Volume 4 — AN ANSWER TO A BOOK PUBLISHED BY DR. BRAMHALL, (continued 2)

J. D. Why should he trouble himself about the Holy Spirit, who acknowledgeth no spirit, but either a subtle fluid body, or a ghost, or other idol or phantasm of the imagination; who knoweth no inward grace or intrinsical holiness? Holy is a word which in God’s kingdom answereth to that, which men in their kingdoms use to call public, or the king’s. And again, wheresoever the word, holy, is taken properly, there is still something 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 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.

T. H. 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 336him. He says that holiness, in my sense, 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 denied, 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.

J. D. We are taught in our creed to believe the catholic 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 universal church, that hath any authority over them. And again: The universal 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 commonwealth; only T. H. maketh them to be one and the same thing. The commonwealth 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 commonwealth is the same, 337namely, 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 commonwealth 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 commonwealth of Christians; called a commonwealth, because it consisteth of men united in one person their sovereign; and a church, because it consisteth in Christian men united in one Christian sovereign. 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 sovereign.

T. H. 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 sovereign 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 permit; or can lawfully assemble themselves, unless by the command or by the leave of the sovereign civil power. I say further, that the denial of this point tendeth in England towards 338the taking away of the king’s supremacy in causes ecclesiastical. But his Lordship has not here denied any thing of mine, because he has done no more but set down my words. He says further, that this doctrine destroys 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.

J. D. 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 sovereign. 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 sovereign 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. And the same is the interpreter of the Scripture, and the sovereign judge of all doctrines, that is, the sovereign 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 sovereigns, of different communications, 339do clash one with another, in their interpretation, or misinterpretation of Scripture, as they do daily, then the word of God is contradictory to itself; or that is the word of God in one commonwealth, which is the word of the Devil in another commonwealth. And the same thing may be true, and not true at the same time: which is the peculiar privilege of T. H. to make contradictories to be true together.

T. H. There is no doubt but by what authority the Scripture or any other writing is made a law, by the same authority the Scriptures are to be interpreted, or else they are made law in vain. But to obey is one thing, to believe is another; which distinction perhaps his Lordship never heard of. To obey is to do or forbear as one is commanded, and depends on the will; but to believe, depends not on the will, but on the providence and guidance of our hearts that are in the hands of God Almighty. Laws only require obedience; belief requires teachers and arguments drawn either from reason, or from some thing already believed. Where there is no reason for our belief, there is no reason we should believe. The reason why men believe, is drawn from the authority of those men whom we have no just cause to mistrust, that is, of such men to whom no profit accrues by their deceiving us, and of such men as never used to lie, 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 king’s authority that the Scripture is law, what other authority makes it law? Here some man being of his Lordship’s judgment, will perhaps laugh and 340say, it is the authority of God that makes them law. I grant that. But my question is, on what authority they believe that God is the author of them? Here his Lordship would have been at a nonplus, and turning round, would have said the authority of the Scripture makes good that God is their author. If it be said we are to believe the Scripture upon the authority of the universal church, why are not the books we call Apocrypha the word of God as well as the rest? If this authority be in the church of England, then it is not any other than the authority of the head of the church, which is the king. For without the head the church is mute. The authority therefore is in the king; which is all that I contended for in this point. As to the laws of the Gentiles, concerning religion in the primitive times of the church, I confess they were contrary to Christian faith. But none of their laws, nor terrors, nor a man’s own will, are able to take away faith, though they can compel to an external obedience; and though I may blame the Ethnic 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 councils, 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 King’s supremacy. Oh, but, says he, if two kings interpret a place of Scripture in contrary senses, it will follow that both senses are true. It does not follow. For the 341interpretation, though it be made by just authority, must not therefore always be true. If the doctrine in the one sense be necessary to salvation, then they that hold the other must die in their sins, and be damned. But if the doctrine in neither sense be necessary to salvation, then all is well, except perhaps that they will call one another atheists, and fight about it.

J. D. All the power, virtue, 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 acknowledged! nothing. The same he saith particularly of baptism: upon which grounds a cardinal’s 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 cardinal’s 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 sovereign 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 silly ground, that nothing is a command, the performance whereof tendeth to our own benefit. He might as well deny the Ten Commandments to be commands, because they have an advantageous promise annexed to them, Do this and thou shalt live; and cursed is 342every one that continueth not in all the words of this law to do them.

