reason which proves that it ought to be so so Mr. Hobbes who when History controuls him thinks it a sufficient answer to say If it was not so it should be so as unreasonably follows the same method and would by the ill consequences which would flow from such a right devest the Pope of an autority which he confidently saies was granted to him immediately by our Saviour and hath bin enjoied by his Predecessors from that time to this Which if true all the arguments from Reason may fortifie but can never shake a Right so founded upon a clear and plain Grant from one who had an Original power to grant and wherewith the possession hath gon ever since He therefore who will pertinently answer and controul these pretences which Mr. Hobbes can well do if it would not cross some other of his Doctrines must do it by positively denying any such grant which never was nor ever can be produced in such plain and significant terms as are necessary to the grant of the most inferior Office in any Church or State He would make it manifestly appear that for many hundreds of Years no Bishop of Rome made the least pretence to any such Soveraignty and when they began to make it with what a torrent of contradiction it was rejected He would make it evident that all that power which that See assum'd was granted to them by Kings and Princes and restor'd to them again when they were oppressed by their own Factions and Schisms and by more powerful Enemies He would point out the very Article of time when by the Incursions of the Goths and Vandals into Italy and the foul arts practiced by the Popes their autority by degrees increased to a great height by the bounty of Charlemain in making them great Temporal Princes against the inconvenience whereof he thought he had sufficiently provided when he reserved to himself and succeeding Emperors to make all the Popes He would shew them many wonderful accidents by which the power of the Emperor grew to decay and the weakness of all neighbor Kings and Princes by the Rebellions in their several Kingdoms and their unreasonable bloody Wars amongst themselves and then the artifices still practiced by the Popes to foment those Divisions and to contribute to their own Greatness Usurpation notwithstanding all which that there hath not bin one Century of Years from St. Peter to this time that there hath not bin some notorious opposition and contradiction to that Supremacy which was argument enough that it was never look'd upon as a Catholic verity All this he would prove to be true as likewise that no Prince of the Roman communion who at present is most indulgent to it as all of them are in such a degree as is most advantageous to their own affairs look upon it as such and that a submission to the Popes autority except it be commanded or allowed by the King and the Law is not taken for a part of Religion in any Kingdom but that of England This is the method that must be taken towards the enervating those high pretences and if it were vigorously pursued by one well versed in the Pontifical Histories in which he needs no other witness then their own Records I mean Popish Writers all the World would be convinc'd except only such Princes who are very well paid for the communication of part of their Soveraignty to him that the Pope hath not out of his own Dominions so much as the power of the Metropolitan Schole-master which Mr. Hobbes seems willing to confer upon him The Survey of Chapter 43. HE who hath taken so ill a Survey of Heaven if self is not like to be a good guide for the way thither which is the business of his forty third Chapter and which into how little room soever he brings all that is necessary to Salvation would be very difficult to find if it were not for his old expedient his Soveraigns commands since the most prescrib'd and known way which hath bin thought to lead thither is quite damm'd up by him the Scriptures pag. 323. That which made the Patriarchs and the Prophets of old to believe was God himself who spake unto them supernaturally and the person whom the Apostles and Disciples that conversed with Christ believ'd was our Saviour himself But of us to whom neither God the Father nor our Saviour ever spoke he saies it cannot be said that the person whom we believe is God So that the Faith of Christians ever since our Saviours time hath had no other foundation then the reputation of their Pastors and the Old and New Testament which their Soveraign Princes have made the rule of their Faith which Princes are the only persons whom Christians now hear speak from God and to whom consequently they are beholding for their Salvation Admit that single contracted Article Iesus is Christ comprehends all that is necessary to Salvation for he confesses that he who holdeth that foundation Iesus is the Christ holdeth expressly all that he seeth rightly deduc'd from it and implicitly all that is consequent thereunto tho he have not skill enough to discern the consequence I demand still how they shall believe this Article whom their Soveraigns forbid to look upon the New Testament as Scripture which is all the evidence they can have for it and yet he saies pag. 327. for the belief of this Article we are to reject the autority of an Angel from Heaven much more of any mortal man if he teach the contrary I know well he reconciles this contradiction by believing in the heart and denying with the tongue having the example of Naaman But how shall he believe in his heart if he be depriv'd of the New Testament and if he doth come to believe in his heart as he ought to do what affection and duty can he have for that Soveraign who will not be saved himself and requires him to renounce his Saviour He must be content with a mere verbal affection without any influence upon the heart which is much less duty then he requires towards his Soveraign whom he is so intirely to obey that he must say all he bids him say and do all he bids him do so much more duty he requires for his Earthly then for his Heavenly Soveraign I wish with all my heart that Mr. Hobbes did remember or believe his own good rule in the end of this Chapter which would have preserved him from many presumtions which administer great trouble and grief to his Readers for his sake pag. 331. It is not the bare words but the scope of the Writer that giveth the true light by which any writing is to be interpreted and they that insist upon single Texts without considering the main design can derive nâ—thing from them clearly but rather by casting atomes of Scripture as dust before mens eies make every thing more obscure then it is an ordinary artifice he saies of those that seek
which maketh some grimaces callâ—d Laughter and is caused either by some suddain act of their own that pleaseth them or by the apprehension of some deformâ—d thing in another by comparison whereof they suddainly applaud themselves In which kind of Illustrations those Chapters and in truth his whole Book abounds and discovers a master faculty in making easie things hard to be understood and men will probably with the more impatience and curiosity tho with the less reverence enter upon the third part of his Book which is to define Christian Politics after he hath so well defin'd and describ'd Religion to be Fear of Power invisible feigned by the mind or imagined from tales publicly allowed p. 26. all which I leave to his Friends of the Universities Nor shall I spend more time upon the seventh eighth aâ—d ninth Chapters leaving them to the Schole-men to examine who are in his debt for much mirth which he hath made out of them I for my part being very indifferent between them as believing that the Schole-men have contributed very little more to the advancement of any noble or substantial part of Learning then Mr. Hobbes hath don to the reformation or improvement of Philosophy and Policy Yet I may reasonably say so much on their behalf that if Mr. Hobbes may take upon him to translate all those terms of Art the proper signification whereof is unanimously understood and agreed between all who use them and which in truth are a cipher to which all men of moderate Learning have the Key into the vulgar Language by the assistance of Ryders Dictionary he hath found a way to render and expose the worthiest Professors of any Science and all Science it self to the cheap laughter of all illiterate men which is contrary to Mr. Hobbes's own rule and determination pag. 17. where he saies That when a man upon the hearing any Speech hath those thoughts which the words of that Speech and their connexion were ordained and constituted to signifie then he is said to understand it And surely the signification of words and terms is no less ordain'd and constituted by custom and acceptation then by Grammar and Etymologies If it were otherwise Mr. Hobbes himself would be as much exposed to ignorant Auditors when he reads a Lecture upon the Optics or even in his ador'd Geometry if a pleasant Translator should render all his terms as literally as he hath don the Title of the sixth Chapter of Suarez for every Age as new things happen finds new words in all Languages to signifie them The Civilians who are amongst the