CHAP. I. That the Hobbian Principles are de­structive to Christianity and all Reli­gion.

THe Image of God is not al­together defaced by the fall of Man, but that there will remain some practical notions of God and Goodness; which, when the mind is free from vagrant de­sires, and violent passions, do shine as clearly in the heart, as other speculative notions do in the head. Hence it is, That there was never any Nation so barbarous or savage throughout the whole world, which had not their God. They who did never wear cloaths upon their backs, who did never know Magistrate but their Father, yet have their God, and their Re­ligious Rites and Devotions to him. Hence it is, That the greatest Atheists in any sudden danger do unwittingly cast their eyes up to Heaven, as craving aid from thence, and in a thunder creep into some hole to hide themselves. And they who are conscious to themselves of any secret Crimes, though they be secure [Page 2]enough from the justice of men, do yet feel the blind blows of a Guilty Conscience, and fear Divine Vengeance. This is ac­knowledged by T. H. himself in his lucid Intervals. That we may know what worship of God natural reason doth assign, let us begin with his attributes, where it is manifest in the first place, That existency is to be attributed to him. To which he addeth Infiniteness, Incomprehensibility, Ʋnity, Ʋbiquity. Thus for Attributes, next for Actions. Concern­ing external Actions, wherewith God is to be worshipped, the most general precept of reason is, that they be signs of honour, under which are contained Prayers, Thanksgivings, Ob­lations and Sacrifices.

Hitherto his Lordship discharges me of Atheisme. What need he to say that All Nations, how barbarous soever, yet have their Gods and Religious Rites, and A­theists are frighted with thunder, and feel the blind blows of Conscience? It might have been as apt a Preface to any other of his Discourses as this. I expect therefore in the next place to be told that I deny a­gain my afore recited Doctrine.

Yet to let us see how inconsistent and irreconcileable he is with himself, else­where reckoning up all the Laws of Na­ture at large, even twenty in number, he hath not one word that concerneth Reli­gion, [Page 3]or that hath the least relation in the world to God. As if a man were like the Colt of a wild Asse in the wilderness, with­out any owner or obligation. Thus in de­scribing the Laws of Nature, this great Clerk forgeteth the God of Nature, and the main and principle Laws of Nature, which contains a mans duty to his God, and the principal end of his Creation.

After I had ended the discourse he mentions of the Laws of Nature, I thought it fittest in the last place once for all, to say they were the Laws of God, then when they were delivered in the Word of God; but before being not known by men for any thing but their own natural reason, they were but Theorems, tending to peace, and those uncertain, as being but conclusions of particular men, and therefore not properly Laws. Besides, I had formerly in my Book De Cive, cap. 4. proved them severally one by one out of the Scriptures; which his Lordship had [...]ead and knew. 'Twas therefore an unjust charge of his to say, I had not one word [...]n them that concerns Religion, or that hath the least relation in the world to God; and this upon no other ground then [...]hat I added not to every article, This Law [...] in the Scripture. But why he should call me (ironically) a great Clerk, I cannot [Page 2] [...] [Page 3] [...] [Page 4]tell. I suppose he would make men believe I arrogated to my self all the learning of a great Clerk, Bishop, or other inferior Mi­nister. A Learned Bishop, is that Bishop that can interpret all parts of Scripture tru­ly, and congruently to the harmony of the whole; that has learnt the History and Laws of the Church, down from the A­postles time to his own; and knows what is the nature of a Law Civil, Divine, Na­tural, and Positive; and how to govern well the Parochial Ministers of his Diocess, so that they may both by Doctrine and Ex­ample keep the people in the belief of all Ar­ticles of Faith necessary to Salvation, and in obedience to the Laws of their Country. This is a Learned Bishop. A Learned Mi­nister is he that hath learned the way by which men may be drawn from Avarice, Pride, Sensuality, Prophaness, Rebellious Principles, and all other vices by eloquent and powerful disgracing them, both from Scripture and from Reason; and can terri­fy men from vice by discreet uttering of the punishments denounced against wick­ed men, and by deducing rationally the dammage they receive by it in the end. In one word, he is a Learned Minister that can preach such Sermons as St. Chrisostom preached to the Antiochians when he was Presbyter in that City. Could his Lord­ship, [Page 5]find in my Book that I arrogated to my self the eloquence or wisdom of St. Chrisostom, or the ability of governing the Church? 'Tis one thing to know what is to be done, another thing to know how to do it. But his Lordship was pleased to use any artifice to disgrace me in any kind whatsoever.

Perhaps he will say that he hand­leth the Laws of Nature there, only so far as may serve to the constitution or set­tlement of a Common-wealth. In good time, let it be so. He hath devised us a trim Common-wealth, which is founded neither upon Religion towards God, nor Justice towards Man; but meerly upon self-interest, and self-preservation. Those raies of heavenly Light, those natural seeds of Religion, which God himself hath imprinted in the heart of man, are more efficatious towards preservation of a So­ciety; whether we regard the nature of the thing, or the blessing of God, then all his Pacts, and Surrenders, and Translations of power. He who unteacheth men their du­ty to God, may make them Eye-servants, so long as their interest doth oblige them to obey; but is no fit Master to teach men con­science and fidelity.

He has not yet found the place where I contradict either the Existence, [Page 6]or Infiniteness, or Incomprehensibility, or Unity, or Ubiquity of God. I am there­fore yet absolved of Atheism. But I am, he says, inconsistent and irreconcileable with my self, that is, I am, (though he says not so, he thinks) a forgetful blockhead. I cannot help that: But my forgetfulness appears not here. Even his Lordship where he says, Those raies of heavenly Light, those seeds of Religion, which God himself hath imprinted in the heart of man (meaning natural reason) are more efficacious to the preservation of Society, than all the Pacts, Surrenders, and Translat­ing of Power, had forgotten to except the Old Pact of the Jews, and the New Pact of Christians. But pardoning that, did he hope to make any wise man believe, that when this Nation very lately was an Anar­chy, and dissolute multitude of men, do­ing every one what his own reason or im­printed Light suggested, did again out of that same Light call in the King, and piece again, and ask pardon for the faults, which that their illumination had brought them into, rather than out of fear of perpetual danger, and hope of preserva­tion.

Without Religion, Societies are like but soapy bubbles, quickly dissolved. It was the judgment of as wise a man [Page 7]as T. H. himself (though perhaps he will hardly be perswaded to it) that Rome ought more of its grandeur to Religion, than either to strength or stratagems. We have not exceeded the Spaniards in num­ber, nor the Galls in strength, nor the Car­thaginians in craft, nor the Grecians in art, &c. but we have overcome all Nations by our Piety and Religion.

Did not his Lordship forget him­self here again, in approving this sentence of Tully, which makes the Idolatry of the Romans, not only better than the Idolatry of other Nations; but also better than the Religion of the Jews, whose Law Christ himself says, he came not to destroy but to fulfil? And that the Romans overcame both them and other Nations, by their Pi­ety, when it is manifest that the Romans overran the world by injustice and cru­elty, and that their Victories ought not to be ascribed to the Piety of the Romans, but to the impiety as well of the Jews as of o­ther Nations? But what meant he by say­ing Tully was as wise a man as T. H. himself, though perhaps he will hardly be perswaded to it? Was that any part of the controversie? No: Then it was out of his way. God promiseth to assist good men in their way, but not out of their way. 'Tis therefore the less wonder that his [Page 8]Lordship was in this place deserted of the Light which God imprints in the hearts of rudest Savages.

Among his Laws he incerteth gratitude to men as the third precept of the Law of Nature; but of the gratitude of mankind to their Creator, there is a deep silence. If men had sprung up from the earth in a night like Mushroms or Excre­sences, without all sence of Honour, Ju­stice, Conscience, or Gratitude, he could not have vilified the humane nature more then he doth.

My Lord discovers here an igno­rance of such method as is necessary for lawful and strict reasoning and explication of the truth in controversie. And not on­ly that, but also how little able he is to fix his mind upon what he reads in other mens Writings. When I had defined Ingrati­tude universally, he finds fault that I do not mention Ingratitude towards God, as if his Lordship knew not that an universal comprehends all the particulars. When I had defined Equity universally, why did he not as well blame me for not telling what that Equity is in God? He is grate­ful to the man of whom he receives a good turn, that confesseth or maketh appear he is pleased with the benefit he receiveth. So also Gratitude towards God is to confess [Page 9]his benefits. There is also in Gratitude to­wards men a desire to requite their Benefits, so there is in our Gratitude towards God, so far to requite them, as to be kind to Gods Ministers, which I acknowledged in make­ing Sacrifices a part of natural Divine Wor­ship; and the benefit of those Sacrifices is the nourishment of Gods Ministers. It ap­pears therefore that the Bishops attention in reading my Writings was either weak in it self, or weakned by prejudice.

From this shameful omission or preterition of the main duty of mankind, a man might easily take the height of T. H. his Religion. But he himself put­teth it past all conjectures. His princi­ples are brim full of prodigious impiety. In these four things, Opinions of Ghosts, Igno­rance of second Causes, devotion to what men fear, and taking of things casual, for Prog­nosticks, consisteth the natural seed of Reli­gion; the culture and improvement where­of, he referreth only to Policy. Humane and Divine Politicks, are but Politicks. And again, Mankind hath this from the conscience of their own weakness, and the admi­ration of natural events, that the most part of men believe that there is an invisible God, the maker of all visible things. And a little af­ter he telleth us, That Superstition proceed­eth from fear without right reason, and [Page 10]Atheisme from an opinion of reason without fear; making Atheisme to be more reason­able than Superstition. What is now be­come of that Divine Worship which natu­ral reason did assign unto God, the honour of Existence, Infiniteness, Incomprehensibili­ty, Unity, Ubiquity? What is now become of that Dictate or Precept of reason, con­cerning Prayers, Thanksgivings, Oblations, Sacrifices, if uncertain Opinions, Ignorance, Fear, Mistakes, the conscience of our own weakness, and the admiration of natural Events, be the only seeds of Religion?

He proceedeth further, That Atheisme it self, though it be an erronious opinion, and therefore a sin, yet it ought to be numbred a­mong the sins of imprudence or ignorance. He addeth, that an Atheist is punished not as a Subject is punished by his King, because he did not observe Laws: but as an Enemy, by an Enemy, because he would not accept Laws. His reason is, because the Atheist never sub­mitted his will to the Will of God, whom he never thought to be. And he concludeth that mans obligation to obey God, pro­ceedeth from his weakness. Manifestum est obligationem ad prestandum ipsi (Deo) o­bedientiam, incumbere hominibus propter im­becilitatem. First it is impossible that should be a sin of meer ignorance or imprudence, which is directly contrary to the light [Page 11]of natural reason. The Laws of nature need no new promulgation, being imprint­ed naturally by God in the heart of Man. The Law of nature was written in our hearts by the finger of God, without our assent; or rather the Law of Nature is the assent it self. Then if Nature dictate to us that there is a God, and that this God is to be worshipped in such and such manner, it is not possible that Atheism should be a sin of meer ig­norance.

Secondly, a Rebellious Subject is still a Subject, De Jure, though not, De Facto, by right, though not by deed: and so the most cursed Atheist that is, ought by right to be the Subject of God, and ought to be punished not as a just Enemy, but as a disloyal Traytor. Which is confessed by himself, This fourth Sin, (that is, of those who do not by word and deed confess one God the Supreme King of Kings) in the na­tural Kingdom of God is the Crime of High Treason, for it is a denial of Divine Power, or Atheism. Then an Atheist is a Traytor to God, and punishable as a disloyal Sub­ject, not as an Enemy.

Lastly, it is an absurd and dishonourable assertion, to make our obedience to God to depend upon our weakness, because we can­not help it, and not upon our gratitude, because we owe our being and preservation [Page 12]to him. Who planteth a Vineyard, and eat­eth not of the Fruit thereof? And who feedeth a Flock, and eateth not of the Milk of the Flock? And again, Thou art worthy O Lord to receive Glory, and Honour, and Power, for thou hast created all things, and for thy plea­sure they are and were created. But it were much better or at least not so ill, to be a down right Atheist, than to make God to be such a thing as he doth, and at last thrust him into the Devils Office, to be the cause of all Sin.

Though this Bishop, as I said, had but a weak attention in reading, and little skill in examining the force of an Argu­ment, yet he knew men, and the art, with­out troubling their judgments to win their assents by exciting their Passions. One Rule of his art was to give his Reader what he would have him swallow, a part by it self, and in the nature of News, whether true or not. Knowing that the unlearned, that is most men, are content to believe, rather than be troubled with examining, Therefore (a little before) he put these words T. H. no friend to Religion, in the Mar­gent. And in this place, before he offer at any confutation, he says my Principles are brim full of Prodigious Impieties. And at the next Paragraph, in the Margent, he puts that I excuse Atheism. This behaviour [Page 13]becomes neither a Bishop, nor a Christi­an, nor any man that pretends to good education. Fear of invisible powers, what is it else in savage people, but the fear of somewhat they think a God? What invi­sible power does the reason of a savage man suggest unto him, but those Phantasms of his sleep, or his distemper, which we frequently call Ghosts, and the Savages thought Gods; so that the fear of a God (though not of the true one) to them was the beginning of Religion, as the fear of the true God was the beginning of wisdom to the Jews and Christians? Ignorance of se­cond causes made men fly to some first cause, the fear of which bred Devotion and Worship. The ignorance of what that power might do, made them observe the order of what he had done; that they might guess by the like order, what he was to do another time. This was their Prognostication. What Prodigious impie­ty is here? How confutes he it? Must it be taken for Impiety upon his bare calum­ny? I said Superstition was fear without reason. Is not the fear of a false God, or fancied Daemon contrary to right reason? And is not Atheism Boldness grounded on false reasoning, such as is this, the wicked prosper, therefore there is no God? He offers no proof against any of this; but says only [Page 14]I make Atheism to be more reasonable than Superstition; which is not true: For I deny that there is any reason either in the Atheist or in the Superstitious. And be­cause the Atheist thinks he has reason, where he has none, I think him the more irrational of the two. But all this while he argues not against any of this; but en­quires only, what is become of my natural Worship of God, and of his Existency, In­finiteness, Incomprehensibility, Unity, and Ubiquity. As if whatsoever reason can suggest, must be suggested all at once. First, all men by nature had an opinion of Gods Existency, but of his other Attributes not so soon, but by reasoning, and by de­grees. And for the Attributes of the true God, they were never suggested but by the Word of God written. In that I say A­theism is a sin of ignorance, he says I ex­cuse it. The Prophet David says, The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Is it not then a sin of folly? 'Tis agreed be­tween us, that right reason dictates, There is a God. Does it not follow, that deny­ing of God is a sin proceeding from mis­reasoning. If it be not a sin of ignorance, it must be a sin of malice. Can a man malice that which he thinks has no being? But may not one think there is a God, and yet maliciously deny him? If he think [Page 15]there is a God, he is no Atheist; and so the question is changed into this, whether any man that thinks there is a God, dares deli­berately deny it? For my part I think not. For upon what confidence dares any man (deliberately I say) oppose the Omnipo­tent? David saith of himself, My feet were ready to slip when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Therefore it is likely the feet of men less holy slip oftner. But I think no man living is so daring, being out of passi­on, as to hold it as his opinion. Those wicked men that for a long time proceeded so succesfully in the late horrid Rebellion, may perhaps make some think they were constant and resolved Atheists, but I think rather that they forgot God, than believed there was none. He that believes there is such an Atheist, comes a little too near that opinion himself, Nevertheless, if words spoken in passion signifie a denial of a God, no punishment praeordained by Law, can be too great for such an insolence; because there is no living in a Common-wealth with men, to whose oaths we cannot rea­sonably give credit. As to that I say, An Atheist is punished by God not as a Subject by his King, but as an Enemy, and to my argu­ment for it, namely, because he never acknow­ledged himself Gods Subject, He opposeth, That if nature dictate that there is a God, [Page 16]and to be worshiped in such and such man­ner, then Atheism is not a sin of meer ig­norance; as if either I or he did hold that Nature dictates the manner of Gods Wor­ship, or any article of our Creed, or whe­ther to worship with or without a Sur­plice. Secondly, he answers that a Re­bel is still a Subject de Jure, though not de Facto: And 'tis granted. But though the King lose none of his right by the Traytors act, yet the Traytor loseth the priviledg of being punisht by a praecedent Law; and therefore may be punish'd at the Kings will, as Ravillac was for mur­dering Henry the 4th. of France. An open Enemy and a perfidious Traytor are both enemies. Had not his Lordship read in the Roman story how Perseus and other just enemies of that State were wont to be pu­nished? But what is this trifling question to my excusing of Atheism? In the seventh Paragraph of my Book de Cive he found the words (in Latin) which he here citeth. And to the same sense I have said in my Leviathan, That the right of nature whereby God raigneth over men, is to be derived not from his creating them, as if he required obedience, as of Gratitude; but from his irresistable Power. This he says is absurd and dishonourable. Whereas first all power is honourable, and greatest [Page 17]power is most honourable. It is not a more noble tenure for a King to hold his King­dom, and the right to punish those that transgress his Laws from his Power, than from the gratitude or gift of the Transgres­sor. There is nothing therefore here of dis­honour to God Almighty. But see the sub­tility of his disputing. He saw he could not catch Leviathan in this place, he looks for him in my Book de Cive, which is Latine, to try what he could fish out of that. And says I make our obedience to God, depend upon our weakness, as if these words signified the Dependence, and not the necessity of our submission, or that incumbere and dependere were all one.

For T. H. his God is not the God of Christians, nor of any rational men. Our God is every where, and seeing he hath no parts, he must be wholly here, and wholly there, and wholly every where. So Nature it self dictateth. It can­not be said honourably of God that he is in a place; for nothing is in a place, but that which hath proper bounds of its greatness. But T. H. his God is not wholly every where. No man can conceive that any thing is all in this place, and all in another place at the same time, for none of these things ever have or can be incident to sense. So far well, if by conceiving he mean comprehending; but [Page 18]then follows, That these are absurd Speeches taken upon credit, without any signification at all, from deceived Philosophers, and deceived or deceiving School-men. Thus he denieth the Ubiquity of God. A Circumscriptive, a Definitive, and a Repletive being in a place, is some heathen language to him.

