But he who calleth him perfection it self acknowledgeth that all the perfection of the Creatures is by participation of his infinite perfection Such errours as these formerly recited do deserve another manner of refutation and when he is in his lucide intervalles he himself acknowledgeth what I say to be true That God is incomprehensible and immaterial And he himself proveth so much from this very attribute of God that he is infinite Ci. c. 15. s. 14. Figure is not attributed to God for every figure is finite Neither can he be comprehended by us for whatsoever we conceive is finite nor hath he parts which are attributed only to finite things nor is be more than one there can be but one infinite Whereas I called hell the true Tophet he telleth us gravely That Tophet was a place not far from the walls of Hierusalem and consequently on the earth Adding after his boasting manner That he cannot imagine what I will say to this in my answer to his Leviathan unlesse I say that by the true Tophet in this place is meant a not true Tophet Whosoever answereth his Leviathan will be more troubled with his extravagancies than with his arguments Doth he not know that almost all things happened to them as figures There may be a true mystical Tophet as well as a literal And there is a true mystical Gehenna or Vally of Hinnon as well as a literal He that should say that Christ is the true Paschal Lamb or the Church the true Hierusalem or John Baptist the true Elias may well justifie it without saying That by the true Paschal Lamb is meant no true Paschal Lamb or by the true Hierusalem no true Hierusalem or by the true Elias no true Elias VVhat poor stuff is this And so he concludeth his Animadversion with a rapping Paradox indeed True religion consisteth in obedience to Christs Lieutenants and in giving God such honour both in Attributes and actions as they in their several Lieutenancies shall ordain That Soveraign Princes are Gods Lieutenants upon earth no man doubteth but how come they to be Christs Lieutenants with him who teacheth expressely that the kingdom of Christ is not to begin till the general Resurrection His errours come so thick that it is difficult to take notice of them all yet if he had resolved to maintain his Paradox it had been ingenuously done to take notice of my reasons against it in this place First what if the Soveraign Magistrate shall be no Christian himself Is an Heathen or Mahumetan Prince the Lieutenant of Christ or a fit infallible Judge of the controversies of Christian Religion Are all his Christian subjects obliged to sacrifice to idols or blaspheme Christ upon his command Certainly he giveth the same latitude of power and right to Heathen and Mahumetan Princes that he doth to Christian. There is the same submition to both I authorise and give up my right of governing my self to this man whom he maketh to be a mortal God To him alone he ascribeth the right to allow and disallow of all doctrines all formes of worship all miracles all revelations And most plainly in the 42. and 43. Chapters of his Leviathan where he teacheth obedience to infidel Princes in all things even to the denial of Christ to be necessary by the Law of God and nature My second reason in this place was this What if the Magistrate shall command contrary to the Law of God must we obey him rather than God He confesseth That Christ ought to be obeyed rather than his Lieutenant upon earth This is a plain concession rather than an answer But he further addeth That the question is not who is to be obeyed but what be his commands Most vainly For if true Religion do consist in obedience to the commands of the Soveraign Prince then to be truly religiouâ—… it is not needful to inquire further than what he commandeth Frustra fit per plura quod fierâ—… potest per pauciora Either he must make the Soveraign Prince to be infallible in all his commands concerning Religion which we see by experience to be false and he himself confesseth that they may command their subjects to deny Christ or else the authority of the Soveraign Prince doth justifie to his subjects whatsoever he commands and then they may obey Christs Lieutenant as safely without danger of punishment as himself My third reason was this If true Religion do consist in obedience to the commands of the Soveraign Prince then the Soveraigne Prince is the ground and pillar of truth not the Church But the Church is the ground and pillar of truth not the Soveraign Prince These things write I unto thee c. that thou mayest know how thou oughest to behave thy self in the house of God which is the Church of the living God the power and ground of truth What the Church signifieth in this place may be demonstratively collected both from the words themselves wherein he calleth it the house of God which appellation cannot be applied to a single Soveraign much lesse to a Heathen Prince as their Soveraign then was And likewise by the things written which were directions for the ordering of Ecclesiastical persons The last Argument used by me in this place was ad hominem Why then is T. H. of a different mind from his Soveraign and from the laws of the Land concerning the Attributes of God and the religious worship which is to be given to him The Canons and Constitutions and Articles of the Church of