best Judges of Latine can hardly tell how investitura came into their Books to signifie that which it hath ever signified since the Quarrel begun between the Emperor and the Pope upon that subject which is now as well understood in Latine as any word in Tully And if Bombarda had no original but from the sound as Petavius a very good Grammarian besides his other great Learning saies it had not we have no reason to be offended with the Schole-men for finding words to discover their own Conceptions which equally serveour own turn The Survey of Chapters 10 11 12. I Do acknowledg that in the tenth eleventh and twelfth Chapters many things are very well said and tho somethings as ill with reference to Religion and to the Clergy as if there were a combination between the Priests of the Gentiles Aristotle the Schole-men and the Clergy of all Professions to defame pervert and corrupt Religion yet he resumes that Argument so frequently that I shall chuse to examine the reason and justice of all his Allegations rather in another place then upon either of these three Chapters to which I shall only add that according to his natural delight in Novelties of all kinds in Religion as well as Policy he hath supplied the Gentiles with a new God which was never before found in any of their Catalogues The God Chaos pag. 55. to which he might as warrantably have made them an additional present of his own Idol Confusion And he will as hardly find a good autority for the aspersion with which he traduces the Policy of the Roman Common-wealth in all its greatness and lustre pag. 57. that it made no scruple of tolerating any Religion whatsoever in the City of Rome it self unless it had somthing in it that could not consist with their Civil Government Which how untrue soever was a very unseasonable intimation of the wisdom of Olivers's Politics at that time when he published his Leviathan whereas in truth that great People were not more solicitous in any thing then in preserving the unity and integrity of their Religion from any mixtures and the Institution of the Office of Pontifex Maximus was principally out of that jealousie and that he might carefully watch that no alteration or innovation might be made in their Religion And tho they had that general awe for Religion that they would not suffer the Gods of their Enemies whom they did not acknowledg for Gods to be rudely treated and violated and therefore they both punished their Consul for having robb'd the Temple of Proserpine and caused the full damages to be restored to the injur'd Goddess yet they neither acknowledg'd her Divinity nor suffer'd her to have a Temple or to have any Devotion paid to her within their Dominions nor indeed any other God or Goddess to be ador'd then those to whom Sacrifices were made by the Autority of the State Nor will Mr. Hobbes be able to name one Christian Kingdom in the World where it is believed that the King hath not his Autority from Christ unless a Bishop Crown him tho all Christian Kingdoms have had that reverence for Bishops as to assign the highest Ecclesiastical Functions to be alwaies perform'd by them but they well know the King to have the same Autority in all respects before he is crown'd as after And what extravagant Power soever the Court of Rome hath in some evil Conjunctures heretofore usurp'd and would be as glad of the like opportunities again yet in those Kingdoms where that Autority is own'd and acknowledg'd there want not those who loudly protest against that Doctrine That a King may be depos'd by a Pope or that the Clergy and Regulars shall be exemt from the Jurisdiction of their King And yet upon these unwarrantable suggestions he presumes to declare That all the changes of Religion may be attributed to one and the same Cause and that is unpleasing Priests and those not only amongst Papists but even in that Church that hath presumed most of Reformation by which he intends the Church of England at that time under the most severe and barbarous Persecution and therefore it was the more enviously and maliciously as well as dishonestly alledged The Survey of Chapters 13 14 15 16. THE thirteenth fourteenth fifteenth and sixteenth Chapters will require a little more disquisition since under the pretence of examining or rather
carry him to Ierusalem which he saies the owner permitted and did not ask whether his necessity was a sufficient title nor whether he was Iudg of that necessity but did acquiesce in the will of the Lord which is a very bold and ungrave wresting of Scripture to purposes it could not intend since our Saviour did not profess to do one act as a King of the Jews but declar'd that his kingdom was not of this world And at the time he told the Messengers who were sent for the Ass that if they were ask'd what they meant by it they should answer that the Lord had need of him upon which he knew and he said that they would let him go and upon that he grounded their Commission If the owner would not permit them to take it the Messengers had no autority to have brought it to him And his inference from and the gloss he makes upon the question that God asked of Adam p. 106. Hast thou eaten hath as little warrant from that text as the other improper instance of our Saviour And sure when Mr. Hobbes thought fit by this example of our Saviour in this place to wrest all property from the Subject he did not intend in any other place so far to devest him of any autority that men were not bound to believe any thing he said or to do any thing he commanded because he had no Commission which required obedience his Kingdom being not yet of this world So unwary he is in the contradicting himself as all men are who first resolve what they are to prove before they consider what it is that is true We are not oblig'd nor indeed have any reason to believe that God was offended with the Children of Israel for desiring a King which was a Government himself had instituted over them and to which they had bin long accustomed and had undergon much misery and confusion whilst there was no King in Israel but for their mutinous manner of asking it and the reason they gave for it that they might be like other nations which God had taken all possible care that they should not be and enjoined them to learn nothing of them And the description which Samuel made of the exorbitant power of Kings which indeed the Kings of the Nations did exercise by whose example they desir'd to be govern'd was rather to terrify them from pursuing their foolish demand then to constitute such a Prerogative as the King should use whom God would appoint to go in and out before them which methinks is very manifest in that the worst Kings that ever reign'd over them never challeng'd or assum'd those Prerogatives Nor did the people conceive themselves liable to those impositions as appears by the application they made to Rehoboam upon the death of Solomon that he would abate some of that rigor his Father had exercised towards them the rough rejection of which contrary to the advice of his wisest Counsellors cost him the greater part of his Dominions and when Rehoboam would by Arms have reduc'd them to obedience God would not suffer him because he had bin in the fault himself I am willing to take an occasion in this place to wish that no better Divines then Mr. Hobbes had from this place in Samuel presum'd very unwarrantably to draw inferences to lessen the Subjects reverence and obedience to Kings and to raise a prejudice and disesteem in Kings towards their Subjects as people whose affections and good will are of no use to them since they can present nothing to them that is their own nor have any thing to give but what they may take from them which two very different rather then contrary Conclusions too many Devines and some of parts according to their several inclinations and appetites have presumed to wrest from that place of Scripture the one party of them as is said before endeavouring maliciously to render Monarchy odious and insupportable by the unlimited affections and humors and pretences and power of a single uncontroulable person the other believing as unreasonably that the dispositions natures and hearts of the people cannot be appli'd to the necessary obedience towards their Princes nor their reverence and duty be so well fix'd and devoted to them as by thinking that they have nothing of their own but whatsoever they enjoy they have only by the bounty of the King who can take it from them when he pleases and to this last party Mr. Hobbes his speculation hath for the present disposed him to adhere tho in any other particular opinion he doth not concur with any Divine of any Church in Christendom For the first whoever doth well consider the wonderful confused Government that was exercised over the Children of Israel from the death of Ioshua when the Monarchy was interrupted under the Judges for the space of above three hundred years the barbarous negligence in the instructions of the people in the knowledg of God and of their duty to him insomuch that the very next generation after the death of Ioshuah had lost or was without the whole History of what God had don for them and of what he expected from them so unfaithful a guide or remembrancer is Tradition when the Scripture it self is not to be found I say whosoever considers likewise the quality and talent and humor of many of the very Judges who had bin over them as the repeted Acts of indiscretion and folly in Sampson which could not but make his judgment to be in the less reverence the strength of his arms to be more admir'd then that of his head with the present state they were then in under the sons of Samuel who were no better then the Sons of Ely had bin will not perhaps so very much blame them for desiring a King and tho the manner of their asking it might as hath bin said offend Samuel and in some degree displease God yet he might not be offended absolutely with the thing it self since it was no more then God himself had in a manner prescrib'd to them as well as foretold without any kind of disapprobation When thou art come into the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee c. and shalt say I will set a King over me like as all the Nations which are about me Thou shalt in any wise set him a King over thee whom the Lord thy God shall chuse Deut. 17. 