Though I believe the Omnipo­tence of God, and that he can do what he will, yet I dare not say how every thing is done, because I cannot conceive nor comprehend either the Divine substance, or the way of its operation. And I think it Impiety to speak concerning God any thing of my own head, or upon the Au­thority of Philosophers or School-men, which I understand not, without warrant in the Scripture: And what I say of Om­nipotence, I say also of Ubiquity. But his Lordship is more valiant in this place, telling us that God is wholly here, and wholly there, and wholly every where; because he has no parts. I cannot comprehend nor conceive this. For methinks it implies also that the whole World is also in the whole God, and in every part of God, nor can I conceive how any thing can be called Whole, which has no parts, nor can I find any thing of this in the Scripture. If I could find it there, I could believe it; and if I could find it in the publick Doctrine of [Page 19]the Church, I could easily abstain from contradicting it. The School-men say al­so that the Soul of Man (meaning his up­per Soul, which they call the rational Soul) is also wholly in the whole man, and wholly in every part of the man. What is this but to make the humane Soul the same thing in respect of mans Body, that God is in respect of the World? These his Lordship calls here rational men, and some of them which applaud this Doctrine, would have the High Court of Parliament corroborate such Doctrines with a Law. I said in my Leviathan, that it is no honou­rable attribute to God, to say he is in a place, because, infinite is not confined with­in a place. To which he replies, T. H. his God is not wholly every where. I confess, the consequence. For I understand in English, he that says any thing to be all here, means that neither all nor any of the same thing is else where. He says further, I [...]ake a Circumscriptive, a Definitive, and a Repletive being in a place to be Heathen Language. Truly, if this Dispute were at [...]he Bar, I should go near to crave the as­istance of the Court, lest some trick might be put upon me in such obscurity. [...]or though I know what these Latin words singly signifie, yet I understand not [...]ow any thing is in a Place Definitively [Page 20]and not Circumscriptively. For Definitively comes from definio which is to set bounds. And therefore to be in a Place Definitively, is when the bounds of the place are every way marked out. But to be in a place Circumscriptively, is when the bounds of the place are described round about. To be in a Place Repletive, is to fill a place. Who does not see that this dictinction is Canting and Fraud? If any man will call it Pious Fraud, he is to prove the Piety as clearly as I have here explained the Fraud. Besides, no Fraud can be Pious in any man, but him that hath a lawful Right to go­vern him whom he beguileth; whom the Bishop pretends to govern, I cannot tell. Besides his Lordship ought to have consi­dered that every Bishop is one of the Great Councel, trusted by the King to give their advice with the Lords Temporal, for the making of good Laws, Civil and Ecclesi­astical, and not to offer them such obscure Doctrines, as if, because they are not versed in School-divinity, therefore they had no Learning at all, nor understood the English Tongue. Why did the Divines of England contend so much heretofore to have the Bible translated into English, if they never meant any but themselves should read it? If a Lay-man be publickly encouraged to search the Scriptures for his [Page 21]own Salvation, what has a Divine to do to impose upon him any strange inter­pretation, unless if he make him err to Damnation, he will be damned in his stead?

Our God is immutable without any shadow of turning by change, to whom all things are present, nothing past, nothing to come. But T. H. his God is measured by time, losing somthing that is past, and acquiring somthing that doth come every minute. That is as much as to say, That our God is infinite, and his God is finite, for unto that which is actu­ally infinite, nothing can be added neither time nor parts. Hear himself, Nor do I un­derstand what derogation it can be to the di­vine perfection, to attribute to it Potentiali­ty, that is in English, Power (so little doth he understand what Potentiality is) and successive duration. And he chargeth it up­on us as a fault; that will not have eter­nity to be an endless succession of time. How, successive duration, and an endless succession of time in God? Then God is infinite, then God is elder to day than he was yesterday. Away with Blasphemies. Before he de­stroyed the Ubiquity of God, and now he destroyeth his Eternity.

I shall omit both here and hence­forth his preambulatory, impertinent, and [Page 22]uncivil calumnies. The thing he pre­tends to prove is this. That it is a deroga­tion to the Divine Power to attribute to it Potentiality (that is in English Power) and Successive Duration. One of his rea­sons is, God is infinite, and nothing can be added to infinite, neither of time nor of parts: It is true. And therefore I said, God is infinite and eternal, without begin­ning or end, either of Time or Place; which he has not here confuted, but con­firmed. He denies Potentiality and Power to be all one, and says I little understand what Potentiality is. He ought therefore in this place to have defined what Poten­ality is: For I understand it to be the same with Potentia, which is in English Power. There is no such word as Potentiality in the Scriptures, nor in any Author of the Latin Tongue. It is found only in School-Divinity, as a word of Art, or rather as a word of Craft, to amaze and puzzle the Laity. And there­fore I no sooner read than intepreted it. In the next place he says, as wondring, How an endless succession of time in God! Why not? Gods mercy endureth for ever, and surely God endureth as long as his mer­cy, therefore there is duration in God, and consequently endless succession of time. God who in sundry times and divers manners spake in time past, &c. But in a former [Page 23]dispute with me about Free-will, he hath defined Eternity to be Nuno stans, that is an ever standing now, or everlasting instant. This he thinks himself bound in honour to defend. What reasonable soul can digest this? We read in Scripture, that a thou­sand years with God, is but as yesterday. And why? but because he sees as clearly to the end of a thousand years, as to the end of a day. But his Lordship affirms, That both a thousand years and a day are but one instant, the same standing Now, or E­ternity. If he had shewed an holy Text for this Doctrine, or any Text of the Book of Common Prayer (in the Scripture and Book of Common Prayer is contained all our Religion) I had yielded to him, but School-Divinity I value little or nothing at all. Though in this he contradict also the School-men, who say the Soul is eternal only à parte post, but God is eternal both à parte post, and à parte ante. Thus there are parts in eternity, and eternity being, as his Lordship says, the divine substance, the divine substance has parts, and Nunc stans has parts. Is not this darkness? I take it to be the Kingdom of Darkness, and the teachers of it, especially of this Doctrine. That God who is not only Op­timus, but also Maximus is no greater than to be wholly contained in the least Atome [Page 24]of earth, or other body, and that his whole duration is but an instant of time, to be either grosly ignorant or ungodly De­ceivers.

Our God is a perfect, pure, simple indivisible, infinite Essence; free from all composition of matter and form, of substance and accidents. All matter is finite, and he who acteth by his infinite Essence, needeth neither Organs, nor Faculties (id est, no pow­er, note that) nor accidents, to render him more compleat. But T. H. his God is a divisible God, a compounded God, that hath matter, or qualities, or accidents. Hear himself. I argue thus, The divine substance is indivisible, but eternity is the di­vine substance. The Major is evident, because God is Actus simplicissimus; the Minor is confessed by all men, that whatsoever is attribu­ted to God, is God. Now listen to his an­swer, The Major is so far from being evident, that Actus simplicissimus signifieth nothing. The Minor is said by some men, thought by no man, whatsoever is thought is understood. The Major was this, The divine substance is indivisible. Is this far from being evi­dent? Either it is indivisible or divisible. If it be not indivisible, then it is divisible, then it is materiate, then it is corporeal, then it hath parts, then it is finite by his own confession. Habere partes, aut esse [Page 25]totum aliquid, sunt attributa finitorum. Up­on this silly conceit he chargeth me for saying, That God is not just, but justice it self; not eternal, but eternity it self; which he calleth unseemly words to be said of God. And he thinketh he doth me a great courtesie in not adding Blasphemous and Atheistical. But his Bolts are so soon shot, and his Reasons are such vain Ima­ginations, and such drowsie Phantasies, that no sad man doth much regard them. Thus he hath already destroyed the U­biquity, the Eternity, and the Simpli­city of God. I wish he had consider­ed better with himself, before he had desperately cast himself upon these Rocks.

But paulo majora canamus, my next charge is, That he destroys the very being of God, and leaves nothing in his place, but an empty name. For by taking away all incorporeal substances, he taketh away God himself. The very name (saith he) of an incorporeal substance, is a Contradicti­on. And to say that an Angel or Spirit, is an incorporeal substance, is to say in effect, that there is no Angel or Spirit at all. By the same reason to say, That God is an in­corporeal substance, is to say there is no God at all. Either God is incorporeal, or he is finite, and consists of parts, and con­sequently is no God. This, That there is [Page 26]no incorporeal spirit, is that main root of Atheism, from which so many lesser branches are daily sprouting up.

God is indeed a Perfect, Pure, Simple, Infinite Substance; and his Name incommunicable, that is to say, not di­visible into this and that individual God, in such manner as the name of Man is di­visible into Peter and John. And therefore God is individual; which word amongst the Greeks is expressed by the word Indi­visible. Certain Hereticks in the primitive Church, because special and individual are called Particulars, maintained that Christ was a particular God, differing in number from God the Father. And this was the Doctrine that was condemned for Heresy in the first Councel of Nice, by these words, God hath no parts. And yet many of the Latin Fathers in their explications of the Nicene Creed, have expounded the word Consubstantial, by the community of nature, which different Species have in their Genus, and different individuals in the Species, as if Peter and John were Consub­stantial, because they agree in one humane nature; which is contrary (I confess) to the meaning of the Nice Fathers. But that in a substance infinitely great, it should be impossible to consider any thing as not infinite. I do not see it there condemned. [Page 27]For certainly he that thinks God is in every part of the Church, does not exclude him out of the Church-yard. And is not this a considering of him by parts? For di­viding a thing which we cannot reach nor separate one part thereof from another, is nothing else but considering of the same by parts. So much concerning Indivisibi­lity from Natural Reason; for I will wade no farther, but relie upon the Scriptures. God is no where said in the Scriptures to be indivisible, unless his Lordship meant division, to consist only in separation of parts, which I think he did not. St. Paul indeed saith, 1 Cor. 1.13. Is Christ divid­ed? Not that the followers of Paul, Apollo, and Cephas, followed some one part, some another of Christ; but that thinking diffe­rently of his nature, they made as it were different kinds of him. Secondly, his Lord­ship expounds Simplicity, by not being compounded of Matter and Form, or of Substance and Accidents, Unlearnedly. For nothing can be so compounded. The mat­ter of a Chair is Wood, the form is the figure it hath apt for the intended use. Does his Lordship think the Chair compounded of the Wood and the Figure? A man is Rational, does it therefore follow that Reason is a part of the man? It was A­ristotle deceived him, who had told him [Page 28]that a Rational living Creature, is the de­finition of a man, and that the definition of a man was his Essence; and therefore the Bishop and other School-men, from this that the word Rational is a part of these words Man is a Rational living Crea­ture, concluded that the Essence of man, was a part of the man, and a Rational man, the same thing with a Rational Soul. I should wonder how any man, much more a Doctor of Divinity, should be so grosly deceived, but that I know naturally the generality of men speak the words of their Masters by rote, without having any Idea of the things, which the words signifie. Lastly, he calls God an Essence. If he mean by Essence the same with Ens, [...]I approve it. Otherwise, what is Essence? There is no such word in the Old Testa­ment. The Hebrew Language, which has no word answerable to the copulative est, will not bear it. The New Testament hath [...], but never for Essence, nor for Substance, but only for Riches. I come now to his Argument in Mood and Figure, which is this, The Divine Substance is indivisible. That's the Major. Eternity is the Divine Substance. That's the Minor. Ergo, the Divine Substance is indivisible. The Ma­jor, he says, is evident, because God is Actus simplicissimus. The Minor is confessed, [Page 29]he thinks, by all men, because whatsoever is attributed to God, is God. To this I an­swered, that the Major was so far from be­ing evident, that Actus Simplicissimus signifi­eth nothing, and that the Minor was under­stood by no man. First, what is Actus in the Major? does any man understand Actus for a Substance, that is, for a thing subsisting by it self? Is not Actus in English, either an Act, or an Action, or nothing? or is any of these Substances? If it be evident, why did he not explain Actus by a definition? And as to the Minor, though all men in the world understand that the Eternal is God, yet no man can understand that the Eternity is God. Perhaps he and the School-men mean by Actus, the same that they do by Essentia. What is the Essence of a man, but his Humanity? or of God, but his De­ity; of Great, but Greatness; and so of all other denominating Attributes? And the words God and Deity, are of different sig­nification. Damascene a Father of the Church expounding the Nicene Creed de­nies plainly that the Deity was incarnate, but all true Christians hold that God was incarnate. Therefore God and the Deity, signifie divers things; and therefore Eter­nal and Eternity are not the same, no more than a wise man and his wisdom are the same. Nor God and his justice the same [Page 30]thing, and universally 'tis false, that the Attribute in the Abstract is the same with the Substance, to which it is attributed. Also it is universally true of God, that the Attribute in the Concrete, and the sub­stance to which it is attributed, is not the same thing. I come now to his next Pe­riod or Paragraph, wherein he would fain prove, that by denying Incorporeal Sub­stance, I take away Gods Existence. The words he cites here are mine; To say an Angel or Spirit is an Incorporeal Substance, is to say in effect there is no Angel nor Spirit at all. It is true also, that to say that God is an Incorporeal Substance, is to say in effect there is no God at all. What al­ledges he against it, but the School-Divi­nity which I have already answered? Scripture he can bring none, because the word Incorporeal is not found in Scripture. But the Bishop trusting to his Aristotelean and Scholastick Learning hath hitherto made no use of Scripture, save only of these Texts, Who hath planted a Vineyard, and eat­eth not of the fruit thereof; or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock, and Rev. 4.11. Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, honour, and power, for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they were created; thereby to prove that the right of God to govern and punish mankind [Page 31]is not derived from his Omnipotence. Let us now see how he proves Incorporeity by his own Reason without Scripture. Either God (he saith) is Incorporeal or Finite. He knows I deny both, and say he is Cor­poreal and Infinite, against which he offers no proof, but only (according to his custom of disputing) calls it the root of Atheism; and interrogates me, what re­al thing is left in the world, if God be In­corporeal, but Body and Accidents? I say there is nothing left but Corporeal Sub­stance. For I have denyed (as he knew) that there is any reality in accidents; and nevertheless maintain Gods Existence, and that he is a most pure, and most simple Corporeal Spirit. Here his Lordship catching nothing, removes to the eternity of the Trinity, 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 [Page 32]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, [Page 33]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.

[Page 34]

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 [Page 35]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 [Page 36]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 is an infinitely fine Spirit and withall [Page 37]intelligent, can make and change all species and kinds of Body as he pleaseth; but I dare not say, that this is the way by which God Almighty worketh, because it is past my ap­prehension, yet it serves very well to demon­strate, that the Omnipotence of God impli­eth no contradiction; and is better than by pretence of magnifying the fineness of the divine Substance, to reduce it to a Spright or Phantasm, which is Nothing.

A Person, [Lat.] Persona, signifies an in­telligent Substance, that acteth any thing in his own or anothers Name, or by his own or anothers Authority. Of this Definition there can be no other proof than from the use of that word, in such Latin Authors as were esteem'd the most skilful in their own Lan­guage, of which number was Cicero. But Cicero, in an Epistle to Atticus, saith thus, Ʋnus sustineo tres Personas, Mei, Adversarii, & Judicis: That is, I that am but one man, sustain three Persons; mine own Person, the Person of my Adversary, and the Person of the Judge. Cicero was here the Substance in­telligent, one man; and because he pleaded for himself, he calls himself, his own Person; and again, because he pleaded for his Adver­sary, he says, he sustained the Person of his Adversary; and lastly, because he himself gave the Sentence, he says, he sustained the Person of the Judge. In the same sence we [Page 38]use the word in English vulgarly, calling him that acteth by his own Authority, his own Person, and him that acteth by the Au­thority of another, the Person of that other. And thus we have the exact meaning of the word Person. The Greek Tongue cannot render it; for [...]is properly a Face, and Metaphorically, a Vizard of an Actor upon the Stage. How then did the Greek Fathers render the word Person, as it is in the blessed Trinity? Not well. Instead of the word Person they put Hypostasis, which sig­nifies Substance, from whence it might be inferr'd, that the three Persons in the Trini­ty are three divine Substances, that is, three Gods. The word [...], they could not use, because Face and Vizard are neither of them honourable Attributes of God, nor explicative of the meaning of the Greek Church. Therefore the Latin (and conse­quently the English) Church renders Hypo­stasis every where in Athanasius his Creed by Person. But the word Hypostatical Ʋnion is rightly retained and used by Divines, as be­ing the Union of two Hypostases, that is, of two Substances or Natures in the Person of Christ. But seeing they also hold the Soul of our Saviour to be a Substance, which though separated from his Body, subsisted neverthe­less in it self, and consequently before it was separated from his Body upon the Cross, [Page 39]was a distinct Nature from his Body, how will they avoid this Objection, That then Christ had three Natures, three Hypostases, without granting, that his Resurrection was a new vivification, and not a return of his Soul out of Heaven into the Grave? The con­trary is not determined by the Church. Thus far in explication of the words that occur in this Controversie. Now I return again to his Lordship's Discourse.

When they have taken away all incorporeal Spirits, what do they leave God himself to be? He who is the Fountain of all Being, from whom and in whom all Crea­tures have their Being, must needs have a re­al Being of his own. And what real Being can God have among Bodies and Accidents? for they have left nothing else in the Uni­verse. Then T. H. may move the same Que­stion of God, which he did of Devils. I would gladly know in what Classis of Entities, the Bishop ranketh God? Infinite Being and participated Being are not of the same na­ture. Yet to speak according to humane ap­prehension, (apprehension and comprehensi­on differ much: T. H. confesseth that natu­ral Reason doth dictate to us, that God is In­finite, yet natural Reason cannot compre­hend the Infiniteness of God) I place him among incorporeal Substances or Spirits, be­cause he hath been pleased to place himself in [Page 40]that rank, God is a Spirit. Of which place T. H. giveth his opinion, that it is unintelli­gible, and all others of the same nature, and fall not under humane understanding.

They who deny all incorporeal Substances, can understand nothing by God, but either Nature, (not Naturam naturantem, that is, a real Author of Nature, but Naturam natu­ratam, that is, the orderly concourse of na­tural Causes, as T. H. seemeth to intimate) or a fiction of the Brain, without real Being, cherished for advantage and politick Ends, as a profitable Error, howsoever dignified with the glorious title of the eternal Cause of all things.

To his Lordship's Question here, What I leave God to be, I answer, I leave him to be a most pure, simple, invisible Spi­rit Corporeal. By Corporeal I mean a Sub­stance that has Magnitude, and so mean all learned men, Divines and others, though perhaps there be some common people so rude as to call nothing Body, but what they can see and feel. To his second Question, What real Being he can have amongst Bodies and Accidents, I answer, The Being of a Spi­rit, not of a Spright. If I should ask any the most subtil Distinguisher, what middle na­ture there were between an infinitely subtil Substance, and a meer Thought or Phantasm, by what Name could he call it? He might [Page 41]call it perhaps an Incorporeal Substance, and so Incorporeal shall pass for a middle nature between Infinitely subtil and Nothing, and be less subtil than Infinitely subtil, and yet more subtil than a thought. 'Tis granted (he says) that the Nature of God is incomprehensible. Doth it therefore follow, that we may give to the divine Substance what negative Name we please? Because he says, the whole di­vine Substance is here and there and every where throughout the World, and that the Soul of a man is here and there and every where throughout man's Body, must we therefore take it for a Mystery of Christian Religion, upon his or any Schoolman's word, without the Scripture, which calls nothing a Mystery but the Incarnation of the eternal God? Or is Incorporeal a Mystery, when not at all mentioned in the Bible, but to the contrary 'tis written, That the fulness of the Deity was bodily in Christ? When the na­ture of the thing is incomprehensible, I can acquiesce in the Scripture, but when the sig­nification of words are incomprehensible, I cannot acquiesce in the Authority of a School­man.

