and Sanctity are indeed not very frequent but yet they are not Miracles but brought to pass by Education Discipline Correction and other natural wayes I would see the greatest Pelagian of them all fly higher T. H. I make here no jest of Inspiration Seriously I say that in the proper signification of the words Inspiration and Infusion to say virtue is inspired or infused is as absurd as to say a Quadrangle is round But Metaphorically for Gods bestowing of Faith Grace or other Vertue those words are intelligible enough J. D. Why should he trouble himself about the Holy Spirit who acknowledgeth no Spirit but either a subtil fluid body or a Ghost or other Idol or Phantasm of the imagination who knoweth no inward Grace or intrinsecal Holyness Holy is a word which in Gods Kingdom answereth to that which men in their Kingdoms use to call publick or the Kings And again wheresoever the word Holy is taken properly there is still some thing signified of propriety gotten by consent His Holiness is a Relation not a Quality for inward sanctification or real infused holiness in respect whereof the third Person is called the Holy Ghost because he is not only holy in himself but also maketh us holy he is so great a stranger to it that he doth altogether deny it and disclaim it T. H. The word Holy I had defined in the words which his Lordship here sets down and by the use thereof in the Scripture made it manifest That that was the true signification of the word There is nothing in Learning more difficult than to determine the signification of words That difficulty excuses him He says that Holiness in my sence is a Relation not a Quality All the Learned agree that Quality is an Accident so that in attributing to God Holiness as a Quality he contradicts himself for he has in the beginning of this his discourse denyed and rightly that any Accident is in God saying whatsoever is in God is the Divine Substance He affirms also that to attribute any Accident to God is to deny the simplicity of the Divine Substance And thus his Lordship makes God as I do a Corporeal Spirit Both here and throughout he discovers so much ignorance as had he charged me with error only and not with Atheism I should not have thought it necessary to answer him J. D. We are taught in our Creed to believe the Catholick or Universal Church But T. H. teacheth us the contrary That if there be more Christian Churches than one all of them together are not one Church personally And more plainly Now if the whole number of Christians be not contained in one Common-wealth they are not one Person nor is there an Vniversal Church that hath any Authority over them And again The Vniversal Church is not one Person of which it can be said that it hath done or Decreed or Ordained or Excommunicated or Absolved This doth quite overthrow all the Authority of General Councils All other Men distinguish between the Church and the Common-wealth only T. H. maketh them to be one and the same thing The Common-wealth of Christian men and the Church of the same are altogether the same thing called by two names for two reasons For the matter of the Church and of the Common-wealth is the same namely the same Christian men and the Form is the same which consisteth in the lawful power of convocating them And hence he concludeth That every Christian Common-wealth is a Church endowed with all spiritual Authority And yet more fully The Church if it be one Person is the same thing with the Common-wealth of Christians called a Common-wealth because it consisteth of men united in one Person their Soveraign And a Church because it consisteth in Christian men united in one Christian Soveraign Upon which account there was no Christian Church in these Parts of the World for some hundreds of years after Christ because there was no Christian Soveraign T. A. For answer to this Period I say only this That taking the Church as I do in all those places for a company of Christian men on Earth incorporated into one Person that can speak command or do any act of a Person all that he citeth out of what I have written is true and that all private Conventicles though their belief be right are not properly called Churches and that there is not any one Universal Church here on Earth which is a Person indued with Authority universal to govern all Christian men on Earth no more than there is one Universal Soveraign Prince or State on Earth that hath right to govern all Mankind I deny also that the whole Clergy of a Christian Kingdom or State being assembled are the representative of that Church further than the Civil Laws permits or can lawfully assemble themselves unless by the command or by the leave of the Soveraign Civil Power I say further that the denyal of this point tendeth in England towards the taking away of the Kings Supremacy in causes Ecclesiastical But his Lordship has not here denyed any thing of mine because he has done no more but set down my words He says further that this Doctrine destroyes the Authority of all General Councils which I confess Nor hath any General Council at this day in this Kingdom the force of a Law nor ever had but by the Authority of the King J. D. Neither is he more Orthodox concerning the Holy Scriptures Hitherto that is for the Books of Moses the power of making the Scripture Canonical was in the Civil Soveraign The like he saith of the Old Testament made Canonical by Esdras And of the New Testament That it was not the Apostles which made their own Writings Canonical but every Convert made them so to himself Yet with this restriction That until the Soveraign Ruler had prescribed them they were but Counsel and Advice which whether good or bad he that was counselled might without injustice refuse to observe and being contrary to the Laws