possible that a Being more excellent should understand things in another manner than one that is less excellent 'T is rational to suppose it may Besides the Scriptures expresly ascribe knowledge to God as amongst the rest Amos 3. v. 2. Gal. 4. v. 9. expresly mention God's knowledge And to deny God's knowledge is to deny God that is a Being infinitely wise So that I may truly if not improperly changing the Text of Scripture say that Mr. Hobbes acknowledgeth a God but in words denies him And in the next page to prevent being confused in this matter Mr. Hobbes saith 'T is a dishonour to God to dispute about his Attributes Certainly then Mr. Hobbes is guilty of a greater dishonour to God to deny his Attributes And in p. 192. Mr. Hobbes saith That only those Attributes of God are to be allowed in public worship which the Soveraign ordaineth So now 't is uncertain whether he will allow him any Attributes of perfection in public worship or no for in case the Soveraign prove as bad or worse than Iulian and command Injustice or Ignorance to be those Attributes that are only to be allowed or used for signs of honour as he saith Attributes are no other must be used And now he hath made the honour of God wholly to depend on the will of Man that is the Soveraign yet in this Mr. Hobbes grows a little better for here though before he had denied God his Attributes he gives the Soveraign power to restore God's Attributes to him again But what nonsence is this that a Soveraign that is a Man upon Earth and God Almighty his creature should be said to have power to dispose of God's Attributes who is the commander of all the World This is against the nature of Powers dispoâ—al for he disposeth only that hath the supream Power of disposing And the sence of this is the like Divinity of this as well as of that which follows and that is Mr. Hobbes his interpretation of the Text of Scripture viz. 'T is better to obey God than Man which he saith hath only place in the Kingdom of God by pact and not by Nature That is to say as I suppose that am a little acquainted with his language when a people have made an express covenant with God to obey him as the Israelites did by Moses they ought rather to obey God than Man but all other people over which God hath only a natural Kingdom that have made no particular covenant as none can now a days as Mr. Hobbes said before with God ought to obey Man rather than God So now we may lawfully be Papists Turks Iews Infidels or any thing that Man commands us and this place opens Mr. Hobbes to the life in what I have spoken to before about this matter and so I shall say no more of it in this place Mr. Hobbes p. 195. coming to handle the Nature and Rights of a Christian Commonwealth calls our natural Reason the undoubted Word of God So I thank him that something he allows to be the undoubted Word of God and that God hath not wholly left us without his Word to direct us though Mr. Hobbes would not allow us the Scriptures to be so without Man's approbation But I think Mr. Hobbes had done much better if in this place he had set up the Light within us and thereby turned Quaker to be the undoubted Word of God for then he would have had George Fox of his side Or if he had said our sences had been the undoubted Word of God I should sooner have believed him for that all mankind as we see daily is less apt to err in matters of sence than matters of Reason And according to what Mr. Hobbes saith If a Man's natural Reason tell him that the World is eternal à parte ante and parte post 't is the undoubted Word of God and accordingly to be believed for I suppose Mr. Hobbes will grant that God is to be believed I not remembring that ever Mr. Hobbes hath denied God his Truth though he hath denied him Understanding and Knowledge And by the same argument if the Israelites natural Reason had told them that the Calf brought them out of the Land of Egypt it was to have been believed even by Moses and Aaron And if a Man 's natural Reason should tell him that for gain he might cut his Neighbours throat we ought to believe it for that the Word of God is in every place and part of it to be believed But suppose a Man's natural Reason should tell him that Mr. Hobbes his Leviathan is a Book not only full of Blasphemy but Nonsence and particularly in this Paragraph where he goes with a great deal of other unintelligible matter from calling Reason the Word of God to say Reason is to be made use of in acquiring of peace c. and saying When in Reason there is any thing contrary to God's Word the fault is either in ill interpretation or erroneous ratiocination which makes all he said signifie nothing would Mr. Hobbes admit that this Man's Reason was the Word of God No I believe he would say That there was a fault in this Man's ratiocination as I am sure there is in Mr. Hobbes's in the next page where he saith That God may speak to a Man by Dreams Visions or Inspiration but no other Man is bound to believe it which taken as an universal proposition makes an end of all belief in the Scriptures But of this I have spoken before and referred matters of this nature as well as the knowledge of a true Miracle or Prophet to the Learned Origines Sacrae which I hope any rational or good Man will rather read and regard upon that subject than Mr. Hobbes his Leviathan So little consistent with it self or intelligible by any rational