We have seen what his Principles are concerning the Deity, they are full as bad or worse concerning the Trinity. Hear him­self. A person is he that is represented as often as he is represented. And therefore God who [Page 42]has been represented, that is, personated thrice, may properly enough be said to be three Persons, though neither the word Person nor Trinity be ascribed to him in the Bible. And a little af­ter, To conclude, the doctrine of the Trinity as far as can be gathered directly from the Sori­pture, is in substance this, that the God who is always one and the same, was the Person repre­sented by Moses, the Person represented by his Son incarnate, and the Person represented by the Apostles. As represented by the Apostles, the holy Spirit by which they spake is God. As represented by his Son that was God and Man, the Son is that God. As represented by Moses, and the High Priests, the Father, that is to say, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is that God. From whence we may gather the reason why those Names, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in the signification of the Godhead, are never used in the Old Testament. For they are Persons, that is, they have their Names from representing, which could not be, till divers Persons had represented God, in ruling or in directing under him.

Who is so bold as blind Bayard? The Emblem of a little Boy attempting to lade all the Water out of the Sea with a Cockle-shell, doth sit T. H. as exactly as if it had been sha­ped for him, who thinketh to measure the profound and inscrutable Mysteries of Reli­gion, by his own silly, shallow conceits. What [Page 43]is now become of the great adorable Myste­ry of the blessed undivided Trinity? It is shrunk into nothing? Upon his grounds there was a time when there was no Trinity. And we must blot these words out of our Creed, The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal. And these other words out of our Bibles, Let us make man after our Image. Unless we mean that this was a consultation of God with Moses and the Apostles. What is now become of the eternal generation of the Son of God, if this Sonship did not begin until about 4000 years after the Creation were expired? Upon these grounds every King hath as many Persons, as there be Justices of Peace, and petty Con­stables in his Kingdom. Upon this account God Almighty hath as many Persons, as there have been Soveraign Princes in the World since Adam. According to this reckoning each one of us like so many Geryons, may have as many Persons as we please to make Procurations. Such bold presumption requi­reth another manner of confutation.

As for the words recited, I con­fess there is a fault in the Ratiocination, which nevertheless his Lordship hath not discovered, but no Impiety. All that he objecteth is, That it followeth hereupon, that there be as many Persons of a King, as there be petty Constables in his Kingdom. And so there [Page 44]are, or else he cannot be obeyed. But I ne­ver said that a King, and every one of his Persons are the same Substance. The fault I here made, and saw not was this; I was to prove, That it is no contradiction (as Luci­an, and Heathen Scoffers would have it) to say of God, he was One and Three. I saw the true definition of the word Person would serve my turn in this manner; God in his own Person both created the World, and in­stituted a Church in Israel, using therein the Ministry of Moses; the same God in the Per­son of his Son God and Man redeemed the same World, and the same Church; the same God in the Person of the Holy Ghost sancti­fied the same Church, and all the faithful men in the World. Is not this a clear proof, that it is no contradiction to say that God is three Persons and one Substance? And doth not the Church distinguish the Persons in the same manner? See the words of our Cate­chism. Quest. What dost thou chiefly learn in these Articles of the Belief? Answ. First, I learn to believe in God the Father, that hath made me and all the World; Secondly, In God the Son, who hath redeemed me and all Mankind; Thirdly, In God the Holy Ghost, that hath sanctified me and all the elect people of God. But at what time was the Church sanctified? Was it not on the day of Pentecost, in the descending of the Holy [Page 45]Ghost upon the apostles? His Lordship all this while hath catched nothing. 'Tis I that catched my self, for saying, (instead of, By the Ministry of Moses) in the Person of Mo­ses. But this Error I no sooner saw, then I no less publickly corrected then I had com­mitted it, in my Leviathan converted into Latin, which by this time I think is printed beyond the Seas with this alteration, and also with the omission of some such passages as Strangers are not concerned in. And I had corrected this Error sooner, if I had sooner found it. For though I was told by Dr. Co­sins, now Bishop of Duresme, that the place above-cited was not applicable enough to the Doctrine of the Trinity, yet I could not in reviewing the same espy the defect till of late, when being sollicited from beyond Sea to translate the Book into Latin, and fearing some other man might do it not to my liking, I examined this passage and others of the like sence more narrowly. But how concludes his Lordship out of this, that I put out of the Creed these words, The Father eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy Ghost eternal? Or these words, Let us make man after our Image, out of the Bible. Which last words neither I nor Bellarmine put out of the Bible, but we both put them out of the number of good Arguments to prove the Trinity; for it is no unusual thing in the Hebrew, as may be [Page 46]seen by Bellarmine's quotations, to joyn a Noun of the plural Number with a Verb of the singular. And we may say also of many other Texts of Scripture alledged to prove the Trinity, that they are not so firm as that high Article requireth. But mark his Lord­ship's Scholastick charity in the last words of this period, Such bold presumption requireth another manner of confutation. This Bishop, and others of his opinion had been in their Element, if they had been Bishops in Queen Maries time.

Concerning God the Son, forget­ting what he had said elsewhere, where he calleth him God and Man, and the Son of God incarnate, he doubteth not to say, that the word Hypostatical is canting. As if the same Person could be both God and Man without a Personal, that is, an Hypostatical Union of the two Natures of God and Man.

If Christian Profession be (as cer­tainly it is in England) a Law, and if it be of the nature of a Law to be made known to all men that are to obey it, in such manner as they may have no excuse for disobedience from their ignorance, then without doubt all words unknown to the people, and as to them insignificant, are Canting. The word Substance is understood by the Vulgar well enough, when it is said of a Body, but in [Page 47]other sence not at all, except for their Riches. But the word Hypostatical is understood only by those, and but few of those that are lear­ned in the Greek Tongue, and is properly used, as I have said before, of the Union of the two Natures of Christ in one Person. So likewise Consubstantial in the Nicene Creed, is properly said of the Trinity. But to an English man that understands neither Greek nor Latin, and yet is as much concerned as his Lordship was, the word Hypostatical is no less Canting than Eternal now.

He alloweth every man who is commanded by his lawful Soveraign, to deny Christ with his tongue before men.

I allow it in some Cases, and to some men, which his Lordship knew well enough, but would not mention. I alled­ged for it, in the place cited, both Reason and Scripture, though his Lordship thought it not expedient to take notice of either. If it be true that I have said, why does he blame it? If false, why offers he no Argu­ment against it, neither from Scripture nor from Reason? Or why does he not show that the Text I cite is non applicable to the Question, or not well interpreted by me. First, He barely cites it, because he thought the words would sound harshly, and make a Reader admire them for Impiety. But I hope I shall so well instruct my Reader are I leave [Page 48]this place, that this his petty Art will have no effect. Secondly, The Cause why he omitted my Arguments was, That he could not answer them. Lastly, The Cause why he urgeth neither Scripture nor Reason a­gainst it was, That he saw none sufficient. My Argument from Scripture was this, ( Le­viathan, pag. 271.) taken out of 2 Kings 5.17. where Naaman the Syrian saith to Elisha the Prophet, Thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt-offering nor sacrifice to other Gods, but unto the Lord. In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant, that when my Ma­ster goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I bow my self in the house of Rimmon: when I bow my self in the house of Rimmon, the Lord par­don thy servant in this thing, and he said unto him, Go in peace. What can be said to this? Did not Elisha say it from God? Or is not this Answer of the Prophet a permission? When St. Paul and St. Peter commanded the Christians of their time to obey their Princes, which then were Heathens and Enemies of Christ, did they mean they should lose their Lives for disobedience? Did they not rather mean they should preserve both their Lives and their Faith, (believing in Christ as they did) by this denial of the tongue, having no command to the contrary? If in this King­dom a Mahometan should be made by terror [Page 49]to deny Mahomet and go to Church with us, would any man condemn this Mahome­tan? A denyal with the mouth may perhaps be prejudicial to the power of the Church, but to retain the Faith of Christ stedfastly in his Heart, cannot be prejudicial to his Soul that hath undertaken no charge to preach to Wolves, whom they know will destroy them. About the time of the Coun­cil of Nice, there was a Canon made (which is extant in the History of the Nicene Coun­cil) concerning those that being Christians had been seduced, not terrified, to a deny­al of Christ, and again repenting, desired to be readmitted into the Church; in which Canon it was ordain'd that those men should be no otherwise readmitted than to be in the number of the Catechised, and not to be admitted to the Communion till a great many years penitence. Surely the Church then would have been more merciful to them that did the same upon terror of present death and torments.

Let us now see what his Lordship might, though but colourably, have alledged from Scripture against it. There be three places only that seem to favour his Lordship's opi­nion. The first is where Peter denyed Christ, and weepeth. The second is, Acts 5.29. Then Peter and the other Apostles an­swered and said, we ought to obey God rather [Page 50]than men. The third is, Luke 12.9. But he that denyeth me, shall be denyed before the Angels of God.

For answer to these Texts, I must repeat what I have written, and his Lord­ship read in my Leviathan, pag. 362. For an unlearned man that is in the power of an Ido­latrous King, or State, if commanded on pain of Death to worship before an Idol, do­ing it, he detesteth the Idol in his Heart, he doth well; though if he had the fortitude to suffer Death, rather than worship it, he should do better. But if a Pastor, who as Christ's Messenger has undertaken to teach Christ's Doctrine to all Nations should do the same, it were not only a sinful Scandal in respect of other Christian Mens Consciences, but a perfi­dious forsaking of his Charge. In which words I distinguish between a Pastor and one of the Sheep of his Flock. St. Peter sinned in denying Christ; and so does every Pastor that having undertaken the Charge of Preaching the Gospel in the Kingdom of an Infidel, where he could expect at the undertaking of his Charge no less than Death. And why, but because he violates his Trust in doing contrary to his Commis­sion. St. Peter was an Apostle of Christ, and bound by his voluntary undertaking of that Office, not only to Confess Christ, but also to Preach him before those Infidels whom he [Page 51]knew would (like Wolves) devour him. And therefore when Paul and the rest of the Apostles were forbidden to preach Christ they gave this Answer, We ought to obey God rather than Men. And it was to his Disciples only which had undertaken that Office, that Christ saith, he that denyeth me before Men, shall be denyed before the Angels of God. And so I think I have sufficiently answered this place, and shewed that I do not allow the denying of Christ, upon a­ny colour of Torments, to his Lordship, nor to any other that has undertaken the Office of a Preacher. Which if he think right, he will perhaps in this case put himself into the number of those whom he calls merciful Doctors, whereas now he extends his seve­rity beyond the bounds of common equi­ty. He has read Cicero, and perhaps this Story in him. The Senate of Rome would have sent Cicero to treat of Peace with Mar­cus Antonius, but when Cicero had shewed them the just fear he had of being killed by him, he was excused; and if they had forced him to it, and he by terror turned Enemy to them, he had in equity been ex­cusable. But his Lordship I believe did write this more valiantly than he would have acted it.

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He Deposeth Christ from his true Kingly Office, making his Kingdom not to Commence or begin before the day of Judg­ment. And the Regiment wherewith Christ Governeth his Faithful in this Life, is not properly a Kingdom, but a Pastoral Office, or a right to Teach. And a little after, Christ had not Kingly Authority committed to him by his Father in this World, but only Con­siliary and Doctrinal.

How do I take away Christs King­ly Office? He neither draws it by Conse­quence from my Words, nor offers any Ar­gument at all against my Doctrine. The words he cites are in the Contents of 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 [Page 53]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.

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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.

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.

And touching the Prophetical Office of Christ, I do much doubt whether he do believe in earnest, that there is any [Page 55]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 [Page 56]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 [Page 57]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.

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 innumerable. Such a Prophet was his Lordship, and such are all Pastors in the Christian Church. But the Question here is of those Prophets that from the Mouth of God foretell things future, or do other Miracle. Of this kind I deny there has been any since the Death of St. John the Evangelist. If any Man find fault with this, he ought to name some Man or other whom we are bound to acknowledge that they have done a Miracle, cast out a De­vil, [Page 58]or cured any Disease by the sole Invo­cation of the Divine Majesty. We are not bound to trust to the Legend of the Roman Saints, nor to the History written by Sul­pitius of the Life of St. Martin, or to any other Fables of the Roman Clergy, nor to such things as were pretended to be done by some Divines here in the time of King James. Secondly, he says I make little dif­ference between a Prophet and a Mad-man, or Demoniack; To which I say he accuses me falsly. I say only thus much, That I see nothing at all in the Scripture that requi­reth a belief, that Demoniacks were any other-thing than Madmen. And this is also made very probable out of Scripture by a worthy Divine Mr. Meade. But concerning Pro­phets, I say only that the Jews both under the Old Testament and under the New, took them to be all one with Mad-men and Demoniacks. And prove it out of Scripture by many places both of the Old and New Testament. Thirdly, that the pretence or arrogating to ones self Divine Inspiration, is argument enough to shew a Man is Mad, is my opinion; but his Lordship understands not Inspiration in the same sence that I do. He understands it properly of God's breath­ing into a Man, or pouring into him the Divine Substance, or Divine Graces, and in that sence, he that arrogateth Inspiration [Page 59]into himself, neither understands what he saith, nor makes others to understand him, which is properly Madness in some degree. But I understand Inspiration in the Scripture Metaphorically, for Gods guidance of our minds to Truth and Piety. Fourthly, where­as he says, I make the pretence of Inspirati­on to be pernicious to Peace. I answer, that I think his Lordship was of my Opini­on, for he called those Men which in the late Civil War pretended the Spirit, and New Light, and to be the only faithful men Phanaticks; for he called them in his Book, and did call them in his Life time Phana­ticks. And what is a Phanatick but a Mad­man, and what can be more pernicious to Peace than the Revelations that were by these Phanaticks pretended? I do not say there were Doctrines of other Men, not called Phanaticks as pernicious to Peace, as theirs were, and in great part a cause of those troubles. Fifthly, from that I make Prophetical Revelations subject to the examination of the Lawful Soveraign, he inferreth, that 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. This consequence is not good, for seeing they teach different Doctrines, they cannot both of them confirm their [Page 60]Doctrine with Miracles. But this I prove (in the page 232 he citeth) that, whether either of their Doctrines shall be taught publickly or not, 'tis in the power of the Soveraign of the Place only to determine. Nay, I say now further, if a Prophet come to any private Man in the Name of God, that Man shall be Judge whether he be a true Prophet or not, before he obey him. See 1 John 4. 1. Sixthly, whereas he says, that upon my grounds Christ was to be re­puted a false Prophet every where, because his Doctrine was received no where. His Lordship had read my Book more negli­gently than was fit for one that would con­fute it. My ground is this, that Christ in right of his Father was King of the Jews, and consequently Supream Prophet, and Judge of all Prophets. What other Prin­ces thought of his Prophesies, is nothing to the purpose. I never said that Princes can make Doctrines or Prophesies true or false, but I say every Soveraign Prince has a right to prohibite the publick Teaching of them, whether false or true. But what an over­sight is it in a Divine to say, that Christ had the Approbation of no Soveraign Prince, when he had the Approbation of God, who was King of the Jews, and Christ his Vice-Roy, and the whole Scripture written ( Joh. 20.31.) to prove it? When his Miracles de­clared [Page 61]it; when Pilate confessed it; and when the Apostles Office was to proclaim it? Seventhly, If we must not consider in points of Christian Faith who is the Soveraign Pro­phet, that is, who is next under Christ our Supream Head and Governor, I wish his Lordship would have cleared, ere he dy­ed, these few Questions. Is there not need of some Judge of Controverted Doctrines? I think no man can deny it, that has seen the Rebellion that followed the Controver­sie here between Gomar and Arminius. There must therefore be a Judge of Doctrines. But (says the Bishop) not the King. Who then? Shall Dr. Bramhall be this Judge? As profitable an Office as it is, he was more mo­dest than to say that. Shall a private Lay­man have it? No man ever thought that. Shall it be given to a Presbyterian Minister? No; 'tis unreasonable. Shall a Synod of Pres­byterians have it? No; For most of the Presbyters in the Primitive Church were undoubtedly subordinate to Bishops, and the rest were Bishops. Who then? A Synod of Bishops? Very well. His Lordship be­ing too modest to undertake the whole Power would have been contented with the six and twentieth part. But suppose it in a Synod of Bishops, who shall call them toge­ther? The King. What if he will not? Who should Excommunicate him, or if he [Page 62]despise your Excommunication, who shall send forth a Writ of Significavit? No; all this was far from his Lordships thoughts. The power of the Clergy, unless it be up­held legally by the King, or illegally by the Multitude amounts to nothing. But for the Multitude, Suarez and the School-men will never gain them, because they are not understood. Besides there be very few Bi­shops that can act a Sermon (which is a pu­issant part of Rhetorick) So well as divers Presbyterians, and Phanatick Preachers can do. I conclude therefore, that his Lordship could not possibly believe that the Supream Judicature in matter of Religion could any where be so well placed as in the Head of the Church, which is the King. And so his Lordship and I think the same thing; but because his Lordship knew not how to de­duce it, he was angry with me because I did it. He says further that by my Principles, he that blasphemeth Christ at Constantinople is a true Prophet, as if a man that blasphemeth Christ, to approve his Blasphemy can pro­cure a Miracle; for by my principles no Man is a Prophet whose Prophesie is not confirm­ed by God with a Miracle. In the last place out of this, That the lawful Soveraign is the Judge of Prophesie, he deduces That then Samuel and other Prophets were false Pro­phets that contested with their Soveraigns. [Page 63]As for Samuel he was at that time the Judge, that is to say the Soveraign Prince in Israel, and so acknowledged by Saul. For Saul received the Kingdom (from God himself, who had right to give and take it) by the hands of Samuel. And God gave it him to himself only, and not to his Seed; though if he had obeyed God, he would have setled it also upon his Seed. The Commande­ment of God was, that he should not spare Agag. Saul obeyed not. God therefore sent Samuel to tell him that he was rejected. For all this Samuel went not about to resist Saul. That he caused Agag to be slain, was with Sauls consent. Lastly, Saul confesses his sin. Where is this contesting with Saul? After this God sent Samuel to anoint David, not that he should depose Saul, but succeed him, the Sons of Saul having never had a right of Succession. Nor did ever David make War on Saul, or so much as resist him, but fled from his persecution. But when Saul was dead, then indeed he claim­ed his right against the House of Saul. What Rebellion or Resistance could his Lordship find here, either in Samùel or in David? Be­sides, all these Transactions are supernatural, and oblige not to imitation. Is there any Prophet or Priest now that can set up in England, Scotland or Ireland, another King by pretence of Prophesie or Religion? What [Page 64]did Jeroboam to the man of God 1 Kings 13) that prophesied against the Altar in Bethel, without first doing a Miracle, but offer to seize him for speaking (as he thought) rashly of the Kings Act; and after the mira­culous withering of his Hand, desire the Pro­phet to pray for him? The sin of Jeroboam was not his distrust of the Prophet, but his Idolatry. He was the sole Judge of the truth which the man of God uttered against the Altar, and the process agreeable to equi­ty. What is the story of Eliah and Ahab (1 Kings 18.) but a confirmation of the Right, even of Ahab to be the Judge of Prophesie? Eliah told Ahab, he had trans­gressed the Commandement of God. So may any Minister now tell his Soveraign, so he do it with sincerity and discretion. Ahab told Eliah he troubled Israel. Upon this controversie Eliah desired tryal. Send, saith he, and assemble all Israel; Assemble also the Prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty. Ahab did so. The Question is stated before the People thus, If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal follow him. Then upon the Altars of God and Baal were laid the Wood and the Bullocks; and the cause was to be judged by Fire from Heaven, to burn the Sacrifices; which Eliah procured, the Prophets of Baal could not procure, Was not this cause here Pleaded before A­hab? [Page 65]The Sentence of Ahab is not requi­red; for Eliah from that time forward was no more persecuted by Ahab, but only by his Wife Jezabel. The story of Micaiah (2 Cron. 18.) is this, Ahab King of Israel con­sulted the Prophets, four hundred in num­ber, whether he should prosper or not, in case he went with Jehosaphat King of Ju­dah to fight against the Syrians at Ramoth­gilead. The Prophet Micaiah was also cal­led, and both the Kings Ahab and Jehosa­phat sat together to hear what they should prophecy. There was no Miracle done. The 400 pronounced Victory, Micaiah a­lone the contrary. The King was Judge, and most concern'd in the event; nor had he received any Revelation in the business. What could he do more discreetly than to follow the Counsel of 400 rather than of one Man? But the event was contrary; for he was slain; but not for following the Counsel of the 400, but for his Murder of Naboth and his Idolatry. It was also a sin in him, that he afflicted Micaiah in Prison; but an unjust Judgment does not take away from any King his right of Judicature. Be­sides, what's all this, or that of Jeremiah, which he cites last, to the Question of who is Judge of Christian Doctrine?

