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
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
Bargains with him but Commands him not Oh the understanding of a Schoolman J. D. Sometimes he is for holy Orders and giveth to the Pastors of the Church the right of Ordination and Absolution and Infallibility too much for a particular Pastor or the Pastors of one particular Church It is manifest that the consecration of the chiefest Doctors in every Church and imposition of hands doth pertain to the Doctors of the same Church And it cannot be doubted of but the power of binding and loosing was given by Christ to the future Pastors after the same manner as to his present Apostles And our Saviour hath promised this infallibility in those things which are necessary to Salvation to his Apostles until the day of Judgment that is to say to the Apostles and Pastors to be Consecrated by the Apostles successively by the imposition of hands But at other times he casteth all this Meal down with his foot Christian Soveraigns are the supream Pastors and the only persons whom Christians now hear speak from God except such as God speaketh to in these dayes supernaturally What is now become of the promised infallibility And it is from the Civil Soveraign that all other Pastors derive their right of teaching preaching and all other functions pertaining to that Office and they are but his Ministers in the same manner as the Magistrates of Towns or Judges in Courts of Justice and Commanders of Armies What is now become of their Ordination Magistrates Judges and Generals need no precedent qualifications He maketh the Pastoral Authority of Soveraigns to be Jure divino of all other Pastors Jure civili He addeth neither is there any Judge of Heresie among Subjects but their own civil Soveraign Lastly the Church Excommunicateth no man but whom she Excommunicateth by the Authority of the Prince And the effect of Excommunication hath nothing in it neither of dammage in this World nor terror upon an Apostate if the Civil Power did persecute or not assist the Church And in the World to come leaves them in no worse estate than those who never believed The dammage rather redoundeth to the Church Neither is the Excommunication of a Christian Subject that obeyeth the Laws of his own Soveraign of any effect Where is now their power of binding and loosing T. H. Here his Lordship condemneth first my too much kindness to the Pastors of the Church as if I ascribed Infallibility to every particular Minister or at least to the Assembly of the Pastors of a particular Church But he mistakes me I never meant to flatter them so much I say only that the Ceremony of Consecration and Imposition of hands belongs to them and that also no otherwise than as given them by the Laws of the Common-wealth The Bishop Consecrates but the King both makes him Bishop and gives him his Authority The Head of the Church not only gives the power of Consecration Dedication and Benediction but may also exercise the Act himself if he please Solomon did it and the Book of Canons says That the King of England has all the Right that any good King of Israel had It might have added that any other King or soveraign Assembly had in their own Dominions I deny That any Pastor or any Assembly of Pastors in any particular Church or all the Churches on earth though united are Infallible Yet I say the Pastors of a Christian Church assembled are in all such points as are necessary to Salvation But about what points are necessary to Salvation he and I differ For I in the 43d chapter of my Leviathan have proved that this Article Jesus is the Christ is the unum necessarium the only Article necessary to Salvation to which his Lordship hath not offered any Objection And he it seems would have necessary to Salvation every Doctrine he himself thought so Doubtless in this Article Jesus is the Christ every Church is infallible for else it were no Church Then he says I overthrow this again by saying that Christian Soveraigns are the Supream Pastors that is Heads of their own Churches That they have their Authority Jure Divino That all other Pastors have it Jure Civili How came any Bishop to have Authority over me but by Letters Patents from the King I remember a Parliament wherein a Bishop who was both a good Preacher and a good Man was blamed for a Book he had a little before Published in maintenance of the Jus Divinum of Bishops a thing which before the Reformation here was never allowed them by the Pope Two Jus Divinums cannot stand together in one Kingdom In the last place he mislikes that the Church should Excommunicate by Authority of the King that is to say by Authority of the Head of the Church But he tells not why He might as well mislike that the Magistrates of the Realm should execute their Offices by the Authority of the Head of the Realm His Lordship was in a great error if he thought such incroachments would add any thing to the Wealth Dignity Reverence or Continuance of his Order They are