AN ANSWER TO A BOOK Published by Dr. BRAMHALL, late Bishop of Derry; CALLED The Catching of the Leviathan.  
Together With an Historical Narration Concerning HERESY, And the Punishment thereof.  
By THOMAS HOBBES of Malmesbury.  
LONDON, Printed for W. Crook at the Green Dragon without Temple-Barr, 1682.   

TO THE READER.  
AS in all things which I have written, so also in this Piece, I have endeavoured all I can to be perspicuous; but yet your own attention is always necessary. The late Lord Bishop of Derry published a Book called The Catching of Leviathan, in which he hath put together divers Sentences picked out of my Leviathan, which stand there plainly and firmly proved, and sets them down without their Proofs, and without the order of their dependence one upon another; and calls them Atheism, Blasphemy, Impiety, Subversion of Religion, and by other names of that kind. My request unto you is, That when he citys my words for Erroneous, you will be pleased to turn to the place itself, and see whether they be well proved, and how to be understood. Which labour his Lordship might have saved you, if he would have vouchsafed, as well to have weighed my Arguments before you, as to have showed you my Conclusions. His Book containeth two Chapters, the one concerning Religion, the other concerning Politics. Because he does not so much as offer any refutation of any thing in my Leviathan concluded, I needed not to have answered either of them. Yet to the first I here answer, because the words Atheism, Impiety and the like, are words of the greatest defamation possible. And this I had done sooner, if I had sooner known that such a Book was extant. He wrote it ten years since, and yet I never heard of it till about three Months since; so little talk there was of his Lordship's Writings. If you want leisure or care of the questions between us, I pray you condemn me not upon report. To judge and not examine is not just. Farewell.  
T. Hobbes.   

CHAP. I. That the Hobbian Principles are destructive to Christianity and all Religion.  J.D. 
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  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 hid themselves. And they who are conscious to themselves of any secret Crimes, though they be secure 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, Unity, ubiquity. 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.  T. H. 
Hitherto his Lordship discharges me of Atheism. 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.  J. D. 
Yet to let us see how inconsistent and irreconcilable 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, or that hath the least relation in the world to God. As if a man were like the Colt of a wild Ass in the wilderness, without any owner or obligation. Thus in describing the Laws of Nature, this great Clerk forgetteth the God of Nature, and the main and principle Laws of Nature, which contains a man's duty to his God, and the principal end of his Creation.  T. H. 
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 than ●hat I added not to every article, This Law 〈◊〉 in the Scripture. But why he should call me (ironically) a great Clerk, I cannot tell. I suppose he would make men believe I arrogated to myself 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 learned 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 Diocese, 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, Profaneness, 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 damage 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. Can his Lordship, find in my Book that I arrogated to myself 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.  J. D. 
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 Commonwealth. In good time, let it be so. He hath devised us a trim Commonwealth, which is founded neither upon Religion towards God, nor Justice towards Man; but merely upon self-interest, and self-preservation. Those rays 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, than 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.  T. H. 
He has not yet found the place where I contradict either the Existence, or Infiniteness, or Incomprehensibility, or Unity, or Ubiquity of God. I am therefore yet absolved of Atheism. But I am, he says, inconsistent and irreconcilable with myself, 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 rays 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.  J. D. 
Without Religion, Societies are like but soapy bubbles, quickly dissolved. It was the judgement of as wise a man as T. H. himself (though perhaps he will hardly be persuaded 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, etc. but we have overcome all Nations by our Piety and Religion.  T. H. 
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 persuaded to it? Was that any part of the controversy? 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 Lordship was in this place deserted of the Light which God imprints in the hearts of rudest Savages.  J. D. 
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 Mushrooms or Excresences, without all sense of Honour, Justice, Conscience, or Gratitude, he could not have vilified the humane nature more than he doth.  T. H. 