Man besides the Errors and foolish Interpretations of Scripture and particularly of Deut. 13. v. 5. which saith That a dreamer or a Prophet that seeks to make Men revolt from God shall be put to death Mr. Hobbes saith That that place is equivalent to revolt from the King And also his interpretation of the 1. of Gal. 1 8. where Paul saith That he that preacheth any other Gospel let him be accursed that is saith Mr. Hobbes that Christ is King and hence he infers That all preaching against the Power of the King is accursed which let it be as true as it will in it self is such an unreasonable inference that 't is not capable to be more exposed But now I think upon it 't is probable Mr. Hobbes look'd into Scripture to find a Text which may maintain that they were accursed in 1651. that Preached revolting from Oliver's Army or that the said Army who had the Power and consequently was Mr. Hobbes his King which he attended to determin matters of Religion could not settle any thing for Scripture or Religion it pleased or that Preached that any thing ought not to be
not Flesh and Bones as ye see me have And if not Flesh and Bones of what must a Spirit consist that is corporeal I hope Mr. Hobbes will not say that 't is made like his deciding Sword of Iron and Steel But the apprehension that we can have of a Spirit is that it is something that is no object of our Senses and so not Mathematically descriptable but an object of our Understandings which apprehend that a good Spirit is wise and knowing and that an evil Spirit is subtle and cunning But what shall we say then of Mr. Hobbes his Spirit that is his Soul which is neither wise subtle nor cunning To this I shall only say that I think 't is no Body by reason it hath actuated every part of his Body and been in the same for near 80 Years together which it could not have been had it been Body for this would be to make several Bodies in one place at the same time which Mr. Hobbes disallows of So then the Soul of Man must be something that is not Body that is as we call it Spirit or Spiritual substance created by God in Man as Life was breathed into Adam and all other living creatures But Mr. Hobbes after his Philosophical discourse concerning the corporeousness of a Spirit cites Texts of Scripture to shew what the meaning of Spirit is there His first is Gen. 1. 2. where 't is said That the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the Waters This he saith is meant a wind wrought by God because motion is attributed to it and consequently place and nothing can be moved that changeth not place or hath not dimension and whatsoever hath dimension is Body Admirable Philosophy For mark the Argument motion and place belong to Bodies therefore nothing but a Body can have motion or place Suppose a Man should reply upon Mr. Hâ—bbes and say Ears belong to an Ass therefore nothing but an Ass can have Ears what a trouble would this be to Mr. Hobbes to be made an Ass by his own Argument which supposeth all things to be the same to which any one circumstance or qualification equally belongeth But fully to answer Mr. Hobbes motion in this place of Scripture is intended as I think of the special and extraordinary operation of God's Spirit though some Interpreters take it I confess to be a wind impulsed by God's Spirit like Gen. 8.1 upon the Waters and not to denote God's moving from place to place as Bodies do for in that sence neither motion nor place can be attributed to God who is every where but in no place either circumscriptively or definitively as Bodies are But it follows not therefore that God by his Spirit cannot extraordinarily act in one place more than another without becoming a Body as he did in the creation upon the Waters And 't is not sence to say that of necessity dimension mâ—st belong to that which hath motion or place because that Bodies that have motion and place have dimension for 't is to make a general conclusion of the Being of a thing from a particular qualification and that would be to make Men Beasts and Beasts Men as I hinted before But I confess that the word Spirit in Scripture and common discourse hath various significations as Mr. Hobbes hath plentifully discoursed but what that makes to the impossibility of a substance being incorporeal I know not neither do I think it conceptible And I cannot agree with Mr. Hobbes in his several quotations of Scripture that mention our Savour who was indowed with God's Spirit and 't is abominable to question it and several eminent Persons as Gideon c. to be indowed with God's Spirit that those places as he saith only mean that our Saviour and others had special virtues for such purposes but that God had not inspired his Spirit into them to inable them to perform such and such things as when he cites the 6. of Iudges v. 34. which saith that the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon that is saith Mr. Hobbes Gideon had courage to defend God's people And this let me add that if it was barely courage in Gideon it was the strangest courage that I ever read of except that of Ionathan to attack so great an host as that of Midian was with only 300 Men and the arms of them nothing but Trumpets Lamps and Pitchers But if this Interpretation of Mr. Hobbes was true Oliver Cromwel or any other valiant Man might be said to have God's Spirit as well as Gideon although we do not find