established could not without injustice observe He maketh the Primitive Christians to have been in a pretty condition Certainly the Gospel was contrary to the Laws then established But most plainly The word of the Interpreter of the Scripture is the word of God And the same is the Interpreter of the Scripture and the Soveraign Judge of all Doctrines that is the Soveraign Magistrate to whose Authority we must stand no less than to theirs who at first did commend the Scripture to us for the Canon of Faith Thus if Christian Soveraigns of different Communications do clash one with another in their interpretations or misinterpretation of Scripture as they do daily then the word of God is contradictory to it self or that is the word of God in one Common-wealth which is the word of the Devil in another Common-wealth And the same thing may be true and not true at the same time Which is the peculiar priviledge of T.H. to make
Contradictories to be true together T. H. There is no doubt but by what Authority the Scripture or any other Writing is made a Law by the same Authority the Scriptures are to be interpreted or else they are made Law in vain But to obey is one thing to believe is another which distinction perhaps his Lordship never heard of To obey is to do or forbear as one is commanded and depends on the Will but to believe depends not on the Will but on the providence and guidance of our hearts that are in the hands of God Almighty Laws only require obedience Belief requires Teachers and Arguments drawn either from Reason or from some thing already believed Where there is no reason for our Belief there is no reason we should believe The reason why men believe is drawn from the Authority of those men whom we have no just cause to mistrust that is of such men to whom no profit accrues by their deceiving us and of such men as never used to lye or else from the Authority of such men whose Promises Threats and Affirmations we have seen confirmed by God with Miracles If it be not from the Kings Authority that the Scripture is Law what other Authority makes it Law Here some man being of his Lordships judgment will perhaps laugh and say 't is the Authority of God that makes them Law I grant that But my question is on what Authority they believe that God is the Author of them Here his Lordship would have been at a Nonplus and turning round would have said the Authority of the Scripture makes good that God is their Author If it be said we are to believe the Scripture upon the Authority of the Universal Church why are not the Books we call Apocrypha the Word of God as well as the rest If this Authority be in the Church of England then it is not any other than the Authority of the Head of the Church which is the King For without the Head the Church is mute the Authority therefore is in the King which is all that I contended for in this point As to the Laws of the Gentiles concerning Religion in the Primitive times of the Church I confess they were contrary to Christian Faith But none of their Laws nor Terrors nor a mans own Will are able to take away Faith though they can compel to an external obedience and though I may blame the Ethnick Princes for compelling men to speak what they thought not yet I absolve not all those that have had the Power in Christian Churches from the same fault For I believe since the time of the first four General Councels there have been more Christians burnt and killed in the Christian Church by Ecclesiastical Authority than by the Heathen Emperors Laws for Religion only without Sedition All that the Bishop does in this Argument is but a heaving at the Kings Supremacy Oh but says he if two Kings interpret a place of Scripture in contrary sences it will follow that both sences are true It does not follow For the interpretation though it be made by just Authority must not therefore always be true If the Doctrine in the one sence be necessary to Salvation then they that hold the other must dye in their sins and be Damned But if the Doctrine in neither sence be necessary to Salvation then all is well except perhaps that they will call one another Atheists and fight about it J. D. All the power vertue use and efficacy which he ascribeth to the Holy Sacraments is to be signs or commemorations As for any sealing or confirming or conferring of Grace he acknowledgeth nothing The same he saith particularly of Baptism Upon which grounds a Cardinals red Hat or a Serjeant at Arms his Mace may be called Sacraments as well as Baptism or the holy Eucharist if they be only signs and commemorations of a benefit If he except that Baptism and the Eucharist are of Divine institution But a Cardinals red Hat or a Serjeant at Arms his Mace are not He saith truly but nothing to his advantage or purpose seeing he deriveth all the Authority of the Word and Sacraments in respect of Subjects and all our obligation to them from the Authority of the Soveraign Magistrate without which these words repent and be Baptized in the name of Jesus are but Counsel no Command And so a Serjeant at Arms his Mace and Baptism proceed both from the same Authority And this he saith upon this filly ground That nothing is a Command the performance whereof tendeth to our own benefit He might as well deny the Ten Commandments to be Commands because they have an advantagious promise annexed to them Do this and thou shalt live And Cursed is every one that continueth not in all the words of this Law to do them T. H. Of the Sacraments I said no more than that they are Signs or Commemorations He finds fault that I add not Seals Confirmations and that they confer grace First I would have asked him if a Seal be any thing else besides a Sign whereby to remember somewhat as that we have promised accepted acknowledged given