My Lord discovers here an ignorance of such method as is necessary for lawful and strict reasoning and explication of the truth in controversy. And not only that, but also how little able he is to fix his mind upon what he reads in other men's 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 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 God's Ministers, which I acknowledged in making Sacrifices a part of natural Divine Worship; and the benefit of those Sacrifices is the nourishment of God's Ministers. It appears therefore that the Bishop's attention in reading my Writings was either weak in itself, or weakened by prejudice.  J. D. 
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 Prognostics, consisteth the natural seed of Religion; the culture and improvement whereof, he referreth only to Policy. Humane and Divine Politics, are but Politics. 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 Atheism from an opinion of reason without fear; making Atheism 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 Atheism itself, though it be an erroneous opinion, and therefore a sin, yet it ought to be numbered 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 man's 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 mere ignorance or imprudence, which is directly contrary to the light 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 itself. 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 mere 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, aught by right to be the Subject of God, and aught to be punished not as a just Enemy, but as a disloyal Traitor. 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 Traitor 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 own our being and preservation 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 Devil's Office, to be the cause of all Sin.  T. H. 
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 judgements 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 itself, 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 Margin. 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 Margin, he puts that I excuse Atheism. This behaviour 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 guests 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 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 inquires 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 God's 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 mis-reasoning. 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 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 oftener. 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 successfully 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 signify 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 Commonwealth 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 God's Subject, He opposeth, That if nature dictate that there is a God, and to be worshipped in such and such manner, than Atheism is not a sin of mere ignorance; as if either I or he did hold that Nature dictates the manner of God's 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 Traitor's act, yet the Traitor loseth the privilege of being punished by a praecedent Law; and therefore may be punished at the Kings will, as Ravillac was for murdering Henry the 4th. of France. An open Enemy and a perfidious Traitor 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 reigneth over men, is to be derived not from his creating them, as if he required obedience, as of Gratitude; but from his  Power. This he says is absurd and dishonourable. Whereas first all power is honourable, and greatest 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 subtlety of his disputing. He saw he could not catch Leviathan in this place, he looks for him in my Book de Cive, which is Latin, 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.  J. D. 
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 itself 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 then follows, That these are absurd Speeches taken upon credit, without any signification at all, from deceived Philosophers, and deceived or deceiving Schoolmen. Thus he denieth the Ubiquity of God. A Circumscriptive, a Definitive, and a Repletive being in a place, is some heathen language to him.  T. H. 
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 Schoolmen, 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 public Doctrine of the Church, I could easily abstain from contradicting it. The Schoolmen 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 man's 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 assistance of the Court, lest some trick might be put upon me in such obscurity. ●or though I know what these Latin words singly signify, yet I understand not ●ow any thing is in a Place Definitively 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 Council, 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 Layman be publicly encouraged to search the Scriptures for his 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?  J. D. 
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 something that is past, and acquiring something 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.  T. H. 
I shall omit both here and henceforth his preambulatory, impertinent, and 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 wondering, How an endless succession of time in God Why not? God's 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 spoke in time past, etc. But in a former dispute with me about , 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 showed 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 Schoolmen, 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 Atom of earth, or other body, and that his whole duration is but an instant of time, to be either grossly ignorant or ungodly Deceivers.  J. D. 
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 complete. 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, than it is divisible, than it is materiate, than it is corporeal, than it hath parts, than it is finite by his own confession. Habere parts, aut esse totum aliquid, sunt attributa finitorum. Upon this silly conceit he chargeth me for saying, That God is not just, but justice itself; not eternal, but eternity itself; which he calleth unseemly words to be said of God. And he thinketh he doth me a great courtesy in not adding Blasphemous and Atheistical. But his Bolts are so soon shot, and his Reasons are such vain Imaginations, and such drowsy Fantasies, 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 no incorporeal spirit, is that main root of Atheism, from which so many lesser branches are daily sprouting up.  T. H. 