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Neither doth he use God the Ho­ly Ghost, more favourably than God the Son. Where St. Peter saith, Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit; He saith, By the Spirit, is meant the Voice of God in a Dream or Vision Superna­tural, which Dreams or Visions, he maketh to be no more than imaginations which they had in their sleep, or in an extasie, which in every true Prophet were Supernatural, but in false Prophets were either natural or feigned, and more likely to be false than true. To say God hath spoken to him in a Dream, is no more than to say, he dreamed that God spake to him, &c. To say he hath seen a Vision or heard a Voice, is to say, That he hath dream­ed between sleeping and waking. So St. Pe­ter's Holy Ghost is come to be their own imaginations, which might be either feigned, or mistaken, or true. As if the Holy Ghost did enter only at their eyes, and at their ears, not into their understandings, nor in­to their minds; Or as if the Holy Ghost did not seal unto their hearts the truth and assurance of their Prophesies. Whether a new light be infused into their understand­ings, or new graces be inspired into their heart, they are wrought, or caused, or crea­ted immediately by the Holy Ghost, And so are his imaginations, if they be Superna­tural.

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For the places of my Leviathan he cites, they are all as they stand both true and clearly proved; the setting of them down by Fragments is no Refutation; nor offers he any Argument against them. His conse­quences are not deduced. I never said that the Holy Ghost was an Imagination, or a Dream, or a Vision, but that the Holy Ghost spake most often in the Scripture by Dreams and Visions supernatural. The next words of his, As if the Holy Ghost did enter only at their eyes, and at their ears, not into their un­derstandings, nor into their minds, I let pass, because I cannot understand them. His last words, Whether new light, &c. I understand and approve.

But he must needs fall into these absurdities, who maketh but a jest of inspi­ration. They who pretend Divine inspiration to be a supernatural entring of the Holy Ghost into a Man, are (as he thinks) in a very dan­gerous Dilemma; for if they worship not the Men whom they conceive to be inspired, they fall into impiety; and if they worship them, they commit Idolatry. So mistaking the Holy Ghost to be corporeal, some thing that is blown into a Man, and the Graces of the Holy Ghost to be corporeal Graces. And the words, inpoured or infused virtue, and, inblown or inspired virtue, are as absurd and insignifi­cant, as a round Quadrangle. He reckons it [Page 68]as a common error, That faith and sanctity are not attained by study and reason, but by supernatural inspiration or infusion. And lay­eth this for a firm ground; Faith and San­ctity are indeed not very frequent, but yet they are not Miracles, but brought to pass by Education, Discipline, Correction, and other natural wayes. I would see the greatest Pe­lagian of them all fly higher.

I make here no jest of Inspirati­on. Seriously, I say, that in the proper signification of the words Inspiration and Infusion, to say virtue is inspired, or infused, is as absurd as to say a Quadrangle is round. But Metaphorically, for Gods bestowing of Faith, Grace, or other Vertue, those words are intelligible enough.

Why should he trouble himself a­bout the Holy Spirit, who acknowledgeth no Spirit but either a subtil fluid body, or a Ghost, or other Idol or Phantasm of the imagination; who knoweth no inward Grace or intrinsecal Holyness? Holy is a word which in Gods Kingdom answereth to that which men in their Kingdoms use to call pub­lick, or the Kings. And again, wheresoever the word Holy is taken properly, there is still some thing signified of propriety gotten by con­sent. His Holiness is a Relation, not a Qua­lity; for inward sanctification, or real infu­sed holiness, in respect whereof the third, [Page 69]Person is called the Holy Ghost, because he is not only holy in himself, but also maketh us holy, he is so great a stranger to it, that he doth altogether deny it, and disclaim it.

The word Holy I had defined in the words which his Lordship here sets down, and by the use thereof in the Scripture made it manifest, That that was the true significa­tion of the word. There is nothing in Learn­ing more difficult than to determine the sig­nification of words. That difficulty excuses him. He says that Holiness (in my sence) is a Relation, not a Quality. All the Learn­ed agree that Quality is an Accident, so that in attributing to God Holiness (as a Quali­ty) he contradicts himself; for he has in the beginning of this his discourse denyed (and rightly) that any Accident is in God, saying whatsoever is in God is the Divine Substance. He affirms also, that to attribute any Accident to God, is to deny the simplicity of the Di­vine Substance. And thus his Lordship makes God, as I do, a Corporeal Spirit. Both here, and throughout, he discovers so much ignorance, as had he charged me with error only, and not with Atheism, I should not have thought it necessary to answer him.

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We are taught in our Creed to believe the Catholick or Universal Church. But T. H. teacheth us the contrary, That if there be more Christian Churches than one, all of them together are not one Church personally, And more plainly, Now if the whole number of Christians be not contained in one Common­wealth, they are not one Person, nor is there an Ʋniversal Church, that hath any Authority over them. And again, The Ʋniversal Church is not one Person, of which it can be said, that it hath done, or Decreed, or Ordained, or Ex­communicated, or Absolved. This doth quite overthrow all the Authority of General Councils.

All other Men distinguish between the Church and the Common-wealth; only T. H. maketh them to be one and the same thing. The Common-wealth of Christian men, and the Church of the same, are altogether the same thing, called by two names, for two rea­sons. For the matter of the Church and of the Common-wealth is the same, namely the same Christian men; and the Form is the same, which consisteth in the lawful power of convoca­ting them. And hence he concludeth, That every Christian Common-wealth is a Church endowed with all spiritual Authority. And yet more fully, The Church if it be one Per­son, is the same thing with the Common-wealth of Christians, called a Common-wealth, because [Page 71]it consisteth of men united in one Person their Soveraign; And a Church because it consisteth in Christian men united in one Christian So­veraign. Upon which account there was no Christian Church in these Parts of the World, for some hundreds of years after Christ, because there was no Christian So­veraign.

For answer to this Period, I say only this, That taking the Church (as I do in all those places) for a company of Christi­an men on Earth incorporated into one Per­son, that can speak, command, or do any act of a Person, all that he citeth out of what I have written is true; and that all private Conventicles, though their belief be right, are not properly called Churches; and that there is not any one Universal Church here on Earth which is a Person indued with Au­thority universal to govern all Christian men on Earth, no more than there is one Uni­versal Soveraign Prince or State on Earth that hath right to govern all Mankind. I deny also that the whole Clergy of a Chri­stian Kingdom or State being assembled, are the representative of that Church further than the Civil Laws permits; or can lawful­ly assemble themselves, unless by the com­mand or by the leave of the Soveraign Ci­vil Power. I say further, that the denyal of this point tendeth in England towards [Page 72]the taking away of the Kings Supremacy in causes Ecclesiastical. But his Lordship has not here denyed any thing of mine, because he has done no more but set down my words. He says further, that this Doctrine destroyes the Authority of all General Coun­cils; which I confess. Nor hath any Ge­neral Council at this day in this Kingdom the force of a Law, nor ever had, but by the Authority of the King.

Neither is he more Orthodox con­cerning the Holy Scriptures, Hitherto, that is, for the Books of Moses, the power of mak­ing the Scripture Canonical, was in the Civil Soveraign. The like he saith of the Old Te­stament, made Canonical by Esdras. And of the New Testament, That it was not the A­postles which made their own Writings Canoni­cal, but every Convert made them so to him­self. Yet with this restriction, That until the Soveraign Ruler had prescribed them, they were but Counsel and Advice, which whether good or bad, he that was counselled might without injustice refuse to observe, and being contrary to the Laws established, could not without injustice observe. He maketh the Primitive Christians to have been in a pretty condition. Certainly the Gospel was contrary to the Laws then establish­ed. But most plainly, The word of the In­terpreter of the Scripture is the word of God. [Page 73]And the same is the Interpreter of the Scri­pture, and the Soveraign Judge of all Doctrines, that is, the Soveraign Magistrate, to whose Authority we must stand no less, than to theirs, who at first did commend the Scripture to us for the Canon of Faith. Thus if Chri­stian Soveraigns, of different Communica­tions, do clash one with another, in their interpretations, or misinterpretation of Scri­pture (as they do daily) then the word of God is contradictory to it self; or that is the word of God in one Common-wealth, which is the word of the Devil in another Common-wealth. And the same thing may be true, and not true at the same time: Which is the peculiar priviledge of T.H. to make Contradictories to be true toge­ther.

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 [Page 74]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, 'tis 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 [Page 75]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 [Page 76]sence be necessary to Salvation, then all is well, except perhaps that they will call one another Atheists, and fight about it.

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, [Page 77]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.

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 [Page 78]more intimated concerning the nature of these Sacraments, either in the Scripture or in the Book of Common-Prayer? Have Bread and Wine and Water in their own Nature, any other Quality than they had be­fore the Consecration? It is true that the Consecration gives these bodies a new Re­lation, as being a giving and dedicating of them to God, that is to say a making of them Holy, not a changing of their Quality. But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken English, to be thought perfect in the French language; so his Lord­ship (I think) to seem a perfect understand­er of the unintelligible language of the Schoolmen, pretends an ignorance of his Mother Tongue. He talks here of Com­mand and Counsel as if he were no English man, nor knew any difference between their significations. What English man when he commandeth, says more than, Do this; yet he looks to be obeyed, if obedience be due unto him. But when he says, Do this, and thou shalt have such or such a Reward, he encourages him, or advises him, or Bargains with him, but Commands him not. Oh, the understanding of a Schoolman.

Sometimes he is for holy Orders, and giveth to the Pastors of the Church the right of Ordination and Absolution, and Infallibility, too much for a particular Pa­stor, [Page 79]or the Pastors of one particular Church. It is manifest, that the consecration of the chiefest Doctors in every Church, and imposi­tion of hands, doth pertain to the Doctors of the same Church. And it cannot be doubted of, but the power of binding and loosing was given by Christ to the future Pastors, after the same manner as to his present Apostles. And our Saviour hath promised this infallibility in those things which are necessary to Salvation, to his Apostles, until the day of Judgment, that is to say, to the Apostles and Pastors, to be Consecrated by the Apostles successively, by the imposition of hands.

But at other times he casteth all this Meal down with his foot. Christian Sove­raigns are the supream Pastors, and the only persons whom Christians now hear speak from God, except such as God speaketh to in these dayes supernaturally. What is now become of the promised infallibility?

And it is from the Civil Soveraign that all other Pastors derive their right of teaching, preaching, and all other functions pertaining to that Office, and they are but his Ministers in the same manner as the Magistrates of Towns, or Judges in Courts of Justice, and Command­ers of Armies. What is now become of their Ordination? Magistrates, Judges, and Generals, need no precedent qualifications. He maketh the Pastoral Authority of Sove­raigns [Page 80]to be Jure divino, of all other Pastors Jure civili: He addeth, neither is there any Judge of Heresie among Subjects, but their own civil Soveraign.

Lastly, the Church Excommunicateth no man but whom she Excommunicateth by the Authority of the Prince. And the effect of Excommunication hath nothing in it, neither of dammage in this World, nor terror upon an Apostate, if the Civil Power did persecute or not assist the Church. And in the World to come, leaves them in no worse estate, than those who never believed. The dammage ra­ther redoundeth to the Church. Neither is the Excommunication of a Christian Subject, that obeyeth the Laws of his own Soveraign, of a­ny effect. Where is now their power of binding and loosing?

Here his Lordship condemneth, first my too much kindness to the Pastors of the Church; as if I ascribed Infallibility to every particular Minister, or at least to the Assembly of the Pastors of a particular Church. But he mistakes me, I never meant to flatter them so much. I say only that the Ceremony of Consecration, and Imposition of hands belongs to them; and that also no otherwise than as given them by the Laws of the Common-wealth. The Bishop Conse­crates, but the King both makes him Bishop and gives him his Authority. The Head of [Page 81]the Church not only gives the power of Consecration, Dedication, and Benedicti­on, but may also exercise the Act himself if he please. Solomon did it, and the Book of Canons says, That the King of England has all the Right that any good King of Is­rael had. It might have added that any other King or soveraign Assembly had in their own Dominions. I deny That any Pastor or any Assembly of Pastors in any particular Church, or all the Churches on earth though united are Infallible. Yet I say the Pastors of a Christian Church assem­bled are in all such points as are necessary to Salvation. But about what points are ne­cessary to Salvation he and I differ. For I in the 43d chapter of my Leviathan have proved that this Article, Jesus is the Christ, is the unum necessarium, the only Article ne­cessary to Salvation; to which his Lordship hath not offered any Objection. And he (it seems) would have necessary to Salvati­on every Doctrine he himself thought so. Doubtless in this Article, Jesus is the Christ, every Church is infallible; for else it were no Church. Then he says, I overthrow this again by saying that Christian Sove­raigns are the Supream Pastors, that is, Heads of their own Churches; That they have their Authority Jure Divino; That all other Pastors have it Jure Civili: How came [Page 82]any Bishop to have Authority over me, but by Letters Patents from the King? I re­member a Parliament wherein a Bishop, who was both a good Preacher and a good Man, was blamed for a Book he had a lit­tle before Published in maintenance of the Jus Divinum of Bishops; a thing which be­fore the Reformation here, was never al­lowed them by the Pope. Two Jus Di­vinums cannot stand together in one King­dom. In the last place he mislikes that the Church should Excommunicate by Autho­rity of the King, that is to say, by Autho­rity of the Head of the Church. But he tells not why. He might as well mislike that the Magistrates of the Realm should execute their Offices by the Authority of the Head of the Realm. His Lordship was in a great error, if he thought such incroach­ments would add any thing to the Wealth, Dignity, Reverence or Continuance of his Order. They are Pastors of Pastors, but yet they are the Sheep of him that is on earth their soveraign Pastor, and he again a Sheep of that supream Pastor which is in Heaven. And if they did their pastoral Of­fice, both by Life and Doctrine, as they ought to do, there could never arise any dangerous Rebellion in the Land. But if the people see once any ambition in their Teachers, they will sooner learn that, than [Page 83]any other Doctrine; and from Ambition proceeds Rebellion.

It may be some of T. H. his Dis­ciples desire to know what hopes of Hea­venly joyes they have upon their Masters Principles. They may hear them without any great contentment, There is no mention in Scripture, nor ground in reason, of the Coe­lum Empyraeum, that is, the Heaven of the Blessed, where the Saints shall live eternal­ly with God. And again, I have not found any Text that can probably be drawn to prove any Ascention of the Saints into Heaven, that is to say, into any Coelum Empyraeum. But he concludeth positively, that Salvation shall be upon earth, when God shall Raign at the coming of Christ in Jerusalem. And a­gain, In short, the Kingdom of God is a ci­vil Kingdom, &c. called also the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Kingdom of Glory. All the Hobbians can hope for, is, to be restor­ed to the same condition which Adam was in before his fall. So saith T.H. himself, From whence may be inferred, that the Elect, after the Resurrection, shall be restored to the estate wherein Adam was before he had sinned: As for the beatifical vision he defineth it to be a word unintelligible.

This Coelum Empyraeum for which he pretendeth so much zeal, where is it in the Scripture, where in the Book of Com­mon [Page 84]Prayer, where in the Canons, where in the Homilies of the Church of England, or in any part of our Religion? What has a Christian to do with such Language? Nor do I remember it in Aristotle. Perhaps it may be in some Schoolman or Commen­tator on Aristotle, and his Lordship makes it in English the Heaven of the Blessed, as if Empyraeum signified That which belongs to the Blessed. St. Austin says better; that af­ter the day of Judgment all that is not Hea­ven shall be Hell. Then for Beatifical visi­on, how can any man understand it that knows from the Scripture that no man e­ver saw or can see God. Perhaps his Lord­ship thinks that the happiness of the Life to come is not real but a Vision. As for that which I say ( Lev. pag. 345.) I have answered to it already.