England and their Discipline and form of Divine Worship were all confirmed by Royal authority And yet Mr. Hobbes made no scruple to assume to himself that which he denieth to all other subjects the knowledge of good and evil or of true and false religion And a judgement of what is consonant to the Law of Nature and Scripture different from the commands of his Soveraign and the judgement of all his fellow Subjects as appeareth by his book De cive printed in the year 1642. Neither can he pretend that he was then a local Subject to another Prince for he differed more from him in Religion than from his own natural Soveraign This Paradox hath been confuted before and some of those grosse absurdities which flow from it represented to the Reader to all which he may adde these folowing reasons First true Religion cannot consist in any thing which is sinful But obedience to Soveraign Princes may be sinful This is proved by the example of Jeroboam who established idolatry in his kingdom And the Text saith this thing became a sin It may be he will say this idolatrous worship was a sin in Jeroboam not in the people who obeyed him But the Text taketh away this evasion branding him ordinarily with this mark of infamy Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin Secondly true Religion cannot consist in obedience to contradictory commands But the commands of
his pupill or do him injustice There is onely this difference that a pupill may implead his Guardian and recover his right against him But from a Soveraign Law-giver there lies no appeal but onely to God Otherwise there would be endlesse appeales which both nature and pollicy doth abhor As in the instance of the Roman Arbitrament formerly mentioned An arbitrary power is the highest of all powers Judges must proceed according to law Arbitrators are tied to no law but their own reason and their own consciences Yet all the world will say that the Romans dealt fraudulently and unjustly with the two parties Lastly the holy Scriptures do every where brand wicked Laws as infamous As the Statutes of Omrâ—… and the Statutes of Israel and stileth them expressely unjust laws or unrighteous decrees He asketh to whom the Bible is a law The Bible is not a law but the positive laws of God are contained in the Bible Doth he think the Law of God is no Law without his suffrage He might have been one of Tiberius his Council when it was proposed to the Senate Whether they should admit Christ to be a God or not He saith I know that it is not a law to all the World Not de facto indeed How should it when the World is so full of Atheists that make no more account of their soules than of so many handfuls of salt to keep their bodies from stinking But de jure by right it is a Law and ought to be a Law to all the World The Heathens and particularly the Stoicks themselves did speak with much more reverence of the holy Books of which to suspect a falsehood they held to be an heinous and detestable crime And the first argument for necessity they produced from the authority of those Books because they said that God did know all things and dispose all things He asketh How the Bible came to be a Law to us Did God speake it viva voce to us have we seen the miracles have we any other assurance then the words of the Prophets and the authority of the Church And so it concludeth that it is the Legislative power of the Common-wealth wheresoever it is placed which makes the Bible a Law in England If a man digged a pit and covered it not again so that an oxe or an asse fell into it he was obbliged by the Mosaical Law to make satisfaction for the dammage I know not whether he do this on purpose to weaken the authority of holy Scripture or not Let God and his own conscience be his Triers But I am sure he hath digged a pit for an oxe or an asse without covering it again and if they chance to stumble blindfold into it their blood will be required at his hands If a Turke had said so much of the Alchoran at Constantinople he were in some danger If it were within the compasse of the present controversie I should esteem it no difficult task to demonstrate perspicuously that the holy Scriptures can be no other then the word of God himself by their antiquity by their harmony by their efficacy by the sanctity and sublimity of their matter such as could not have entered into the thoughts of man without the inspiration of the Holy Ghost By the plainnesse of their stile so full of Majesty by the light of prophetical predictions by the testimony of the blessed Martyrs by a multitude of miracles by the simplicity of the Penmen and Promulgers poor fishermen and shepherds who did draw the World after their oaten reeds and lastly by the judgements of God that have fallen upon such Tyrants and others as have gone about to suppr esse or profane the Sacred Oracles But this is one of those things de quibus nefas est dubitare which he that calleth into question deserveth to be answered otherwise than with arguments But that which is sufficient to confute him is the law of nature which is the same in a great part with the positive Law of God recorded in holy Scriptures All the ten Commandments in respect of their substanrials are acknowledged by all men to be branches of the law of nature I hope he will not say that these laws of