that so much as any of David's Worthies in the repetition of their great acts are said to have it when we cannot suppose but that they had as much courage as Gideon and upon that account might as easily have been said to have God's Spirit if by God's Spirit in such Men is only meant courage What folly then is it for Mr. Hobbes to affirm this having no warrant for it but his own fancy To which he hath given so great a latitude as in this Chapter most damnably and prophanely to make nothing of the blessed Spirit of God but a Ghost as p. 209. which in other places he makes the companion of Goblins both which he takes to be as indeed they are the imaginations of distempered brains such as Mr. Hobbes his was when he wrote this interpretation of places of Scripture of this kind when in p. 58. he saith That the Scriptures mean by the Spirit of God in Man a Man's Spirit inclined to godliness and here he saith they mean the particular virtues Men are indowed with for such purposes and whether this be not the next thing to a contradiction I shall refer to any one that hath so much virtue and godliness as to speak true for a godly Man that is one devout towards God may not be indowed with any other virtue And then Mr. Hobbes comes to Texts of Scripture concerning our Saviour as to this matter it is Luke the 4 th v. 1. and Matth. 4. 1. that express our Saviour to be full of God's Spirit This saith Mr. Hobbes was a zeal to do God's work but saith he to say God was fill'd with God is improper and insignificant And this last I shall be beholding to Mr. Hobbes for hereafter when I come to p. 268. where Mr. Hobbes denies the existence of God the Holy Ghost and the Godhead of the Son for here he confesseth the Godhead of both of them But to return to this page I am now upon Mr. Hobbes is certainly upon a wrong ground though I will not say how the blessed Spirit of God is communicated or infused into Man or was in our blessed Saviour to suppose that God the Holy Ghost must be infused into the Godhead of the Son and that the Godhead must be full of the Godhead for our Saviour had an humane Nature which he might not out of his good pleasure indow with all the graces of
Not but that I admit that the fourth Command as to the precise seventh day was ceremonial and is determin'd since the time of our Saviour Mr. Hobbes after he hath denied the personal Divinity of our Saviour now comes to tell us p. 286. That our Saviour nor his Apostles had any power to make Laws and that they that broke any of his dictates did not sin in it but died in their sins not being pardoned for their offences to the Laws of their respective Countries or of Nature And for this he cites Iohn 3.18 which saith They are condemned already not that they shall be condemned saith he And this conceit Mr. Hobbes grounds upon our Saviours saying his Kingdom is not of this World and he that hath no Kingdom saith Mr. Hobbes can make no Laws so our Saviour's precepts obliged not And now one would think Mr. Hobbes might rest satisfied for after as he thought he had robbed Christ of his personal Godhead now he robs him of his Authority to make Laws and so all the wicked in the World are obliged to him for setting them free from the Gospel in case they will but go into any part of the World to live where the Gospel of Christ or his Apostles are not made Canonical by the Law of that Country But in short to answer Mr. Hobbes is to give the true interpretation of the words of our Saviour Ioh. 18.36 where he saith His Kingdom is not of this World which is no more but that he designed not to take away the Romans Iurisdiction in respect of the external acts and punishments of Men but doth it therefore follow that he that was Lord of the whole Earth who Mr. Hobbes said before represented God had no power by his Word and Doctrine to oblige the Consciences of those that submitted to the Truth of them or to leave those without excuse that refused and that under the penalty of eternal Misery And that we may see that he took upon him to make Laws look Ioh. 14. 15. 1 Ioh. 2. 3. 3. 22 24. which all speak of Christ's commands and that it was the token of peoples love and obedience to him that they kept them and in another place Christ saith A new command I give unto you that ye love one another If Christ had no Authority to make Laws why are his words called commands even by him himself For had they been only directions or beseechings he and the Apostles would have stiled them so Nay Mr. Hobbes saith p. 308. That the Command is the stile of a Law So that 't is clear our Saviour had power to make Laws which he executed upon the Consciences of Men which was the Kingdom of Heaven at hand preached of by St. Iohn although he was not pleased to exercise a Temporal Iurisdiction and we may suppose it was to shew the extraordinary Spirituality of his Government in which sence he may be said to be King of the Iews though his Kingdom was not of this World And as to Mr. Hobbes his Text out of Ioh. 3. 