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
credit As to that I say An Atheist is punished by God not as a Subject by his King but as an Enemy and to my argument for it namely because he never acknowledged himself Gods Subject He opposeth That if nature dictate that there is a God and to be worshiped in such and such manner then Atheism is not a sin of meer ignorance as if either I or he did hold that Nature dictates the manner of Gods Worship or any article of our Creed or whether to worship with or without a Surplice Secondly he answers that a Rebel is still a Subject de Jure though not de Facto And 't is granted But though the King lose none of his right by the Traytors act yet the Traytor loseth the priviledg of being punisht by a praecedent Law and therefore may be punish'd at the Kings will as Ravillac was for murdering Henry the 4th of France An open Enemy and a perfidious Traytor are both enemies Had not his Lordship read in the Roman story how Perseus and other just enemies of that State were wont to be punished But what is this trifling question to my excusing of Atheism In the seventh Paragraph of my Book de Cive he found the words in Latin which he here citeth And to the same sense I have said in my Leviathan That the right of nature whereby God raigneth over men is to be derived not from his creating them as if he required obedience as of Gratitude but from his irresistable Power This he says is absurd and dishonourable Whereas first all power is honourable and greatest power is most honourable It is not a more noble tenure for a King to hold his Kingdom and the right to punish those that transgress his Laws from his Power than from the gratitude or gift of the Transgressor There is nothing therefore here of dishonour to God Almighty But see the subtility of his disputing He saw he could not catch Leviathan in this place he looks for him in my Book de Cive which is Latine to try what he could fish out of that And says I make our obedience to God depend upon our weakness as if these words signified the Dependence and not the necessity of our submission or that incumbere and dependere were all one J. D. For T. H. his God is not the God of Christians nor of any rational men Our God is every where and seeing he hath no parts he must be wholly here and wholly there and wholly every where So Nature it self dictateth It cannot be said honourably of God that he is in a place for nothing is in a place but that which hath proper bounds of its greatness But T. H. his God is not wholly every where No man can conceive that any thing is all in this place and all in another place at the same time for none of these things ever have or can be incident to sense So far well if by conceiving he mean comprehending but then follows That these are absurd Speeches taken upon credit without any signification at all from deceived Philosophers and deceived or deceiving School-men Thus he denieth the Ubiquity of God A Circumscriptive a Definitive and a Repletive being in a place is some heathen language to him T. H. Though I believe the Omnipotence of God and that he can do what he will yet I dare not say how every thing is done because I cannot conceive nor comprehend either the Divine substance or the way of its operation And I think it Impiety to speak concerning God any thing of my own head or upon the Authority of Philosophers or School-men which I understand not without warrant in the Scripture And what I say of Omnipotence I say also of Ubiquity But his Lordship is more valiant in this place telling us that God is wholly here and wholly there and wholly every where because he has no parts I cannot comprehend nor conceive this For methinks it implies also that the whole World is also in the whole God and in every part of God nor can I conceive how any thing can be called Whole which has no parts nor can I find any thing of this in the Scripture If I could find it there I could believe it and if I could find it in the publick Doctrine of the Church I could easily abstain from contradicting it The School-men say also that the Soul of Man meaning his upper Soul which they call the rational Soul is also wholly in the whole man and wholly in every part of the man What is this but to make the humane Soul the same thing in respect of mans Body that God is in respect of the World These his Lordship calls here rational men and some of them which applaud this Doctrine would have the High Court of Parliament corroborate such Doctrines with a Law I said in my Leviathan that it is no honourable attribute to God to say he is in a place because infinite is not confined within a place To which he replies T. H. his God is not wholly every where I confess the consequence For I understand in English he that says any thing to be all here means that neither all nor any of the same thing is else where He says further I â—ake a Circumscriptive a Definitive and a Repletive being in a place to be Heathen Language Truly if this Dispute were at â—he Bar I should go near to crave the asistance of the Court lest some trick might be put upon me in such obscurity â—or though I know what these Latin words singly signifie yet I understand not â—ow any thing is in a Place