nature were made by our Suffrages though he be as likely to say such an absurdity as any man living For he saith the law of nature is the assent it self which all men give to the means of their preservation Every law is a rule of our actions a meer assent is no rule A law commandeth or forbiddeth an assent doth neither But to shew him his vanity Since he delighteth so much in distinctions let him satisfie himself out of the distinction of the law of nature The law of nature is the prescription of right reason whereby thorough that light which nature hath placed in us we know some things to be done because they are honest and other things to be shunned because they are dishonest He had forgotten what he had twice cited and approved out of Cicero concerning the law of nature which Philo calls The law that cannot lie not moral made by mortals not without life or written in paper or columnes without life but that which can not be corrupted written by the immortal God in our understandings Secondly if this which he saith did deserve any consideration it was before the Bible was admitted or assented unto or received as the word of God But the Bible hath been assented unto and received in England sixteen hundred years A fair prescription and in all that time I do not find any law to authorize it or to under-prop heaven from falling with a bullrush This is undeniable that for so many successive ages we have received it as the law of God himself not depending upon our assents or the authority of our Law-makers Thirdly we have not onely a nationall tradition of our own Church for the divine authority of holy Scripture but which is of much more moment we have the perpetuall constant universall tradition of the Catholick Church of Christ ever since Christ himself did tread upon the face of the earth This is so clear a proof of the universall reception of the Bible for the genuine Word of God that there cannot justly be any more doubt made of it than whether there ever was a William the Conquerer or not But this is his opinion That true religion in every Country is that which the Soveraign Magistrate doth admit and injoyne I could wish his deceived followers would think upon what rock he drives them For if this opinion be true then that which is true religion to day may be false religion tomorrow and change as often as the chief Governour or Governours change their opinions Then that which is true religion in one Country is false religion in another Country because the Governours are of different opinions then all the religions of the World Christian Jewish Turkish Heathenish are true religions in
their own Countries and if the Governour will allow no religion then Atheisme is the true religion Then the blessed Apostles were very unwise to suffer for their conscience because they would obey God rather than man Then the blessed Martyrs were ill advised to suffer such torments for a false religion which was not warranted or indeed which was for bidden by the Soveraign Magistrates And so I have heard from a Gentleman of quality well deserving credit that Mr. Hobbes and he talking of self-preservation he pressed Mr. Hobbes with this argument drawn from holy Martyrs To which Mr. Hobbes gave answer They were all fools This bolt was soon shot but the primitive Church had a more venerable esteem of the holy Martyrs whose sufferings they called palms their Prison a Paradise and their death-day their birth-day of their glory to whose memory they builded Churches and instituted festivalls whose monuments God himself did honour with frequent miracles He asketh why the Bible should not be canonicall in Constantinople as well as in other places if it were not as he saith His question is Apocryphall and deserveth no other answer but another question Why a ship being placed in a stream is more apt to fall down the stream than to ascend up against the stream It is no marvel if the World be apt to follow a sensuall religion which is agreeable to their own appetites But that any should embrace a religion which surpasseth their own understandings and teacheth them to deny themselves and to saile against the stream of their own natural corruptions this is the meer goodnesse of God He saith That a Conquerour makes no laws over the conquered by virtue of his power and conquest but by virtue of their assent Most vainly urged like all the rest Unjust Conquerours gain no right but just Conquerours gain all right Omnia dat qui justa negat Just conquerors do not use to ask the assent of those whom they have conquered in lawfull war but to command obedience See but what a pretâ—…y liberty he hath found out for conquered persons They may chuse whether they will obey or dye Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem What is this to the purpose to prove that Conquerours make laws by the assent of those whom they have conquered nothing at all And yet even thus much is not true upon his principle Conquered Persons are not free to live or die indifferently according to his principles but they are necessitated either to the one or the other to live slaves or dye captives He hath found out a much like assent of children to the laws of their Ancestors without which he would make us believe that the laws do not bind When a child cometh to strength