undertaken somewhat Are not other Signs though without a Seal of force sufficient to convince me or oblige me A Writing obligatory or Release signed only with a mans name is as Obligatory as a Bond signed and sealed if it be sufficiently proved though peradventure it may require a longer Process to obtain a Sentence but his Lordship I think knew better than I do the force of Bonds and Bills yet I know this that in the Court of Heaven there is no such difference between saying signing and sealing as his Lordship seemeth here to pretend I am Baptized for a Commemoration that I have enrolled my self I take the Sacrament of the Lords Supper to Commemorate that Christ's Body was broken and his Blood shed for my redemption What is there more intimated concerning the nature of these Sacraments either in the Scripture or in the Book of Common-Prayer Have Bread and Wine and Water in their own Nature any other Quality than they had before the Consecration It is true that the Consecration gives these bodies a new Relation as being a giving and dedicating of them to God that is to say a making of them Holy not a changing of their Quality But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken English to be thought perfect in the French language so his Lordship I think to seem a perfect understander of the unintelligible language of the Schoolmen pretends an ignorance of his Mother Tongue He talks here of Command and Counsel as if he were no English man nor knew any difference between their significations What English man when he commandeth says more than Do this yet he looks to be obeyed if obedience be due unto him But when he says Do this and thou shalt have such or such a Reward he encourages him or advises him or
use his own Phrase made them Mortal Gods O King live for ever Flatterers are the common Moths of great Pallaces where Alexander's friends are more numerous than the King's friends But such gross palpable pernicious flattery as this is I did never meet with so derogatory both to piety and policy What deserved he who should do his uttermost endeavour to poyson a common Fountain whereof all the Common-wealth must drink He doth the same who poisoneth the mind of a Soveraign Prince Are the Civil Laws the Rules of good and bad just and unjust honest and dishonest And what I pray your are the Rules of the Civil Law it self Even the Law of God and Nature If the Civil Laws swerve from these more authentick Laws they are Lesbian Rules What the Lawgiver commands is to be accounted good what he forbids bad This was just the garb of the Athenian Sophisters as they are described by Plato Whatsoever pleased the great Beast the Multitude they call holy and just and good And whatsoever the great Beast disliked they called evil unjust prophane But he is not yet arrived at the height of his flattery Lawful Kings make those things which they command just by commanding them At other times when he is in his right wits he talketh of sufferings and expecting their reward in Heaven And going to Christ by Martyrdome And if he had the fortitude to suffer death he should do better But I fear all this was but said in jest How should they expect their reward in Heaven if his Doctrine be true that there is no reward in Heaven Or how should they be Martyrs if his Doctrine betrue that none can be Martyrs but those who conversed with Christ upon earth He addeth Before Empires were just and unjust were not Nothing could be written more false in his sence more dishonourable to God more inglorious to the humane nature That God should create Man and leave him presently without any Rules to his own ordering of himself as the Ostridg leaveth her Eggs in the sand But in truth there have been Empires in the World ever since Adam And Adam had a Law written in his heart by the finger of God before there was any Civil Law Thus they do endeavour to make goodness and justice and honesty and conscience and God himself to be empty names without any reality which signifie nothing further than they conduce to a man's interest Otherwise he would not he could not say That every action as it is invested with its circumstances is indifferent in its own nature T. H. My sixth Paradox he calls a Rapper A Rapper a Swapper and such like terms are his Lordships elegancies But let us see what this Rapper is 'T is this The Civil Laws are the Rules of Good and Evil Just and Unjust Honest and Dishonest Truly I see no other Rules they have The Scriptures themselves were made Law to us here by the Authority of the Common-wealth and are therefore part of the Law Civil If they were Laws in their own nature then were they Laws over all the World and men were obliged to obey them in America as soon as they should be shown there though without a Miracle by a Frier What is Injust but the Transgression of a Law Law therefore was before Unjust And the Law was made known by Soveraign Power before it was a Law Therefore Soveraign Power was antecedent both to Law and Injustice Who then made Injust but Soveraign Kings or Soveraign Astemblies Where is now the wonder of this Rapper That Lawful Kings make those things which they command Just by commanding them and those things which they forbid Vnjust by forbidding them Just and Unjust were surely made if the King made them not who made them else For certainly the breach of a Civil Law is a sin against God Another Calumny which he would fix upon me is That I make the King 's verbal Commands to be Laws How so Because I say the Civil Laws are nothing else but the Commands of him that hath the Soveraign Power concerning the future Actions of his Subjects What verbal Command of a King can arrive at the ears of all his Subjects which it must do ere it be a Law without the Seal of the Person of the Common-wealth