Definitively and not Circumscriptively For Definitively comes from definio which is to set bounds And therefore to be in a Place Definitively is when the bounds of the place are every way marked out But to be in a place Circumscriptively is when the bounds of the place are described round about To be in a Place Repletive is to fill a place Who does not see that this dictinction is Canting and Fraud If any man will call it Pious Fraud he is to prove the Piety as clearly as I have here explained the Fraud Besides no Fraud can be Pious in any man but him that hath a lawful Right to govern him whom he beguileth whom the Bishop pretends to govern I cannot tell Besides his Lordship ought to have considered that every Bishop is one of the Great Councel trusted by the King to give their advice with the Lords Temporal for the making of good Laws Civil and Ecclesiastical and not to offer them such obscure Doctrines as if because they are not versed in School-divinity therefore they had no Learning at all nor understood the English Tongue Why did the Divines of England contend so much heretofore to have the Bible translated into English if they never meant any but themselves should read it If a Lay-man be publickly encouraged to search the Scriptures for his own
The lawful Assembly of Pastors or of Bishops But there can be no lawful Assembly in England without the Authority of the King The Scripture therefore what it is and how to be interpreted is made known unto us here by no other way than the Authority of our Soveraign Lord both in Temporals and Spirituals The Kings Majesty And where he has set forth no Interpretation there I am allowed to follow my own as well as any other man Bishop or not Bishop For my own part all that know me know also it is my opinion That the best government in Religion is by Episcopacy but in the King 's Right not in their own But my Lord of Derry not contented with this would have the utmost resolution of our Faith to be into the Doctrine of the Schools I do not think that all the Bishops be of his mind If they were I would wish them to stand in fear of that dreadful Sentence All covet all lose I must not let pass these words of his Lordship If divine Law and humane Law clash one with another without doubt it is better evermore to obey God than man Where the King is a Christian believes the Scripture and hath the Legislative power both in Church and State and maketh no Laws concerning Christian Faith or divine Worship but by the Counsel of his Bishops whom he trusteth in that behalf if the Bishops counsel him aright what clashing can there be between the divine and humane Laws For if the Civil Law be against God's Law and the Bishops make it clearly appear to the King that it clasheth with divine Law no doubt he will mend it by himself or by the advice of his Parliament for else he is no professor of Christ's Doctrine and so the clashing is at an end But if they think that every opinion they hold though obscure and unnecessary to Salvation ought presently to be Law then there will be clashings innumerable not only of Laws but also of Swords as we have found it too true by late experience But his Lordship is still at this that there ought to be for the divine Laws that is to say for the interpretation of Scripture a Legislative power in the Church distinct from that of the King which under him they enjoy already This I deny Then for clashing between the Civil Laws of Indels with the Law of God the Apostles teach that those their Civil Laws are to be obeyed but so as to keep their Faith in Christ entirely in their hearts which is an obedience easily performed But I do not believe that Augustus Caesar or Nero was bound to make the holy Scripture Law and yet unless they did so they could not attain to eternal life J. D. His fifth conclusion may be that the sharpest and most succesful Sword in any War whatsoever doth give Soveraign Power and Authority to him that hath it to approve or reject all sorts of Theological Doctrines concerning the Kingdom of God not according to their truth or falshood but according to that influence which they have upon political affairs Hear him But because this Doctrine will appear to most men a novelty I do but propound it maintaining nothing in this or any other Paradox of Religion but attending the end of that dispute of the Sword concerning the Authority not yet amongst my Country-men decided by which all sorts of Doctrine are to be approved or rejected c. For the points of Doctrine concerning the Kingdom of God have so great influence upon the Kingdom of Man as not to be determined but by them that under God have the Soveraign Power Careat successibus opto Quisquis ab eventu facta notanda putat Let him evermore want success who thinketh actions are to be judged by their events This Doctrine may be plausible to those who desire to fish in troubled Waters But it is justly hated by those which are in Authority and all those who are lovers of peace and tranquillity The last part of this conclusion smelleth rankly of Jeroboam Now shall the Kingdom return to the house of David if this people go up to do Sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem whereupon the King took counsel and made