But considering his other Princi­ples, I do not marvel much at his extrava­gance in this point. To what purpose should a Coelum Empyraeum, or Heaven of the Blessed, serve in his judgment, who maketh the blessed Angels that are the In­habitants of that happy Mansion, to be ei­ther Idols of the brain, that is in plain En­glish, nothing, or thin, subtil, fluid bodies, destroying the Angelical nature. The uni­verse being the aggregate of all bodies, there is no real part thereof that is not also body. [Page 85]And elsewhere, Every part of the Ʋniverse is Body, and that which is not Body, is no part of the Ʋniverse. And because the Ʋniverse is all, that which is no part of it is nothing, and consequently no where. How? By this Do­ctrine he maketh not only the Angels, but God himself to be nothing. Neither doth he salve it at all by supposing erroneously Angels to be corporeal Spirits, and by at­tributing the name of incorporeal Spirit to God, as being a name of more honour, in whom we consider not what Attribute best ex­presseth his nature, which is incomprehensi­ble, but what best expresseth our desire to honour him. Though we be not able to comprehend perfectly what God is, yet we are able perfectly to comprehend what God is not, that is, he is not imperfect, and therefore he is not finite, and conse­quently he is not corporeal. This were a trim way to honour God indeed to honour him with a lye. If this that he say here be true, That every part of the Ʋniverse is a Body, and whatsoever is not a Body is no­thing. Then by this Doctrine, if God be not a Body, God is nothing; not an in­corporeal Spirit, but one of the Idols of the Brain, a meer nothing, though they think they dance under a Net, and have the blind of Gods incomprehensibility, between them and discovery.

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This of Incorporeal substance he urged before, and there I answered it. I wonder he so often rolls the same stone. He is like Sysiphus in the Poets Hell, that there rolls a heavy stone up a hill, which no sooner he brings to day-light, then it slips down again to the bottom, and serves him so perpetually. For so his Lordship rolls this and other questions with much a­doe till they come to the light of Scripture; and then they vanish, and he vexing, sweating, and railing goes to't again, to as little purpose as before. From that I say of the Universe he infers, that I make God to be nothing. But infers it absurdly. He might indeed have inferr'd that I make him a Corporeal, but yet a pure Spirit. I mean by the Universe, the Aggregate of all things that have being in themselves, and so do all men else. And because God has a being, it follows that he is either the whole Universe, or part of it. Nor does his Lordship go about to disprove it, but only seems to wonder at it.

To what purpose should a Coelum Empyraeum serve in his Judgment, who de­nyeth the immortality of the Soul? The Doctrine is now, and hath been a long time far otherwise; namely, that every man hath eternity of life by nature, in as much as his Soul is immortal. Who supposeth that when [Page 87]a man dyeth, there remaineth nothing of him but his Carkase; who maketh the word Soul in holy Scripture to signifie always ei­ther the Life, or the Living Creature? And expoundeth the casting of Body and Soul into Hell-fire, to be the casting of Bo­dy and Life into Hell-fire. Who maketh this Orthodox truth, that the Souls of men are Substances distinct from their Bodies, to be an error contracted by the contagion of the Demonology of the Greeks, and a window that gives entrance to the dark Doctrine of eternal torments. Who expoundeth these words of Solomon, [Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the Spirit shall return to God that gave it,] Thus, God only knows what becomes of a mans Spirit, when he ex­spireth. He will not acknowledge that there is a Spirit, or any Substance distinct from the Body. I wonder what they think doth keep their Bodies from stinking.

He comes here to that which is a great Paradox in School Divinity. The grounds of my opinion are the Canonical Scripture, and the Texts which I cited I must again recite, to which I shall also add some others. My Doctrine is this, First, That the elect in Christ from the day of Judg­ment forward, by vertue of Christ's Passion and Victory over death, shall enjoy eternal life, that is, they shall be Immortal. Se­condly, [Page 88] that there is no living Soul separa­ted in place from the Body, more than there is a living Body separated from the Soul. Thirdly, That the reprobate shall be revived to Judgment, and shall dye a second death in Torments, which death shall be everlasting. Now let us consider what is said to these points in the Scripture, and what is the harmony therein of the Old and New Te­stament.

And first, because the word Immortal Soul, is not found in the Scriptures, the question is to be decided by evident conse­quences from the Scripture. The Scri­pture saith of God expresly (1 Tim. 6.16.) That He only hath immortality, and dwel­leth in inaccessible light. Hence it follow­eth that the Soul of man is not of its own nature Immortal, but by Grace, that is to say, by the gift of God. And then the question will be whether this grace or gift of God were bestowed on the Soul in the Creation and Conception of the Man, or afterwards by his redemption. Another question will be in what sence immortali­ty of Torments can be called a gift, when all gifts suppose the thing given to be grate­ful to the receiver. To the first of these, Christ himself saith ( Luke 14.13, 14.) When thou makest a Feast, call the Poor, the Maimed, the Lame, the Blind, and thou shalt [Page 89]be Blessed, for they cannot recompense thee; For thou shalt be recompensed at the resurre­ction of them that be just. It follows hence that the reward of the Elect is not before the Resurrection. What reward then en­joyes a separated Soul in Heaven, or any where else till that day come, or what has he to do there till the Body rise again? A­gain St. Paul says ( Rom. 2.6, 7.) God will render to every man according to his works. To them who by patient continuance in well doing, seek for Honour, Glory and Immortality, E­ternal Life. But unto them that be conten­tious, and do not obey the truth, but obey un­righteousness, indignation and wrath. Here it is plain that God gives Eternal Life on­ly to well doers, and to them that seek (not to them that have already) Immortality. Again (1 Tim. 1.10.) Christ hath abolished Death, and brought Life and Immortality to light, through the Gospel. Therefore before the Gospel of Christ, nothing was Immor­tal but God. And St. Paul speaking of the day of Judgment (1 Cor. 15.54.) saith that This Mortal shall put on Immortality, and that then Death is swallowed in Victory. There was no Immortality of any thing Mortal till Death was overcome, and that was at the Resurrection. And John 8.52. Verily, Verily, if a man keep my sayings he shall never see Death, that is to say, he shall [Page 90]be Immortal; but it is no where said, that he which keeps not Christ's sayings shall never see Death, nor be Immortal, and yet they that say that the wicked, Body and Soul, shall be tormented everlastingly, do therein say they are Immortal. Mat. 10.28. Fear not them that can kill the Body, but are not able to kill the Soul; but fear him that is able to destroy both Soul and Body in Hell. Man cannot kill a Soul, for the Man kill'd shall revive again. But God can de­stroy the Soul and Body in Hell, as that it shall never return to life. In the Old Te­stament we read ( Gen. 7.4.) I will destroy every living Substance that I have made from off the face of the Earth; therefore, if the Souls of them that perished in the Flood were Substances, they were also de­stroyed in the Flood and were not Immor­tal. ( Math. 25.41.) Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting Fire, prepared for the Devil and his Angels. These words are to be spoken in the day of Judgment, which Judgment is to be in the Clouds. And there shall stand the men that are reproba­ted alive, where Souls according to his Lordships Doctrine were sent long before to Hell. Therefore at that present day of Judgment they had one Soul by which they were there alive, and another Soul in Hell. How his Lordship could have maintained [Page 91]this, I understand not. But by my Do­ctrine, that the Soul is not a separated Sub­stance, but that the Man at his Resurrecti­on shall be revived by God, and raised to Judgment, and afterwards Body and Soul destroyed in Hell-fire (which is the second death) there is no such consequence or dif­ficulty to be inferred. Besides it avoids the unnecessary disputes about where the Soul of Lazarus was for four dayes he lay dead. And the order of the Divine Process is made good, of not inflicting torments be­fore the Condemnation pronounced.

Now as to the harmony of the two Te­staments, it is said in the old ( Gen. 2.17.) In the day that thou eatest of the Tree of Know­ledge, dying thou shalt dye. Moriendo mori­eris, that is, when thou art dead thou shalt not revive; for so hath Athanasius expound­ed it. Therefore Adam and Eve were not Immortal by their Creation. Then ( Gen. 3.22.) Behold the man is become as one of us—Now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live for ever, &c. Here they had had an Immorta­lity by the gift of God, if they had not sin­ned. It was therefore sin that lost them Eternal-life. He therefore that redeemed them from sin was the Author of their Im­mortality, and consequently began in the day of Judgment when Adam and Eve were [Page 92]again made alive by admission to the new Tree of Life, which was Christ.

Now let us compare this with the New Testament. Where we find these words (1 Cor. 15.21.) since by Man came Death, by Man came also the Resurrection of the dead. Therefore all the Immortality of the Soul, that shall be after the Resurrection, is by Christ, and not by the nature of the Soul. verse 22. As by Adam all dye, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Therefore since we dyed by Adam's sin, so we shall live by Christ's Redemption of us, that is, after the Resurrection. Again verse 23. But every man in his order; Christ the first Fruits, afterwards they that are Christs, at his coming. Therefore none shall be made a­live till the coming of Christ. Lastly, as when God had said, That day that thou eatest of the Tree of Knowledg of Good and Evil, thou shalt dye, though he con­demned him then, yet he suffered him to live a long time after; so when Christ had said to the Thief on the Cross, this day thou shalt be with me in Paradise, yet he suffered him to lye dead till the General Resurrection, for no man rose again from the dead before our Saviours coming, and conquering death.

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If God bestowed Immortality on every man then when he made him, and he made many to whom he never purposed to give his saving Grace, what did his Lordship think that God gave any man Immortality with purpose only to make him capable of Immortal Torments? 'Tis a hard saying, and I think cannot piously be believed. I am sure it can never be proved by the Ca­nonical Scripture.

But though I have made it clear that it cannot be drawn by lawful consequence from Scripture, that Man was Created with a Soul Immortal, and that the Elect only, by the Grace of God in Christ, shall both Bodies and Souls from the Resurrecti­on forward be Immortal; yet there may be a Consequence well drawn from some words in the Rites of Burial, that prove the contrary, as these. Forasmuch as it hath pleased Abmighty God of his great mercy, to take unto himself the Soul of our dear Bro­ther here departed, &c. And these, Almigh­ty God, with whom do live the Spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord. Which are words Authorised by the Church. I won­der his Lordship that had so often pro­nounced them, took no notice of them here. But it often happens that men think of those things least, which they have most perfectly learnt by rote. I am sorry [Page 94]I could not without deserting the sence of Scripture and mine own Conscience say the same. But I see no just cause yet why the Church should be offended at it. For the Church of England pretendeth not (as doth the Church of Rome) to be above the Scripture; nor forbiddeth any man to Read the Scripture; nor was I forbidden when I Wrote my Leviathan to Publish any thing which the Scriptures suggested. For when I Wrote it, I may safely say there was no lawful Church in England, that could have maintained me in, or prohibited me from Writing any thing. There was no Bishop, and though there were Preaching, such as it was, yet no Common-Prayer. For Ex­temporary Prayer, though made in the Pul­pit, is not Common-Prayer. There was then no Church in England, that any man living was bound to obey. What I Write here at this present time I am forced to in my defence, not against the Church, but against the accusations and arguments o [...] my Adversaries. For the Church, though it excommunicates for scandalous life, and for teaching false Doctrines, yet it profes­seth to impose nothing to be held as Faith but what may be warranted by Scripture and this the Church it self saith in th [...] 20th of the 39 Articles of Religion. An [...] therefore I am permitted to alledge Scr [...] ­pture [Page 95]at any time in the defence of my Be­lief.

But they that in one case are griev­ed, in another must be relieved. If per­chance T. H. hath given his Disciples any discontent in his Doctrine of Heaven and the holy Angels, and the glorified Souls of the Saints, he will make them amends in his Doctrine of Hell, and the Devils, and the damned Spirits. First of the Devils; He fancieth that all those Devils which our Sa­viour did cast out, were Phrensies, and all Demoniacks (or Persons possessed) no other than Mad-men. And to justifie our Savi­our's speaking to a Disease as to a Person, pro­duceth the example of inchanters. But he declareth himself most clearly upon this Subject, in his Animadversions upon my reply to his defence of fatal destiny. There are in the Scripture two sorts of things which are in English translated Devils. One is that which is called Satan, Diabolus, Abaddon, which signifieth in English an Enemy, an Ac­cuser, and a destroyer of the Church of God, in which sence the Devils are but wicked men. The other sort of Devils are called in the Scri­pture Daemonia, which are the feigned Gods of the Heathen, and are neither Bodies nor spiritual Substances, but meer fancies, and fi­ctions of terrified hearts, feigned by the Greeks, and other Heathen People, which St. Paul [Page 96] calleth Nothings. So T.H. hath killed the great infernal Devil, and all his black An­gels, and left no Devils to be feared, but Devils Incarnate, that is, wicked men.

As for the first words cited ( Levi. page 38, 39.) I refer the Reader to the place it self; and for the words concerning Sa­tan, I leave them to the judgment of the Learned.

And for Hell he describeth the Kingdom of Satan, or the Kingdom of dark­ness, to be a confederacy of deceivers. He telleth us that the places which set forth the torments of Hell in holy Scripture, do design Metaphorically a grief and discontent of mind, from the sight of that eternal felici­ty in others, which they themselves, through their own incredulity and disobedience have lost. As if Metaphorical descriptions did not bear sad truths in them, as well as li­teral, as if final desperation were no more than a little fit of grief or discontent; and a guilty conscience were no more than a transitory passion, as if it were a loss so ea­sily to be born, to be deprived for evermore of the beatifical Vision: and lastly as if the Damned, besides that unspeakable loss, did not likewise suffer actual Torments, pro­portionable in some measure to their own sins, and Gods Justice.

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That Metaphors bear sad truths in them, I deny not. It is a sad thing to lose this present life untimely. Is it not therefore much more a sad thing to lose an eternal happy Life? And I believe that he which will venture upon sin, with such danger, will not stick to do the same not­withstanding the Doctrine of eternal tor­ture. Is it not also a sad truth, that the Kingdom of darkness should be a Confe­deracy of deceivers?

Lastly, for the damned Spirits, he declareth himself every where, that their sufferings are not eternal. The Fire shall be unquenchable, and the Torments everlasting; but it cannot be thence inferred, that he who shall be cast into that Fire, or be tormented with those Torments, shall endure and resist them, so as to be eternally burnt and tortured, and yet never be destroyed nor dye. And though there be many places, that affirm ever­lasting fire, into which men may be cast suc­cessivily one after another for ever; yet I find none that affirm that there shall be an ever­lasting life therein of any individual Person. If he had said, and said only, that the pains of the Damned may be lessened, as to the degree of them, or that they en­dure not for ever, but that after they are purged by long torments from their dross and Corruptions, as Gold in the fire, both [Page 98]the damned Spirits and the Devils them­selves should be restored to a better condi­tion, he might have found some Ancients (who are therefore called the merciful Do­ctors) to have joyned with him, though still he should have wanted the suffrage of the Catholick Church.

Why does not his Lordship cite some place of Scripture here to prove that all the Reprobates which are dead, live e­ternally in torment? We read indeed That everlasting Torments were prepared for the Devil and his Angels, whose na­tures also are everlasting; and that the Beast and the false Prophet shall be torment­ed everlastingly; but not that every Re­probate shall be so. They shall indeed be cast into the same fire, but the Scripture says plainly enough, that they shall be both Body and Soul destroyed there. If I had said that the Devils themselves should be restored to a better condition; his Lord­ship would have been so kind as to have put me into the number of the Merciful Doctors. Truly if I had had any Warrant for the possibility of their being less ene­mies to the Church of God than they have been, I would have been as merciful to them as any Doctor of them all. As it is, I am more merciful than the Bishop.

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But his shooting is not at rovers, but altogether at randome, without either President or Partner. All that eternal sire, all those torments which he acknowledg­eth, is but this, That after the Resurre­ction, the Reprobate shall be in the estate that Adam and his Posterity were in, after the sin committed, saving that God promised a Re­deemer to Adam and not to them. Adding, that they shall live as they did formerly, Mar­ry, and give in Marriage; and consequently engender Children perpetually after the Re­surrection, as they did before, which he cal­leth an immortallity of the kind, but not of the persons of men. It is to be presumed, that in those their second lives, knowing certainly from T. H. that there is no hope of Redemption for them from corporal death upon their well-doing; nor fear of any Torments after death for their ill-doing, they will pass their times here as pleasant­ly as they can. This is all the Damnation which T. H. fancieth.

This he has urged once before, and I answered to it, That the whole Pa­ragraph was to prove, that for any Text of Scripture to the contrary, men might, after the Resurrection live as Adam did on earth, and that notwithstanding the Text of St. Luke chap. 20. verse 34, 35, 36. Mar­ry and propagate. But that they shall do so, [Page 100]is no assertion of mine. His Lordship knew I held that after the Resurrection there shall be at all no wicked men; but the E­lect (all that are, have been, and hereaf­ter shall be) shall live on earth. But St. Peter says, there shall then be a new Hea­ven and a new Earth.

In summ I leave it to the free judgment of the understanding Reader, by these few instances which follow, to judge what the Hobbian Principles are in point of Religion. Ex ungue leonem.

First, that no man needs to put himself to any hazzard for his Faith, but may safely comply with the times. And for their Faith it is internal and invisible. They have the li­cence that Naaman had, and need not put them­selves into danger for it.

Secondly, he alloweth Subjects, being commanded by their Soveraign, to deny Christ. Profession with the Tongue is but an external thing, and no more than any other ge­sture, whereby we signifie our obedience. And wherein a Christian, holding firmly in his heart the Faith of Christ, hath the same liberty which the Prophet Elisha allowed to Naaman &c. Who by bowing before the Idol Rimmon denyed the true God as much in effect, as if he had done it with his Lips. Alas, why did St. Peter Weep so bitterly for denying his Master, out of fear of his Life or Mem­bers? [Page 101]It seems he was not acquainted with these Hobbian Principles. And in the same place he layeth down this general Conclu­sion. This we may say that 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 Laws of his Coun­try, that action is not his, but his Soveraign's; nor is it he that in this case denyeth Christ be­fore men, but his Governor and the Law of his Country. His instance in a Mahometan commanded by a Christian Prince to be present at Divine Service, is a weak mi­stake, springing from his gross ignorance in Case-Divinity, not knowing to distin­guish between an erroneous Conscience, as the Mahometans is, and a Conscience right­ly informed.