T. H. Of the sacraments I said no more, than that they are signs or commemorations. He finds fault that I add not seals, confirmations, and that they confer grace. First, I would have asked him, if a seal be any thing else besides a sign, whereby to remember somewhat, as that we have promised, accepted, acknowledged, given, undertaken somewhat. Are not other signs, though without a seal, of force sufficient to convince me or oblige me? A writing obligatory, or release, signed only with a man’s 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 myself. I take the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper to commemorate that Christ’s body was broken, and his blood shed for my redemption. What is there more intimated concerning the nature of these sacraments, either in the Scripture or in the book of Common Prayer? Have bread and wine and water in their own nature, any other quality than they had before the consecration? It is true that the consecration gives these bodies a new relation, as being a giving and dedicating of them to God, that is to say a making of them holy, not a changing of their quality. But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken English, 343to 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 Englishman, nor knew any difference between their significations. What Englishman, when he commandeth, says more than, Do this; yet he looks to be obeyed, if obedience be due unto him. But when he says, Do this, and thou shalt have such or such a reward, he encourages him, or advises him, or bargains with him; but commands him not. Oh, the understanding of a Schoolman!

J. D. Sometimes he is for holy orders, and giveth to the pastors of the church the right of ordination and absolution, and infallibility, too much for a particular pastor, or the pastors of one particular church. It is manifest, that the consecration of the chiefest doctors in every church, and imposition of hands, doth pertain to the doctors of the same church. And, it cannot be doubted of, but the power of binding and loosing was given by Christ to the future pastors, after the same manner as to his present apostles. And, our Saviour hath promised this infallibility in those things which are necessary to salvation, to his apostles, until the day of judgment, that is to say, to the apostles, and pastors to be consecrated by the apostles successively, by the imposition of hands.

But at other times he casteth all this meal down with his foot. Christian sovereigns are the supreme pastors, and the only persons whom Christians now hear speak from God, except such as 344God speaketh to in these days supernaturally. What is now become of the promised infallibility? And, it is from the civil sovereign 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 sovereigns to be jure divino, of all other pastors jure civili: he addeth, neither is there any judge of heresy among subjects, but their own civil sovereign.

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 damage 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 damage rather redoundeth to the church. Neither is the excommunication of a Christian subject, that obeyeth the laws of his own sovereign, of any effect. Where is now their power of binding and loosing?

T. H. Here his Lordship condemneth, first my too much kindness to the pastors of the church; as if I ascribed infallibility to every particular minister, or at least to the assembly of the pastors of a particular church. But he mistakes me; I never meant to flatter them so much. I say only that 345the ceremony of consecration, and imposition of hands, belongs to them; and that also no otherwise than as given them by the laws of the commonwealth. The bishop consecrates, but the king both makes him bishop and gives him his authority. The head of the church not only gives the power of consecration, dedication, and benediction, but may also exercise the act himself if he please. Solomon did it; and the book of canons says, that the King of England has all the right that any good king of Israel had; it might have added, that any other king or sovereign 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 forty-third 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 sovereigns are the supreme pastors, that is, heads of their own churches; That they have their authority jure divino; that all other pastors have it jure civili. How came any Bishop to have authority over me, but by letters patent from the king? I remember a parliament wherein 346a 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 encroachments 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 sovereign pastor, and he again a sheep of that supreme pastor which is in heaven. And if they did their pastoral office, both by life and doctrine, as they ought to do, there could never arise any dangerous rebellion in the land. But if the people see once any ambition in their teachers, they will sooner learn that, than any other doctrine; and from ambition proceeds rebellion.

J. D. It may be some of T. H. his disciples desire to know what hopes of heavenly joys they have upon their master’s principles. They may hear them without any great contentment: There is no mention in Scripture, nor ground in reason, of the cœlum empyræum, 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 ascension 347of the saints into heaven, that is to say, into any cœlum empyræum. But he concludeth positively, that Salvation shall be upon earth, when God shall reign at the coming of Christ in Jerusalem. And again, In short, the kingdom of God is a civil kingdom, &c. called also the kingdom of heaven, and the kingdom of glory. All the Hobbians can hope for, is, to be restored to the same condition which Adam was in before his fall. So saith T. H. himself: From whence may be inferred, that the elect, after the resurrection, shall be restored to the estate wherein Adam was before he had sinned. As for the beatifical vision, he defineth it to be a word unintelligible.