18. whereby he would prove that those that obeyed not Christ's commands were not guilty of a sin but were condemned already for sin as he saith against Nature or the Laws of their Country Mr. Hobbes cites so much of the Text and no more than he thinks to his purpose and 't is one of the pitifullest shifts in all his Book for the latter end of the verse saith the words were spoken of Men condemned already for not believing in Christ not for disobeying the Laws of their Country Now who would trust such a juggler that hath the confidence to cite part of a verse to prove that which the residue proves the contrary But hence 't is manifest that wicked Men and Seducers grow worse and worse And now Mr. Hobbes p. 300. falls upon Cardinal Bellarmine and continues battering of him many pages together about the Supremacy of the Pope over the Church I think it might be a greater question and harder to resolve whether Cardinal Bellarmine or Mr. Hobbes was the archer Heretick That making more God's than one and this denying the one only God his Attributes and the existency of two of the Persons in the Godhead That being a Papist and the worshipper of false gods as a Wafer-cake and Pictures Angels and dead People This a worshipper of no God at all a Stock or a Stone when the Soveraign commands or when he shall change a Chistian for an Heathenish soil That being obstinate in his Religion and this ready to change as to external acts when the Soveraign bids him This question I leave to better judgments to decide Mr. Hobbes p. 323. saith That there is nothing in Scripture from whence may be inferr'd the infallibility of the Church If Mr. Hobbes mean the particular Church of Rome I shall agree with him for as to so much as I know of it 't is as full of Errors and unreasonable Tenets as the Quakers or Mr. Hobbes his Book But as to Christ's Church in general I would have Mr. Hobbes look Ephes. 5. 35 36 37. v. and he will find that Christ hath purified his Church that it might be without spot c. that is without Error And in the same Chapter he will find how Christ and his Church are one as a Man and his Wife are and that Christ loves it and cherisheth it which either must be intended in keeping it from Errors or I know not what those Texts signifie For if Christ suffer it to run into Error it will be ruined or run into decay and God will deal with it as he threatned to the particular Churches in the Revelations except they did amend And Christ saith Matth. 16. 18. That the gates of Hell should not prevail against it And 1 Tim. 3. 15. calls the Church the pillar and ground of the Truth Besides many more Texts of this kind but these are sufficient to shew Mr. Hobbes his confidence or ignorance to sâ—y That the Scripture contained nothing in it from whence might be inferr'd the infallibility of the Church see then how dangerous it is to believe Mr. Hobbes Yet from this Position he infers in the next page That Christians do not know the Scriptures to be the Word of God only believe it He might as well have said that Christians do not know that there is a God only believe it and 't is like this he may aim at Or he might have said that I know not having never travell'd thither there is such a place as Spain only believe it One part of this Proposition of Mr. Hobbes is true viz. That the Scriptures are believed to be the Word of God But the ignorance of Mr. Hobbes lies in this That in matters of fact which our senses have not perceived or we have not been at the transaction or institution of the best evidence the thing is capable of that is unquestionable testimony is sufficient to
none at all and this without vouchsafing a Reason of such an idle conceit And let Mr. Hobbes say what he can or any one for him this Paragraph tends only to draw wicked or unwary Readers into contempt of Religion and to make a mockery of it which must tend to their Eternal misery and to keep them from that beatifical vision which Mr. Hobbes page 30. without Sence or Reason calls a word of the Schoolmen and unintelligible Mr. Hobbes p. 32. saith That when we believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God we believe the Church or a Prophet except some immediate revelation intervene so far as 't is possible to know what he means He saith That if we believe not the Scriptures the affront is done to the Church or a Prophet and not to God as the not believing the Stories of Livy concerning the gods the affront is done to Livy and not to the gods This is to undermine the Scriptures before he comes to blow them up But let Mr. Hobbes look the 5 th of Ephes. and he shall find that the Church hath handed down the Scriptures to us so united to Christ and the Union so firm there expressed between Christ and the Church that he must needs conclude that any affront done to the Scriptures must necessarily be done to Christ and to God And I do affirm against all the conceited Irreligionists in the World that the Scriptures would have been the Word of God and the Rules of Salvation although our blessed Saviour had not appointed any Church to have handed them down to us not that I say every cavilling Atheist would have assented to them But then as Mr. Hobbes plentifully urges in his Book How shall we know that they are the Word of God And of this I shall say something more hereafter But at present say that I think 't is sufficiently satisfactory to any rational Christian that they are the Word of God because they teach us our misery by sin to which our mortality is so subject our Redemption by Christ and appoint us a Pious and Virtuous way of living here and the way to an happy immortality hereafter Besides what rational Man can suppose that the good and wise God would leave mankind without a guide to a blessed