In these his two first instances I confess his Lordship does not much belye me. But neither does he confute me. Also I confess my ignorance in his Case-Divini­ty which is grounded upon the Doctrine of the School-men. Who to decide Cases of Conscience, take in, not only the Scriptures, but also the Decrees of the Popes of Rome, for the advancing of the Dominion of the Roman Church over Consciences; where­as the true decision of Cases of Conscien­ces ought to be grounded only on Scripture, or natural Equity. I never allowed the [Page 102]denying of Christ with the Tongue in all men, but expresly say the contrary ( Lev. pag. 362.) in these words, For an unlearn­ed man that is in the power of an Idola­trous King or State, if commanded on pain of death to worship before an Idol, he de­testeth the Idol in his heart; he doth well, though if he had the fortitude to suffer death rather than worship it, he should do better. But if a Pastor who as Christ's mes­senger has undertaken to teach Christ's Do­ctrine to all Nations, should do the same, it were not only a sinful scandal in respect of other Christian mens Consciences, but a persidious forsaking of his charge. There­fore St. Peter in denying Christ sinned, as being an Apostle. And 'tis sin in every man that should now take upon him to preach against the power of the Pope, to leave his Commission unexecuted for fear of the fire; but in a meer Traveller, not so. The three Children and Daniel were worthy Champions of the true Religion. But God requireth not of every man to be a Champion. As for his Lordship's words of complying with the times, they are not mine, but his own spightful Paraphrase.

Thirdly, if this be not enough, he giveth licence to a Christian to commit Idolatry, or at least to do an Idolatrous act, for fear of death or corporal danger. To [Page 103]pray unto a King voluntarily for fair weather, or for any thing which God only can do for us, is divine Worship, and Idolatry. On the o­ther side, if a King compel a man to it by the terror of death, or other great corporal punish­ment, it is not Idolatry. His reason is, be­cause it is not a sign, that he doth inwardly honour him as a God, but that he is desirous to save himself from death, or from a miserable life. If seemeth T. H. thinketh there is no divine Worship, but internal. And that it is lawful for a man to value his own life or his limbs more than his God. How much is he wiser than the three Children, or Daniel himself? who were thrown, the first into a fiery Furnace, the last into the Lions Denn, because they refused to com­ply with the Idolatrous Decree of their So­veraign Prince.

Here also my words are truly ci­ted. But his Lordship understood not what the word Worship signifies; and yet he knew what I meant by it. To think high­ly of God (as I had defined it) is to honour him. But to think is internal. To Worship, is to signifie that Honour which we in­wardly give, by signs external. This un­derstood (as by his Lordship it was) all he says to it is but a cavil.

A fourth Aphorism may be this, That which is said in the Scripture, it is bet­ter [Page 104]to obey God than man, hath place in the Kingdom of God by Pact, and not by Nature. Why? Nature it self doth teach us it is bet­ter to obey God than men. Neither can he say that he intended this only of obedi­ence, in the use of indifferent actions and gestures, in the service of God, command­ed by the Common-wealth, for that is to obey both God and man. But if divine Law and humane Law clash one with another, without doubt it is evermore better to obey God than man.

Here again appears his unskilful­ness in reasoning. Who denyes, but it is alwayes, and in all causes better to obey God than Man? But there is no Law, nei­ther divine nor humane that ought to be taken for a Law, till we know what it is, and if a divine Law, till we, know that God hath commanded it to be kept. We agree that the Scriptures are the Word of God. But they are a Law by Pact. that is, to us who have been Baptized into the Cove­nant. To all others it is an invitation only to their own benefit. 'Tis true that even nature suggesteth to us that the Law of God is to be obeyed rather than the Law of man. But nature does not suggest to us that the Scripture is the Law of God, much less how every Text of it ought to be interpre­ted. But who then shall suggest this? Dr. [Page 105] Bramhall? I deny it. Who then? The stream of Divines? Why so? Am I that have the Scripture it self before my eyes, obliged to venture my eternal life upon their interpretation, how learned soever they pretend to be, when no counter-secu­rity that they can give me, will save me harmless? If not the stream of Divines, who then? The lawful Assembly of Pastors or of Bishops? But there can be no lawful Assembly in England without the Authori­ty of the King. The Scripture therefore what it is, and how to be interpreted, is made known unto us here, by no other way than the Authority of our Soveraign Lord both in Temporals and Spirituals, The Kings Majesty. And where he has set forth no Interpretation, there I am allowed to follow my own, as well as any other man, Bishop or not Bishop. For my own part, all that know me, know also it is my opinion, That the best government in Religion is by E­piscopacy, but in the King's Right, not in their own. But my Lord of Derry not con­tented with this, would have the utmost resolution of our Faith to be into the Do­ctrine of the Schools. I do not think that all the Bishops be of his mind. If they were, I would wish them to stand in fear of that dreadful Sentence, All covet all lose. I must not let pass these words of his Lord­ship, [Page 106] If divine Law and humane Law clash one with another, without doubt it is better evermore to obey God than man. Where the King is a Christian, believes the Scripture, and hath the Legislative power both in Church and State, and maketh no Laws concerning Christian Faith, or divine Wor­ship, but by the Counsel of his Bishops whom he trusteth in that behalf, if the Bi­shops counsel him aright, what clashing can there be between the divine and hu­mane Laws? For if the Civil Law be against God's Law, and the Bishops make it clearly appear to the King that it clasheth with di­vine Law, no doubt he will mend it by him­self or by the advice of his Parliament; for else he is no professor of Christ's Doctrine, and so the clashing is at an end. But if they think that every opinion they hold, though obscure and unnecessary to Salvation, ought presently to be Law, then there will be cla­shings innumerable, not only of Laws, but also of Swords, as we have found it too true by late experience. But his Lordship is still at this, that there ought to be, for the divine Laws that is to say, for the in­terpretation of Scripture, a Legislative pow­er in the Church, distinct from that of the King, which under him they enjoy already. This I deny. Then for clashing between the Civil Laws of Indels with the Law of [Page 107]God, the Apostles teach that those their Civil Laws are to be obeyed, but so as to keep their Faith in Christ entirely in their hearts; which is an obedience easily per­formed. But I do not believe that Augustus Caesar or Nero was bound to make the holy Scripture Law; and yet unless they did so they could not attain to eternal life.

His fifth conclusion may be, that the sharpest and most succesful Sword, in any War whatsoever, doth give Soveraign Power and Authority to him that hath it, to approve or reject all sorts of Theological Doctrines, concerning the Kingdom of God, not according to their truth or falshood, but according to that influence which they have upon political affairs. Hear him, But because this Doctrine will appear to most men a novelty, I do but propound it, maintaining nothing in this or any other Paradox of Reli­gion, but attending the end of that dispute of the Sword, concerning the Authority (not yet amongst my Country-men decided) by which all sorts of Doctrine are to be approved or reje­cted, &c. For, the points of Doctrine concern­ing the Kingdom of God, have so great influ­ence upon the Kingdom of Man, as not to be determined, but by them that under God have the Soveraign Power.

[Page 108]Let him evermore want success who think­eth actions are to be judged by their events. This Doctrine may be plausible to those who desire to fish in troubled Waters. But it is justly hated by those which are in Au­thority, and all those who are lovers of peace and tranquillity.

The last part of this conclusion smelleth rankly of Jeroboam, Now shall the Kingdom return to the house of David, if this people go up to do Sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem; whereupon the King took counsel, and made two Calves of Gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusa­lem, behold thy Gods O Israel, which brought thee out of the Land of Aegypt. But by the just disposition of Almighty. God this Policy turned to a sin, and was the utter destruction of Jeroboam and his Family. It is not good jesting with edge-tools, nor playing with holy things: Where men make their greatest fastness, many times they find most danger.

His Lordship either had a strange Conscience, or understood not English. Be­ing at Paris when there was no Bishop nor Church in England, and every man writ what he pleased, I resolved (when it should please God to restore the Authority Ecclesi­astical) to submit to that Authority, in whatsoever it should determine. This his [Page 109]Lordship construes for a temporizing and too much indifferency in Religion; and says further that the last part of my words do smell of Jeroboam. To the contrary I say my words were modest, and such as in duty I ought to use. And I profess still that whatsoever the Church of England (the Church, I say, not every Doctor) shall for­bid me to say in matter of Faith, I shall abstain from saying it, excepting this point. That Jesus Christ the Son of God dyed for my sins. As for other Doctrins, I think it unlaw­ful if the Church define them for any Mem­ber of the Church to contradict them.

His sixth Paradox is a rapper, the Civil Laws are the Rules of good and evil, just and unjust, honest and dishonest, and there­fore what the Lawgiver commands that is to be accounted good, what he forbids bad. And a little after, before Empires were, just and unjust were not, as whose nature is Relative to a Command, every action in its own nature is indifferent. That it is just or unjust pro­ceedeth from the right of him that command­eth. Therefore lawful Kings make those things which they command, Just by commanding them, and those things which they forbid Ʋn­just by forbidding them. To this add his definition of a sin, that which one doth, or omitteth, saith, or willeth contrary to the rea­son of the Common-wealth, that is, the [Civil] [Page 110]Laws. Where by the Laws he doth not understand the Written Laws, elected and approved by the whole Common-wealth, but the verbal Commands or Mandates, of him that hath the Soveraign Power, as we find in many places of his Writings. The Civil Laws are nothing else but the Commands of him, that is endowed with Soveraign Pow­er in the Common-wealth, concerning the future actions of his Subjects. And the Civil Laws are fastned to the Lips of that man who hath the Soveraign Power.

Where are we? In Europe or in Asia? Where they ascribed a Divinity to their Kings, and, to use his own Phrase, made them Mortal Gods. O King live for ever. Flatterers are the common Moths of great Pallaces, where Alexander's friends are more numerous than the King's friends. But such gross palpable pernicious flattery as this is, I did never meet with, so derogatory both to piety and policy. What deserved he who should do his uttermost endeavour to poyson a common Fountain, whereof all the Common-wealth must drink? He doth the same who poisoneth the mind of a So­veraign Prince.

Are the Civil Laws the Rules of good and bad, just and unjust, honest and dishonest? And what I pray your are the Rules of the Civil Law it self? Even the Law of God [Page 111]and Nature. If the Civil Laws swerve from these more authentick Laws, they are Lesbian Rules. What the Lawgiver 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 call holy, and just, and good. And whatsoever the great Beast disliked, they called evil, unjust, prophane. But he is not yet arrived at the height of his flattery. Lawful Kings make those things which they command just by commanding them. At other times when he is in his right wits he talketh of sufferings, 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. But 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 betrue, 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 sence, 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 Eggs in the sand. But in truth [Page 112]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 goodness, 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 man's 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.

My sixth Paradox he calls a Rap­per. A Rapper, a Swapper and such like terms are his Lordships elegancies. But let us see what this Rapper is. 'Tis this, The Civil Laws are the Rules of Good and Evil, Just and Unjust, Honest and Dishon­est. Truly I see no other Rules they have. The Scriptures themselves were made Law to us here, by the Authority of the Com­mon-wealth, and are therefore part of the Law Civil. If they were Laws in their own nature, then were they Laws over all the World, and men were obliged to obey them in America, as soon as they should be shown there (though without a Miracle) by a Frier. What is Injust but the Trans­gression of a Law? Law therefore was be­fore Unjust. And the Law was made known by Soveraign Power before it was a Law. Therefore Soveraign Power was an­tecedent [Page 113]both to Law and Injustice. Who then made Injust but Soveraign Kings or Soveraign Astemblies? Where is now the wonder of this Rapper, That Lawful Kings make those things which they command Just by commanding them, and those things which they forbid Ʋnjust by forbidding them? Just and Unjust were surely made; if the King made them not, who made them else? For certainly the breach of a Civil Law is a sin against God. Another Calumny which he would fix upon me, is, That I make the King's verbal Commands to be Laws. How so? Because I say the Civil Laws are nothing else but the Commands of him that hath the Soveraign Power, concern­ing the future Actions of his Subjects. What verbal Command of a King can arrive at the ears of all his Subjects (which it must do ere it be a Law) without the Seal of the Person of the Common-wealth (which is here the Great Seal of England?) Who but his Lordship ever denyed that the command of England was a Law to Eng­lish men? Or that any but the King had Authority to affix the Great Seal of Eng­land to any Writing? And who did ever doubt to call our Laws (though made in Parliament) the King's Laws? What was ever called a Law which the King did not assent to? Because the King has granted in [Page 114]divers cases not to make a Law without the advice and assent of the Lords and Com­mons, therefore when there is no Parlia­ment in being, shall the Great Seal of Eng­land stand for nothing? What was more unjustly maintained during the long Par­liament (besides the resisting and Murder­ing of the King) then this Doctrine of his Lordship's? But the Bishop endeavoured here to make the Multitude believe I main­tain, That the King sinneth not though he bid hang a man for making his Apparel o­therwise than he appointed, or his Servant for negligent attendance. And yet he knew I distinguished always between the King's natural and politick capacity. What name should I give to this wilful slander? But here his Lordship enters into passion, and exclaims, Where are we, in Europe or in A­sia? Gross, palpable, pernicious flattery, poi­soning of a Common-wealth, poysoning the King's mind. But where was his Lordship when he wrote this? One would not think he was in France, nor that this Doctrine was Written in the year 1658, but rather in the year 1648, in some Cabal of the King's enemies. But what did put him in­to this fit of Choller? Partly, this very thing, that he could not answer my rea­sons; but chiefly, that he had lost upon me so much School-learning in our contro­versie [Page 115]touching Liberty and Necessity, where­in he was to blame himself, for believing that the obscure and barbarous Language of School Divinity could satisfie an ingenu­ous Reader as well as plain and perspicuous English. Do I flatter the King? Why am I not rich? I confess his Lordship has not flattered him here.

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 express clearly. We acknowledge, that though the Laws or Commands of a Soveraign Prince be erro­neous, or unjust, or injurious, 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 Soveraign's 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 always presumed to be in the right. But in plain evident ca­ses [Page 116]which admit no doubt, it is always bet­ter to obey God than man. Blunderers whilst they think to mend one imaginary hole, make two or three real ones. They who derive the Authority of the Scriptures or God's 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 only the Authority of the Scripture, but even 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 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 one should go about to controll the Sun by the Authority of the Clock.

Hitherto he never offered to mend any of the Doctrines he inveighs against; but here he does. He says I have a glim­mering of something I was not able to ap­prehend and express clearly. Let us see his Lordship's more clear expression. We ac­knowledge, (saith he) that though the Laws or Commands of a Soveraign Prince be erro­neous, or unjust, or injurious, such as a Sub­ject [Page 117]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. Hence it follows clearly, that when a Soveraign has made a Law, though erroneous, then if his Subject oppose it, it is a sin. Therefore I would fain know, when a man has broken that Law by doing what it forbad, or by refu­sing to do what it commanded, whether he have opposed this Law or not. If to break the Law be to oppose it, he grant­eth it. Therefore his Lordship has not here expressed himself, so clearly as to make men understand the difference between breaking a Law and opposing it. Though there be some difference between breaking of a Law, and opposing those that are sent with force to see it executed; yet between breaking and opposing the Law it self there is no dif­ference. Also though the Subject think the Law just, as when a Thief is by Law Con­demned to dye, yet he may lawfully op­pose the Execution, not only by Prayers, Tears and Flight, but also (as I think) any way he can. For though his fault were ne­ver so great, yet his endeavour to save his own life is not a fault. For the Law expects it, and for that cause appointeth Felons to be carryed bound and encompassed with Armed men to Execution. Nothing is op­posite [Page 118]to Law but sin. Nothing opposite to the Sheriff but force. So that his Lord­ship's sight was not sharp enough to see the difference between the Law and the Offi­cer. Again, We acknowledge (says he) that the Laws have power to bind the Conscience of a Christian in themselves, but not from themselves. Neither do the Scriptures bind the Conscience because they are Scriptures, but because they were from God. So also the Book of English Statutes bindeth our Consciences in it self, but not from it self, but from the Authority of the King, who only in the right of God has the legislative Powers. Again he saith We acknowledge that in doubtful cases, the Soveraign and the Law are always presumed to be in the right. If he presume they are in the right, how dare he presume that the cases they determine are doubtful? But saith he, in evident cases which admit no doubt it is always better to o­bey God than man. Yes, and in doubtful cases also say I. But not always better to obey the inferior Pastors than the Supream Pastor, which is the King. But what are those cases that admit no doubt? I know but very few, and those are such as his Lord­ship was not much acquainted with.

But it is not worthy of my labour, nor any part of my intention, to pursue every shadow of a Question which he spring­eth. [Page 119]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 rankness of their smell. Such are these which fol­low.

As for the following Posie of Flow­ers, there wants no more to make them sweet, than to wipe off the Venome blown upon some of them by his Lordships breath.

1. To be delighted in the imagination only of being possessed of another man's 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.

What man was there ever whose imagination of any thing he thought would please him, whe not some delight? Or what sin is there, where there is not so much as an intention to do injustice? But his Lordship would not distinguish between delight and purpose, nor between a Wish and a Will. This was venome. I believe, that his Lord­ship himself even before he was Married took some delight in the thought of it, and yet the Woman then was not his own. All love is delight, but all love is not sin. With­out this love of that which is not yet a mans [Page 120]own, the World had not been Peo­pled.

2. If a Man by the terror 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 the Command of the Author, if he be obliged by former Covenants to obey him, not he, but the Author breaketh the Law of Nature.

The second Flower is both sweet and wholsom.

3. It is a Doctrine repugnant to Ci­vil Society, that whatsoever a man does against his Conscience is sin.

'Tis plain, that, to do what a man thinks in his own Conscience to be sin, is sin; for it is a contempt of the Law it self; and from thence ignorant men, our of an erroneous Conscience, disobey the Law which is pernicious to all Government.

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.

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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 Authorised the same Here­ticks.

The 4th. 5th. and 6th. smoll well. But to say, that the Soveraign Prince in England is a Heretick, or that an Act of Parliament is Heretical, stinks abominably, as 'twas thought Primo Elizabethae.

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 a contrary Doctrine to that which themselves be­lieve and think necessary [to Salvation] do against their Consciences, and Will, as much as in them lyeth the eternal destruction of their Subjects.

The 7th. and 8th. are Roses and Jassamin. But his leaving out the words [to Salvation] was venome.

9. Subjects sin if they do not wor­ship God according to the Laws of the Common­wealth.

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The 9th. he hath poisoned, and made it, not mine; he quotes my Book de Cive Cap. 15.19. Where I say, Regnante Deo per solam rationem naturalem, that is, Before the Scripture was given, they sinned that refused to worship God, according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Country, which hath no ill scent, but to undutiful Subjects.

10. To believe in Jesus [in Jesum] is the same as to believe that Jesus is Christ.

And so it is always in the Scri­pture.

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.

The 11th. is also good. But his Lordship's instance, That Christian Common-wealths contradict one another, have nothing to do here. Their Laws do indeed contra­dict one another, but contradict not the Law of God. For God Commands their Subjects to obey them in all things, and his Lordship himself confesseth that their Laws, though erroneous, bind the Conscience. But Christian Common-wealths would sel­dome contradict one another, if they made no Doctrine Law, but such as were necessary to Salvation.

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12. No man giveth but with in­tention of some good to himself. Of all vo­luntary Acts, the Object is to every man his own good. Moses, St. Paul, and the Decij. were not of his mind.