two Calves of Gold and said unto them It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem behold thy Gods O Israel which brought thee out of the Land of Aegypt But by the just disposition of Almighty God this Policy turned to a sin and was the utter destruction of Jeroboam and his Family It is not good jesting with edge-tools nor playing with holy things Where men make their greatest fastness many times they find most danger T. H. His Lordship either had a strange Conscience or understood not English Being at Paris when there was no Bishop nor Church in England and every man writ what he pleased I resolved when it should please God to restore the Authority Ecclesiastical to submit to that Authority in whatsoever it should determine This his Lordship construes for a temporizing and too much indifferency in Religion and says further that the last part of my words do smell of Jeroboam To the contrary I say my words were modest and such as in duty I ought to use And I profess still that whatsoever the Church of England the Church I say not every Doctor shall forbid me to say in matter of Faith I shall abstain from saying it excepting this point That Jesus Christ the Son of God dyed for my sins As for other Doctrins I think it unlawful if the Church define them for any Member of the Church to contradict them J. D. His sixth Paradox is a rapper the Civil Laws are the Rules of good and evil just and unjust honest and dishonest and therefore what the Lawgiver commands that is to be accounted good what he forbids bad And a little after before Empires were just and unjust were not as whose nature is Relative to a Command every action in its own nature is indifferent That it is just or unjust proceedeth from the right of him that commandeth Therefore lawful Kings make those things which they command Just by commanding them and those things which they forbid Vnjust by forbidding them To this add his definition of a sin that which one doth or omitteth saith or willeth contrary to the reason of the Common-wealth that is the Civil Laws Where by the Laws he doth not understand the Written Laws elected and approved by the whole Common-wealth but the verbal Commands or Mandates of him that hath the Soveraign Power as we find in many places of his Writings The Civil Laws are nothing else but the Commands of him that is endowed with Soveraign Power in the Common-wealth concerning the future actions of his Subjects And the Civil Laws are fastned to the Lips of that man who hath the Soveraign Power Where are we In Europe or in Asia Where they ascribed a Divinity to their Kings and to
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
Will of the Bishops was made a Law in the second Year of his Reign wherein it was Enacted That every Ordinary may convene before him and imprison any person suspected of Heresie and that an obstinate Heretick shall be burnt before the People In the next King's Reign which was Henry the Fifth in his Second year was made an Act of Parliament wherein it is declared that the intent of Hereticks called Lollards was to subvert the Christian Faith the Law of God the Church and the Realm And that an Heretick convict should forfeit all his Fee-simple Lands Goods and Chattels besides the Punishment of Burning Again in the Five and Twentieth year of King Henry the Eighth it was Enacted That an Heretick convict shall abjure his Heresies and refusing so to do or relapsing shall be burnt in open place for example of others This Act was made after the putting down of the Pope's Authority And by this it appears that King Henry the Eighth intended no farther alteration in Religion than the recovering of his own Right Ecclesiastical But in the first year of his Son King Edward the sixth was made an Act by which were repealed not only this Act but also all former Acts concerning Doctrines or matters of Religion So that at this time there was no Law at all for the punishment of Hereticks Again in the Parliament of the first and second year of Queen Mary this Act of 1 Ed. 6. was not repealed but made useless by reviving the Statute of 25 Hen. 8. and freely put it in execution insomuch as it was Debated Whether or no they should proceed upon that Statute against the Lady Elizabeth the Queens Sister The Lady Elizabeth not long after by the Death of Queen Mary coming to the Crown in the fifth year of her Reign by Act of Parliament repealed in the first place all the Laws Ecclesiastical of Queen Mary with all other former Laws concerning the punishments of Hereticks nor did she enact any other punishments in their place In the second place it was Enacted That the Queen by her Letters Patents should give a Commission to the Bishops with certain other persons in her Majesties Name to execute the Power Ecclesiastical in which Commission the Commissioners were forbidden to adjudge any thing to be Heresie which was not declared to be Heresie by some of the first four General Councels But there was no mention made of General Councels but only in that branch of the Act which Authorised that Commission commonly called The High Commission nor was there in that Commission any thing concerning how Hereticks were to be punished but it was granted to them that they