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
likewise Consubstantial in the Nicene Creed is properly said of the Trinity But to an English man that understands neither Greek nor Latin and yet is as much concerned as his Lordship was the word Hypostatical is no less Canting than Eternal now J. D. He alloweth every man who is commanded by his lawful Soveraign to deny Christ with his tongue before men T. H. I allow it in some Cases and to some men which his Lordship knew well enough but would not mention I alledged for it in the place cited both Reason and Scripture though his Lordship thought it not expedient to take notice of either If it be true that I have said why does he blame it If false why offers he no Argument against it neither from Scripture nor from Reason Or why does he not show that the Text I cite is non applicable to the Question or not well interpreted by me First He barely cites it because he thought the words would sound harshly and make a Reader admire them for Impiety But I hope I shall so well instruct my Reader are I leave this place that this his petty Art will have no effect Secondly The Cause why he omitted my Arguments was That he could not answer them Lastly The Cause why he urgeth neither Scripture nor Reason against it was That he saw none sufficient My Argument from Scripture was this Leviathan pag. 271. taken out of 2 Kings 5.17 where Naaman the Syrian saith to Elisha the Prophet Thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt-offering nor sacrifice to other Gods but unto the Lord. In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant that when my Master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there and he leaneth on my hand and I bow my self in the house of Rimmon when I bow my self in the house of Rimmon the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing and he said unto him Go in peace What can be said to this Did not Elisha say it from God Or is not this Answer of the Prophet a permission When St. Paul and St. Peter commanded the Christians of their time to obey their Princes which then were Heathens and Enemies of Christ did they mean they should lose their Lives for disobedience Did they not rather mean they should preserve both their Lives and their Faith believing in Christ as they did by this denial of the tongue having no command to the contrary If in this Kingdom a Mahometan should be made by terror to deny Mahomet and go to Church with us would any man condemn this Mahometan A denyal with the mouth may perhaps be prejudicial to the power of the Church but to retain the Faith of Christ stedfastly in his Heart cannot be prejudicial to his Soul that hath undertaken no charge to preach to Wolves whom they know will destroy them About the time of the Council of Nice there was a Canon made which is extant in the History of the Nicene Council concerning those that being Christians had been seduced not terrified to a denyal of Christ and again repenting desired to be readmitted into the Church in which Canon it was ordain'd that those men should be no otherwise readmitted than to be in the number of the Catechised and not to be admitted to the Communion till a great many years penitence Surely the Church then would have been more merciful to them that did the same upon terror of present death and torments Let us now see what his Lordship might though but colourably have alledged from Scripture against it There be three places only that seem to favour his Lordship's opinion The first is where Peter denyed Christ and weepeth The second is Acts 5.29 Then Peter and the other Apostles answered and said we ought to obey God rather than men The third is Luke 12.9 But he that denyeth me shall be denyed before the Angels of God T. H. For answer to these Texts I must repeat what I have written and his Lordship read in my Leviathan pag. 362. For an unlearned man that is in the power of an Idolatrous King or State if commanded on pain of Death to worship before an Idol doing it he detesteth the Idol in his Heart he doth well though if he had the fortitude to suffer Death rather than worship it he should do better But if a Pastor who as Christ's Messenger has undertaken to teach Christ's Doctrine to all Nations should do the same it were not only a sinful Scandal in respect of other Christian Mens Consciences but a perfidious forsaking of his Charge In which words I distinguish between a Pastor and one of the Sheep of his Flock St. Peter sinned in denying Christ and so does every Pastor that having undertaken the Charge of Preaching the Gospel in the Kingdom of an Infidel where he could expect at the undertaking of his Charge no less than Death And why but because he violates his Trust in doing contrary to his Commission St. Peter was an Apostle of Christ and bound by his voluntary undertaking of that Office not only to Confess Christ but also to Preach him before those Infidels whom he knew would like Wolves devour him And therefore when Paul and the rest of the Apostles were forbidden to preach Christ they gave this Answer We ought to obey God rather than Men. And it was to his Disciples only which had undertaken that Office that Christ saith he that denyeth me before Men shall be denyed before the Angels of God And so I think I have sufficiently answered this place and shewed that I do not allow the denying of Christ upon any colour of Torments to his Lordship nor to any other that has undertaken the Office of a Preacher Which if he think right he will perhaps in this case put himself into the number of those whom he calls merciful Doctors whereas now he extends his severity beyond the bounds of common equity He has read Cicero and perhaps this Story in him The Senate of Rome would have sent Cicero to treat of Peace with Marcus Antonius but when Cicero had shewed them the just fear he had of being killed by him he was excused and if they had forced him to it and he by terror turned Enemy to them he had in equity been excusable But his Lordship I believe did write this more valiantly than he would have acted it J. D. He Deposeth Christ from his true Kingly Office making his Kingdom not to Commence or begin before the day of Judgment And the Regiment wherewith Christ Governeth his Faithful in this Life is not properly a Kingdom but a Pastoral Office or a right to Teach And a little after Christ had not Kingly Authority committed to him by his Father in this World but only Consiliary and Doctrinal T. H. How do I take away Christs Kingly Office He neither draws it by Consequence from my Words nor offers any Argument at all against my Doctrine The words he cites are in the Contents of
