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
which these my grounds he says destroy How so I say the Trinity and the Persons thereof are that one pure simple and eternal Corporeal Spirit and why does this destroy the Trinity more than if I had called it Incorporeal He labours here and seeketh somewhat to refresh himself in the word Person by the same grounds he saith every King has as many Persons as there by Justices of Peace in his Kingdom and God Almighty hath as many Persons as there be Kings why not For I never said that all those Kings were that God and yet God giveth that name to the Kings of the earth For the signification of the word Person I shall expound it by and by in another place Here ends his Lordships School Argument now let me come with my Scripture Argument St. Paul concerning Christ Col. 2.9 saith thus In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead Bodily This place Athanasius a great and zealous Doctor in the Nicene Councel and vehement enemy of Arius the Heretick who allowed Christ to be no otherwise God then as men of excellent piety were so called expoundeth thus The fullness of the Godhead dwelleth in him Bodily Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est Realiter So there is one Father for Corporality and that God was in Christ in such manner as Body is in Body Again there were in the primitive Church a sort of Hereticks who maintained that Jesus Christ had not a true real Body but was onely a Phantasm or Spright such as the Latins called Spectra Against the head of this Sect whose name I think was Apelles Tertullian wrote a Book now extant amongst his other Works intituled De Carne Christi wherein after he had spoken of the nature of Phantasms and shewed that they had nothing of reality in them he concludeth with these words whatsoever is not Body is Nothing So here is on my side a plain Text of Scripture and two ancient and learned Fathers nor was this Doctrine of Tertullian condemned in the Council of Nice but the division of the Divine Substance into God the Father God the Son and God the holy Ghost For these words God has no parts were added for explication of the word Consubstantial at the request of the dissenting Fathers and are farther explained both in Athanasius his Creed in these words not three Gods but one God and by the constant Attribute ever since of the Individual Trinity The same words nevertheless do condemn the Anthropomorphites also For though there appeared no Christians that professed that God had an Organical Body and consequently that the Persons were three Individuals yet the Gentiles were all Anthropomorphites and there condemned by those words God has no parts And thus I have answered his accusation concerning the Eternity and Existence of the Divine Substance and made appear that in truth the question between us is whether God be a Phantasme id est an Idol of the Fancy which St. Paul saith is nothing or a Corporeal Spirit that is to say something that has Magnitude In this place I think it not amiss leaving for a little while this Theological dispute to examine the signification of those words which have occasioned so much diversity of opinion in this kind of Doctrine The word Substance in Greek Hypostasis Hypostan Hypostamenon signifie the same thing namely a Ground a Base any thing that has Existence or Subsistence in it self any thing that upholdeth that which else would fall in which sence God is properly the Hypostasis Base and Substance that upholdeth all the world having Subsistence not only in himself but from himself whereas other Substances have their subsistence only in themselves not from themselves But Metaphorically Faith is called a Substance Heb. 11.1 because it is the foundation or Base of our Hope for Faith failing our Hope falls And 2 Cor. 9.4 St. Paul having boasted of the liberal promise of the Corinthians towards the Macedonians calls that promise the ground the Hypostasis of that his boasting And Heb. 1.3 Christ is called the Image of the Substance the Hypostasis of his Father and for the proper and adequate signification of the word Hypostasis the Greek Fathers did always oppose it to Apparition or Phantasme as when a man seeth his face in the water his real face is called the Hypostasis of the phantastick face in the water So also in speaking the thing understood or named is called Hypostasis in respect of the name so also a Body coloured is the Hypostasis Substance and Subject of the colour and in like manner of all its other Accidents Essence and all other abstract names are words artificial belonging to the Art of Logick and signifies only the manner how we consider the Substance it self And of this I have spoken sufficiently in Pag. 371.372 of my Leviathan Body Lat. Corpus Grae. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is that Substance which hath Magnitude indeterminate and is the same with Corporeal Substance but A Body is that which hath Magnitude determinate and consequently is understood to be totum or integrum aliquid Pure and Simple Body is Body of one and the same kind in every part throughout and if mingled with Body of another kind though the total be compounded or mixt the parts nevertheless retain their simplicity as when water and wine are mixt the parts of both kinds retain their simplicity For water and wine cannot both be in one and the same place at once Matter is the same with Body But never without respect to a Body which is made thereof Form is the aggregate of all Accidents together for which we give the Matter a new name so Albedo whiteness is the Form of Album or white Body So also Humanity is the Essence of man and Deity the Essence of Deus Spirit is Thin Fluid Transparent Invisible Body The word in Latin signifies Breath Aire Wind and the like In Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiro Flo. I have seen and so have many more two waters one of the River the other a Mineral Water so like that no man could discern the one from the other by his sight yet when they have been both put together the whole substance could not by the eye be distinguished from milk Yet we know that the one was not mixt with the other so as every part of the one to be in every part of the other for that is impossible unless two Bodies can be in the the same place How then could the change be made in every part but only by the Activity of the Mineral water changing it every where to the Sense and yet not being every where and in every part of the water If then such gross Bodies have so great Activity what shall we think of Spirits whose kinds be as many as there be kinds of Liquor and Activity greater Can it then be doubted but that God who