That which his Lordship adds to the 12th. namely, that Moses, St. Paul, and the Decij were not of my mind is false. For the two former did what they did for a good to themselves, which was eternal Life; and the Decij for a good Fame after death. And his Lordship also, if he had believed there is an eternal happiness to come, or thought a good Fame after death to be any thing worth, he would have di­rected all his actions towards them, and have despised the Wealth and Titles of the present World.

13. There is no natural knowledge of man's estate after death, much less of re­ward which is then to be given to breach of Faith, but only 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.

The 13th. is good and fresh.

14. David's killing of Uriah was no injury to Uriah, because the right to do what he pleased was given him by Uriah himself.

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David himself makes this good, in saying, To thee only have I sinned.

15. To whom it belongeth to deter­mine controversies which may arise from the divers interpretations of Scripture, he hath an imperial power over all men which acknow­ledge the Scripture to be the Word of God.

16. What is Theft, what is Murder, what is Adultery, and universally what is an inju­ry, is known by the Civil Law, that is, by the Commands of the Soveraign.

For the 15th. he should have dis­puted it with the Head of the Church. And as to the 16th. I would have asked him by what other Law his Lordship would have it determined what is Theft, or what is In­jury, than by the Laws' made in Parlia­ment, or by the Laws which distinguish be­tween Meum and Tuum? His Lordships ig­norance smells rankly ('tis his own phrase) in this and many other places (which I have let pass) of his own interest. The King tells us what is sin, in that he tells us what is Law. He hath authorised the Clergy to dehort the people from sin, and to exhort them, by good motives, (both from Scri­pture and Reason) to obey the Laws; and supposeth them (though under forty years old) by the help they have in the Univer­sity, able in case the Law be not written, to teach the people old and young, what [Page 125]they ought to follow in doubtful cases of Conscience, that is to say, they are autho­rised to expound the Laws of Nature; but not so as to make it a doubtful case whe­ther the King's Laws be to be obeyed or not. All they ought to do is from the King's Authority. And therefore this my Doctrine is no Weed.

17. He admitteth incestuous Copu­lations of the Heathens, according to their Heathenish Laws to have been lawful Marri­ages. Though the Scripture teach us ex­presly, that for those abominations the Land of Canaan spued our her Inhabitants, Levit. 18.28.

The 17th. he hath corrupted with a false interpretation of the Text. For in that Chapter from the beginning to verse 20, are forbidden Marriages in certain de­grees of kindred. From verse 20, which begins with Moreover (to the 28th.) are for­bidden Sacrificing of Children to Molech, and Prophaning of God's name, and Bug­gery with Man and Beast, with this cause exprest (For all these abominations have the men of the Land done which were before you, and the Land is defiled) That the Land spue not you out also. As for Marriages within the degrees prohibited, they are not refer­red to the abominations of the Heathen. Besides, for some time after Adam, such Mar­riages were necessary.

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18. I say that no other Article of Faith besides this, that Jesus is Christ, is ne­cessary to a Christian man for Salvation.

19. Because Christ's Kingdom is not of this World, therefore neither can his Mini­sters, unless they be Kings, require obedience in his name. They have no right of Com­manding, no power to make Laws.

These two smell comfortably, and of Scripture. The contrary Doctrine smells of Ambition and encroachment of Jurisdi­ction, or Rump of the Roman Tyran­ny.

20. I pass by his errors about Oaths about Vows, about the Resurrection, about the Kingdom of Christ, about the Power of the Keys, 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.

The tears of School Divinity, of which numer are meritum congrui, meri­tum condigni, and passive obedience, are so obscure as no man living can tell what they mean, so that they that use them may admit or deny their meaning, as it shall serve their turns. I said not that this was their mean­ing, but that I thought it was so. For no man living can tell what a School man means by his words. Therefore I expounded them [Page 127]according to their true signification. Me­rit ex condigno is when a thing is deserved by Pact; as when I say the Labourer is wor­thy of his hire, I mean meritum ex condig­no. But when a man of his own grace throw­eth Money among the people, with an in­tention that what part soever of it any of them could catch, he that catcheth merits it, not by Pact, nor by precedent Merit, as a Labourer, but because it was congruent to the purpose of him that cast it amongst them. In all other meaning these words are but Jargon, which his Lordship had learnt by rote. Also passive obedience signi­fies nothing, except it may be called passive obedience when a man refraineth himself, from doing what the Law hath forbidden. For in his Lordship's sense the Thief that is hang'd for stealing hath fulfilled the Law; which I think is absurd.

His whole works are a heap of mishapen Errors, and absurd Paradoxes, vent­ed with the confidence of a Jugler, the brags of a Mountebank, and the Authority of some Pythagoras, or third Cato, lately dropped down from Heaven.

Thus we have seen how the Hobbian Prin­ciples do destroy the Existence, the Simpli­city, the Ubiquity, the Eternity, and In­finiteness of God, the Doctrine of the bles­sed Trinity, the Hypostatical Union, the [Page 128]Kingly Sacerdotal and Prophetical Office of Christ, the Being and Operation of the Ho­ly Ghost, Heaven, Hell, Angels, Devils, the Immortality of the Soul, the Catholick and all National Churches; the holy Scri­ptures, holy Orders, the holy Sacraments, the whole frame of Religion, and the Wor­ship of God; the Laws of Nature, the re­ality of Goodness, Justice, Piety, Honesty, Conscience, and all that is Sacred. If his Disciples have such an implicite Faith, that they can digest all these things, they may feed with Ostriches.

He here concludes his first Chapter with bitter Reproaches, to leave in his Rea­der (as he thought) a sting, supposing per­haps that he will Read nothing but the be­ginning and end of his Book, as is the cu­stom of many men. But to make him lose that petty piece of cunning, I must desire of the Reader one of these two things. Ei­ther that he would read with it the places of my Leviathan which he cites, and see not only how he answers my arguments, but also what the arguments are which he pro­duceth against them; or else that, he would forbear to condemn me, so much as in his thought; for otherwise he is unjust. The name of Bishop is of great Authority, but these words are not the words of a Bishop, but of a passionate School-man, too fierce [Page 129]and unseemly in any man whatsoever. Be­sides, they are untrue. Who that knows me will say I have the confidence of a Jug­ler, or that I use to brag of any thing, much less that I play the Mountebank? What my works are, he was no fit Judge. But now he has provoked me, I will say thus much of them, that neither he, if he had lived could, nor I if I would, can extinguish the light which is set up in the World by the greatest part of them; and for these Do­ctrines which he impugneth, I have few op­posers, but such whose Profit, or whose Fame in Learning is concerned in them. He accuses me first of destroying the Existence of God, that is to say, he would make the World believe I were an Atheist. But up­on what ground? Because I say, that God is a Spirit, but Corporeal. But to say that, is allowed me by St. Paul, that says There is a Spiritual Body, and there is an Animal Body. 1 Cor. 15. He that holds that there is a God, and that God is really somewhat (for Body is doubtlesly a real Substance) is as far from being an Atheist, as is possible to be. But he that says God is an Incorpo­real Substance, no man can be sure whether he be an Atheist or not. For no man living can tell whether there be any Substance at all, that is not also Corporeal. For neither [Page 130]the word Incorporeal, nor Immaterial, nor any word equivalent to it is to be found in Scripture, or in Reason. But on the con­trary that the Godhead dwelleth bodily in Christ, is found in Colos. 2.9. and Tertulli­an maintains that God is either a Corporeal Substance or Nothing. Nor was he ever condemned for it by the Church. For why? Not only Tertullian but all the learned call Body, not only that which one can see, but also whatsoever has magnitude, or that is somewhere; for they had greater reverence for the Divine Substance than that they durst think it had no Magnitude or was no where. But they that hold God to be a Phantasm, as did the Exorcists in the Church of Rome, that is, such a thing as were at that time thought to be the Sprights that were said to walk in Church-yards, and to be the Souls of men buried, they do absolutely make God to be nothing at all. But how? Were they Atheists? No. For though by ignorance of the consequence they said that which was equivolent to Atheism, yet in their hearts they thought God a Substance, and would also, if they had known what Sub­stance and what Corporeal meant, have said he was a Corporeal Substance. So that this Atheism by consequence is a very easie thing to be fallen into, even by the most Godly men [Page 131]of the Church. He also that says that God is wholly here, and wholly there, and wholly every where, destroys by consequence the Unity of God, and the Infiniteness of God, and the Simplicity of God. And this the Schoolmen do, and are therefore Atheists by consequence, and yet they do not all say in their hearts that there is no God. So al­so his Lordship by exempting the Will of man from being subject to the necessity of God's Will or Decree, denies by consequence the Divine Praescience, which also will a­mount to Atheism by consequence. But out of this that God is a Spirit corporeal and in­finitely pure, there can no unworthy or di­shonourable consequence be drawn. Thus far to his Lordship's first Chapter in Justifi­cation of my Leviathan, as to matter of Religion; and especially to wipe off that un­just slander cast upon me by the Bishop of Derry. As for the second Chapter which con­cerns my Civil Doctrines, since my errors there, if there be any, will not tend very much to my disgrace, I will not take the pains to answer it.

Whereas his Lordship has talked in his discourse here and there ignorantly of Here­sie, and some others have not doubted to say publickly, that there be many Heresies in my [Page 132] Leviathan; I will add hereunto for a general answer an Historical relation concerning the word Heresie from the first use of it amongst the Graecians, till this present time.

AN Historical Narration CONCERNING HERESIE, AND THE Punishment thereof.

THE word Heresie is Greek, and signifies a taking of any thing, and particularly the taking of an Opinion. After the study of Philosophy begun in Greece, and the Philosophers disagreeing amongst them­selves, had started many Questions, not on­ly about things Natural, but also Moral and Civil; because every man took what Opinion he pleased, each several Opinion was called a Heresie; which signified no more than a private Opinion, without re­ference to truth or falshood. The begin­ners [Page 136]of these Heresies were chiefly Pythago­ras, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Zeno; men who as they held many Errors, so also found they out many true and useful Doctrines, in all kinds of Learning: and for that cause were well esteemed of by the greatest Per­sonages of their own times; and so also were some few of their Followers.

But the rest, ignorant men, and very of­ten needy Knaves, having learned by heart the Opinions of these admir'd Philosophers, and pretending to take after them, made use thereof to get their Living by the teaching of Rich mens Children that happened to be in love with those great Names. Tho' by their impertinent Discourse, sordid and ri­diculous Manners, they were generally de­spised, of what Sect or Heresie soever; whe­ther they were Pythagoreans, or Acade­micks (Followers of Plato) or Peripate­ticks (Followers of Aristotle: Epicureans or Stoicks) (Followers of Zeno) For these were the names of Heresies, or (as the Latines call them) Sects, à sequendo, so much talkt of from after the time of Alexander till this present day, and that have perpetually troub­led or deceived the people with whom they lived, and were never more numerous than in the time of the Primitive Church.

The Heresie of Aristotle, by the Revo­lutions of time has had the good fortune to be predominant over the rest. However originally the name of Heresie was no dis­grace, nor the word Heretick at all in use. Tho' the several Sects, especially the Epi­cureans and the Stoicks, hated one another; and the Stoicks being the fiercer men, used to revile those that differed from them with the most despightful words they could in­vent.

It cannot be doubted, but that, by the preaching of the Apostles and Disciples of Christ in Greece and other parts of the Ro­man Empire, full of these Philosophers, ma­ny thousands of men were converted to the Christian Faith, some really, and some feign­edly, for factious ends, or for need; (for Christians lived then in common, and were charitable:) and because most of these Phi­losophers had better skill in Disputing and Oratory than the Common people, and thereby were better qualified both to de­fend and propagate the Gospel, there is no doubt (I say) but most of the Pastors of the Primitive Church were for that reason chosen out of the number of these Philoso­phers; who retaining still many Doctrines which they had taken up on the authority of their former Masters, whom they had in reverence, endeavoured many of them to [Page 138]draw the Scriptures every one to his own Heresie. And thus at first entred Heresie into the Church of Christ. Yet these men were all of them Christians; as they were when they were first baptized: Nor did they deny the Authority of those Writings which were left them by the Apostles and Evangelists, tho' they interpreted them ma­ny times with a bias to their former Philo­sophy. And this Dissention amongst them­selves, was a great scandal to the Unbeliev­ers, and which not only obstructed the way of the Gospel, but also drew scorn and grea­ter Persecution upon the Church.

For remedy whereof, the chief Pastors of Churches did use, at the rising of any new Opinion, to assemble themselves for the ex­amining and determining of the same; wherein, if the Author of the Opinion were convinced of his Error, and subscribed to the Sentence of the Church assembled, then all was well again: but if he still persisted in it, they laid him aside, and considered him but as an Heathen man; which to an un­feigned Christian, was a great Ignominy, and of force to make him consider better of his own Doctrine; and sometimes brought him to the acknowledgment of the Truth. But other punishment they could inflict none, that being a right appropriated to the Ci­vil Power. So that all the punishment the [Page 139]Church could inflict, was only Ignominy; and that among the Faithful, consisting in this, that his company was by all the Godly avoided, and he himself branded with the name of Heretick in opposition to the whole Church, that condemned his Doctrine. So that Catholick and Heretick were terms re­lative; and here it was that Heretick be­came to be a Name, and a name of Disgrace, both together.

The first and most troublesome Heresies in the Primitive Church, were about the Trinity. For (according to the usual cu­riosity of Natural Philosophers) they could not abstain from disputing the very first Principles of Christianity, into which they were baptized, In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Some there were that made them allegorical. Others would make one Creator of Good, and a­nother of Evil; which was in effect to set up two Gods, one contrary to another; supposing that causation of evil could not be attributed to God, without Impiety. From which Doctrine they are not far di­stant, that now make the first cause of sinful actions to be every man as to his own sin. Others there were that would have God to be a body with Parts organical, as Face, Hands, Fore-parts and Back-parts. Others, that Christ had no real body, but was a [Page 140]meer Phantasm: (For Phantasms were taken then, and have been ever since, by unlearn­ed and superstitious men, for things real and subsistent.) Others denyed the Divinity of Christ. Others, that Christ being God and Man, was two Persons. Others confest he was one Person, and withal that he had but one Nature. And a great many other He­resies arose from the too much adherence to the Philosophy of those times, whereof some were supprest for a time by St. John's pub­lishing his Gospel, and some by their own unreasonableness vanished, and some lasted till the time of Constantine the Great, and after.

When Constantine the Great (made so by the assistance and valour of the Christian Souldiers) had attained to be the only Ro­man Emperor, he also himself became a Christian, and caused the Temples of the Heathen Gods to be demolished, and au­thorized Christian Religion only to be pub­lick. But towards the latter end of his time, there arose a Dispute in the City of Alexandria, between Alexander the Bishop, and Arius a Presbyter of the same City; wherein Arius maintained, first, That Christ was inferiour to his Father; and afterwards, That he was no God, alleadging the words of Christ, My Father is greater than I. The Bishop on the contrary alleadging the words [Page 141]of St. John, And the Word was God; and the words of St. Thomas, My Lord and my God. This Controversie presently amongst the Inhabitants and Souldiers of Alexandria became a Quarrel, and was the cause of much Bloodshed in and about the City; and was likely then to spread further, as after­wards it did. This so far concerned the Emperors Civil Government, that he thought it necessary to call a General Council of all the Bishops and other eminent Divines throughout the Roman Empire, to meet at the City of Nice. When they were assem­bled, they presented the Emperor with Li­bels of Accusation one against another. When he had received these Libels into his hands, he made an Oration to the Fathers assembled, exhorting them to agree, and to fall in hand with the settlement of the Arti­cles of Faith, for which cause he had as­sembled them, saying, Whatsoever they should decree therein, he would cause to be observed. This may perhaps seem a greater indifferency than would in these dayes be ap­proved of. But so it is in the History; and the Articles of Faith necessary to Salvation, were not thought then to be so many as afterwards they were defined to be by the Church of Rome.