T. H. This cœlum empyræum for which he pretendeth so much zeal, where is it in the Scripture, where in the book of Common Prayer, where in the canons, where in the homilies of the church of England, or in any part of our religion? What has a Christian to 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 empyræum 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 (Leviathan, p. 625), I have answered to it already.

J. D. But considering his other principles, I do 348not marvel much at his extravagance in this point. To what purpose should a cœlum empyræum, 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, subtile, 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. And elsewhere, Every part of the universe is body, and that which is not body, is no part of the universe. And because the universe is all, that which is no part of it is nothing, and consequently nowhere. 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 lie. If this that he says here be true, that every part of the universe 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 mere nothing, though they think they dance under a net, and have the blind 349of God’s incomprehensibility between them and discovery.

T. H. This of incorporeal substance he urged before, and there I answered it. I wonder he so often rolls the same stone. He is like Sisyphus in the poet’s hell, that there rolls a heavy stone up a hill, which no sooner he brings to day-light, than it slips down again to the bottom, and serves him so perpetually. For so his Lordship rolls this and other questions with much ado, till they come to the light of Scripture, and then they vanish; and he vexing, sweating, and railing, goes to it 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 inferred 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.

J. D. To what purpose should a cœlum empyræum serve in his judgment, who denieth 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, inasmuch as his soul is immortal. Who supposeth that when a man dieth, there remaineth nothing of him but his carcase? Who maketh the word soul in Holy Scripture to signify 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 350orthodox 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 becometh of a man’s spirit when he expireth? 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.

T. H. 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 virtue of Christ’s passion and victory over death, shall enjoy eternal life, that is, they shall be immortal. Secondly, 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 die 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 expressly (1 Tim. vi. 16) that He only hath immortality, and dwelleth in 351inaccessible 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 sense 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 xiv. 13, 14): When thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: and thou shalt 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 enjoys 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. ii. 6-8): 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 (2 Tim. i. 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. xv. 54), saith, that this mortal 352shall put on immortality, and that then death is swallowed up in victory. There was no immortality of any thing mortal till death was overcome, and that was at the resurrection. And John, viii. 51: Verily, verily, if a man keep my sayings he shall never see death; that is to say, he shall be immortal. But it is nowhere 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. Matth. x. 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 killed 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 (Gen. vii. 4) we read: 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. Matth. xxv. 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 Lordship’s 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 this, I understand not. But by my doctrine, that the soul is not a separated 353substance, 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 days 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. ii. 17): In the day that thou eatest of the tree of knowledge, dying thou shalt die: 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. iii. 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, which consequently began in the day of judgment, when Adam and Eve were 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. xv. 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 die, even so in 354Christ shall all be made alive. Therefore since we died 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 own order; Christ the first-fruits, afterwards they that are Christ’s, 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 knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt die, 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 lie dead till the general resurrection, for no man rose again from the dead before our Saviour’s coming, and conquering death.

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? It is 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 Almighty God of his great mercy, to take unto himself the soul of our 355dear 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 I could not, without deserting the sense 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 anything 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 anything. There was no bishop; and though there was 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 of 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 itself saith in the twentieth of the Thirty-nine Articles of religion. And therefore I 356am permitted to allege Scripture at any time in the defence of my belief.

J. D. But they that in one case are grieved, in another must be relieved. If perchance T. H. hath given his disciples any discontent in his doctrine of heaven and the holy angels, and the glorified souls of the saints, he will make them amends in his doctrine of hell, and the devils, and the damned spirits. First of the devils; he fancieth that all those devils which our Saviour did cast out, were phrenzies; and all demoniacs, or persons possessed, no other than madmen: and to justify our Saviour’s speaking to a disease as to a person, produceth the example of enchanters. 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 sense the devils are but wicked men. The other sort of devils are called in the Scripture Dæmonia, which are the feigned Gods of the heathen, and are neither bodies nor spiritual substances, but mere fancies, and fictions of terrified hearts, feigned by the Greeks, and other heathen people, which St. Paul calleth nothings. So T. H. hath killed the great infernal Devil, and all his black angels, and left no devils to be feared, but devils incarnate, that is, wicked men.

T. H. As for the first words cited (Leviathan, vol. iii. p. 68) I refer the reader to the place itself; 357and for the words concerning Satan, I leave them to the judgment of the learned.