enough to do mischief and to judgement that they are preserved from mischief by fear of the sword that doth protect them in the very act of receiving protection and not renouncing it they obliege themselves to the laws of their protectours And here he inserteth further some of his peculiar errours as this That Parents who are not subject to others may lawfully take away the lives of their children and Magistrates take away the lives of their Subjects without any fault or crime if they do but doubt of their obedience Here is comfortable doctrine for children that their parents may knock out their brains lawfully And for Subjects that their Soveraigns may lawfully hang them up or behead them without any offence committed if they do but doubt of their obedience And for Soveraigns that their Subjects are quitted of their allegiance to them so soon as they do but receive actual protection from another And for all men if they do receive protection from a Turk or an heathen or whomsoever they are obliged to his Turkish Heathenish Idolatrous Sacrilegious or impious laws Can such opinions as these live in the World surely no longer â—…han men recover their right wits Demadesâ—…hreatned â—…hreatned Phocion That the Athenians would destroy him when they fall into their mad fits And thee Demades said Phocion when they returne to their right minds He saith That I would have the Iudge to condemn no man for a chrime that is necessitated As if saith he the Iudge could know what acts are neressary unlesse he knew all that had anteceded both visible and invisible If all acts be necessary it is an easie thing for the Judge to know what acts are necessey I say more that no crime can be necessitated for if it be necessitated it is no crime And so much all Judges know firmly or else they are not fit to be Judges Surely he supposeth there are or have been or may be some Stoicall Judges in the World He is mistaken no Stoick wss ever fit to be a Judge either Capitall or Civill And in truth Stoicall principles do overthrow both all Judges and Judgments He denieth that he ever said that all Magistrates at first were elective Perhaps not in so many words but he hath told us again that no law can be unjust because every Subject chuseth his law in chusing his Law-giver If every Law-giver be elective then every Soveraign Magistrate is elective for every Soveraign Magistrate is a Law-giver And he hath justified the laws of the Kings of Egypt of Assyria of Persia upon this ground because they were made by him to whom the people had given the Legislative power He addeth That it appears that I am of opinion that a law may be made to command the will Nothing lesse if he speaks of the law of man My argument was drawn from the lesser to the greater thus If that law be unjust which commands a man to do that which is impossible for him to do then that law is likewise unjust which commands him to will that which is impossible for him to will He seeth I condemne them both but much more the later Yet upon his principles he who commandeth a man to do impossibilities commandeth him to will impossibilities because without willing them he cannot do them My argument is ad hominem and goes upon his own grounds That though the action be necessitated neverthelesse the will to break the law maketh the action unjust And yet he maintaineth that the will is as much or more necessitated than the action because he maketh a man free to do if he will but not free to will If a man ought not to be punished for a necessitated act then neither ought he to be punished for a necessitated will I said truely That a just law justly executed is a cause of justice He inferreth that he hath shewed that all laws are just and all just laws are justly executed And hereupon he concludeth That I confesse that all I reply unto here is true Do I confesse that all laws are just No I have demonstrated the contrary or do I believe that all just laws are justly executed It may be so in Platos Common-wealth or in Sr.
Soveraign Princes are often contradictory one to another One commandeth to worship Christ another forbiddeth it One forbiddeth to offer sacrifice to idols another commandeth it Yea the same person may both forbid idolatry in general and yet authorise it in particular Or forbid it by the publick laws of the Country and yet authorise it by his personal commands Thirdly true Religion is alwayes justified in the sight of God But obedience to the commands of Soveraign Princes is not always justified in the sight of God This is clearly proved out of his own expresse words Whatsoever is commanded by the Soveraign power is as to the Subject though not so alwayes in the sight of God justified by their command VVhence it is evident by his own confession that the wicked commands of Soveraigne Princes are not justified by their Royal authority but are wicked and repugnant to the Law of God And consequently that of the Apostle hath place here Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge ye True Religion hath alwayes reference unto God Fourthly true Religion doth not consist in obedience to any laws whatsoever which are repugnant to the Moral Law of God or to the law of Nature This Proposition is granted by himself The laws of nature are immutable and eternal And all Writers do agree