which is here the Great Seal of England Who but his Lordship ever denyed that the command of England was a Law to English men Or that any but the King had Authority to affix the Great Seal of England to any Writing And who did ever doubt to call our Laws though made in Parliament the King's Laws What was ever called a Law which the King did not assent to Because the King has granted in divers cases not to make a Law without the advice and assent of the Lords and Commons therefore when there is no Parliament in being shall the Great Seal of England stand for nothing What was more unjustly maintained during the long Parliament besides the resisting and Murdering of the King then this Doctrine of his Lordship's But the Bishop endeavoured here to make the Multitude believe I maintain That the King sinneth not though he bid hang a man for making his Apparel otherwise than he appointed or his Servant for negligent attendance And yet he knew I distinguished always between the King 's natural and politick capacity What name should I give to this wilful slander But here his Lordship enters into passion and exclaims Where are we in Europe or in Asia Gross palpable pernicious flattery poisoning of a Common-wealth poysoning the King's mind But where was his Lordship when he wrote this One would not think he was in France nor that this Doctrine was Written in the year 1658 but rather in the year 1648 in some Cabal of the King's enemies But what did put him into this fit of Choller Partly this very thing that he could not answer my reasons but chiefly that he had lost upon me so much School-learning in our controversie touching Liberty and Necessity wherein he was to blame himself for believing that the obscure and barbarous Language of School Divinity could satisfie an ingenuous Reader as well as plain and perspicuous English Do I flatter the King Why am I not rich I confess his Lordship has not flattered him here J. D. Something there is which he hath a confused glimmering of as the blind man sees men walking like Trees which he is not able to apprehend and express clearly We acknowledge that though the Laws or Commands of a Soveraign Prince be erroneous or unjust or injurious such as a Subject cannot approve for good in themselves yet he is bound to acquiesce and may not oppose or resist otherwise than by Prayers and Tears and at the most by flight We acknowledge that the Civil Laws have power to bind the Conscience of a Christian in themselves but not from themselves but from him who hath said Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers
gathered directly from the Soripture is in substance this that the God who is always one and the same was the Person represented by Moses the Person represented by his Son incarnate and the Person represented by the Apostles As represented by the Apostles the holy Spirit by which they spake is God As represented by his Son that was God and Man the Son is that God As represented by Moses and the High Priests the Father that is to say the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is that God From whence we may gather the reason why those Names Father Son and Holy Ghost in the signification of the Godhead are never used in the Old Testament For they are Persons that is they have their Names from representing which could not be till divers Persons had represented God in ruling or in directing under him Who is so bold as blind Bayard The Emblem of a little Boy attempting to lade all the Water out of the Sea with a Cockle-shell doth sit T. H. as exactly as if it had been shaped for him who thinketh to measure the profound and inscrutable Mysteries of Religion by his own silly shallow conceits What is now become of the great adorable Mystery of the blessed undivided Trinity It is shrunk into nothing Upon his grounds there was a time when there was no Trinity And we must blot these words out of our Creed The Father eternal the Son eternal and the Holy Ghost eternal And these other words out of our Bibles Let us make man after our Image Unless we mean that this was a consultation of God with Moses and the Apostles What is now become of the eternal generation of the Son of God if this Sonship did not begin until about 4000 years after the Creation were expired Upon these grounds every King hath as many Persons as there be Justices of Peace and petty Constables in his Kingdom Upon this account God Almighty hath as many Persons as there have been Soveraign Princes in the World since Adam According to this reckoning each one of us like so many Geryons may have as many Persons as we please to make Procurations Such bold presumption requireth another manner of confutation T. H. As for the words recited I confess there is a fault in the Ratiocination which nevertheless his Lordship hath not discovered but no Impiety All that he objecteth is That it followeth hereupon that there be as many Persons of a King as there be petty Constables in his Kingdom And so there are or else he cannot be obeyed But I never said that a King and every one of his Persons are the same Substance The fault I here made and saw not was this I was to prove That it is no contradiction as Lucian and Heathen Scoffers would have it to say of God he was One and Three I saw the true definition of the word Person would serve my turn in this manner God in his own Person both created the World and instituted a Church in Israel using therein the Ministry of Moses the same God in the Person of his Son God and Man redeemed the same World and the same Church the same God in the Person of the Holy Ghost sanctified the same Church and all the faithful men in the World Is not this a clear proof that it is no contradiction to say that God is three Persons and one Substance And doth not