Pastors of Pastors but yet they are the Sheep of him that is on earth their soveraign Pastor and he again a Sheep of that supream Pastor which is in Heaven And if they did their pastoral Office both by Life and Doctrine as they ought to do there could never arise any dangerous Rebellion in the Land But if the people see once any ambition in their Teachers they will sooner learn that than any other Doctrine and from Ambition proceeds Rebellion J. D. It may be some of T. H. his Disciples desire to know what hopes of Heavenly joyes they have upon their Masters Principles They may hear them without any great contentment There is no mention in Scripture nor ground in reason of the Coelum Empyraeum that is the Heaven of the Blessed where the Saints shall live eternally with God And again I have not found any Text that can probably be drawn to prove any Ascention of the Saints into Heaven that is to say into any Coelum Empyraeum But he concludeth positively that Salvation shall be upon earth when God shall Raign at the coming of Christ in Jerusalem And again In short the Kingdom of God is a civil Kingdom c. called also the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of Glory All the Hobbians can hope for is to be restored to the same condition which Adam was in before his fall So saith T.H. himself From whence may be inferred that the Elect after the Resurrection shall be restored to the estate wherein Adam was before he had sinned As for the beatifical vision he defineth it to be a word unintelligible T.H. This Coelum Empyraeum for which he pretendeth so much zeal where is it in the Scripture where in the Book of Common Prayer where in the Canons where in the Homilies of the Church of England or in any part of our Religion What has a Christian to
present time I am forced to in my defence not against the Church but against the accusations and arguments oâ— my Adversaries For the Church though it excommunicates for scandalous life and for teaching false Doctrines yet it professeth to impose nothing to be held as Faith but what may be warranted by Scripture and this the Church it self saith in thâ— 20th of the 39 Articles of Religion Anâ— therefore I am permitted to alledge Scrâ—pture at any time in the defence of my Belief J. D. But they that in one case are grieved in another must be relieved If perchance T. H. hath given his Disciples any discontent in his Doctrine of Heaven and the holy Angels and the glorified Souls of the Saints he will make them amends in his Doctrine of Hell and the Devils and the damned Spirits First of the Devils He fancieth that all those Devils which our Saviour did cast out were Phrensies and all Demoniacks or Persons possessed no other than Mad-men And to justifie our Saviour's speaking to a Disease as to a Person produceth the example of inchanters But he declareth himself most clearly upon this Subject in his Animadversions upon my reply to his defence of fatal destiny There are in the Scripture two sorts of things which are in English translated Devils One is that which is called Satan Diabolus Abaddon which signifieth in English an Enemy an Accuser and a destroyer of the Church of God in which sence the Devils are but wicked men The other sort of Devils are called in the Scripture Daemonia which are the feigned Gods of the Heathen and are neither Bodies nor spiritual Substances but meer fancies and fictions of terrified hearts feigned by the Greeks and other Heathen People which St. Paul calleth Nothings So T.H. hath killed the great infernal Devil and all his black Angels and left no Devils to be feared but Devils Incarnate that is wicked men T. H. As for the first words cited Levi. page 38 39. I refer the Reader to the place it self and for the words concerning Satan I leave them to the judgment of the Learned J. D. And for Hell he describeth the Kingdom of Satan or the Kingdom of darkness to be a confederacy of deceivers He telleth us that the places which set forth the torments of Hell in holy Scripture do design Metaphorically a grief and discontent of mind from the sight of that eternal felicity in others which they themselves through their own incredulity and disobedience have lost As if Metaphorical descriptions did not bear sad truths in them as well as literal as if final desperation were no more than a little fit of grief or discontent and a guilty conscience were no more than a transitory passion as if it were a loss so easily to be born to be deprived for evermore of the beatifical Vision and lastly as if the Damned besides that unspeakable loss did not likewise suffer actual Torments proportionable in some measure to their own sins and Gods Justice T. H. That Metaphors bear sad truths in them I deny not It is a sad thing to lose this present life untimely Is it not therefore much more a sad thing to lose an eternal happy Life And I believe that he which will venture upon sin with such danger will not stick to do the same notwithstanding the Doctrine of eternal torture Is it not