When Constantine had ended his Oration, he caused the aforesaid Libels to be cast into the fire, as became a wise King and a chari­table Christian. This done, the Fathers fell in hand with their business, and following the method of a former Creed, now com­monly called The Apostles Creed, made a Con­fession of Faith, viz. I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth, and of all things visible and invisi­ble, (in which is condemned the Poly theism of the Gentiles.) And in one Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God, (a­gainst the many sons of the many Gods of the Heathen.) Begotten of his Father be­fore all worlds, God of God, (against the Arians) Very God of very God, (against the Valentinians, and against the Heresie of A­pelles, and others, who made Christ a meer Phantasm.) Light of Light, [This was put in for explication, and used before to that purpose, by Tertullian.] Begotten, not made, being of one Substance with the Father. In this again they condemn the Doctrine of Arius: for this word Of one substance, in La­time Consubstantialis, but in Greek [...], that is, Of one Essence, was put as a Touch­stone to discern an Arian from a Catholick: And much ado there was about it. Constan­tine himself, at the passing of this Creed, took notice of it for a hard word; but yet [Page 143]approved of it, saying. That in a divine Mystery it was fit to use divina & arcana Verba; that is, divine words, and hidden from humane understanding; calling that word [...], divine, not because it was in the divine Scripture, (for it is not there) but because it was to him Arcanum, that is, not sufficiently understood. And in this a­gain appeared the indifferency of the Emperor, and that he had for his end, in the calling of the Synod, not so much the Truth, as the Ʋni­formity of the Doctrine, and peace of his People that depended on it. The cause of the obscurity of this word [...], proceeded chiefly from the difference between the Greek and Roman Dialect, in the Philosophy of the Peripateticks. The first Principle of Religi­on in all Nations, is, That God is, that is to say, that God really is Something, and not a meer fancy; but that which is really some­thing, is considerable alone by it self, as be­ing somewhere. In which sence a man is a thing real: for I can consider him to be, with­out considering any other thing to be besides him. And for the same reason, the Earth, the Air, the Stars, Heaven, and their Parts, are all of them things real. And because whatsoever is real here, or there, or in any place, has Dimensions, that is to say, Mag­nitude; and that which hath Magnitude, whether it be visible or invisible, finite or in­finite [Page 144]is called by all the Learned a Body. It followeth, that all real things, in that they are somewhere, are Corporeal. On the con­trary, Essence, Deity, Humanity, and such­like names, signifie nothing that can be con­sidered, without first considering there is an Ens, a God, a Man, &c. So also if there be any real thing that is white or black, hot or cold, the same may be considered by it self; but whiteness, blackness, heat, coldness, can­not be considered, unless it be first suppos­ed that there is some real thing to which they are attributed. These real things are called by the Latine Philosophers, Entia subjecta, substantiae; and by the Greek Phi­losophers, [...]. The o­ther, which are Incorporeal, are called by the Greek Philosophers, [...]; but most of the Latine Philosophers use to convert [...]into substantia, and so confound real and corporeal things with in­corporeal; which is not well: For Essence and Substance signifie divers things. And this mistake is received, and continues still in these parts, in all Disputes both of Philo­sophy, and Divinity: For in truth Essentia signifies no more, than if we should talk ri­diculously of the Isness of the thing that is. [By whom all things were made.] This is proved out of St. John, cap. 1. vers. 1, 2, 3. and Heb. cap. 1. vers. 3. and that again out [Page 145]of Gen. 1. where God is said to create eve­ry thing by his sole Word, as when he said, Let there be Light, and there was Light. And then, that Christ was that Word; and in the beginning with God, may be gathered out of divers places of Moses, David, and o­ther of the Prophets. Nor was it ever questioned amongst Christians (except by the Arians) but that Christ was God Eter­nal, and his Incarnation eternally decreed. But the Fathers, all that write Expositions on this Creed, could not forbear to philo­sophize upon it, and most of them out of the Principles of Aristotle: Which are the same the School-men now use; as may part­ly appear by this, that many of them, a­mongst their. Treatises of Religion, have affected to publish Logick and Physick Prin­ciples according to the sense of Aristotle; as Athanasius, and Damascene. And so some later Divines of Note, still confound the Concreet with the Abstract, Deus with Dei­tas, Ens with Essentia, Sapiens with Sapien­tia, Aeternus with Aeternitas. If it be for exact and rigid Truth sake, why do they not say also, that Holiness is a Holy man, Covetousness a Covetous man, Hypocrisie an Hypocrite, and Drunkenness a Drunk­ard, and the like, but that it is an Error? The Fathers agree that the Wisdom of God is the eternal Son of God, by whom all [Page 146]things were made, and that he was incar­nate by the Holy Ghost, if they meant it in the Abstract: For if Deitas abstracted be Deus, we make two Gods of one. This was well understood by Damascene, in his Treatise De Fide Orthodoxa, (which is an Exposition of the Nicene Creed) where he denies absolutely that Deitas is Deus, lest (seeing God was made man) it should fol­low, the Deity was made man; which is contrary to the Doctrine of all the Nicene Fathers. The Attributes therefore of God in the Abstract, when they are put for God, are put Metonymically; which is a common thing in Scripture; for Example, Prov. 8.28. where it is said, Before the mountains were setled, before the Hills was I brought forth; the Wisdom there spoken of being the Wisdom of God, signifies the same with the wise God. This kind of speaking is al­so ordinary in all Languages. This consi­dered, such abstracted words ought not to be used in Arguing, and especially in the deducing the Articles of our Faith; though in the Language of God's eternal Worship, and in all Godly Discourses, they cannot be avoided: And the Creed it self is less diffi­cult to be assented to in its own words, than in all such Expositions of the Fathers. Who for us men and our Salvation came down from Heaven, and was uncarnate by the [Page 147]holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made Man. I have not read of any ex­ception to this: For where Athanasius in his Creed says of the Son, He was not made, but begotten, it is to be understood of the Son as he was God Eternal; whereas here it is spoken of the Son as he is man. And of the Son also as he was man, it may be said he was begotten of the Holy Ghost; for a Woman conceiveth not but of him that begetteth; which is also confirmed, Mat. 1, 20. That which is begotten in her [...] is of the Holy Ghost. And was also Crucified for us under Pontius Pilate: he suffered and was buried: And the third day he rose again according to the Scri­ptures, and ascended into Heaven: and fitteth on the right hand of the Father; And he shall come again with Glory to judge both the Quick and the Dead. Whose Kingdom shall have no end. [Of this part of the Creed I have not met with any doubt made by any Christian.] Hither the Coun­cil of Nice proceedeth in their general Con­fession of Faith, and no further.

This finished, some of the Bishops pre­sent at the Council (seventeen or eighteen, whereof Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea was one) not sufficiently satisfied, refused to subscribe till this Doctrine of [...]should be bet­ter explained. Thereupon the Council De­creed, [Page 148]that whosoever shall say that God hath parts, shall be Anathematized; to which the said Bishops subscribed. And Eusebius by Order of the Council wrote a Letter, the Copies whereof were sent to every absent Bishop, that being satisfied with the reason of their subscribing, they also should subscribe. The reason they gave of their Subscription was this, That they had now a form of words prescribed, by which, as a Rule, they might guide themselves so, as not to violate the Peace of the Church. By this it is manifest, that no man was an Heretick, but he that in plain and direct words contradicted that Form by the Church prescribed, and that no man could be made an Heretick by Consequence. And because the said Form was not put into the body of the Creed, but directed only to the Bishops, there was no reason to punish any Lay-per­son that should speak to the contrary.

But what was the meaning of this Do­ctrine, That God has no Parts? Was it made Heresie to say, that God, who is a real sub­stance, cannot be considered or spoken of as here or there, or any where, which are parts of places? Or that there is any real thing without length every way, that is to say, which hath no Magnitude at all, finite nor infinite? Or is there any whole substance, whose two halves or three thirds are not [Page 149]the same with that whole? Or did they mean to condemn the Argument of Ter­tullian, by which he confuted Apelles and other Hereticks of his time; namely, What­soever was not Corporeal, was nothing but Fantasm, and not Corporeal, for Heretical? No certainly, no Divines say that. They went to establish the Doctrine of One indi­vidual God in Trinity; to abolish the di­versity of species in God, not the distinction of here and there in substance. When St. Paul asked the Corinthians, Is Christ divi­ded? He did not think they thought him impossible to be considered as having hands and feet, but that they might think him (according to the manner of the Gentiles) one of the Sons of God, as Arius did; but not the only begotten Son of God. And thus also it is expounded in the Creed of A­thanasius, who was present in that Council, by these words, Not confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substances; that is to say, that God is not divided into three Persons, as man is divided into Peter, James, and John; nor are the three persons one and the same person. But Aristotle, and from him all the Greek Fathers, and other Learned Men, when they distinguish the general La­titude of a word, they call it Division; as when they divide. Animal into Man and Beast, they call these [...], Species; and when [Page 150]they again divide the Species Man into Pe­ter and John, they call these [...], partes in­dividuae. And by this confounding the di­vision of the substance with the distinction of words, divers men have been led into the Error of attributing to God a Name, which is not the name of any substance at all, viz. Incorporeal.

By these words, God has no parts, thus explained, together with the part of the Creed which was at that time agreed on, ma­ny of those Heresies which were antecedent to that first General Council, were con­demned; as that of Manes, who appeared about thirty years before the Reign of Con­stantine, by the first Article, I believe in one God; though in other words it seems to me to remain still in the Doctrine of the Church of Rome, which so ascribeth a Li­berty of the Will to Men, as that their Will and Purpose to commit sin, should not pro­ceed from the Cause of all things, God; but originally from themselves, or from the Devil. It may seem perhaps to some, that by the same words the Anthropomorphites also were then Condemned: And certainly, if by Parts were meant not persons Indivi­dual, but Pieces, they were Condemned: For Face, Arms, Feet, and the like, are pieces. But this cannot be, for the Anthro­pomorphites appeared not till the time of Va­lens [Page 151]the Emperor, which was after the Coun­cil of Nice between forty and fifty years; and was not condemned till the second Ge­neral Council at Constantinople.

Now for the Punishment of Hereticks ordained by Constantine, we read of none; but that Ecclesiastical Officers, Bishops and other Preachers, if they refused to subscribe to this Faith, or taught the contrary Do­ctrine, were for the first Fault Deprived of their Offices, and for the second Banished. And thus did Heresie, which at first was the name of private Opinion, and no Crime, by vertue of a Law of the Emperor, made only for the Peace of the Church, become a Crime in a Pastor, and punishable with Deprivati­on first, and next with Banishment.

After this part of the Creed was thus e­stablished, there arose presently many new Heresies, partly about the Interpretation of it, and partly about the Holy Ghost, of which the Nicene Council had not determined. Concerning the part established, there arose Disputes about the Nature of Christ, and the word Hypostasis, id est, Substance; for of Persons there was yet no mention made, the Creed being written in Greek, in which Language there is no, word that answereth to the Latine word Persona. And the U­nion, as the Fathers called it, of the Hu­mane and Divine Nature in Christ, Hyposta­tical, [Page 152]caused Eutyches, and after him Dio­scorus, to affirm, there was but one Nature in Christ; thinking that whensoever two things are united, they are one: And this was condemned as Arianism in the Councils of Constantinople and Ephesus. Others, be­cause they thought two living and rational Substances, such as are God and Man, must needs be also two Hypostases, maintained that Christ had two Hypostases: But these were two Heresies condemned together. Then concerning the Holy Ghost, Nestori­us Bishop of Constantinople, and some o­thers, denied the Divinity thereof. And whereas about seventy years before the Ni­cene Council, there had been holden a Pro­vincial Council at Carthage, wherein it was Decreed, that those Christians which in the Persecutions had denyed the Faith of Christ, should not be received again into the Church unless they were again baptized: This also was condemned, though the President in that Council were that most sincere and pi­ous Christian, Cyprian. And at last the Creed was made up entire as we have it, in the Cal­cedonian Council, by addition of these words, And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son. Who with the Fa­ther & the Son together is Worshipped and Glorified. Who spake by the Prophets. [Page 153]And I believe one Catholick & Apostolick Church. I acknowledge one Baptism for the Remission of Sins. And I look for the Resurrection of the Dead, and the Life of the World to come. In this addition are condemned, first the Nestorians and o­thers, in these words, Who with the Fa­ther and the Son together is worshipped and glorified: And secondly the Doctrine of the Council of Carthage, in these words, I believe one Baptism for the Remission of Sins: For one Baptism is not there put as opposite to several sorts or manners of Baptism, but to the iteration of it: St. Cy­prian was a better Christian than to allow any Baptism that was not in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In the General Confession of Faith contained in the Creed called the Nicene Creed, there is no mention of Hypostasis, nor of Hyposta­tical Union, nor of Corporeal, nor of In­corporeal, nor of Parts; the understanding of which words being not required of the Vulgar, but only of the Pastors, whose dis­agreement else might trouble the Church; nor were such Points necessary to Salvation, but set abroach for ostentation of Learning, or else to dazle men, with design to lead them towards some ends of their own. The Changes of prevalence in the Empire be­tween the Catholicks and the Arians, and [Page 154]how the great Athanasius, the most fierce of the Catholicks, was banished by Constantine, and afterwards restored, and again banished, I let pass; only it is to be remembred, that Athanasius is suppos'd to have made his Creed then, when (banished) he was in Rome, Liberi­us being Pope; by whom, as is most likely, the word Hypostasis, as it was in Athanasius's Creed, was disliked: For the Roman Church could never be brought to receive it but in­stead thereof used their own word Persona. But the first and last words of that Creed the Church of Rome refused not: For they make every Article, not only those of the body of the Creed, but all the Definitions of the Ni­cene Fathers to be such, as a man cannot be saved, unless he believe them all stedfastly; though made only for Peace sake, and to u­nite the minds of the Clergy, whose Disputes were like to trouble the Peace of the Em­pire. After these four first General Coun­cils, the Power of the Roman Church grew up a pace; and either by the negligence or weakness of the succeeding Emperors, the Pope did what he pleased in Religion. There was no Doctrine which tended to the Power Ecclesiastical, or to the Reverence of the Cler­gy, the contradiction whereof was not by one Council or another made Heresie, and punished arbitrarily by the Emperors with Banishment or Death. And at last Kings themselves, and [Page 155]Commonwealths, unless they purged their Dominions of Hereticks, were Excommuni­cated, Interdicted, and their Subjects let loose upon them by the Pope; insomuch as to an ingenuous and serious Christian, there was nothing so dangerous as to enquire con­cerning his own Salvation, of the Holy Scri­pture; the careless cold Christian was safe, and the skilful Hypocrite a Saint. But this is a Story so well known, as I need not insist upon it any longer, but proceed to the He­reticks here in England, and what Punish­ments were ordained for them by Acts of Parliament. All this while the Penal Laws a­gainst Hereticks were such, as the several Princes and States, in their own Dominions, thought fit to enact. The Edicts of the Empe­rors made their Punishments Capital, but for the manner of the Execution, left it to the Prefects of Provinces: And when other Kings and States intended (according to the Laws of the Roman Church) to extirpate Here­ticks, they ordained such Punishment as they pleased. The first Law that was here made for the punishments of Hereticks called Lol­lards, and mentioned in the Statutes, was in the fifth year of the Reign of Richard the Second, occasioned by the Doctrine of John Wickliff and his Followers; which Wickliff, because no Law was yet ordained for his punishment in Parliament, by the favour of [Page 156] John of Gaunt, the King's Son, during the Reign of Edward the third, had escaped. But in the fifth year of the next King, which was Richard the Second, there passed an Act of Parliament to this effect; That Sheriffs and some others should have Commissions to apprehend such as were certified by the Pre­lates to be Preachers of Heresie, their Fautors, Maintainers and Abettors, and to hold them in strong Prison, till they should justifie them­selves, according to the Law of Holy Church. So that hitherto there was no Law in Eng­land, by which a Heretick could be put to Death, or otherways punished, than by impri­soning him till he was reconciled to the Church. After this, in the next King's Reign, which was Henry the Fourth, Son of John of Gaunt by whom Wickliffe had been favour­ed, and who in his aspiring to the Crown had needed the good Will of the Bishops, was made a Law, in the second Year of his Reign, wherein it was Enacted, That every Ordi­nary may convene before him, and imprison any person suspected of Heresie; and that an obstinate Heretick shall be burnt before the People.

In the next King's Reign, which was Hen­ry the Fifth, in his Second year, was made an Act of Parliament, wherein it is declared, that the intent of Hereticks, called Lollards, was to subvert the Christian Faith, the Law of God, the Church and the Realm: And that [Page 157]an Heretick convict should forfeit all his Fee­simple Lands, Goods and Chattels, besides the Punishment of Burning. Again, in the Five and Twentieth year of King Henry the Eighth, it was Enacted, That an Heretick convict shall abjure his Heresies, and refusing so to do, or relapsing, shall be burnt in open place, for example of others. This Act was made after the putting down of the Pope's Authority: And by this it appears, that King Henry the Eighth intended no farther alte­ration in Religion, than the recovering of his own Right Ecclesiastical. But in the first year of his Son King Edward the sixth was made an Act, by which were repealed not only this Act, but also all former Acts con­cerning Doctrines, or matters of Religion; So that at this time there was no Law at all for the punishment of Hereticks.

Again, in the Parliament of the first and second year of Queen Mary, this Act of 1 Ed. 6. was not repealed, but made useless, by re­viving the Statute of 25 Hen. 8. and freely put it in execution; insomuch as it was De­bated, Whether or no they should proceed upon that Statute against the Lady Eliza­beth, the Queens Sister.

The Lady Elizabeth not long after by the Death of Queen Mary coming to the Crown in the fifth year of her Reign, by Act of Par­liament repealed in the first place all the Laws Ecclesiastical of Queen Mary, with all other [Page 158]former Laws concerning the punishments of Hereticks, nor did she enact any other punish­ments in their place. In the second place it was Enacted, That the Queen by her Letters Patents should give a Commission to the Bi­shops, with certain other persons, in her Ma­jesties Name, to execute the Power Ecclesia­stical; in which Commission the Commissi­oners were forbidden to adjudge any thing to be Heresie, which was not declared to be Heresie by some of the first four General Councels: But there was no mention made of General Councels, but only in that branch of the Act which Authorised that Commissi­on, commonly called The High Commission; nor was there in that Commission any thing concerning how Hereticks were to be puni­shed, but it was granted to them, that they might declare or not declare, as they pleased, to be Heresie or not Heresie, any of those Do­ctrines which had been Condemned for He­resie in the first four General Councels. So that during the time that the said High Com­mission was in being, there was no Statute by which a Heretick could be punished other­ways, than by the ordinary Censures of the Church; nor Doctrine accounted Heresie, unless the Commissioners had actually de­clared and published, That all that which was made Heresie by those Four Councels, should be Heresie also now: But I never heard that any such Declaration was made either by [Page 159]Proclamation, or by Recording it in Church­es, or by publick Printing, as in penal Laws is necessary; the breaches of it are excused by ignorance: Besides, if Heresie had been made Capital, or otherwise civilly punishable, ei­ther the Four General Councels themselves, or at least the Points condemned in them, ought to have been Printed or put into Pa­rish Churches in English, because without it, no man could know how to beware of of­fending against them.

Some men may perhaps ask, whether no body were Condemned and Burnt for Here­sie, during the time of the High Commission.

I have heard there were: But they which approve such executions, may peradventure know better grounds for them than I do; but those grounds are very well worthy to be enquired after.

Lastly, in the seventeenth year of the Reign of King Charles the First, shortly after that the Scots had Rebelliously put down the E­piscopal Government in Scotland, the Presby­terians of England endeavoured the same here. The King, though he saw the Rebels ready to take the Field, would not conde­scend to that; but yet in hope to appease them, was content to pass an Act of Parlia­ment for the abolishing the High Com­mission. But though the High Commis­sion were taken away, yet the Parlia­ment having other ends besides the setting [Page 160]up of the Presbyterate, pursued the Rebellion, and put down both Episcopacy and Monarchy, erecting a power by them called The Common-wealth, by o­thers the Rump, which men obeyed not out of Du­ty, but for fear, nor was there any humane Laws left in force to restrain any man from Preaching or Writing any Doctrine concerning Religion that he pleased; and in this heat of the War, it was im­possible to disturb the Peace of the State, which then was none.

And in this time it was, that a Book called Levi­athan, was written in defence of the King's Power, Temporal and Spiritual, without any word against Episcopacy, or against any Bishop, or against the publick Doctrine of the Church. It pleas'd God a­bout Twelve years after the Usurpation of this Rump, to restore His most Gracious Majesty that now is, to his Fathers Throne, and presently His Majesty restored the Bishops, and pardoned the Pres­byterians; but then both the one and the other ac­cused in Parliament this Book of Heresie, when nei­ther the Bishops before the War had declared what was Heresie, when if they had, it had been made void by the putting down of the High Commission at the importunity of the Presbyterians: So fierce are men, for the most part, in dispute, where either their Learning or Power is debated, that they ne­ver think of the Laws, but as soon as they are offend­ed, they cry out, Crucifige; forgetting what St. Paul saith, even in case of obstinate holding of an Error, 2 Tim. 2. 24, 25. The Servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, pati­ent, in meekness instructing those that oppose, if God peradventure may give them repentance, to the acknowledging of the truth: Of which counsel, such fierceness as hath appeared in the Disputation of Divines, down from before the Council of Nice to this present time, is a Violation.