do with such Language Nor do I remember it in Aristotle Perhaps it may be in some Schoolman or Commentator on Aristotle and his Lordship makes it in English the Heaven of the Blessed as if Empyraeum signified That which belongs to the Blessed St. Austin says better that after the day of Judgment all that is not Heaven shall be Hell Then for Beatifical vision how can any man understand it that knows from the Scripture that no man ever saw or can see God Perhaps his Lordship thinks that the happiness of the Life to come is not real but a Vision As for that which I say Lev. pag. 345. I have answered to it already J. D. But considering his other Principles I do not marvel much at his extravagance in this point To what purpose should a Coelum Empyraeum or Heaven of the Blessed serve in his judgment who maketh the blessed Angels that are the Inhabitants of that happy Mansion to be either Idols of the brain that is in plain English nothing or thin subtil fluid bodies destroying the Angelical nature The universe being the aggregate of all bodies there is no real part thereof that is not also body And elsewhere Every part of the Vniverse is Body and that which is not Body is no part of the Vniverse And because the Vniverse is all that which is no part of it is nothing and consequently no where How By this Doctrine he maketh not only the Angels but God himself to be nothing Neither doth he salve it at all by supposing erroneously Angels to be corporeal Spirits and by attributing the name of incorporeal Spirit to God as being a name of more honour in whom we consider not what Attribute best expresseth his nature which is incomprehensible but what best expresseth our desire to honour him Though we be not able to comprehend perfectly what God is yet we are able perfectly to comprehend what God is not that is he is not imperfect and therefore he is not finite and consequently he is not corporeal This were a trim way to honour God indeed to honour him with a lye If this that he say here be true That every part of the Vniverse is a Body and whatsoever is not a Body is nothing Then by this Doctrine if God be not a Body God is nothing not an incorporeal Spirit but one of the Idols of the Brain a meer nothing though they think they dance under a Net and have the blind of Gods incomprehensibility between them and discovery T. H. This of Incorporeal substance he urged before and there I answered it I wonder he so often rolls the same stone He is like Sysiphus in the Poets Hell that there rolls a heavy stone up a hill which no sooner he brings to day-light then it slips down again to the bottom and serves him so perpetually For so his Lordship rolls this and other questions with much adoe till they come to the light of Scripture and then they vanish and he vexing sweating and railing goes to 't again to as little purpose as before From that I say of the Universe he infers that I make God to be nothing But infers it absurdly He might indeed have inferr'd that I make him a Corporeal but yet a pure Spirit I mean by the Universe the Aggregate of all things that have being in themselves and so do all men else And because God has a being it follows that he is either the whole Universe or part of it Nor does his Lordship go about to disprove it but only seems to wonder at it J. D. To what purpose should a Coelum Empyraeum serve in his Judgment who denyeth the immortality of the Soul The Doctrine is now and hath been a long time far otherwise namely that every man hath eternity of life by nature in as much as his Soul is immortal Who supposeth that when a man dyeth there remaineth nothing of him but his Carkase who maketh the word Soul in holy Scripture to signifie always either the Life or the Living Creature And expoundeth the casting of Body and Soul into Hell-fire to be the casting of Body and Life into Hell-fire Who maketh this Orthodox truth that the Souls of men are Substances distinct from their Bodies to be an error contracted by the contagion of the Demonology of the Greeks and a window that gives entrance to the dark Doctrine of eternal torments Who expoundeth these words of Solomon Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to God that gave it Thus God only knows what becomes of a mans Spirit when he exspireth He will not acknowledge that there is a Spirit or any Substance distinct from the Body I wonder what they think doth keep their Bodies from stinking T. H. He comes here to that which is a great Paradox in School Divinity The grounds of my opinion are the Canonical Scripture and the Texts which I cited I must again recite to which I shall also add some others My Doctrine is this First That the elect in Christ from the day of Judgment forward by vertue of Christ's Passion and Victory over death shall enjoy eternal life that is they shall be Immortal Secondly that there is no living Soul separated in place from the Body more than there is a living Body separated from the Soul Thirdly That the reprobate shall be revived to Judgment and shall dye a second death in Torments which death shall be everlasting Now let us consider what is said to these points in the Scripture and what is the harmony therein of the Old and New Testament And first because the word Immortal Soul is not found in the Scriptures the question is to be decided by evident consequences from the Scripture The Scripture saith of God expresly 1 Tim. 6.16 That He only hath immortality and dwelleth in inaccessible light Hence it followeth that the Soul of man is not of its own nature Immortal but by Grace that is to say by the gift of God And then the question will be whether this grace or gift of God were bestowed on the Soul in the Creation and Conception of the Man or afterwards by his redemption Another question will be in what sence immortality of Torments can be called a gift when all gifts suppose the thing given to be grateful to the receiver To the first of these Christ himself saith Luke 14.13 14. When thou makest a Feast call the Poor the Maimed the Lame the Blind and thou shalt be Blessed for they cannot recompense thee For thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of them that be just It follows hence that the reward of the Elect is not before the Resurrection What reward then enjoyes a separated Soul in Heaven or any where else till that day come or what has he to do there till the Body rise again Again St. Paul says Rom. 2.6 7. God will render to every man according to his works To
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