the Church distinguish the Persons in the same manner See the words of our Catechism Quest What dost thou chiefly learn in these Articles of the Belief Answ First I learn to believe in God the Father that hath made me and all the World Secondly In God the Son who hath redeemed me and all Mankind Thirdly In God the Holy Ghost that hath sanctified me and all the elect people of God But at what time was the Church sanctified Was it not on the day of Pentecost in the descending of the Holy Ghost upon the apostles His Lordship all this while hath catched nothing 'T is I that catched my self for saying instead of By the Ministry of Moses in the Person of Moses But this Error I no sooner saw then I no less publickly corrected then I had committed it in my Leviathan converted into Latin which by this time I think is printed beyond the Seas with this alteration and also with the omission of some such passages as Strangers are not concerned in And I had corrected this Error sooner if I had sooner found it For though I was told by Dr. Cosins now Bishop of Duresme that the place above-cited was not applicable enough to the Doctrine of the Trinity yet I could not in reviewing the same espy the defect till of late when being sollicited from beyond Sea to translate the Book into Latin and fearing some other man might do it not to my liking I examined this passage and others of the like sence more narrowly But how concludes his Lordship out of this that I put out of the Creed these words The Father eternal the Son eternal the Holy Ghost eternal Or these words Let us make man after our Image out of the Bible Which last words neither I nor Bellarmine put out of the Bible but we both put them out of the number of good Arguments to prove the Trinity for it is no unusual thing in the Hebrew as may be seen by Bellarmine's quotations to joyn a Noun of the plural Number with a Verb of the singular And we may say also of many other Texts of Scripture alledged to prove the Trinity that they are not so firm as that high Article requireth But mark his Lordship's Scholastick charity in the last words of this period Such bold presumption requireth another manner of confutation This Bishop and others of his opinion had been in their Element if they had been Bishops in Queen Maries time J. D. Concerning God the Son forgetting what he had said elsewhere where he calleth him God and Man and the Son of God incarnate he doubteth not to say that the word Hypostatical is canting As if the same Person could be both God and Man without a Personal that is an Hypostatical Union of the two Natures of God and Man T. H. If Christian Profession be as certainly it is in England a Law and if it be of the nature of a Law to be made known to all men that are to obey it in such manner as they may have no excuse for disobedience from their ignorance then without doubt all words unknown to the people and as to them insignificant are Canting The word Substance is understood by the Vulgar well enough when it is said of a Body but in other sence not at all except for their Riches But the word Hypostatical is understood only by those and but few of those that are learned in the Greek Tongue and is properly used as I have said before of the Union of the two Natures of Christ in one Person So
Either they bind Christian Subjects to do their Soveraign's Commands or to suffer for the Testimony of a good Conscience We acknowledge that in doubtful Cases semper praesumitur pro Rege Lege the Soveraign and the Law are always presumed to be in the right But in plain evident cases which admit no doubt it is always better to obey God than man Blunderers whilst they think to mend one imaginary hole make two or three real ones They who derive the Authority of the Scriptures or God's Law from the Civil Laws of men are like those who seek to underprop the Heavens from falling with a Bullrush Nay they derive not only the Authority of the Scripture but even the Law of nature it self from the Civil Law The Laws of nature which need no promulgation in the condition of nature are not properly Laws but qualities which dispose men to peace and obedience When a Common-wealth is once setled then are they actually Laws and not before God help us into what times are we fallen when the immutable Laws of God and Nature are made to depend upon the mutable Laws of mortal men just as one should go about to controll the Sun by the Authority of the Clock T. H. Hitherto he never offered to mend any of the Doctrines he inveighs against but here he does He says I have a glimmering of something I was not able to apprehend and express clearly Let us see his Lordship's more clear expression We acknowledge saith he that though the Laws or Commands of a Soveraign Prince be erroneous or unjust or injurious such as a Subject cannot approve for good in themselves yet he is bound to acquiesce and may not oppose or resist otherwise than by Prayers and Tears and at the most by Flight Hence it follows clearly that when a Soveraign has made a Law though erroneous then if his Subject oppose it it is a sin Therefore I would fain know when a man has broken that Law by doing what it forbad or by refusing to do what it commanded whether he have opposed this Law or not If to break the Law be to oppose it he granteth it Therefore his Lordship has not here expressed himself so clearly as to make men understand the difference between breaking a Law and opposing it Though there be some difference between breaking of a Law and opposing those that are sent with force to see it executed yet between breaking and opposing the Law it self there is no difference Also though the Subject think the Law just as when a Thief is by Law Condemned to dye yet he may lawfully oppose the Execution not only by