14 15 16 17. God was well content that they should have a King but reserv'd the election of him to himself he would have no transferring of rights or covenanting for one another he would chuse his own Representative Nor amongst all the customs of the Nations which he orbad them to follow did God ever shew the least dislike of their Government by Kings which had bin instituted originally by himself and probably bin continued by them even from the time of the institution however their manners were degenerated and the knowledg of him totally
Justice even where himself is party and that he will be sued before those Judges if he doth not pay what he ow's to his Subjects This is the Contract which gives that capacity of suing and which by his own consent and condescention lessens his Soveraignty that his Subjects may require Justice from him And yet all these promises and lessenings he pronounces as void and to amount to contradictions that must dissolve the whole Soveraign power and leave the people in confusion and war Whereas the truth is these condescentions and voluntary abatements of some of that original power that was in them have drawn a cheerful submission and bin attended by a ready obedience to Soveraignty from the time that Subjects have bin at so great a distance from being consider'd as Children and that Soveraigns have bin without those natural tendernesses in the exercise of their power and which in the rigor of it could never have bin supported And where these obligations are best observ'd Soveraignty flourishes with the most lustre and security Kings having still all the power remaining in them that they have not themselves parted with and releas'd to their Subjects and theiâ— Subjects having no pretence to more liberty or power then the King hath granted and given to them and both their happiness and security consists in containing themselves within their own limits that is King not to affect the recovery of that exorbitant power which their Ancestors wisely parted with as well for their own as the peoples benefit and Subjects to rejoice in those liberties which have bin granted to them and not to wish to lessen the power of the King which is not greater then is necessary for their own perservation And to such a wholsom division and communication of power as this is that place of Scripture with which Mr. Hobbes is still too bold a Kingdom dâ—vided in it self cannot stand cannot be applied But that this Supreme Soveraign whom he hath invested with the whole property and liberty of all his Subjects and so invested him in it that he hath not power to part with any of it by promise or donation or release may not be too much exalted with his own greatness he hath humbled him sufficiently by giving his Subjects leave to withdraw their obedience from him when he hath most need of their assistance for the pag. 114. obligation of Subjects to the Soveraign is understood he saies to last as long and no longer then the power lasts to protect them So that assoon as any Town City or Province of any Princes Dominions is invaded by a Foreign Enemy or possessed by a Rebellious Subject that the Prince for the present cannot suppress the Power of the one or the other the people may lawfully resort to those who are over them and for their Protection perform all the Offices and duties of good Subjects to them pag 114. For the right men have by nature to protect themselves when none else can protect them can by no covenant be relinquish'd and the end of obedience is protection which wherever a man seeth it either in his own or in an others sword nature applieth his obedience to it and his endeavours to maintain it And truly it is no wonder if they do so and that Subjects take the first opportunity to free themselves from such a Soveraign as he hath given them and chuse a better for themselves Whereas the duty of Subjects is and all good Subjects believe they owe another kind of duty and obedience to their Soveraign then to withdraw their subjection because he is oppress'd and will prefer poverty and death it self before they will renounce their obedience to their natural Prince or do any thing that may advance the service of his Enemies And since Mr. Hobbes gives so ill a testimony of his Government which by the severe conditions he would oblige mankind to submit to for the support of it ought to be firm and not to be shaken pag. 114. that it is in its own nature not only subject to violent death by foreign war but also from the ignorance and passion of men that it hath in it from the very institution many seeds of natural mortality by intestine discord worse then which he cannot say of any Government we may very reasonably prefer the Government we have and under which we have enjoi'd much happiness before his which we do not know nor any body hath had experience of and which by his own confession is liable to all the accidents of mortality which any others have bin and reject his that promises so ill and exercises all the action of War in Peace and when War comes is liable to all the misfortunes which can possibly attend or invade it Whether the relation of Subjects be extinguisht in all those cases which Mr. Hobbes takes upon him to prescribe as Imprisonment Banishment and the like I leave to those who can instruct him better in the Law of Nations by which they must be judged notwithstanding all his Appeals to the Law of Nature and I presume if a banish'd Person p. 114 during which he saies he is not subject shall join in an action under a Foreign power against his Country wherein he shall with others be taken prisoner the others shall be proceeded against as Prisoners of War when he shall be judg'd as a Traitor and Rebel which he could not be if he were not a Subject and this not only in the case of an hostile action and open attemt but of the most secret conspiracy that comes to be discover'd And if this be true we may conclude it would be very unsafe to conduct our selves by what Mr. Hobbes p. 105. finds by speculation and deduction of Soveraign rights from the nature need and designs of men Surely this woful desertion and defection in the cases above mention'd which hath bin alwaies held criminal by all Law that hath bin current in any part of the World receiv'd so much countenance and justifications by Mr. Hobbes his Book and more by his conversation that Cromwel found the submission to those principles produc'd a submission to him and the imaginary relation between Protection and Allegiance so positively proclam'd by him prevail'd for many years to extinguish all visible fidelity to the King whilst he perswaded many to take the Engagement as a thing lawful and to become Subjects to the Usurper as to their legitimate Soveraign of which great service he could not abstain from bragging in a Pamphlet set forth in that time that he alone and his doctrine had prevail'd with many to submit to the Government who would otherwise have disturb'd the public Peace that is to renounce their fidelity to their true Soveraign and to be faithful to the Usurper It appears at last why by his institution he would have the power and security of his Soveraign wholly and only to depend upon the Contracts and Covenants which the people make one with