might declare or not declare as they pleased to be Heresie or not Heresie any of those Doctrines which had been Condemned for Heresie in the first four General Councels So that during the time that the said High Commission was in being there was no Statute by which a Heretick could be punished otherways than by the ordinary Censures of the Church nor Doctrine accounted Heresie unless the Commissioners had actually declared and published That all that which was made Heresie by those Four Councels should be Heresie also now But I never heard that any such Declaration was made either by Proclamation or by Recording it in Churches or by publick Printing as in penal Laws is necessary the breaches of it are excused by ignorance Besides if Heresie had been made Capital or otherwise civilly punishable either the Four General Councels themselves or at least the Points condemned in them ought to have been Printed or put into Parish Churches in English because without it no man could know how to beware of offending against them Some men may perhaps ask whether no body were Condemned and Burnt for Heresie during the time of the High Commission I have heard there were But they which approve such executions may peradventure know better grounds for them than I do but those grounds are very well worthy to be enquired after Lastly in the seventeenth year of the Reign of King Charles the First shortly after that the Scots had Rebelliously put down the Episcopal Government in Scotland the Presbyterians of England endeavoured the same here The King though he saw the Rebels ready to take the Field would not condescend to that but yet in hope to appease them was content to pass an Act of Parliament for the abolishing the High Commission But though the High Commission were taken away yet the Parliament having other ends besides the setting up of the Presbyterate pursued the Rebellion and put down both Episcopacy and Monarchy erecting a power by them called The Common-wealth by others the Rump which men obeyed not out of Duty but for fear nor was there any humane Laws left in force to restrain any man from Preaching or Writing any Doctrine concerning Religion that he pleased and in this heat of the War it was impossible to disturb the Peace of the State which then was none And in this time it was that a Book called Leviathan was written in defence of the King's Power Temporal and Spiritual without any word against Episcopacy or against any Bishop or against the publick Doctrine of the Church It pleas'd God about Twelve years after the Usurpation of this Rump to restore His most Gracious Majesty that now is to his Fathers Throne and presently His Majesty restored the Bishops and pardoned the Presbyterians but then both the one and the other accused in Parliament this Book of Heresie when neither the Bishops before the War had declared what was Heresie when if they had it had been made void by the putting down of the High Commission at the importunity of the Presbyterians So fierce are men for the most part in dispute where either their Learning or Power is debated that they never think of the Laws but as soon as they are offended they cry out Crucifige forgetting what St. Paul saith even in case of obstinate holding of an Error 2 Tim. 2. 24 25. The Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men apt to teach patient in meekness instructing those that oppose if God peradventure may give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth Of which counsel such fierceness as hath appeared in the Disputation of Divines down from before the Council of Nice to this present time is a Violation FINIS
Church 'T is one thing to know what is to be done another thing to know how to do it But his Lordship was pleased to use any artifice to disgrace me in any kind whatsoever J. D. Perhaps he will say that he handleth the Laws of Nature there only so far as may serve to the constitution or settlement of a Common-wealth In good time let it be so He hath devised us a trim Common-wealth which is founded neither upon Religion towards God nor Justice towards Man but meerly upon self-interest and self-preservation Those raies of heavenly Light those natural seeds of Religion which God himself hath imprinted in the heart of man are more efficatious towards preservation of a Society whether we regard the nature of the thing or the blessing of God then all his Pacts and Surrenders and Translations of power He who unteacheth men their duty to God may make them Eye-servants so long as their interest doth oblige them to obey but is no fit Master to teach men conscience and fidelity T. H. He has not yet found the place where I contradict either the Existence or Infiniteness or Incomprehensibility or Unity or Ubiquity of God I am therefore yet absolved of Atheism But I am he says inconsistent and irreconcileable with my self that is I am though he says not so he thinks a forgetful blockhead I cannot help that But my forgetfulness appears not here Even his Lordship where he says Those raies of heavenly Light those seeds of Religion which God himself hath imprinted in the heart of man meaning natural reason are more efficacious to the preservation of Society than all the Pacts Surrenders