Prayers Tears and Flight but also as I think any way he can For though his fault were never so great yet his endeavour to save his own life is not a fault For the Law expects it and for that cause appointeth Felons to be carryed bound and encompassed with Armed men to Execution Nothing is opposite to Law but sin Nothing opposite to the Sheriff but force So that his Lordship's sight was not sharp enough to see the difference between the Law and the Officer Again We acknowledge says he that the Laws have power to bind the Conscience of a Christian in themselves but not from themselves Neither do the Scriptures bind the Conscience because they are Scriptures but because they were from God So also the Book of English Statutes bindeth our Consciences in it self but not from it self but from the Authority of the King who only in the right of God has the legislative Powers Again he saith We acknowledge that in doubtful cases the Soveraign and the Law are always presumed to be in the right If he presume they are in the right how dare he presume that the cases they determine are doubtful But saith he in evident cases which admit no doubt it is always better to obey God than man Yes and in doubtful cases also say I. But not always better to obey the inferior Pastors than the Supream Pastor which is the King But what are those cases that admit no doubt I know but very few and those are such as his Lordship was not much acquainted with J. D. But it is not worthy of my labour nor any part of my intention to pursue every shadow of a Question which he springeth It shall suffice to gather a Posie of Flowers or rather a bundle of Weeds out of his Writings and present them to the Reader who will easily distinguish them from healthful Plants by the rankness of their smell Such are these which follow T. H. As for the following Posie of Flowers there wants no more to make them sweet than to wipe off the Venome blown upon some of them by his Lordships breath J. D. 1. To be delighted in the imagination only of being possessed of another man's Goods Servants or Wife without any intention to take them from him by force or fraud is no breach of the Law which saith Thou shalt not covet T. H. What man was there ever whose imagination of any thing he thought would please him whe not some delight Or what sin is there where there is not so much as an intention to do injustice But his Lordship would not distinguish between delight and purpose nor between a Wish and a Will This was venome I believe that his Lordship himself even before he was Married took some delight in the thought of it and yet the Woman then was not his own All love is delight but all love is not sin Without this love of that which is not yet a mans own the World had not been Peopled J. D. 2. If a Man by the terror of present death be compelled to do a Fact against the Law he is totally excused because no Law can oblige a Man to abandon his own preservation nature compelleth him to the Fact The like Doctrine he hath elsewhere When the Actor doth any thing against the Law of Nature by the Command of the Author if he be obliged by former Covenants to obey him not he but the Author breaketh the Law of Nature T. H. The second Flower is both sweet and wholsom J. D. 3. It is a Doctrine repugnant to Civil Society that whatsoever a man does against his Conscience is sin T. H. 'T is plain that to do what a man thinks in his own Conscience to be sin is sin for it is a contempt of the Law it self and from thence ignorant men our of an erroneous Conscience disobey the Law which is pernicious to all Government J. D. 4. The Kingdom of God is not shut but to them that sin that is to them who have not performed due obedience to the Laws of God nor to them if they believe the necessary Articles of the Christian Faith 5. We must know that the true acknowledging of sin is Repentance it self 6. An opinion publickly appointed to be taught cannot be Heresie nor the Soveraign Princes that Authorised the
same Hereticks T. H. The 4th 5th and 6th smoll well But to say that the Soveraign Prince in England is a Heretick or that an Act of Parliament is Heretical stinks abominably as 't was thought Primo Elizabethae J. D. 7. Temporal and Spiritual government are but two words to make men see double and mistake their lawful Soveraign c. There is no other Government in this Life neither of State nor Religion but Temporal 8. It is manifest that they who permit a contrary Doctrine to that which themselves believe and think necessary to Salvation do against their Consciences and Will as much as in them lyeth the eternal destruction of their Subjects T. H. The 7th and 8th are Roses and Jassamin But his leaving out the words to Salvation was venome J. D. 9. Subjects sin if they do not worship God according to the Laws of the Common-wealth T. H. The 9th he hath poisoned and made it not mine he quotes my Book de Cive Cap. 15.19 Where I say Regnante Deo per solam rationem naturalem that is Before the Scripture was given they sinned that refused to worship God according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Country which hath no ill scent but to undutiful Subjects J. D. 10. To believe in Jesus in Jesum is the same as to believe that Jesus is Christ T. H. And so it is always in the Scripture J. D. 11. There can be no contradiction between the Laws of God and the Laws of a Christian Common-wealth Yet we see Christian Common-wealths daily contradict one another T. H. The 11th is also good But his Lordship's instance That Christian Common-wealths contradict one another have nothing to do here Their Laws do indeed contradict one another but contradict not the Law of God For God Commands their Subjects to obey them in all things and his Lordship himself confesseth that