that the law of nature is the same with the moral Law Again Soveraigns are all Subjects to the law of nature because such laws be Divine and cannot by any man or Common-wealth be abrogated And in all things not contrary to the moral Law that is to say to the law of nature all Subjects are bound to obey that of Divine Law which is declared to be so by the laws of the Common-wealth But the commands of a Soveraign Prince may be repugnant not onely to the Moral Law or the law of nature but even to the laws of the Common-wealth This assumption is proved four wayes First by his own confession It is manifest enough that when a man receiveth two contrary commands and knows that one of them is Gods he ought to obey that and not the other If there can be no such contrary commands then it is not manifest nor yet true Secondly this is pâ—…oved by his resolution of two queres The fist is this Whether the City or the Soveraign Prince be to be obeyd if he command directly to do any thâ—…ng to the contumely of God or forbid to worship God To which he answereth directly non esse obediendam that he ought not to be obeyed And he gives this reason Because the subjects before the constitution of the Common-wealth had no right to deny the honour due unto God and therefore could transferre no right to command such things to the common-wealth The like he hath in his Leviathan Actions which do naturally signifie contumely cannot by humane power be made a part of Divine Worship As if the denial of Christ upon a Soveraigns command which he justifieth were not contumelious to Christ or as if subjects before the constitution of the common-wealth had any right themselves to deny Christ. But such palpable contradictions are no novelties with him How doth true Religion consist in obedience to the commands of a Soveraign if his commands may be contumelious to God and deny him that worship which is due unto him by the eternal and immutable law of nature and if he be not to be obeyed in such commands His second question is If a Soveraign Prince should command himself to be worshipped with Divine Worship and Attributes whether he ought to be obeyed To which he answereth That although Kings should command it yet we ought to abstain from such attributes as signifie his independence upon God or inmortality or infinite power or the like And from such actions as do signifie the same As to pray unto him being absent to aske those things of him which none but God can give as rain and fair weather or to offer sacrifice to him Then true Religion may sometimes consist in disobedience to the commands of Soveraign Princes Thirdly that the commands of Soveraign Princes in point of Religion may be contrary to the law of nature which needeth no new promulgation or reception doth appear by all those duties internal and external which by his own confession nature doth injoyn us to perform towards God and all which may be and have been countermanded by Soveraign Princes as to acknowledge the existence of God his unity his infinitenesse his providence his creation of the World his omnipotence his eternity his incomprehensibility his ub quity To worship him and him onely with Divine worship with prayes with thanksgivings with oblations and with all expressions of honour Lastly this is proved by examples Nebuchadnezar commanded to worship a golden image And Darius made a decree that no man should ask any petition of any God or man for thirty dayes save of the King onely Yet the transgression of both these commands of Soveraign Princes was justified by God as true Religion Fiftly Christ will deny no man before his Father for true Religion But those who deny Christ before men to fulfil the commands of an earthly Prince he will deny before his father which is in Heaven And therefore Christ encourageth his Disciples against these dangers which might fall upon them by disobedience to such unlawful commands Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell But Mr. Hobs hath found out an evasion for such Renegadoes Whatsoever a Subject is compelled to in obedience to his Soveraign and doth it not in order to his own mind but in order to the lawes of his country that action is not his but his Soveraigns nor is it he that in this case denieth Christ before men but his Governour and the law of his Country If this Fig-leafe would have served the turn Shedrach Meshach and Abednego needed not to have been cast into the fiery Furnace For though they had worshipped the golden image by this doctrine they had not been idolaters but Nebuchadnezar onely and his Princes If this were true Daniel might have escaped the Lions Den If he had forborne his praises to God Darius had been faulty and not he But these holy Saints were of another minde I hope though he might in his baste and passion censure the blessed Martyrs to be fooles which were so many that there were five thousand for every day in the year except the calends of January when the Heathens were so intent upon their devotions that they neglected the slaughter of the poor Christians yet he will not esteem himself wiser than Daniel Behold thou art wiser than Daniel was an hyperbolical or rather an ironical expression With the heart man believeth unto righteousnesse