J. D. And for hell, he describeth the kingdom of Satan, or the kingdom of darkness, to be a confederacy of deceivers. He telleth us that the places, which set forth the torments of hell in holy Scripture, do design metaphorically a grief and discontent of mind, from the sight of that eternal felicity in others, which they themselves, through their own incredulity and disobedience, have lost. As if metaphorical descriptions did not bear sad truths in them, as well as literal; as if final desperation were no more than a little fit of grief or discontent; and a guilty conscience were no more than a transitory passion; as if it were a loss so easily to be borne, 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 God’s justice.

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

J. D. Lastly, for the damned spirits, he declareth himself every where, that their sufferings are not eternal. The fire shall be unquenchable, and the torments everlasting; but it cannot be thence inferred, that he who shall be cast into that fire, or 358be tormented with those torments, shall endure and resist them, so as to be eternally burnt and tortured, and yet never be destroyed nor die. And though there be many places, that affirm everlasting fire, into which men may be cast successively one after another for ever; yet I find none that affirm that there shall be an everlasting life therein of any individual person. If he had said, and said only, that the pains of the damned may be lessened, as to the degree of them, or that they endure not for ever, but that after they are purged by long torments from their dross and corruptions, as gold in the fire, both the damned spirits and the devils themselves should be restored to a better condition; he might have found some ancients (who are therefore called the merciful doctors) to have joined with him; though still he should have wanted the suffrage of the Catholic church.

T. H. Why does not his Lordship cite some place of Scripture here to prove, that all the reprobates which are dead, live eternally in torment? We read indeed, that everlasting torments were prepared for the Devil and his angels, whose natures also are everlasting; and that the Beast and the false prophet shall be tormented everlastingly; but not that every reprobate shall be so. They shall indeed be cast into the same fire; but the Scripture says plainly enough, that they shall be both body and soul destroyed there. If I had said that the devils themselves should be restored to a better condition, his Lordship would have been so kind as to have put me into the number of the merciful doctors. Truly, if I had had any warrant for the possibility of their being less enemies to the church 359of God than they have been, I would have been as merciful to them as any doctor of them all. As it is, I am more merciful than the Bishop.

J. D. But his shooting is not at rovers, but altogether at random, without either precedent or partner. All that eternal fire, 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 immortality of the kind, but not of the persons of men. It is to be presumed, that in those their second lives, knowing certainly from T. H. that there is no hope of redemption for them from corporal death upon their well-doing, nor fear of any torments after death for their ill-doing, they will pass their times here as pleasantly as they can. This is all the damnation which T. H. fancieth.

T. H. This he has urged once before, and I answered to it, that the whole paragraph was to prove, that for any text of Scripture to the contrary, men might, after the resurrection, live as Adam did on earth; and that, notwithstanding the text of St. Luke, (chap. xx. 34-36), Marry and propagate. But that they shall do so, is no assertion of mine. His Lordship knew I held, that after the resurrection there 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 (2 Epist. iii. 13) says, there shall then be a new heaven and a new earth.

360J. D. In sum 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 hazard 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 sovereign, to deny Christ. Profession with the tongue is but an external thing, and no more than any other gesture, whereby we signify 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, denied 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? 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 sovereign, 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 sovereign’s; nor is it he, that in this case denieth 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 361an erroneous conscience, as the Mahometan’s is, and a conscience rightly informed.

T. H. In these his two first instances, I confess his Lordship does not much belie me. But neither does he confute me. Also I confess my ignorance in his case-divinity, which is grounded upon the doctrine of the Schoolmen; 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 denying of Christ with the tongue in all men, but expressly say the contrary (Leviathan, vol. iii. p. 656) 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 men’s consciences, but a perfidious forsaking of his charge. Therefore St. Peter, in denying Christ, sinned, as being an apostle. And it is 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 mere 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 362complying with the times, they are not mine, but his own spiteful paraphrase.

J. D. 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 pray unto a king voluntarily for fair weather, or for anything 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. It 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' den, because they refused to comply with the idolatrous decree of their sovereign prince?

T. H. 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 signify 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.

J. D. A fourth aphorism may be this, that, which is said in the Scripture, it is better to obey God than man, hath place in the kingdom of God by pact, and not by nature. Why? Nature itself 363doth 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 commonwealth: for that is to obey both God and man. But if Divine law and human law clash one with another, without doubt it is evermore better to obey God than man.