Chap. 17. de Cive In the Body of the Chapter it is thus The time of Christ's being upon the Earth is called in Scripture the Regeneration often but the Kingdom never When the Son of God comes in Majesty and all the Angels with him then he shall sit on the seat of Majesty My Kingdom is not of this World God sent not his Son that he should judge the World I came not to judge the World but to save the World Man who made me a Judge or Divider amongst you Let thy Kingdom come And other words to the same purpose out of which it is clear that Christ took upon him no Regal Power upon Earth before his Assumption But at his Assumption his Apostles asked him if he would then restore the Kingdom to Israel and he answered it was not for them to know So that hitherto Christ had not taken that Office upon him unless his Lordship think that the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Christ be two distinct Kingdoms From the Assumption ever since all true Christians say daily in their Prayers Thy Kingdom come But his Lordship had perhaps forgot that But when then beginneth Christ to be a King I say it shall be then when he comes again in Majesty with all the Angels And even then he shall reign as he is Man under his Father For St. Paul saith 1 Cor. 15.25 26. He must reign till he hath put all Enemies under his feet the last Enemy that shall be destroyed is Death But when shall God the Father reign again St. Paul saith in the same Chapter verse 28. When all things shall be subdued unto him then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him that God may be all in all And verse 24. Then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God even the Father when he shall have put down all Rule Authority and Power This is at the Resurrection And by this it is manifest that his Lordship was not so well versed in Scripture as he ought to have been J. D. He taketh away his Priestly or Propitiatory Office And although this Act of our Redemption be not alwayes in Scripture called a Sacrifice and Oblation but sometimes a Price yet by Price we are not to understand any thing by the value whereof he could claim right to a Pardon for us from his Offended Father but that Price which God the Father was pleased in mercy to demand And again Not that the Death of one Man though without sin can satisfie for the Offences of all Men in the rigour of Justice but in the mercy of God that ordained such Sacrifices for sin as he was pleased in mercy to accept He knoweth no difference between one who is meer man and one who was both God and man between a Levitical Sacrifice and the All-sufficient Sacrifice of the Cross between the Blood of a Calf and the precious Blood of the Son of God T. H. Yes I know there is a difference between Blood and Blood but not any such as can make a difference in the Case here questioned Our Saviour's Blood was most precious but still it was Humane Blood and I hope his Lordship did never think otherwise or that it was not accepted by his Father for our Redemption J. D. And touching the Prophetical Office of Christ I do much doubt whether he do believe in earnest that there is any such thing as Prophecy in the World He maketh very little difference between a Prophet and a Mad-man and a Demoniack And if there were nothing else says he that bewrayed their madness yet that very arrogating such inspiration to themselves is Argument enough He maketh the pretence of Inspiration in any man to be and always to have been on opinion pernicious to Peace and tending to the dissolution of all Civil Government He subjecteth all Prophetical Revelations from God to the sole Pleasure and Censure of the Soveraign Prince either to Authorize them or to Exauctorate them So as two Prophets prophecying the same thing at the same time in the Dominions of two different Princes the one shall be a true Prophet the other a false And Christ who had the approbation of no Soveraign Prince upon his grounds was to be reputed a false Prophet every where Every man therefore ought to consider who is the Soveraign Prophet that is to say who it is that is Gods Vicegerent upon Earth and hath next under God the Authority of governing Christian Men and to observe for a Rule that Doctrine which in the Name of God he hath Commanded to be taught and thereby to examine and try out the truth of those Doctrines which pretended Prophets with miracle or without shall at any time advance c. And if he disavow them then no more to obey their Voice or if he approve them then to obey them as Men to whom God hath given a part of the Spirit of their Soveraign Upon his Principles the case holdeth as well among Jews and Turks and Heathens as Christians Then he that teacheth Transubstantiation in France is a true Prophet he that teacheth in it England a false Prophet He that blasphemeth Christ in Constantinople a true Prophet he that doth the same in Italy a false Prophet Then Samuel was a false Prophet to contest with Saul a Soveraign Prophet So was the Man of God who submitted not to the more Divine and Prophetick Spirit of Jeroboam And Elijah for reproving Ahab Then Michaiah had but his deserts to be clapt up in Prison and fed with Bread of Affliction and Water of Affliction for daring to contradict God's Vice-gerent upon Earth And Jeremiah was justly thrown into a Dungeon for Prophecying against Zedekiah his Liege Lord. If his Principles were true it were strange indeed that none of all these Princes nor any other that ever was in the World should understand their own Priviledges And yet more strange that God Almighty should take the part of such Rebellious Prophets and justifie their Prophesies by the Event if is were true that none but the Soveraign in a Christian the reason is the same for Jewish Commonwealth can take notice what is or what is not the Word of God T. H. To remove his Lordship's doubt in the first place I confess there was true Prophesie and true Prophets in the Church of God from Abraham down to our Saviour the greatest Prophet of all and the last of the Old Testament and first of the New After our Saviour's time till the death of St. John the Apostle there were true Prophets in the Church of Christ Prophets to whom God spake supernaturally and testified the truth of their Mission by Miracles Of those that in the Scripture are called Prophets without Miracles and for this cause only that they spake in the Name of God to Men and in the name of Men to God there are have been and shall be in the Church