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 Heretics 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 Council 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. For certainly he that thinks God is in every part of the Church, does not exclude him out of the Churchyard. 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 rely upon the Scriptures. God is not 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 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 Schoolmen, 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 grossly 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 signify. 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, 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 itself? 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 Schoolmen 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, signify 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 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 God's Existence. The words he citys 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 alleges 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 Scholastic 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 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 denied (as he knew) that there is any reality in accidents; and nevertheless maintain God's 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 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 Lordship's 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 Council, and vehement enemy of Arius the Heretic, 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 Heretics who maintained that Jesus Christ had not a true real Body, but was only a Phantasm or Spirit, 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, entitled De Carne Christi, wherein after he had spoken of the nature of Phantasms, and shown that they had nothing of reality in them, he concludeth with these words, whatsoever is not Body, is Nothing. So here is on my side a plain Text of Scripture, and two ancient and learned Fathers, nor was this Doctrine of Tertullian condemned in the Council of Nice; but the division of the Divine Substance into God the Father, God the Son, and God the holy Ghost. For these words, God has no parts, were added, for explication of the word Consubstantial, at the request of the dissenting Fathers, and are farther explained both in Athanasius his Creed, in these words, not three Gods but one God, and by the constant Attribute ever since of the Individual Trinity. The same words nevertheless do condemn the Anthropomorphites also: For though there appeared no Christians that professed that God had an Organical Body, and consequently that the Persons were three Individuals, yet the Gentiles were all Anthropomorphites and there condemned by those words, God has no parts.  
And thus I have answered his accusation concerning the Eternity and Existence of the Divine Substance, and made appear that in truth, the question between us, is whether God be a Phantasm (id est, an Idol of the Fancy, which St. Paul saith is nothing) or a Corporeal Spirit, that is to say, something that has Magnitude.  
In this place I think it not amiss, leaving for a little while this Theological dispute, to examine the signification of those words which have occasioned so much diversity of opinion in this kind of Doctrine.  
The word Substance, in Greek Hypostasis, Hypostan, Hypostamenon signify the same thing, namely, a Ground, a Base, any thing that has Existence or Subsistence in itself, any thing that upholdeth that which else would fall, in which sense 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 Phantasm; as when a man seethe his face in the water, his real face is called the Hypostasis of the fantastic 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 Logic, and signifies only the manner how we consider the Substance itself. 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 mixed, the parts nevertheless retain their simplicity, as when water and wine are mixed, the parts of both kinds retain their simplicity. For water and wine cannot both be in one and the same place at once.  
Matter is the same with Body; But never without respect to a Body which is made thereof. Form is the aggregate of all Accidents together, for which, we give the Matter a new name; so Albedo, whiteness is the Form of Album, or white Body. So also Humanity is the Essence of man, and Deity the Essence of Deus.  
Spirit is Thin, Fluid, Transparent, Invisible Body. The word in Latin signifies Breath, Air, 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 mixed 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 withal 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 passed 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 Spirit or Phantasm, which is Nothing.  
A Person, [Lat.] Persona, signifies an intelligent Substance, that acteth any thing in his own or another's Name, or by his own or another's Authority. Of this Definition there can be no other proof than from the use of that word, in such Latin Authors as were esteemed the most skilful in their own Language, of which number was Cicero. But Cicero, in an Epistle to Atticus, saith thus, Vnus 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 sense we 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 inferred, 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 Union 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 itself, and consequently before it was separated from his Body upon the Cross, 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 Controversy. Now I return again to his Lordship's Discourse.  J. D. 
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 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 politic Ends, as a profitable Error, howsoever dignified with the glorious title of the eternal Cause of all things.  T. H. 
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 Spirit. If I should ask any the most subtle Distinguisher, what middle nature there were between an infinitely subtle Substance, and a mere Thought or Phantasm, by what Name could he call it? He might call it perhaps an Incorporeal Substance, and so Incorporeal shall pass for a middle nature between Infinitely subtle and Nothing, and be less subtle than Infinitely subtle, and yet more subtle 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 fullness 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.  J. D. 
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 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 spoke 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 lad all the Water out of the Sea with a Cockleshell, 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 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 Sovereign 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.  T. H. 