What deserved he who should do his uttermost endeavour to poison a common fountain whereof all the commonwealth must drinke He doth the same who poisoneth the mind of a soveraign prince Are the civil lawes the rules of good and bad just and unjust honest and dishonest And what I pray you are the rules of the civil law it self even the law of God and nature If the civil lawes swerve from these more authentick lawes they are Lesbian rules What the law-giver 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 called holy and just and good And whatsoever the great beast disliked they called evill unjust prophane But he is not yet arrived at the height of his flattery Lawfull Kings make those things which they command just by commanding them And those things which they forbid unjust by forbidding them At other times when he is in his right wits he talketh of suffering 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 Bâ—…t 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 be true 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 sense 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 egges 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 goodnesse 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 mans 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 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 expresse clearly We acknowledge that though the laws or commands of a Soveraign Prince be erroneous or unjust or injurius 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 Either they bind Christian subjects to do their Soveraigns 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 alwayes presumed to be in the right But in plain evident cases which admit no doubt it is alwayes better to obey God than man Blunderers whilest they think to mend one imaginary hole make two or three reall ones They who derive the authority of the Scriptures or Gods 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 onely the authority of the Scripture but even of 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 to 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 if one should go about to controle the Sun by the authority of the clock 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 ranknesse of their smell Such are these which follow 1. To be delighted in the imagination onely of being possessed of another mans 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 2. If a man by the terrour 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 command of the Author if he be obliged by former covenants to obey him not he but the Author breaketh the law of nature 3. It is a doctrine repugnant to civil Society that whatsoever a man does against his conscience is sin 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 authorise the same hereticks 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 or tolerate a contrary doctrine to that which themselves believe and think necessary do against their conscience and will as much as in them lieth the eternal destruction of their subjects 9. Subjects sin if they do not worship God according to the laws of the Common-wealth 10. To believe in jesus in Jesum is the same as to believe that Iesus is Christ. 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 12. No man giveth but with intention of good to himself of all voluntary acts the object is to every man his own good Moses St. Paul and the Decii were out of his mind 13. There is no natural knowledge of mans estate after death much lesse of
the reward which is then to be given to breach of faith but onely 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 14. Davids killing of Uriah was no injury to Uriah because the right to do what he pleased was given him by Uriah himself 15. To whom it belongeth to determine controversies which may arise from the divers interpretation of Scripture he hath an imperial power over all men which acknowledge the Scriptures to be the word of God 16. What is theft what is murder what is adultry and universally what is an injury is known by the civil law that is the commands of the Soveraign 17. He admitteth the incestuous copulations of the Heathens according to their heathenish lawes to have been lawful marriages Though the Scripture teach us expressely that for those abominations the land of Canaan spewed out her inhabitants Exod. 18. 28. 18. I say that no other Article of faith besides this that Iesus is Christ is necessary to a Christian man for salvation 19. Because Christs kingdom is not of this world therefore neither can his Ministers unlesse they be Kings require obedience in his name They had no right of commanding no power to make lawes 20. I passe by his errours about oathes about vows about the resurrections about the kingdom of Christ about the power of the keyes 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 His whole works are an heape of mishapen errours and absurd paradoxes vented with the confidence of a Jugler the brags of a Mountebanck 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 infinitenesse of God the doctrine of the blessed Trinity the Hypostatical union the Kingly Sacerdotal and Prophetical Offices 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 Goodnesse 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 Oestriches CHAP. 2. That the Hobbian Principles do destroy