own and will value it accordingly And he is much a better Counsellor who by his experience and observation of the nature and humor of the People who are to be govern'd and by his knowledg of the Laws and Rules by which they ought to be govern'd gives advice what ought to be don then he who from his speculative knowledg of man-kind and of the Rights of Government and of the nature of Equity and Honor attain'd with much study would erect an Engine of Government by the rules of Geometry more infallible then Experience can ever find out I am not willing now or at any time to accompany him in his sallies which he makes into the Scripture and which he alwaies handles as if his Soveraign power had not yet declared it to be the word of God and to illustrate now his Distinctions and the difference between Command and Counsel he thinks fit to fetch instances from thence Have no other Gods but me Make to thy self no graven Image c. he saies pag. 133. are commands because the reason for which we are to obey them is drawn from the will of God our King whom we are obliged to obey but these words Repent and be baptized in the name of Iesus arc Counsel because the reason why we should do so tendeth not to any benefit of God Almighty who shall be still King in what manner soever we rebel but of our selves who have no other means of avoiding the punishment hanging over us for our sins as if the latter were not drawn from the will of God as much as the former or as if the former tended more to the benefit of God then the latter An ordinary Grammarian without any insight in Geometry would have thought them equally to be commands But Mr. Hobbes will have his Readers of another talent in their understanding and another subjection to his dictates The Survey of Chapter 26. HOwever Mr. Hobbes enjoins other Judges to etract the judgments they have given when contrary to reason upon what autority or president soever they have pronounced them yet he holds himself obliged still tueâ—i opus to justify all he hath said therefore we have reason to expect that to support his own notions of Liberty and Propriety contrary to the notions of all other men he must introduce a notion of Law contrary to what the world hath ever yet had of it And it would be answer enough and it may be the fittest that can be given to this Chapter to say that he hath ere ed a Law contrary and destructive to all the Law that is acknowledg'd and establish'd in any Monarchy or Republic that is Christian and in this he hopes to secure himseâ—f by his accustomed method of definition and dâ—fiâ—es that Civil Law which is a term we do not dislike is to every Subject those Rules which the Common wealth hath commanded him by word writing or other sufficient sign of the Wâ—â—l to make use of for the distinction of right in whâ—ch he saies there is nothing that is not at first sight evident that is to say of what is contrary and what is noâ— contrary to the Rule From which definition his first deduction is that the Soveraign is the sole Legislator and that himself is not subject to Laws because he can make and repeal them which in truth is no necessary deduction from his own definition for it doth not follow from thence tho he makes them Rules only for Subjects that the Soveraign hath the sole power to repeal them but the true definition of a Law is that it is to every Subject the rule which the Common-wealth hath commanded him by word writing or other sufficient sign of the Will made and publish'd in that form and manner as is accustomed in that Common-wealth to make use of for the distinction of right that is to say of what is contrary and what is not to the Rule and from this definition no such deduction can be made since the form of making and repealing Laws is stated and agreed upon in all Common-wealths The opinions and judgments which are found in the Books of eminent Lawyers cannot be answer'd and controuled by Mr. Hobbes his wonder since the men who know least are apt to wonder most and men will with more justice wonder whence he comes by the Prerogative to controul the Laws and Government establish'd in this and that Kingdom without so much as considering what is Law here or there but by the general notions he hath of Law and what it is by his long study and much cogitation And it is a strange definition of Law to make it like his propriety to be of concernment only between Subject and Subject without any relation of security as to the Soveraign whom he exemts from any observation of them and invests with autority by repealing those which trouble him when he thinks fit to free himself from the observation thereof and by making new and consequently he saies he was free before for he is free that can be free when he will The instance he gives for his wonder and displeasure against the Books of the Eminent Lawyers is that they say that the Common Law hath no controuler but the Parliament that is that the Common Law cannot be chang'd or alter'd but by Act of Parliament which is the Municipal Law of the Kingdom Now methinks if that be the judgment of Eminent Lawyers Mr. Hobbes should be so modest as to believe it to be true till he hears others as Eminent Lawyers declare the contrary for by his instance he hath brought it now only to relate to the Law of England and then methinks he should be easily perswaded that the Eminent Lawyers of England do know best whether the Law be so or no. I do not wish that Mr. Hobbes should be convinc'd by a judgment of that Law upon himself which would be very severe if he should be accused for declaring that the King alone hath power to alter the descents and inheritances of the Kingdom and whereas the Common Law saies the Eldest shall inherit the King by his own Edict may declare and order that the younger Son shall inherit or for averring and publishing that the King by his own autority can repeal and dissolve all Laws and justly take away all they have from his Subjects I say if the judgment of Law was pronounc'd upon him for this Seditious discourse he would hardly perswade the World that he understood what the Law of England is better then the Judges who condemn'd him or that he was wary enough to set up a jus vagum and incognitum of his own to controul the establish'd Government of his own Country He saies the Soveraign is the only Legislator and I will not contradict him in that It is the Soveraign stamp and Royal consent and that alone that gives life and being and title of Laws to that which was before but counsel and advice and no
according to his own discretion In the last place he hath very much obliged his Soveraign in telling him so plainly why he hath compared him to Leviathan because he hath raised him to the same greatness and given him the same power which Leviathan is described to have in the 41 Chapter of Iob There is nothing on Earth to be compared with him he is made so as not to be afraid be seeth every high thing to be below him and is King of all the children of pride Job 41. 33 34. And if he had provided as well to secure his high station as he hath for the abatement of the pride of the Subject whom he hath sufficiently humbled he might more glory in his work but the truth is he hath left him in so weak a posture to defend himself that he hath reason to be afraid of every man and the remedies he prescribes afterwards to keep his prodigious power from dissolution are as false and irrational as any other advice in his Institution as will appear hereafter The Survey of Chapter 29. MR. Hobbes takes so much delight in reiterating the many ill things he hath said for fear they do not make impression deep enough in the minds of men that I may be pardon'd if I repete again somtimes what hath bin formerly said as this Chapter consisting most of the same pernicious doctrines which he declar'd before tho in an other dress obliges me to make new or other reflexions upon what was I think sufficiently answer'd before and it may be repete what I have said before He is so jealous that the strength of a better composition of Soveraignty may be superior and be preferr'd before that of his institution that be devises all the way he can to render it more obnoxious to dissolution and like a Mountebank Physician accuses it of diseases which it hath not that he may apply Remedies which would be sure to bring those or worse diseases and would weaken the strongest parts and support of it under pretence of curing its defects So in the first place he finds fault pag. 167. that a man to obtain a Kingdom is sometimes content wâ—th lâ—ss power then to the peace and defence of the Common-wealth is necessarily required that is that he will observe the Laws and Customs of the Kingdom which by long experience have bin found necessary for the Peace and defence of it And to this he imputes the insolence of Thomas Beckett Arch-Bishop of Canterbury pag. 168. who was supported against Harry the Second by the Pope the Subjection of Ecclesiastics to the Common-wealth having he saies bin dispensed with by William the Conquerour at his reception when he took an Oath not to infringe the liberty of the Church And this extravagant power of the Pope he imputes to the Universities and the doctrine taught by them which reproch to the Universities being in a Paragraph of his next Chapter I chuse to join in the answer with the case of Thomas Beckett and Henry the Second Mr. Hobbes hath so great a prejudice to the reading Histories as if they were all enemies to his Government that he will not take the pains carefully to peruse those from which he expects to draw some advantage to himself presuming that men will not believe that a man who so warily weighs all he saies in the balance of reason will ever venture to alledg any matter of fact that he is not very sure of But if he had vouchsafed to look over the Records of his own Country before the time of King Henry the Eight he