immortality and what guide is there like this So that any Man that is not frantick or resolved to quarrel with every thing other people assent to but must say that God is the Author of them and consequently the disbelief of them is an affront done to God if we deny them and not to Man only And I think good King Iosiah and all Iudah with him believed the Law to be the Word of God and thought the contrary would be an affront to God upon less or at least upon less inviting grounds 2 Kings 21. than we ought now to believe the volume of the Bible to be so But if we believe not the Fables of Livy concerning the gods the affront is only done to Livy and not to his gods for they were no gods at all and so Mr. Hobbes's Example is at best but a fallacy which he is very frequent in and I have so much charity for him as to believe that 't is not always out of design but sometimes caused by his want of a clear Iudgement for Mr. Hobbes cannot but know that a juggling Cock is often hit Mr. Hobbes after a long discourse of the passions the absurdity of which is not worth the answering p. 38. saith That the Scriptures by the Spirit of God in Man mean a Mans Spirit inclined to godliness And for this he cites Exod. 28.3 which is nothing to his purpose though not so much against him as other Texts are As 31. Exod. 3. which saith expresly I have fill'd him with the Spirit of God to work which as Mr. Hobbes saith Is Mans Spirit inclined to godliness And the 51. Psal. 11 12. where David prays That God's Spirit may not be taken from him but that he may be upheld by it is as Mr. Hobbes saith David's own Spirit without doubt David thought it God's Spirit or he would have called it by an other name and I believe David knew as well as Mr. Hobbes how to express himself So to make this Opinion sufficiently ridiculous look Iudges 15. 14. where 't is said The Spirit of the Lord came mightily on Samson and the cords brake and he kill'd the Philistines that is saith Mr. Hobbes Samson's Spirit was inclined to godliness And from hence Mr. Hobbes may raise this Observation That a mans godliness makes him able to pull cords asunder which perchance Mr. Hobbes trusted to when he wrote his Leviathan Mr. Hobbes saith p. 38 39. That all those that our Saviour is said to cast Devils out of were nothing but mad Men. And I will deal plainly with Mr. Hobbes and tell him that none but mad Men think so For was he only mad that was torn by the evil Spirit before he came out of the Man possessed Or were they only mad that were possessed by the Devils 8. Matth. 31. when the Devils spake and after Christ permitted them to go into the herd of Swine and why ran the herd of Swine thereupon into the Sea To this Mr. Hobbes may say That they were mad Swine to do so And in the 12. of Matth. 27. our Saviour saith If I by Beelzebub cast out Devils by whom do your children cast them out Here 't is agreed both by our Saviour and the unbelieving Iews that our Saviour did cast out Devils therefore the Men were something else besides mad out of whom Devils were cast And why Mr. Hobbes should be wiser or undertake to be so than either the Iews or our blessed Lord and Saviour is an hard matter to know except it be that after his labour to bring Religion and the Scriptures into contempt now thinks by a side wind to debase our Saviour in his Miracles whereof one of the most eminent was his casting out Devils before he strike at his Godhead Mr. Hobbes in his tenth Chapter hath much to do with Power and Honour and saith That good success is Power p. 41. and to flatter is to Honour p. 42. and that an action whether just or unjust if great and difficult is Honourable p. 44,45 Of which last I will give an Example If two high-way Men rob six honest Men or a Ruffian ravish a Woman of great Quality 't is Honourable And this I have Mr. Hobbes's warrant for But in short I repeated these last sentences to shew his vain humor Mr. Hobbes saith p. 50. That Ignorance of the causes of Iustice disposeth a Man to make custom and example the rule of his actions and to judge that just or unjust of the punishment or example of which they can produce an example or as the Lawyers which only use this false measure of Iustice call it a precedent Thus far he I thank Mr. Hobbes that whilst
he doth in all Commonwealths for by him King's reign For there was a certain time when there was no King in Israel and God appointed sometimes Iudges Chiefs that is Kings to govern them between which Iudges there was intervals and I would know what temporal Iurisdiction God exercised over them in those intervals or at that time when there was no King Certainly none that we ever read of in holy Writ and 't is reasonable to suppose God exercised none for that the people of Israel were then grievously oppressed and so continued sometimes forâ—y Years before a deliverer rose up which they needed not to have done if God had undertaken the temporal government for that God by his Power was able to have deliver'd them which we see he never did but by a temporal Governor in the time of which Governor the high Priest was not God's Viceroy but rather the Governor 's and the 17. Deut. 9. 12. v. clearly makes the Priest and the Iudge which should then afterwards be different persons and different Emploiments So 't is most apparent that God was no otherwise the temporal King of the Israelites than he was King of all the Earth nor the high Priest as high Priest his Viceroy though the Israelites were his chosen people as to Religious worship And as to the 1 Sam. 8. 