also a sad truth that the Kingdom of darkness should be a Confederacy of deceivers J. D. Lastly for the damned Spirits he declareth himself every where that their sufferings are not eternal The Fire shall be unquenchable and the Torments everlasting but it cannot be thence inferred that he who shall be cast into that Fire or be tormented with those Torments shall endure and resist them so as to be eternally burnt and tortured and yet never be destroyed nor dye And though there be many places that affirm everlasting fire into which men may be cast successivily one after another for ever yet I find none that affirm that there shall be an everlasting life therein of any individual Person If he had said and said only that the pains of the Damned may be lessened as to the degree of them or that they endure not for ever but that after they are purged by long torments from their dross and Corruptions as Gold in the fire both the damned Spirits and the Devils themselves should be restored to a better condition he might have found some Ancients who are therefore called the merciful Doctors to have joyned with him though still he should have wanted the suffrage of the Catholick Church T. H. Why does not his Lordship cite some place of Scripture here to prove that all the Reprobates which are dead live eternally in torment We read indeed That everlasting Torments were prepared for the Devil and his Angels whose natures also are everlasting and that the Beast and the false Prophet shall be tormented everlastingly but not that every Reprobate shall be so They shall indeed be cast into the same fire but the Scripture says plainly enough that they shall be both Body and Soul destroyed there If I had said that the Devils themselves should be restored to a better condition his Lordship would have been so kind as to have put me into the number of the Merciful Doctors Truly if I had had any Warrant for the possibility of their being less enemies to the Church of God than they have been I would have been as merciful to them as any Doctor of them all As it is I am more merciful than the Bishop J. D. But his shooting is not at rovers but altogether at randome without either President or Partner All that eternal sire all those torments which he acknowledgeth is but this That after the Resurrection the Reprobate shall be in the estate that Adam and his Posterity were in after the sin committed saving that God promised a Redeemer to Adam and not to them Adding that they shall live as they did formerly Marry and give in Marriage and consequently engender Children perpetually after the Resurrection as they did before which he calleth an immortallity of the kind but not of the persons of men It is to be presumed that in those their second lives knowing certainly from T. H. that there is no hope of Redemption for them from corporal death upon their well-doing nor fear of any Torments after death for their ill-doing they will pass their times here as pleasantly as they can This is all the Damnation which T. H. fancieth T. H. This he has urged once before and I answered to it That the whole Paragraph was to prove that for any Text of Scripture to the contrary men might after the Resurrection live as Adam did on earth and that notwithstanding the Text of St. Luke chap. 20. verse 34 35 36. Marry and propagate But that they shall do so is no assertion of mine His Lordship knew I held that after the Resurrection there
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
serve their turns I said not that this was their meaning but that I thought it was so For no man living can tell what a School man means by his words Therefore I expounded them according to their true signification Merit ex condigno is when a thing is deserved by Pact as when I say the Labourer is worthy of his hire I mean meritum ex condigno But when a man of his own grace throweth Money among the people with an intention that what part soever of it any of them could catch he that catcheth merits it not by Pact nor by precedent Merit as a Labourer but because it was congruent to the purpose of him that cast it amongst them In all other meaning these words are but Jargon which his Lordship had learnt by rote Also passive obedience signifies nothing except it may be called passive obedience when a man refraineth himself from doing what the Law hath forbidden For in his Lordship's sense the Thief that is hang'd for stealing hath fulfilled the Law which I think is absurd J. D. His whole works are a heap of mishapen Errors and absurd Paradoxes vented with the confidence of a Jugler the brags of a Mountebank and the Authority of some Pythagoras or third Cato lately dropped down from Heaven Thus we have seen how the Hobbian Principles do destroy the Existence the Simplicity the Ubiquity the Eternity and Infiniteness of God the Doctrine of the blessed Trinity the Hypostatical Union the Kingly Sacerdotal and Prophetical Office of Christ the Being and Operation of the Holy Ghost Heaven Hell Angels