would have found the Universities alwaies opposed the power of the Pope and would have no dependance upon him and that the Kings alone introduc'd his autority and made it to be submitted to by their Laws Nor did the Church of England owe their large priviledges to any donation of the Popes whose jurisdiction they would never admit but to the extreme devotion and superstition of the People and the piety and bounty of the Kings which gave greater donatives and exemtions to the Church and Clergy then any other Kingdom enjoied or then the Pope gave any where Christianity in the infancy of it wrought such prodigious effects in this Island upon the barbarous affections of the Princes and People who then were the inhabitants of it that assoon as they gave any belief to the History of our Saviour they thought they could not do too much to the Persons of those who preached him and knew best what would be most acceptable to him From hence they built Churches and endow'd them liberally submitted so entirely to the Clergy whom they look'd upon as Sacred persons that they judged all differences and he was not look'd upon as a good Christian who did not entirely resign himself to their disposal they gave great exemtion to the Church and Church men and annex'd such Priviledges to both as testified the veneration they had for the Persons as well as for the Faith And when they suspected that the Licentiousness of succeeding ages might not pay the same devotion to both they did the best they could to establish it by making Laws to that purpose and obliging the several Princes to maintain and defend the rights and priviledges of the Church rights and priviledges which themselves had granted and of which the Pope knew nothing nor indeed at that time did enjoy the like himself It is true that by this means the Clergy was grown to a wonderful power over the People who look'd upon them as more then mortal men and had surely a greater autority then any Clergy in Christendom assum'd in those ages and yet it was generally greater then in other Kingdoms then it hath ever bin since Nor could it be otherwise during the Heptarchy when those little Soveraigns maintain'd their power by the autority their Clergy had with their people when they had little dependence upon the Prince But when by the courage and success of two or three couragious Princes and the distraction that had bin brought upon them by strangers the Government of the whole Island was reduced under one Soveraign the Clergy which had bin alwaies much better united then the Civil state had bin were not willing to part with any autority they had enjoied nor to be thought of less value then they had bin formerly esteemed and so grew troublesom to the Soveraign power somtimes by interrupting the progress of their Councils by delaies and somtimes by direct and positive contradictions The Princes had not the confidence then to resort to Mr. Hobbes's original institution of their right the manners of the Nation still remained fierce and barbarous and whatsoever was pliant in them was from the result of Religion which was govern'd by the Clergy They knew nothing yet of that primitive contract that introduced Soveraignty nor of that Faith that introduced subjection they thought it would not be safe for them to oppose the power of the
judgment of all Lawyers were excluded and all establish'd Laws contradicted so we may well look for a worse of Christian Politics when the advice of all Divines is positively protested against and new notions of Divinity introduc'd as rules to restrain our conceptions and to regulate our understandings And as he hath not deceiv'd us in the former he will as little disappoint us in the latter But having taken a brief survey of the dangerous opinions and determinations in Mr. Hobbes his two first parts of his Leviathan concerning the constitution nature and right of Soveraigns and concerning the duty of Subjects which he confesses contains doctrine very different from the practice of the greatest part of the world and therefore ought to be watched with the more jealousy for the novelty of it I shall not now accompany him through his remaining two parts in the same method by taking a view of his presumtion in the interpretation of several places of Scripture and making very unnatural deductions from thence to the lessening the dignity of Scripture and to the reproch of the highest actions don by the greatest Persons by the immediate command of God himself For if those marks and conditions which he makes necessary to a true Prophet and without which he ought not to be believed were necessary Moses was no true Prophet nor had the Children of Israel any reason to believe and follow him when he would carry them out of Egypt for he concludes from the thirteenth Chapter of Deuâ—eronomy and the five first verses thereof pag. 197. that God will not have Miracles alone serve for Argument to prove the Prophets calling for the works of the Egyptian Sorcerers tho not so great as those of Moses yet were great Miracles and that how great soever the Miracles are yet if the intent be to stir up revolt against the King or him that governeth by the Kings Autority he that doth such Miracles is not to be consider'd otherwise then as sent to make trial of their Allegiance for he saies those words in the text revolt from the Lord your God are in this place equivalent to revolt from the King for they had made God their King by pact at the foot of Mount Sinaâ— whereas Moses had no other credit with the People but by the Miracles which he wrought in their presence and in their sight and that which he did perswade them to was to revolt and withdraw themselves from the obedience of Pharaoh who was during their abode in Egypt the only King they knew and acknowledged So that in Mr. Hobbes's judgment the People might very well have refused to believe him and all those Prophets afterwards who prophesied against several of the Kings ought to have bin put to death and the Argumentation against the Prophet Ieremy was very well founded when the Princes said unto the King Ier. 38. 4. We beseech thee let this man be put to death for thus he weakeneth the hands of the men of war when he declar'd that the City should surely be given into the hands of the King of Babylon But Mr. Hobbes is much concern'd to weaken the credit of Prophets and of all who succeed in their places and he makes great use of that Prophets being deceiv'd by the old Prophet in the first of Kings when he was seduced to eat and drink with him Whereas he might have known that that Prophet was not so much deceiv'd by an other as by his own willfulness in closing with the temtation of refreshing himself by eating and drinking chusing rather to believe any man of what quality soever against the express command that he had received from God himself What his design was to make so unnecessary an enquiry into the Authors of the several parts of Scripture and the time when they were written and his more unnecessary inference that Moses was not the Author of the five Books which the Christian World generally believe to be written by him tho the time of his death might be added afterwards very warrantably and the like presumtion upon the other Books he best knows but he cannot wonder that many men who observe the novelty and positiveness of his assertions do suspect that he found it necessary to his purpose first to lessen the reverence that was accustom'd to be paid to the Scriptures themselves and the autority thereof before he could hope to have his interpretation of them hearken'd unto and received and in order to that to allow them no other autority but what they receive from the Declaration of the King so that in every Kingdom there may be several and contrary Books of Scripture which their Subjects must not look upon as Scripture but as the Soveraign power declares it to be so which is to shake or rather overthrow all the reverence and submission which we pay unto it as the undoubted word of God and to put it in the same scale with the Alcoran which hath as much autority by the stamp which the Grand Signior puts upon it in all his Dominion and all the differences and Controversies which have grown between the several Sects of Mahometans which are no fewer in number nor prosecuted with less animosity between them then the disputes between Christians in matter of Religion have all proceeded from the several glosses upon and readings of the Alcoran which are prescribed or tolerated by the several Princes in their respective Dominions they all paying the same submission and reverence to Mahomet but differing much in what he hath said and directed and by this means the Grand Signior and the Persian and the petty Princes under them have run into those Schisms which have given Christianity much ease and quiet This is a degree of impiety Mr. Hobbes was not arrived at when he first published his Book de Cive where tho he allowed his Soveraign power to give what Religion it thought fit to its Subjects he thought it necessary to provide it should be Christiaâ—â— which was a caution too modest for his Leviathan Nor can it be preserved when the Scriptures from whence Christianity can only be prov'd and taught to the people are to depend only for the validity 〈◊〉 upon the will understanding and autority of the Prince which with all possible submission reverence and resignation to that Earthly power and which I do with all my heart acknowledg to be instituted by God himself for the good of mankind hath much greater dignity in it self and more reverence due to it then it can receive from the united Testimony and Declaration of all the Kings and Princes of the World With this bold Prologue of the uncertain Canon of Scripture he takes upon him as the foundation of his true ratiocination pag. 207. to determine out of the Bible the meaning of such words as by their ambiguity may he saies render what he is to infer upon them obscure and disputable And with this licence he presumes to give such unnatural