T. H. Here again appears his unskilfulness in reasoning. Who denies, but it is always, and in all cases, better to obey God than man? But there is no law, neither Divine nor human, 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. It is 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. Bramhall? I deny it. Who then? The stream of divines? Why so? Am I, that have the Scripture itself 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, 364what it is, and how to be interpreted, is made known unto us here, by no other way than the authority of our sovereign lord both in temporals and spirituals, the King’s Majesty. And where he has set forth no interpretation, there I am allowed to follow my own, as well as any other man, bishop or not bishop. For my own part, all that know me, know also it is my opinion, that the best government in religion is by episcopacy, but in the King’s right, not in their own. But my Lord of Derry, not contented with this, would have the utmost resolution of our faith to be into the doctrine of the Schools. I do not think that all the bishops be of his mind. If they were, I would wish them to stand in fear of that dreadful sentence, all covet, all lose. I must not let pass these words of his Lordship, if Divine law and human 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 human 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 365law, 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 infidels with the law of God, the apostles teach that those their civil laws are to be obeyed, but so as to keep their faith in Christ entirely in their hearts; which is an obedience easily performed. But I do not believe that Augustus Cæsar or Nero was bound to make the holy Scripture law; and yet unless they did so, they could not attain to eternal life.

J. D. His fifth conclusion may be, that the sharpest and most successful sword, in any war whatsoever, doth give sovereign 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 falsehood, 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 countrymen 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 366not to be determined, but by them that under God have the sovereign power.

“———————— Careat successibus opto,

Quisquis ab eventu facta notanda putat.”

Let him evermore want success who thinketh actions are to be judged by their events. This doctrine may be plausible to those who desire to fish in troubled waters. But it is justly hated by those which are in authority, and all those who are lovers of peace and tranquillity.

The last part of this conclusion smelleth rankly of Jeroboam (1 Kings xii. 26-28): 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 Egypt. But by the just disposition of Almighty God, this policy turned to a sin, and was the utter destruction of Jeroboam and his family. It is not good jesting with edge-tools, nor playing with holy things: where men make their greatest fastness, many times they find most danger.

T. H. His Lordship either had a strange conscience, or understood not English. Being at Paris when there was no bishop nor church in England, and every man writ what he pleased, I resolved (when it should please God to restore the authority ecclesiastical) to submit to that authority, in whatsoever it should determine. This his Lordship construes for a temporizing and too much 367indifferency 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, died for my sins. As for other doctrines, I think it unlawful, if the church define them, for any member of the church to contradict them.

J. D. His sixth paradox is a rapper: The civil laws are the rules of good and evil, just and unjust, honest and dishonest; and therefore what the lawgiver commands, that is to be accounted good, what he forbids, bad. And a little after: Before empires were, just and unjust were not, as whose nature is relative to a command, every action in its own nature is indifferent. That 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, unjust 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 commonwealth, that is, the (civil) laws. Where by the laws he doth not understand the written laws, elected and approved by the whole commonwealth, but the verbal commands or mandates of him that hath the sovereign 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 sovereign power in the commonwealth, concerning 368the future actions of his subjects. And the civil laws are fastened to the lips of that man who hath the sovereign 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 palaces, 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 deserveth he who should do his uttermost endeavour to poison a common fountain, whereof all the commonwealth must drink? He doth the same who poisoneth the mind of a sovereign prince.

Are the civil laws the rules of good and bad, just and unjust, honest and dishonest? And what, I pray you, are the rules of the civil law itself? Even the law of God and Nature. If the civil laws swerve from these more authentic 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, profane. 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 martyrdom. And if he had the fortitude to suffer death he should do better. But 369I fear all this was but said in jest. How should they expect their reward in heaven, if his doctrine be true, that there is no reward in heaven? Or how should they be martyrs, if his doctrine be true, that none can be martyrs, but those who conversed with Christ upon earth? He addeth, before empires were, just and unjust were not. Nothing could be written more false in his sense, more dishonourable to God, more inglorious to the human nature; than that God should create man, and leave him presently without any rules, to his own ordering of himself, as the ostrich leaveth her eggs in the sand. But in truth there have been empires in the world ever since Adam. And Adam had a law written in his heart by the finger of God, before there was any civil law. Thus they do endeavour to make goodness, and justice, and honesty, and conscience, and God himself, to be empty names, without any reality, which signify 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.