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 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 chief 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 Ghost upon the apostles? His Lordship all this while hath catched nothing. 'Tis I that catched myself, for saying, (instead of, By the Ministry of Moses) in the Person of Moses. But this Error I no sooner saw, than I no less publicly corrected than 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. Cousins, 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 solicited 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 sense 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 seen by Bellarmine's quotations, to join a Noun of the plural Number with a Verb of the singular. And we may say also of many other Texts of Scripture alleged to prove the Trinity, that they are not so firm as that high Article requireth. But mark his Lordship's Scholastic 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 Mary's time.  J. D. 
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.  T. H. 
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 other sense 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.  J. D. 
He alloweth every man who is commanded by his lawful Sovereign, to deny Christ with his tongue before men.  T. H. 
I allow it in some Cases, and to some men, which his Lordship knew well enough, but would not mention. I alleged 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 citys 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 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 myself in the house of Rimmon: when I bow myself 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 to deny Mahomet and go to Church with us, would any man condemn this Mahometan? A denial with the mouth may perhaps be prejudicial to the power of the Church, but to retain the Faith of Christ steadfastly 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 denial of Christ, and again repenting, desired to be readmitted into the Church; in which Canon it was ordained 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 than 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 alleged from Scripture against it. There be three places only that seem to favour his Lordship's opinion. The first is where Peter denied Christ, and weepeth. The second is, Acts 5.29. Then Peter and the other Apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men. The third is, Luke 12.9. But he that denyeth me, shall be denied before the Angels of God.  T. H. 
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 men's 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 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 denied before the Angels of God. And so I think I have sufficiently answered this place, and shown 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 showed 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.  J. D. 
He Deposeth Christ from his true Kingly Office, making his Kingdom not to Commence or begin before the day of Judgement. 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.  T. H. 
How do I take away Christ's Kingly Office? He neither draws it by Consequence from my Words, nor offers any Argument at all against my Doctrine. The words he citys 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, than he shall sit on the seat of Majesty. My Kingdom is not of this World. God sent not his Son that he should judge the World. I came not to judge the World, but to save the World. Man, who made me a Judge or Divider amongst you? Let thy Kingdom come. And other words to the same purpose; out of which it is clear that Christ took upon him no Regal Power upon Earth before his Assumption. But at his Assumption his Apostles asked him if he would then restore the Kingdom to Israel, and he answered, it was not for them to know. So that hitherto Christ had not taken that Office upon him, unless his Lordship think that the Kingdom of God, and the Kingdom of Christ be two distinct Kingdoms. From the Assumption ever since, all true Christians say daily in their Prayers, Thy Kingdom come. But his Lordship had perhaps forgot that. But when then beginneth Christ to be a King? I say it shall be then when he comes again in Majesty with all the Angels. And even then he shall reign (as he is Man) under his Father. For St. Paul saith, 1 Cor. 15.25, 26. He must reign till he hath put all Enemies under his feet; the last Enemy that shall be destroyed is Death. But when shall God the Father reign again? St. Paul saith in the same Chapter verse 28. When all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. And verse 24. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God even the Father; when he shall have put down all Rule, Authority and Power. This is at the Resurrection. And by this it is manifest, that his Lordship was not so well versed in Scripture, as he ought to have been.  J. D. 
He taketh away his Priestly or Propitiatory Office; And although this Act of our Redemption be not always 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 satisfy 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 mere man, and one who was both God and man; between a Levitical Sacrifice, and the All-sufficient Sacrifice of the Cross; between the Blood of a Calf, and the precious Blood of the Son of God.  T. H. 
Yes, I know there is a difference between Blood and Blood, but not any such as can make a difference in the Case here questioned. Our Saviour's Blood was most precious, but still it was Humane Blood; and I hope his Lordship did never think otherwise, or that it was not accepted by his Father for our Redemption.  J. D. 