upon the Kingdom of God so often us'd in Scripture as if thereby is properly and only meant the Commonwealth of the Iews pag. 218 instituted by the consent of those who were to be Subject thereunto for their civil Government and regulating their behaviour towards God their King whom they rejected and depos'd when they demanded a King from Samuel and to confirm this by so many glosses upon several Texts of Scripture is worthy only of the confidence of the Author of the Leviathan But he will make all this good when he comes to Mount Sinai where he saies this Covenant was renewed There indeed after all their murmurings for Bread and for Flesh and for Water that they might not imagine that all the Promises which God had made to their Fore-fathers gave them a Title to the continuance of their Protection and Blessing in spight of all their back-sliding and Rebellion and as a Preface to his Ten Commandments and the Law which he then publish'd to them God commanded Moses to put them in mind of the great Deliverances he had wrought for them to tell them that if they would obey his voice indeed and keep his Covenant then they should be a peculiar Treasure unto him above all people and they should be unto him a Kingdom of Priests an holy Nation the natural signification whereof according to all Interpreters is that he would in a more peculiar maner make himself known to them by giving them Laws whereby they might know how to please him and assigning them a Priesthood to offer such Sacrifices for them to him as would be acceptable And their answering together All that the Lord hath spoken we will do and what they said afterwards to Moses in the fright and consternation they were in upon the Thunder and Lightning from the Mount Speak thou to us and we will hear but let not God speak with us least we die contained no more upon the matter then the same professions which they had often made before upon their recollection after their several loud transgression God was not from that time more gracious to them or reckoned them more his own chosen people then before when he fed them with Manna and Quailes nor did they think that they had entred into a new and stricter obligation to him as appears by their making the Golden calf and worshipping it so soon after even before God had finish'd his speaking to them So that the Contract on their behalf whereby God himself was more their King then he had bin formerly or they more the Kingdom of God then they were before is drawn up only by Mr. Hobbes above three thousand years after the transaction The Survey of Chapter 37. I should make no reflexion upon the thirty seventh Chapter of Miracles and their use tho it may be some men may imagine that he hath a mind to lessen the faith of the greatest Miracles which have bin wrought if to express the humility of his resignation to his Soveraign he did not make him the sole Judg of all Miracles which shall be wrought within his Dominions and in this extasie of his Allegiance in spight of all the Demonstrations he hath made in his Kingdom of Darkness the fourth part of his Institâ—tes of the absurdity contradiction and impossibility in the Roman Doctrine of the Sacrament he very frankly bestows upon the King the sole power of determining the Point of Transubstantiation which if he concludes in the Affirmative no Subject must presume to contradict it By which he hath made the Pope and the Roman Church amends for the many merry reproches he hath cast upon them in allowing it to be good Divinity in all those Dominions where the Soveraign is Popish and of which no private reason or conscience but the public reason the reason of the King is Judg. And tho he preserves to himself and other private men the prerogative of believing or not believing in his heart because thought is free yet that must not be discover'd because he makes it the obligation of Subjects not only to do but to say all that their Soveraign commands them to say or do by which he introduces such a licence of dissimulation and hypocrisie as is odious in the civil actions of our life but most detestable in the eies and judgment of God and Man in all acts which concern Religion and the Worship of his Divine Majesty And it is very reasonably to be doubted that this loose determination in matters of Faith by a man who is thought to have digged very deep in all the Mines of Natural Reason hath contributed very much to that uncontroulable spirit which by the extravagance of fancy invention and imagination hath made such confusion both in the speculation and practice of Religion in this distracted Kingdom and by his making that which God hath manifestly commanded liable to be controul'd or to receive autority from the pleasure of the King that both God and the King are less reverenced and their Precepts less regarded then they have us'd to be in this Nation That he may the better draw himself out of those intricacies into which he is involved by this unnecessary discourse of Miracles he resorts to his Soveraign power in his definitions and tho he had before confess'd pag. 197. That the works of the Egyptian Sorcerers tho noâ— so great as those of Moses were yet great Miracles now he defines a Miracle pag. 235. to be the work of God besides his operation by the way of Nature ordain'd in the Creation don for the making manifest to his Elect the mission of an extraordinary Minister for their salvation which definition of his own and his own alone is all his proof he makes pag. 235. that the Devil or an Angel or other created spiriâ— cannot do a Miracle which as the Soveraign of Logic too he makes good by as strange an Argument It must be by virtue of some natural Science or by Incantation if it be by their own power independent there is some power that proceedeth not from God which all men deny and if they do it by power given them then is the work not from the immediate hand of God but natural and consequently no Miracle which is agreeable to his Definition But if it be by the permission of God why is it natural and therefore no Miracle Hath not God frequently permitted the Devil to do Miracles and if his Providence did not restrain him he would work Miracles enough to do more mischief And if the Devil turn'd himself into the Serpent or taught the Serpent so to speak like an Orator for the seduction and cozenage of poor Eve neither was natural and cannot be look'd upon as less then a Miracle which hath furnish'd a Modern fanciful Divine with an excuse for Eves being deluded that not imagining a Serpent could speak and having never heard of the Devil she concluded it to be an Angel whom she knew God
can In the other part he doth but repete what he hath formerly and in other places said of Eternal Life and Everlasting Death being a professed adversary to Eternity and of the Immortality of the Soul which by no means he allows to all which somewhat hath likewise bin said before And I shall add no more then what himself saies of some Popes applying some places of Scripture to prove their autority over Kings and Princes that it was not arguing from Scripture but a wanton insulting over Princes so in truth he doth not so much argue from as insult upon the Scripture by perverting and applying it to unnatural significations which never occurred to any man but himself and will be best answered by that autority which ought to controul such presumtuous undertakers For why should any particular man enter into dispute with him on the behalf of the Immortality of the Soul of the Eternity of the joies of Heaven and the Everlastingness of the pains of Hell as if they were points in Controversy when no Christian Church in the world makes or admits the least doubt to be made of either Nor can any man imagine why he leads us into this his Kingdom of Darkness but that he may resume again all those arguments which lie scatter'd through the several Chapters of his Book and which can never prevail whilst there is any light to direct the understanding by He renews his particular dream of pag. 335. Gods peculiar Kingdom over the Iews only which ceased and was determin'd by and in the election of Saul which he saies he hath proved at large in the thirty fifth chapter as he believes he had don every thing that he hath once affirm'd how weakly or erroneously