T. H. My sixth paradox he calls a rapper. A rapper, a swapper, and such like terms, are his Lordship’s elegancies. But let us see what this rapper is: it is 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 commonwealth, 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 370soon as they should be shown there, though without a miracle, by a friar. What is unjust, but the transgression of a law? Law therefore was before unjust: and the law was made known by sovereign power before it was a law: therefore sovereign power was antecedent both to law and injustice. Who then made unjust but sovereign kings or sovereign assemblies? 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 unjust, 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 sovereign 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 commonwealth, which is here the Great Seal of England? Who, but his Lordship, ever denied that the command of England was a law to Englishmen? 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 divers cases not to make a law without the advice and assent of the lords and commons, therefore when there 371is 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, than 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 politic 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 commonwealth, poisoning 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 choler? 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 controversy touching Liberty and Necessity: wherein he was to blame himself, for believing that the obscure and barbarous language of School-divinity, could satisfy 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.

J. D. 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 372and express clearly. We acknowledge, that though the laws or commands of a sovereign 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 sovereign’s commands, or to suffer for the testimony of a good conscience. We acknowledge that in doubtful cases, semper præsumitur pro rege et lege, the sovereign and the law are always presumed to be in the right. But in plain evident cases, 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 bulrush. Nay, they derive not only the authority of the Scripture, but even the law of nature itself, 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 commonwealth is once settled, 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 373go about to control the sun by the authority of the clock.

T. H. 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 sovereign 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. Hence it follows clearly, that when a sovereign 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 itself, there is no difference. Also, though the subject think the law just, as when a thief is by law condemned to die, 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, 374and for that cause appointeth felons to be carried bound and encompassed with armed men to execution. Nothing is opposite 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 itself, but not from itself, 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 sovereign 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 supreme 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.

J. D. But it is not worthy of my labour, nor any part of my intention, to pursue every shadow of a question which he springeth. It shall suffice to gather a posy 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.

375T. H. As for the following posy of flowers, there wants no more to make them sweet, than to wipe off the venom blown upon some of them by his Lordship’s breath.

J. D. 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.

T. H. What man was there ever, whose imagination of anything he thought would please him, was 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 venom. 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 man’s own, the world had not been peopled.

J. D. 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 anything 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.

T. H. The second flower is both sweet and wholesome.

376J. D. 3. It is a doctrine repugnant to civil society, that whatsoever a man does against his conscience, is sin.

T. H. It is 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 itself; and from thence ignorant men, out of an erroneous conscience, disobey the law, which is pernicious to all government.

J. D. 4. The kingdom of God is not shut but to them that sin, that is, to them who have not performed due obedience to the laws of God; nor to them, if they believe the necessary articles of the Christian faith.

5. We must know that the true acknowledging of sin is repentance itself.

6. An opinion publicly appointed to be taught cannot be heresy; nor the sovereign princes that authorized the same, heretics.

T. H. The fourth, fifth, and sixth smell well. But to say, that the sovereign prince in England is a heretic, or that an act of parliament is heretical, stinks abominably; as it was thought primo Elizabethæ.

J. D. 7. Temporal and spiritual government are but two words to make men see double, and mistake their lawful sovereign, &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 lieth, the eternal destruction of their subjects.

T. H. The seventh and eighth are roses and 377jessamine. But his leaving out the words (to salvation) was venom.

J. D. 9. Subjects sin if they do not worship God according to the laws of the commonwealth.

T. H. The ninth he hath poisoned, and made it not mine. He quotes my book De Cive, cap. XV. 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.

J. D. 10. To believe in Jesus (in Jesum), is the same as to believe that Jesus is Christ.

T. H. And so it is always in the Scripture.

J. D. 11. There can be no contradiction between the laws of God, and the laws of a Christian commonwealth. Yet, we see Christian commonwealths daily contradict one another.

T. H. The eleventh is also good. But his Lordship’s instance, that Christian commonwealths contradict one another, has 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 commonwealths would seldom contradict one another, if they made no doctrine law, but such as were necessary to salvation.

J. D. 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 Decii were not of his mind.

378T. H. That which his Lordship adds to the twelfth, namely, that Moses, St. Paul, and the Decii 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 Decii 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 anything worth, would have directed all his actions towards them, and have despised the wealth and titles of the present world.

J. D. 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 men’s saying, that they know it supernaturally, or that they know those that knew them that knew others that knew it supernaturally.