And touching the Prophetical Office of Christ, I do much doubt whether he do believe in earnest, that there is any such thing as Prophecy in the World. He maketh very little difference between a Prophet and a Madman, and a Demoniac. 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 Sovereign Prince, either to Authorise them, or to Exauctorate them. So as two Prophets prophesying 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 Sovereign Prince, upon his grounds, was to be reputed a false Prophet every where. Every man therefore aught to consider who is the Sovereign Prophet, that is to say, who it is that is God's Vicegerent upon Earth, and hath next under God the Authority of governing Christian Men, and to observe for a Rule that Doctrine which in the Name of God he hath Commanded to be taught, and thereby to examine and try out the truth of those Doctrines which pretended Prophets, with miracle, or without, shall at any time advance, etc. And if he disavow them, than 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 Sovereign. 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 Sovereign Prophet: So was the Man of God who submitted not to the more Divine and Prophetic Spirit of Jeroboam. And Elijah for reproving Ahab. Then Michaiah had but his deserts, to be clapped up in Prison, and fed with Bread of Affliction, and Water of Affliction, for daring to contradict God's Vicegerent upon Earth. And Jeremiah was justly thrown into a Dungeon, for Prophesying 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 Privileges. And yet more strange, that God Almighty should take the part of such Rebellious Prophets, and justify their Prophecies by the Event, if is were true that none but the Sovereign in a Christian (the reason is the same for Jewish) Commonwealth can take notice, what is or what is not the Word of God.  T. H. 
To remove his Lordship's doubt in the first place, I confess there was true Prophecy 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 spoke 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 spoke 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, 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 Madman, or Demoniac; To which I say he accuses me falsely. I say only thus much, That I see nothing at all in the Scripture that requireth a belief, that Demoniacs were any otherthing 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 Madmen and Demoniacs. 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 show a Man is Mad, is my opinion; but his Lordship understands not Inspiration in the same sense 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 sense, he that arrogateth Inspiration 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 God's 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 fanatics; for he called them in his Book, and did call them in his Life time fanatics. And what is a Fanatic but a Madman, and what can be more pernicious to Peace than the Revelations that were by these fanatics pretended? I do not say there were Doctrines of other Men, not called fanatics 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 Sovereign, he inferreth, that two Prophets prophesying 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 Doctrine with Miracles. But this I prove (in the page 232 he citeth) that, whether either of their Doctrines shall be taught publicly or not, 'tis in the power of the Sovereign 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 Supreme Prophet, and Judge of all Prophets. What other Princes thought of his Prophecies, is nothing to the purpose. I never said that Princes can make Doctrines or Prophecies true or false, but I say every Sovereign Prince has a right to prohibit the public 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 Sovereign Prince, when he had the Approbation of God, who was King of the Jews, and Christ his Viceroy, and the whole Scripture written (Joh. 20.31.) to prove it? When his Miracles declared 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 Sovereign Prophet, that is, who is next under Christ our Supreme Head and Governor, I wish his Lordship would have cleared, ere he died, 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 Controversy 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 despise your Excommunication, who shall send forth a Writ of Significavit? No; all this was far from his Lordship's 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 Schoolmen 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 Rhetoric) So well as divers Presbyterians, and Fanatic Preachers can do. I conclude therefore, that his Lordship could not possibly believe that the Supreme 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 Prophecy is not confirmed by God with a Miracle. In the last place out of this, That the lawful Sovereign is the Judge of Prophecy, he deduces That then Samuel and other Prophets were false Prophets that contested with their Sovereigns. As for Samuel he was at that time the Judge, that is to say the Sovereign 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 settled it also upon his Seed. The Commandment 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 saul's 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 Prophecy or Religion? What 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 King's 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 Prophecy? Eliah told Ahab, he had transgressed the Commandment of God. So may any Minister now tell his Sovereign, so he do it with sincerity and discretion. Ahab told Eliah he troubled Israel. Upon this controversy Eliah desired trial. 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? 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 Ramoth-gilead. The Prophet Micaiah was also called, and both the Kings Ahab and Jehosaphat sat together to hear what they should prophesy. There was no Miracle done. The 400 pronounced Victory, Micaiah alone the contrary. The King was Judge, and most concerned 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 Judgement does not take away from any King his right of Judicature. Besides, what's all this, or that of Jeremiah, which he citys last, to the Question of who is Judge of Christian Doctrine?  J. D. 