their Laws though erroneous bind the Conscience But Christian Common-wealths would seldome contradict one another if they made no Doctrine Law but such as were necessary to Salvation J. D. 12. No man giveth but with intention of some good to himself Of all voluntary Acts the Object is to every man his own good Moses St. Paul and the Decij were not of his mind T. H. That which his Lordship adds to the 12th namely that Moses St. Paul and the Decij were not of my mind is false For the two former did what they did for a good to themselves which was eternal Life and the Decij for a good Fame after death And his Lordship also if he had believed there is an eternal happiness to come or thought a good Fame after death to be any thing worth he would have directed all his actions towards them and have despised the Wealth and Titles of the present World J. D. 13. There is no natural knowledge of man's estate after death much less of reward which is then to be given to breach of Faith but only a belief grounded upon other mens saying that they know it supernaturally or that they know those that knew them that knew others that knew it supernaturally T. H. The 13th is good and fresh J. D. 14. David's killing of Uriah was no injury to Uriah because the right to do what he pleased was given him by Uriah himself T. H. David himself makes this good in saying To thee only have I sinned J. D. 15. To whom it belongeth to determine controversies which may arise from the divers interpretations of Scripture he hath an imperial power over all men which acknowledge the Scripture to be the Word of God 16. What is Theft what is Murder what is Adultery and universally what is an injury is known by the Civil Law that is by the Commands of the Soveraign T. H. For the 15th he should have disputed it with the Head of the Church And as to the 16th I would have asked him by what other Law his Lordship would have it determined what is Theft or what is Injury than by the Laws ' made in Parliament or by the Laws which distinguish between Meum and Tuum His Lordships ignorance smells rankly 't is his own phrase in this and many other places which I have let pass of his own interest The King tells us what is sin in that he tells us what is Law He hath authorised the Clergy to dehort the people from sin and to exhort them by good motives both from Scripture and Reason to obey the Laws and supposeth them though under forty years old by the help they have in the University able in case the Law be not written to teach the people old and young what they ought to follow in doubtful cases of Conscience that is to say they are authorised to expound the Laws of Nature but not so as to make it a doubtful case whether the King's Laws be to be obeyed or not All they ought to do is from the King's Authority And therefore this my Doctrine is no Weed J. D. 17. He admitteth incestuous Copulations of the Heathens according to their Heathenish Laws to have been lawful Marriages Though the Scripture teach us expresly that for those abominations the Land of Canaan spued our her Inhabitants Levit. 18.28 T. H. The 17th he hath corrupted with a false interpretation of the Text. For in that Chapter from the beginning to verse 20 are forbidden Marriages in certain degrees of kindred From verse 20 which begins with Moreover to the 28th are forbidden Sacrificing of Children to Molech and Prophaning of God's name and Buggery with Man and Beast with this cause exprest For all these abominations have the men of the Land done which were before you and the Land is defiled That the Land spue not you out also As for Marriages within the degrees prohibited they are not referred to the abominations of the Heathen Besides for some time after Adam such Marriages were necessary J. D. 18. I say that no other Article of Faith besides this that Jesus is Christ is necessary to a Christian man for Salvation 19. Because Christ's Kingdom is not of this World therefore neither can his Ministers unless they be Kings require obedience in his name They have no right of Commanding no power to make Laws T. H. These two smell comfortably and of Scripture The contrary Doctrine smells of Ambition and encroachment of Jurisdiction or Rump of the Roman Tyranny J. D. 20. I pass by his errors about Oaths about Vows about the Resurrection about the Kingdom of Christ about the Power of the Keys Binding Loosing Excommunication c. his ignorant mistakes of meritum congrui and condigni active and passive obedience and many more for fear of being tedious to the Reader T. H. The tears of School Divinity of which numer are meritum congrui meritum condigni and passive obedience are so obscure as no man living can tell what they mean so that they that use them may admit or deny their meaning as it shall
and for the second Banished And thus did Heresie which at first was the name of private Opinion and no Crime by vertue of a Law of the Emperor made only for the Peace of the Church become a Crime in a Pastor and punishable with Deprivation first and next with Banishment After this part of the Creed was thus established there arose presently many new Heresies partly about the Interpretation of it and partly about the Holy Ghost of which the Nicene Council had not determined Concerning the part established there arose Disputes about the Nature of Christ and the word Hypostasis id est Substance for of Persons there was yet no mention made the Creed being written in Greek in which Language there is no word that answereth to the Latine word Persona And the Union as the Fathers called it of the Humane and Divine Nature in Christ Hypostatical caused Eutyches and after him Dioscorus to affirm there was but one Nature in Christ thinking that whensoever two things are united they are one And this