and Translating of Power had forgotten to except the Old Pact of the Jews and the New Pact of Christians But pardoning that did he hope to make any wise man believe that when this Nation very lately was an Anarchy and dissolute multitude of men doing every one what his own reason or imprinted Light suggested did again out of that same Light call in the King and piece again and ask pardon for the faults which that their illumination had brought them into rather than out of fear of perpetual danger and hope of preservation J. D. Without Religion Societies are like but soapy bubbles quickly dissolved It was the judgment of as wise a man as T. H. himself though perhaps he will hardly be perswaded to it that Rome ought more of its grandeur to Religion than either to strength or stratagems We have not exceeded the Spaniards in number nor the Galls in strength nor the Carthaginians in craft nor the Grecians in art c. but we have overcome all Nations by our Piety and Religion T. H. Did not his Lordship forget himself here again in approving this sentence of Tully which makes the Idolatry of the Romans not only better than the Idolatry of other Nations but also better than the Religion of the Jews whose Law Christ himself says he came not to destroy but to fulfil And that the Romans overcame both them and other Nations by their Piety when it is manifest that the Romans overran the world by injustice and cruelty and that their Victories ought not to be ascribed to the Piety of the Romans but to the impiety as well of the Jews as of other Nations But what meant he by saying Tully was as wise a man as T. H. himself though perhaps he will hardly be perswaded to it Was that any part of the controversie No Then it was out of his way God promiseth to assist good men in their way but not out of their way 'T is therefore the less wonder that his Lordship was in this place deserted of the Light which God imprints in the hearts of rudest Savages J. D. Among his Laws he incerteth gratitude to men as the third precept of the Law of Nature but of the gratitude of mankind to their Creator there is a deep silence If men had sprung up from the earth in a night like Mushroms or Excresences without all sence of Honour Justice Conscience or Gratitude he could not have vilified the humane nature more then he doth T. H. My Lord discovers here an ignorance of such method as is necessary for lawful and strict reasoning and explication of the truth in controversie And not only that but also how little able he is to fix his mind upon what he reads in other mens Writings When I had defined Ingratitude universally he finds fault that I do not mention Ingratitude towards God as if his Lordship knew not that an universal comprehends all the particulars When I had defined Equity universally why did he not as well blame me for not telling what that Equity is in God He is grateful to the man of whom he receives a good turn that confesseth or maketh appear he is pleased with the benefit he receiveth So also Gratitude towards God is to confess his benefits There is also in Gratitude towards men a desire to requite their Benefits so there is in our Gratitude towards God so far to requite them as to be kind to Gods Ministers which I acknowledged in makeing Sacrifices a part of natural Divine Worship and the benefit of those Sacrifices is the nourishment of Gods Ministers It appears therefore that the Bishops attention in reading my Writings was either weak in it self or weakned by prejudice J. D. From this shameful omission or preterition of the main duty of mankind a man might easily take the height of T. H. his Religion But he himself putteth it past all conjectures His principles are brim full of prodigious impiety In these four things Opinions of Ghosts Ignorance of second Causes devotion to what men fear and taking of things casual for Prognosticks consisteth the natural seed of Religion the culture and improvement whereof he referreth only to Policy Humane and Divine Politicks are but Politicks And again Mankind hath this from the conscience of their own weakness and the admiration of natural events that the most part of men believe that there is an invisible God the maker of all visible things And a little after he telleth us That Superstition proceedeth from fear without right reason and Atheisme from an opinion of reason without fear making Atheisme to be more reasonable than Superstition What is now become of that Divine Worship which natural reason did assign unto God the honour of Existence Infiniteness Incomprehensibility Unity Ubiquity What is now become of that Dictate or Precept of reason concerning Prayers Thanksgivings Oblations Sacrifices if uncertain Opinions Ignorance Fear Mistakes the conscience of our own weakness and the admiration of natural Events be the only seeds of Religion He proceedeth further That Atheisme it self though it be an erronious opinion and therefore a sin yet it ought to be numbred among the sins of imprudence or ignorance He addeth that an Atheist is punished not as a Subject is punished by his King because he did not observe Laws but
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
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