Devils the Immortality of the Soul the Catholick and all National Churches the holy Scriptures holy Orders the holy Sacraments the whole frame of Religion and the Worship of God the Laws of Nature the reality of Goodness Justice Piety Honesty Conscience and all that is Sacred If his Disciples have such an implicite Faith that they can digest all these things they may feed with Ostriches T. H. He here concludes his first Chapter with bitter Reproaches to leave in his Reader as he thought a sting supposing perhaps that he will Read nothing but the beginning and end of his Book as is the custom of many men But to make him lose that petty piece of cunning I must desire of the Reader one of these two things Either that he would read with it the places of my Leviathan which he cites and see not only how he answers my arguments but also what the arguments are which he produceth against them or else that he would forbear to condemn me so much as in his thought for otherwise he is unjust The name of Bishop is of great Authority but these words are not the words of a Bishop but of a passionate School-man too fierce and unseemly in any man whatsoever Besides they are untrue Who that knows me will say I have the confidence of a Jugler or that I use to brag of any thing much less that I play the Mountebank What my works are he was no fit Judge But now he has provoked me I will say thus much of them that neither he if he had lived could nor I if I would can extinguish the light which is set up in the World by the greatest part of them and for these Doctrines which he impugneth I have few opposers but such whose Profit or whose Fame in Learning is concerned in them He accuses me first of destroying the Existence of God that is to say he would make the World believe I were an Atheist But upon what ground Because I say that God is a Spirit but Corporeal But to say that is allowed me by St. Paul that says There is a Spiritual Body and there is an Animal Body 1 Cor. 15. He that holds that there is a God and that God is really somewhat for Body is doubtlesly a real Substance is as far from being an Atheist as is possible to be But he that says God is an Incorporeal Substance no man can be sure whether he be an Atheist or not For no man living can tell whether there be any Substance at all that is not also Corporeal For neither the word Incorporeal nor Immaterial nor any word equivalent to it is to be found in Scripture or in Reason But on the contrary that the Godhead dwelleth bodily in Christ is found in Colos 2.9 and Tertullian maintains that God is either a Corporeal Substance or Nothing Nor was he ever condemned for it by the Church For why Not only Tertullian but all the learned call Body not only that which one can see but also whatsoever has magnitude or that is somewhere for they had greater reverence for the Divine Substance than that they durst think it had no Magnitude or was no where But they that hold God to be a Phantasm as did the Exorcists in the Church of Rome that is such a thing as were at that time thought to be the Sprights that were said to walk in Church-yards and to be the Souls of men buried they do absolutely make God to be nothing at all But how Were they Atheists No. For though by ignorance of the consequence they said that which was equivolent to Atheism yet in their hearts they thought God a Substance and would also if they had known what Substance and what Corporeal meant have said he was a Corporeal Substance So that this Atheism by consequence is a very easie thing to be fallen into even by the most Godly men of the Church He also that says that God is wholly here and wholly there and wholly every where destroys by consequence the Unity of God and the Infiniteness of God and the Simplicity of God And this the Schoolmen do and are therefore Atheists by consequence and yet they do not all say in their hearts that there is no God So also his Lordship by exempting the Will of man from being subject to the necessity of God's Will or Decree denies by consequence the Divine Praescience which also will amount to Atheism by consequence But out of this that God is a Spirit corporeal and infinitely pure there can no unworthy or dishonourable consequence be drawn Thus far to his Lordship's first Chapter in Justification of my Leviathan as to matter of Religion and especially to wipe off that unjust slander cast upon me by the Bishop of Derry As for the second Chapter which concerns my Civil Doctrines since my errors there if there be any will not tend very much to my disgrace I will not take the pains to answer it Whereas his Lordship has talked in his discourse here and there ignorantly of Heresie and some others have not doubted to say publickly that there be many Heresies in my Leviathan I will add hereunto for a general answer an Historical relation concerning the word Heresie from the first use of it amongst the Graecians till this present time FINIS AN Historical Narration CONCERNING HERESIE AND THE Punishment thereof BY