soever and from the not understanding this or not comprehending that from that time of Saul God hath bin without a Kingdom and we are not under any other Kings by pact but our civil Soveraignsâ— men he saies are fallen in the error that the present Church is Christs Kingdom But what argumentation can a man hold with him who from the not understanding or believing that dissolution of Gods Kingdom in the election of Saul which no body ever heard of but from him deduces the Popes challenging to be vicar general of Christ in the present Church the introduction of Purgatory and Transubstantiation and all other errors in the Church of Rome which he takes great pains to confute and would perswade us to believe that the imagination of the Immortality of the Soul is the only ground and foundation of the general error of Eternal Life and Everlasting Death which makes him so solemnly endeavour to prove the nullity of either by so many Texts of Scripture which can never be difficult for him to do in this and any other particular that occurs to him to prove whilst he may take upon him to pervert the current sense and interpretation of some Texts in Scripture to his own purpose and to wrest and torture words to comply with his extravagant Wiâ— and Logic and when he cannot decline the taking notice of other Texts which manifestly controul his unnatural glosses he may acquiesce in a confession that they are very hardly to be reconcil'd with the doctrine received pag. 347. nor he saies is it any shame to confess the profoundness of the Scripture to be too great to be sounded by the shortness of human understanding which being prudently and modestly consider'd in the beginning of this Chapter or rather in the beginning of his Book might have saved the labour and the reproch of most of the Texts of Scripture which he hath unwarily or absurdly quoted from the beginning and which presumtion and method he continues to the end of his Book And as I have formerly said if a diligent peruser of the whole doth mark what himself saies in one place that will fully answer what he affirms in another his Book would need no other refutation As to that part of his most material argument against the Everlastingness of Hell fire in this Chapter that pag. 345. it seems very hard to say that God who is the Father of mercies that doth in Heaven and Earth all that he will that hath the hearts of all men in his disposal that worketh in men both to do and to will and without whose free gift a man hath neither an inclination to good nor repentance of evil should punishments transgressions without any end of time and with all the extremity of torture that men can imagine or more All which will not require nor can receive a fuller answer then he himself prescribes when he will establish the utmost extent of arbitrary power in his instituted Soveraign He saies pag. 153. it is reason that he which do's injury without other limitation then that of his own will should suffer punishment without other limitation then that of his will whose Law is thereby violated And so I shall keep him no longer company in his Kingdom of Darkness The Survey of Chapter 45. I Should not presume to except against so many of Mr. Hobbes his definitions but that pretending to so much plainness and perspicuity and having declared the necessary use of definition to be for the setling the signification of words without which he saies pag. 15. a man that seeks precise truth will find himself entangled in words as a bird in lime twiggs the more he struggles the more belimed and observing that rule for the most part throughout the first parts of his Book except where he found it necessary for his own purpose sometimes to perplex and belime his Readers yet in the two last parts supposing that he hath enough captivated them to believe any thing he saies he takes more care to fit his definitions for the support of his assertions then that his assertions may naturally result from the integrity of the definitions Especially since he hath gotten into his Kingdom of Darkness he takes less care to illustrate the instances and similies he thinks fit to use and so good Philosophers may comprehend what he means he is content to leave his less knowing Readers involved and puzled amongst hard words with which they have not used to keep company As he begins this Chapter with the definition of Sight which will not make any man see the farther or the better pag. 352. That sight is an imagination made by the impression on the Organs of sight by lucid bodies either in one direct line or in many lines reflected from Opaque or refracted in the passage through Diaphanous â—oâ—ies which produceth in living creatures in whom God hath placed such Organs an imagination of the object from whence the impression proceedeth It may be doubted that many of his friends who have given too much credit to all he saies may have found themselves in this definition entangled in words as a bird in Lime twiggs And if it were necessary in this place to tell them what Sight is
keep the Protestant Religion from entring into his Disciples to instruct those who were under his charge to be good Subjects to him that seed brought up very little fruit but the Elements of Duty and Allegiance to their absent banished lawful Soveraign were sucked in greedily by them and flourished accordingly In a word these were the men who were look'd upon with esteem and reverence by all the Nobility and Gentry of the Kingdom who retain'd their affection and duty towards the King entirely in their hearts and thereby the opportunity to perform many notable Services to the King and to give him useful Advertisements and having unquestioned credit in a treacherous and perfidious season when Children betrayed their Fathers Servants their Masters and Friends one another were trusted by all men and so having no farther care for themselves then to live very meanly they became Treasurers and Almoners for all indigent Gentlemen who had served the King or desired so to do and relieved very many of that kind that they might be ready upon a good opportunity to serve his Majesty and not be forced to go to him who had not wherewith to relieve them They discharged the expense of many expresses which were frequently sent to the King and from him which amounted to a great charge and contributed much to the maintenance of those of the Clergy who faithfully attended his Majesties Person and often transmitted such sums of mony to his Majesty himself as were very seasonable supplies to him in great distresses I can have no end and have no temtation to say all this but hold my self obliged to Justice and truth to give this testimony since all the particulars are well known to me having at that time the honor to be in some trust with his Majesty and thereby the full knowledg of what then passed of which there are not now many other witnesses amongst the living And therefore I could not omit this proper season in the close of Mr. Hâ—bbes his Book throughout which he hath made so violent a War upon them without any colour of reason to say that he ows them many acknowledgments but more to God almâ—ghty for the scandal he hath brought upon Religion upon the best constituted Church of the World and upon the most Learned Clergy of any Church and the most irreconcilable to any thing that is erroneous or offensive in the Roman Religion which therefore looks upon them as the only considerable and formidable Enemy they have to encounter I shall not need to take any pains to remove him from the good opinion he had of Independency when he published his Book because pag. 385. it left every man to do what liked him best in Religion as he saies but in truth because Cromwell was then thought to be of that faction But I dare say he did with his heart as well as by his tongue quit that party the very day that the King was proclaimed as he is ready to quit all his other Opinions true or false assoon as the Soveraign power shall please to require him which makes whatever he saies the less to need answering And I shall be less solicitous to deprive the Pope of his new Kingdom of Fairies with the title to which Mr. Hobbes hath gratified him to allay that fear and apprehension which he had endeavoured so much before to infuse into the minds of all Princes of his dangerous greatness and power if at last prove no more then the King of Fairies hath it is less terrible then he represented it to be But since he hath not thought fit to retain that modesty which he professed to have pag. 241. that tho he had proved his Doctrine out of places of Scripture not few nor obscure yet because it will appear to most men a novelty he did 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 autority not yet amongst his Country-men decided by which all sorts of Doctrine are to be approved or rejected and whose commands both in speech and writing whatsoever be the opinions of private men must by all men who mean to be protected by their Laws be obeied notwithstanding which reservation and after he hath seen that dispute of the Sword concerning the autority amongst his Country men decided after he hath seen