T. H. The thirteenth is good and fresh.

J. D. 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.

T. H. David himself makes this good, in saying, to thee only have I sinned.

J. D. 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 sovereign.

T. H. For the fifteenth, he should have disputed 379it with the head of the church. And as to the sixteenth, 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 Lordship’s 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 authorized 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 they ought to follow in doubtful cases of conscience; that is to say, they are authorized 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.

J. D. 17. He admitteth incestuous copulations of the heathens, according to their heathenish laws, to have been lawful marriages. Though the Scripture teach us (Levit. xviii. 28) expressly, that for those abominations the land of Canaan spued out her inhabitants.

T. H. The seventeenth he hath corrupted with a false interpretation of the text. For in that chapter, from the beginning to verse twenty, are forbidden marriages in certain degrees of kindred. From verse twenty, which begins with Moreover, to the twenty-eighth, are forbidden sacrificing of 380children to Moloch, and profaning of God’s name, and buggery with man and beast, with this cause expressed, (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.

J. D. 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.

T. H. These two smell comfortably, and of Scripture. The contrary doctrine smells of ambition and encroachment of jurisdiction, or rump of the Roman tyranny.

J. D. 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.

T. H. The terms of School divinity, of which number 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 381their meaning, but that I thought it was so. For no man living can tell what a Schoolman means by his words. Therefore I expounded them according to their true signification. Merit ex condigno, is when a thing is deserved by pact; as when I say the labourer is worthy of his hire, I mean meritum ex condigno. But when a man of his own grace throweth money among the people, with an intention that what part soever of it any of them could catch he should have, 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 hanged for stealing, hath fulfilled the law; which I think is absurd.

J. D. His whole works are a heap of mis-shapen errors, and absurd paradoxes, vented with the confidence of a juggler, the brags of a mountebank, and the authority of some Pythagoras, or third Cato, lately dropped down from heaven.

Thus we have seen how the Hobbian principles do destroy the existence, the simplicity, the ubiquity, the eternity, and infiniteness of God, the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, the hypostatical union, the kingly, sacerdotal, and prophetical office of Christ, the being and operation of the Holy Ghost, heaven, hell, angels, devils, the immortality of the soul, the Catholic and all national churches; the holy Scriptures, holy orders, the holy sacraments, 382the 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 implicit faith, that they can digest all these things, they may feed with ostriches.

T. H. He here concludes his first chapter with bitter reproaches, to leave in his reader, as he thought, a sting; supposing perhaps that he will read nothing but the beginning and end of his book, as is the custom of many men. But to make him lose that petty piece of cunning, I must desire of the reader one of these two things. Either that he would read with it the places of my Leviathan which he cites, and see not only how he answers my arguments, but also what the arguments are which he produceth against them; or else, that he would forbear to condemn me, so much as in his thought: for otherwise he is unjust. The name of Bishop is of great authority; but these words are not the words of a bishop, but of a passionate Schoolman, too fierce and unseemly in any man whatsoever. Besides, they are untrue. Who that knows me, will say that I have the confidence of a juggler, or that I use to brag of anything, 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), nor I, if I would, could 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 383of 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 (1 Cor. xv. 44): There is a spiritual body, and there is an animal body. He that holds there is a God, and that God is really somewhat, (for body is doubtlessly a real substance), is as far from being an atheist, as it is possible to be. But he that says God is an incorporeal substance, no man can be sure whether he be an atheist or not. For no man living can tell whether there be any substance at all, that is not also corporeal. For neither the word incorporeal, nor immaterial, nor any word equivalent to it, is to be found in Scripture, or in reason. But on the contrary, that the Godhead dwelleth bodily in Christ, is found in Colos. ii. 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 nowhere. 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 churchyards and to be the souls of men buried, 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 equivalent to atheism, yet in their hearts 384they 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 easy thing to be fallen into, even by the most godly men of the church. He also that says that God is wholly here, and wholly there, and wholly every where, destroys by consequence the unity of God, and the infiniteness of God, and the simplicity of God. And this the Schoolmen do, and are therefore atheists by consequence, and yet they do not all say in their hearts that there is no God. So also his Lordship by exempting the will of man from being subject to the necessity of God’s will or decree, denies by consequence the Divine prescience, 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 Lordships 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 heresy, and some others have not doubted to say publicly, that there be many heresies in my Leviathan; I will add hereunto, for a general answer, an historical relation concerning the word Heresy, from the first use of it amongst the Grecians till this present time.

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