7. which Mr. Hobbes cites where God said to Samuel when the people asked a King They have not rejected thee but they have rejected me that I should not rule over them it is no more but that God was angry with them for not taking such a Governor as he was pleased to set over them as Samuel then was and Baruck Ieptha and Samson had been but that they would have one not only of their own choosing but also aâ—ter the similitude of other Nations which God had rejected and had chosen them for his peculiar people and so in that sence they may be said to reject God in that they rejected those he did set over them As to Mr. Hobbes his other places of Scripture I think them nothing to the matter and so I shall pass them over as he saith he doth many more places for this purpose not cited but instead of citing them slily as I think claps his hands at the Clergy p. 219. and saith 'T is a wonder no more notice is taken of this but that it gives too much light to Christian Kings to see their right of Ecclesiastical government To this I will answer for the Clergy of England that those that are not infected with a spice of Popery as I am afraid some such there are God make them fewer or some for want of due consideration always acknowledge the King for supream Head of the Church and by that Title pray for him and not by that sleighty Title of Supream Moderator of the Church and the English Clergy if some few do otherwise are no more to be blamed for this than the English Souldiers were in the blessed Reign of Queen Elizabeth to be blamed in Holland because Stanly and York delivered Towns up to the Spaniard or English Writers because one English Man hath written such a Book as the Leviathan who after his Learned Discourse of the Kingdom of God comes to tell us p. 219. what the Kingdom of Grace is and saith Those are in it that promise obedience to God's government I suppose he means temporal of which he hath been treating before to whom saith he God hath gratis given to be his Subjects hereafter which is called the Kingdom of Glory Now certainly the Kingdom of Grace by all Men before Mr. Hobbes was taken to be God's Spiritual government which he exerciseth in the Hearts of good Men by his commands threats and promises to which if they yield obedience in and through the mercies of our blessed Saviour they are made inheritors of the Kingdom of Glory And what a quibble this is of Mr. Hobbes from the word gratis to change the sence of the Kingdom of Grace I shall refer to any intelligent person Mr. Hobbes coming in his 36. Chapter to treat of â—he Word of God and the Prophets comes to shew what Word signifies in Scripture of which I do think he hath given a true account in several Texts but is not able in any kind of Truth to hold out long For p. 224. he saith That the Word of God in several Texts of Scripture signifies which I never observed in any such words as are consonant to the dictates of right Reason and the first Text he cites is 2 Chron. 35. 22. where 't is said That Iosiah harkned not to the words of Necho from the mouth of God which saith Mr. Hobbes were but the dictates of Reason This is most palpably unreasonable for there was no reason for Iosiah to forbear fighting with Necho the Kings of Iudah having beaten as great Kings as the Kings of Egypt and the Iews being then in a powerful condition when he came into his Country with a great Army So this Text must either be intended that the words of Necho were but what God had told him or that they were revealed to Iosiah to be God's mind by some Prophet which most Interpreters take to be Ieremiah nay Mr. Hobbes himself cites Esdras for this last Interpretation but saith That in this he approves not an Apocryphal writer though before when he had a mind to invalidate the Scriptures by making the Penmen of them uncertain seemed strongly to incline that Esdras was the Penman of them after the Captivity when it might be supposed the certain Truth was lost and that only from the Authority of the Book of Esdras whose Authority or rather Interpretation he here rejects And then Mr. Hobbes goes on to cite several other Texts of Scripture to prove that in Scripture by the Word of God is meant the dictates of Reason or Equity as Ierem. 31. 33. and other places where God saith He will write his Laws in their Hearts Which places by all other Men I think have been interpreted the operation of God's Spirit upon the minds of Men by inclining them to obey his Laws after God had taught them by his Prophets or Ministers And there is no cause to call that reason or the proceed of reason which the Scripture terms the operation of God A Man bringing reason or an aptitude to it into the World and so he doth not that which God effects in him after he is in the World Mr. Hobbes p. 238. saith That a private Man hath Power to believe or not believe Miracles Thought bâ—ing free but saith he when it comes to publick confession the private reason must submit to the publick Now by his Rule though a Man do not believe lying wonders yet he may say he doth if any one will believe Mr. Hobbes In short this is much like his precedent Doctrine of practice and serves to authorise the grossest hypocrisie in the World in case the