all relations between man and man and the whole frame of a Common wealth THe first Harping-iron is thrown at the heart of this great Whale that is his Religion for with the heart a man believeth unto righteousnesse Now let him look to his chine that is his Compage or Common-wealth My next task is to shew that he destroyeth all relations between man and man Prince and subject Parent and child Husband and wife Master and servant and generally all Society It is enough to dash the whole frame of his Leviathan or common-wealth in pieces That he confesseth it is without example as if the molding of a Common-wealth were no more than the making of gun-powder which was not found out by long experience but by meer accident The greatest objection saith T. H. is that of practice when men ask when and where such power has by subjects been acknowledged It is a great objection indeed Experience the Mistrisse of fooles is the best and almost the onely proof of the goodnesse or badnesse of any form of government No man knoweth where a shooe wringeth so well as he that weareth it A new Physitian must have a new Church-yard wherein to bury those whom he killeth And a new unexperienced Polititian commonly putteth all into a combustion Men rise by degrees from common souldiers to be decurions from decurions to be Centurions from Centurions to be Tribunes and from Tribunes to be Generals by experience not by speculation Alexander did but laugh at that Oratour who discoursed to him of Military affairs The Locrian law was well grounded that whosoever moved for any alteration in the tried policy of their Common-wealth should make the proposition at his own perill with an halter about his neck New Statesmen promise golden mountains but like fresh flies they bite deeper than those which were chased away before them It were a strange thing to hear a man discourse of the Philosophers Stone who never bestowed a groatsworth of charcole in the inquiry It is as strange to hear a man dictate so magisterially in Politicks who was never Officer nor Counsellor in his life nor had any opportunity to know the intrigues of any one state If his form of government had had any true worth or weight in it among so many Nations and so many succeeding Generations from the Creation to this day some one or other would have light upon it His Leviathan is but an idol of his own brain Neither is it sufficient to say That in long-lived Common-wealths the subjects never did dispute of the Soveraigns power Power may be moderated where it is not disputed of And even in those kingdomes where it was least disputed of as in Persia they had their fundamental laws which were not alterable at the pleasure of the present Prince Whereof one was as we find in the story of Esther and the book of Daniel that the law of the Medes and Persians altered not much lesse was it alterable by the onely breath of the Princes mouth according to T. H. his Principles He urgeth That though in all places of the World men should lay the foundations of their houses on the sand it could not thence be inferred that so it ought to be He was a ashamed to make the application So suppose all the world should be out of their wits and he onely have his right understanding His supposition is a supposition of an impossibility which maketh an affirmative proposition to turn negative much like this other supposition If the skie fall we shall have larkes that is in plain English We shall have no larkes His argument had held much more strongly thus All the world lay the foundation of their houses upon firm ground and not upon the sand Therefore he who crosseth the practice of the whole world out of an over-weening opinion that he seeth further into a mill-stone than they all is he that builds upon the sand and deserveth well to be laught out of his humour But he persisteth still like one that knows better how to hold a Paradox than a Fort. The skill of making and maintaining Common-wealths consisteth in certain rules as doth Arethmatick and Geometry and not as Tennis-play on practice onely which rules neither poor men had the leisure nor men that have had the leisure have hitherto had the curiosity or the method
He fancieth that God reigneth by pact over Adam and Eve but this pact became presently voide And if it had stood firm what Kingdom of God by nature could have been before it But he reckons his Kingdom of God by pact from Abraham from him the Kingdom of God by pact takes its beginning But in Abrahams time and before his time the World was full of Kings every City had a King was it not better for their subjects to obey God than them yet that was the Kingdom of God by nature or no Kingdom of God at all Sometimes he saith the Laws of nature are Laws whose Laws such of them as oblige all mankind and in respect of God as he is the God of Nature are natural in respct of the same God as he is King of Kings are Laws and right reason is a Law And he defines the Law of nature to be the deictate of right reason Where by the way observe what he makes to be the end of the Laws of nature The long conservation of our lives and members so much as is in our power By this the Reader may see what he believes of honesty or the life to come At other times he saith that they are no laws Those which we call the Laws of