was condemned as Arianism in the Councils of Constantinople and Ephesus Others because they thought two living and rational Substances such as are God and Man must needs be also two Hypostases maintained that Christ had two Hypostases But these were two Heresies condemned together Then concerning the Holy Ghost Nestorius Bishop of Constantinople and some others denied the Divinity thereof And whereas about seventy years before the Nicene Council there had been holden a Provincial Council at Carthage wherein it was Decreed that those Christians which in the Persecutions had denyed the Faith of Christ should not be received again into the Church unless they were again baptized This also was condemned though the President in that Council were that most sincere and pious Christian Cyprian And at last the Creed was made up entire as we have it in the Calcedonian Council by addition of these words And I believe in the Holy Ghost the Lord and Giver of Life who proceedeth from the Father and the Son Who with the Father the Son together is Worshipped and Glorified Who spake by the Prophets And I believe one Catholick Apostolick Church I acknowledge one Baptism for the Remission of Sins And I look for the Resurrection of the Dead and the Life of the World to come In this addition are condemned first the Nestorians and others in these words Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified And secondly the Doctrine of the Council of Carthage in these words I believe one Baptism for the Remission of Sins For one Baptism is not there put as opposite to several sorts or manners of Baptism but to the iteration of it St. Cyprian was a better Christian than to allow any Baptism that was not in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost In the General Confession of Faith contained in the Creed called the Nicene Creed there is no mention of Hypostasis nor of Hypostatical Union nor of Corporeal nor of Incorporeal nor of Parts the understanding of which words being not required of the Vulgar but only of the Pastors whose disagreement else might trouble the Church nor were such Points necessary to Salvation but set abroach for ostentation of Learning or else to dazle men with design to lead them towards some ends of their own The Changes of prevalence in the Empire between the Catholicks and the Arians and how the great Athanasius the most fierce of the Catholicks was banished by Constantine and afterwards restored and again banished I let pass only it is to be remembred that Athanasius is suppos'd to have made his Creed then when banished he was in Rome Liberius being Pope by whom as is most likely the word Hypostasis as it was in Athanasius's Creed was disliked For the Roman Church could never be brought to receive it but instead thereof used their own word Persona But the first and last words of that Creed the Church of Rome refused not For they make every Article not only those of the body of the Creed but all the Definitions of the Nicene Fathers to be such as a man cannot be saved unless he believe them all stedfastly though made only for Peace sake and to unite the minds of the Clergy whose Disputes were like to trouble the Peace of the Empire After these four first General Councils the Power of the Roman Church grew up a pace and either by the negligence or weakness of the succeeding Emperors the Pope did what he pleased in Religion There was no Doctrine which tended to the Power Ecclesiastical or to the Reverence of the Clergy the contradiction whereof was not by one Council or another made Heresie and punished arbitrarily by the Emperors with Banishment or Death And at last Kings themselves and Commonwealths unless they purged their Dominions of Hereticks were Excommunicated Interdicted and their Subjects let loose upon them by the Pope insomuch as to an ingenuous and serious Christian there was nothing so dangerous as to enquire concerning his own Salvation of the Holy Scripture the careless cold Christian was safe and the skilful Hypocrite a Saint But this is a Story so well known as I need not insist upon it any longer but proceed to the Hereticks here in England and what Punishments were ordained for them by Acts of Parliament All this while the Penal Laws against Hereticks were such as the several Princes and States in their own Dominions thought fit to enact The Edicts of the Emperors made their Punishments Capital but for the manner of the Execution left it to the Prefects of Provinces And when other Kings and States intended according to the Laws of the Roman Church to extirpate Hereticks they ordained such Punishment as they pleased The first Law that was here made for the punishments of Hereticks called Lollards and mentioned in the Statutes was in the fifth year of the Reign of Richard the Second occasioned by the Doctrine of John Wickliff and his Followers which Wickliff because no Law was yet ordained for his punishment in Parliament by the favour of John of Gaunt the King's Son during the Reign of Edward the third had escaped But in the fifth year of the next King which was Richard the Second there passed an Act of Parliament to this effect That Sheriffs and some others should have Commissions to apprehend such as were certified by the Prelates to be Preachers of Heresie their Fautors Maintainers and Abettors and to hold them in strong Prison till they should justifie themselves according to the Law of Holy Church So that hitherto there was no Law in England by which a Heretick could be put to Death or otherways punished than by imprisoning him till he was reconciled to the Church After this in the next King's Reign which was Henry the Fourth Son of John of Gaunt by whom Wickliffe had been favoured and who in his aspiring to the Crown had needed the good