that Prodigy of Mankind whom he acknowledged to be his Soveraign instituted and adored by him exposed upon the Gallows and his Carcass placed upon the stage that is reserved for the most infamous Traitors and Rebels and all his actions condemned and detested by the whole Nation all which were govern'd and steered exactly by Mr. Hobbes his own Institution and sufficiently shew how insecure they will prove to any man that observes them and after he hath seen his true and lawful Soveraign his disavowed and renounced Soveraign and whose Subjects he had absolv'd from his obedience restored and established with the universal and unexpressible joy of his three Kingdoms and thereby his whole Doctrine with reference to the Ecclesiastical as well as Civil Government disavowed and condemn'd and not exemplarily punished only by his Majesties gracious observation of the Act of Indemnity of which few Subjects have more need it is too malicious an obstinacy and perversness in him still to adhere to his odious Paradoxes both in his Conversation and by private Transcripts which he labors to get printed and was never more solicitous to have his most destructive Doctrines to be published and confirm'd by autority the ill consequence whereof to himself he despises the learning of the Law too much to understand And as he would allow no other right to the Subject in his Liberty or Propriety but what the Soveraigns silence hath permitted in not taking it from him as to dwell where he pleases and educate his Children as he thinks fit and the like so he interprets the present silence of the Law as an approbation of those his monstrous Principles which it knows not how to contradict not considering the while that this silence of the Law cannot be broken but in the loud inflicting those severe punishments upon him as without the shelter of that Soveraigns mercy whom he so much despised and provoked would at once in his ruine discredit all his vain Philosophy and more pernicious Theology and he would find the Successors of Sr. Edward Cooke with whose great ignorance he makes himself so merry learned enough to instruct him in the duty and reverence that is due from all Subjects to the Law and Government And for the better manifestation of the premises having now walked to the end of his fourth part before we take a view of his Review and Conclusion we will observe the same method we did at the end of his two first parts and according to the advice himself gives in his examination of Bellarmines Doctrine lay open his conclusions and Principles
in Religion which lie scatter'd through those other two parts that men may take a view of the consequences and bethink themselves whether Christianity be advanc'd and consequently whether the peace and happiness of mankind be provided for and secured by such Doctrines 1. Those Books of Scripture only are Canonical and ought to be looked upon as the word of God in every Nation which are established for such by the Soveraign autority of each Nation pag. 199. 2. None can know that the Scriptures are Gods word tho all true Christians believe it but they to whom God himself â—ath revealed it supernaturally pag. 205. 3. Men ought to consider who hath next under God the autority of governing Christian men and to observe for a rule that Doctrine which he commandeth to be taught that is all Subjects ought to profess that Religion which the Soveraign enjoines whether he be Christian or Heathen pag. 232. 4. By the Kingdom of Heaven is meant the Kingdom of the King that dwelleth in Heaven and that the Kingdom of God is to be on Earth pag. 240 241. 5. The immortal life beginneth not in man till the Resurrection and day of Iudgment and hath for cause not his specifical nature and generation but promise pag. 241. 6. Gods Enemies and their torments after Iudgment appear by the Scripture to have their places upon Earth pag. 242. The fire shall be unquenchable and the torments everlasting after the Resurrection But it cannot therefore be inferr'd that he who shall be cast into that fire or be tormented with those torments shall endure and resist them so as to be eternally burned and tortured and yet never be destroied or die pag. 245. 7. There shall be a second death of every one that shall be condemn'd at the day of judgment after which he shall die no more The Scriptures affirm not that there shall be an eternal life therein of any individual person but to the contrary an everlasting Death pag. 245. 8. The Salvation we are to look for is to be upon the Earth For since Gods Throne is in Heaven and the Earth is his Footstool it is not for the dignity of so great a King that his Subjects should have any place so high as his Throne or higher then his Foot-stool pag. 247. 9. If we be commanded by our lawful Prince to say we do not believe in Christ we may obey such his command pag. 271. 10. None can be Martyrs for Christ but they that conversed with him on Earth and saw him after he was risen for a witness must have seen what he testifieth or else his testimony is not good pag. 272. 11. None can be a Martyr who hath not a warrant to preach Christ come in the Flesh and none but such who are sent to the conversion of Infidels pag. 273. 12. To teach out of the old Testament that Iesus was Christ and risen from the Dead is not to say that men are bound after they believe it to obey those who tell them so against the Laws and commands of their Soveraigns but they do wisely to expect the coming of Christ hereafter in patience and faith with obedience to their present Magistrates pag. 274. 13. The autority of Earthly Soveraigns being not to be put down till the day of Iudgment it is manifest we do not in Baptism constitute over us another autority by which our external actions are to be governed in this life pag. 274. 14. They who received not the Doctrine of Christ did not sin therein pag. 286. 15. Christian Kings have power to Baptize to Preach to administer the Lords Supper and to Consecrate both Temples and Persons to Gods service c. 297. 16. No man shall live in torments everlastingly pag. 345. 17. To pray voluntarily to the King for fair weather or for any thing that God only can do for us is divine worship and Idolatry but if a King compel a man to it by the terror of death or other great corporal punishment it is not Idolatry pag. 360. 17. If one being no Pastor or of eminent reputation for knowledg in Christian Doctrine do external honor to an Idol for fear and an other follow him this is no scandal given for he had no cause to follow such example pag. 362. And now I hope he hath made an ample Paraphrase upon Religion according to the definition he gâ—ve of it in the first entrance of his Leviathan when he defines pag. 26. Religion to be fâ—ar of power invisible feigned by the mind or imagined from tales publicly told and when the seed he sows for Religion to grow from or to consist in are opinion of ghosts ignorance of second causes devotion towards what men fear and taking things casual for Prognosticks These amongst others are the Doctrines of Mr. Hobbes in his two last parts which I believe in the judgment of most Christians are assoon renounc'd as pronounc'd and which indeed need little other confutation then the reciting them yet I doubt not many men will say how scandalous soever the assertions seem to be since he appeals to the Scripture and cites several Texts out of the same for the making good the worst of his Opinions it is pity that his ignorance or perverseness in those Interpretations had not bin made appear by manifesting that those places of Scripture could not admit that Interpretation and what the genuine sense thereof is Which consideration had bin more reasonable and necessary if these Errors had bin publish'd and those Glosses made and own'd by any National Church or any Body of Learned men but it may be thought too great a presumtion for a private man a stranger to Divinity to take upon him to put unnatural Interpretations upon several Texts of Scripture the better to apply them and make them subservient to his own corrupt purposes and opinions contrary to the whole current of Scripture and to the Doctrine thereof and without the least autority or shadow that the like Interpretation was ever made before by any other man I say such a person cannot reasonably expect that any body should too seriously examine all his frivolous and light suggestions and endeavor to vindicate those Texts from such impossible Interpretations Yet if any man thinks it worth his pains I am well content that he receive that honor and will still hope that Mr. Hobbes may be so well instructed in the true sense and end of the Scripture that he may better discern the eternity of the reward and punishment in the next World And so we conclude our discourse upon his Book and examine what he saies in his Conclusion The Review and Conclusion is only an abridgment and contracting the most contagious poison that runs through the Book into a less vessel or volume least they who will not take the pains to read the Book or reading it may by inadvertency and incogitancy not be hurt enough by it may here in less room and more nakedly