nature being nothing else but certain conclusions understood by reason of things to be done or to be left undone And a law if we speak properly and accurately is the speech of him that commandeth something by right to others to be done or not to be done speaking properly they are not laws as they proceed from nature It is true he addeth in the same place That as they are given by God in holy Scripture they are most properly called Laws for the holy Scripture is the voice of God ruling all things by the greatest right But this will not salve the contradiction for so the Laws of nature shall be no Laws to any but those who have read the Scripture contrary to the sense of all the World And even in this he contradicteth himself also The Bible is a Law to whom to all the World he knoweth it is not How came it then to be a Law to us Did God speak it viva voce to us Have we any other warrant for it than the word of the Prophots Have we seen the miraoles Have we any other assurance of their certainty than the authority of the Church And so he concludeth That the authority of the Church is the authority of the Common-wealth the authority of the Common-wealth the authority of the Soveraign and his authority was given him by us And so the Bible was made Law by the assent of the Subjects And the Bible is their only Law where the civil Soveraign hath made it so Thus in seeking to prove one contradiction we have met with two He teacheth that the Laws of nature are eternal and immutable that which they forbid can never be lawful that which they command never unlawful At other times he teacheth that in war and especially in a war of ast men against all men the Laws of nature are silent And that they do not oblige as Laws before there be a Common-wealth constituted When a Common-wevlth is once setled then are they actually Laws and not before He saith true religion consisteth in obedience to Christs Lieutenants and in giving God such honour both in attributes and actions as they in their severall Lieutenancies shall ordein Which Lieutenant upon earth is the supreme civill magistrate And yet contrary to this he excepteth from the obedience due to soveraign Princes all things that are contrary to the lawes of God who ruleth over rulers Adding that we cannot rightly transfer the obedience due to him upon men And more plainly If a soveraign shall command himself to be worshipped with divine attributes and actions as such as imply an independance upon God or immortality or infinite power to pray unto them being absent or to ask those things of them which only God can give to offer sacrifice or the like Although Kings command us we must ab stein He conefesseth that the subjects of Abraham had sinned if they had denied the existence or providence of God or done any thing that was expressely against the honour of God in obedience to his commands And actions that are naturally signes of contumely cannot be made by humane power a part of divine worship cannot be parts of divine worship and yet religion may consist in such worship is a contradiction He confesseth That if the Common-wealth should command a Subject to say or do something that is contumelious unto God or should forbid him to worship God he ought not to obey And yet maintaineth that a Christian holding firmly the faith of Christ in his heart if he be commanded by his lawful Soveraign may deny Christ with his tongue alledging That profession with the tongue is but an external thing And that it is not he in that case who denieth Christ before men but his Governour and the law of his Country Hath he so soon forgot himself Is not the denial of Christ contumelious to God He affirmeth that if a Soveraign shall grant to a Subject any liberty inconsistent with Soveraign power if the Subject refuse to obey the Soveraigns command being contrary to the liberty granted it is a sin and contrary to his duty for he ought to take notice of what is inconsistent with Soveraignty c. And that such liberty was granted through ignorance of the evil consequence thereof Then a Subject may judge not only what is fit for his own preservation but also what are the essentiall rights of Soveraignty which is contrary to his doctrine elsewhere It belongs to Kings to discern what is good and evil and private men who take to themselves the knowledge of good and evil do covet to be as Kings which consisteth not with the safety of the Common-wealth which he calleth a seditious doctrine and one of the diseases of a Common-wealth Yet such is his forgetfulnesse that he himself licenseth his own book for the Presse and to be taught in the Universities as conteining nothing contrary to the word of God or good manners or to the disturbance of publick tranquility Is not this to take to himself the knowledge of good and evil In one place he saith that the just power of Soveraigns is absolute and to be limited by the strength of the Common-wealth and nothing else In other places he saith his power is to be limitted by the Laws of God and nature As there is that in Heaven though not on earth which he should stand in fear of and whose Laws he ought to obey And though it be not determined in Scripture what Laws every King shall constitute in his dominions yet it is determined what Law he shall not constitute And it is true