Neither doth he use God the Holy Ghost, more favourably than God the Son. Where St. Peter saith, Holy men of God spoke 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 ecstasy, 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 dreamt that God spoke to him, etc. To say he hath seen a Vision or heard a Voice, is to say, That he hath dreamt 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 Prophecies. 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.  T. H. 
For the places of my Leviathan he citys, 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 spoke 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, etc. I understand and approve.  J. D. 
But he must needs fall into these absurdities, who maketh but a jest of inspiration. They who pretend Divine inspiration to be a supernatural entering 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 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 ways. I would see the greatest Pelagian of them all fly higher.  T. H. 
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 Virtue, those words are intelligible enough.  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 intrinsecal Holiness? Holy is a word which in God's Kingdom answereth to that which men in their Kingdoms use to call public, 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, 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 him. 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, 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 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. A. 
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 endued 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 permits; 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 the 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, do clash one with another, in their interpretations, 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 judgement 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, than 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 Counsels, there have been more Christians burnt and killed in the Christian Church by Ecclesiastical Authority, than by the Heathen Emperor's 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 interpretation, though it be made by just Authority, must not therefore always be true. If the Doctrine in the one sense be necessary to Salvation, than they that hold the other must die in their sins, and be Damned. But if the Doctrine in neither sense be necessary to Salvation, than 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 acknowledgeth nothing. The same he saith particularly of Baptism: Upon which grounds a Cardinals red Hat, or a Sergeant 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 Sergeant 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 Baptised in the name of Jesus, are but Counsel, no Command. And so a Sergeant at Arms his Mace, and Baptism, proceed both from the same Authority. And this he saith upon this  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 every one that continueth not in all the words of this Law to do them.  T. H. 
Of the Sacraments I said no more, than that they are Signs or Commemorations. He finds fault that I add not Seals, Confirmations, and that they confer grace. First, I would have asked him if a Seal be any thing else besides a Sign, whereby to remember somewhat, as that we have promised, accepted, acknowledged, given, undertaken somewhat. Are not other Signs though without a Seal, of force sufficient to convince me or oblige me? A Writing obligatory, or Release signed only with a 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 Baptised for a Commemoration that I have enroled myself. I take the Sacrament of the Lords Supper to Commemorate that Christ's Body was broken, and his Blood shed for my redemption. What is there more intimated concerning the nature of these Sacraments, either in the Scripture or in the Book of Common-Prayer? Have Bread and Wine and Water in their own Nature, any other Quality than they had before the Consecration? It is true that the Consecration gives these bodies a new Relation, as being a giving and dedicating of them to God, that is to say a making of them Holy, not a changing of their Quality. But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken English, to be thought perfect in the French language; so his Lordship (I think) to seem a perfect understander of the unintelligible language of the Schoolmen, pretends an ignorance of his Mother Tongue. He talks here of Command and Counsel as if he were no English man, nor knew any difference between their significations. What English man when he commandeth, says more than, Do this; yet he looks to be obeyed, if obedience be due unto him. But when he says, Do this, and thou shalt have such or such a Reward, he encourages him, or advises him, or 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 losing 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 Judgement, 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 God 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 Pastor's 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 losing?  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 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 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 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 overthrew 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 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 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 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 Ascension 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 Reign at the coming of Christ in Jerusalem. And again, In short, the Kingdom of God is a civil Kingdom, etc. 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 Coelum Empyraeum 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 Empyraeum signified That which belongs to the Blessed. St. Austin says better; that after the day of Judgement 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 (Leu. pag. 345.) I have answered to it already.  J. D. 
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 judgement, 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, subtle, 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 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 lie. If this that he say 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 of 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 daylight, 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, sweeting, 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 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 Coelum Empyraeum serve in his Judgement, 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 a man dyeth, 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 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, [Than 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 man's 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.  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 Judgement 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 Judgement, 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. 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 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 14.13, 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. 2.6, 7.) God will render to every man according to his works. To them who by patiented 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 Judgement (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 say he shall never see Death, that is to say, he shall be Immortal; but it is not 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 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 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 Judgement, which Judgement 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 Judgement 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 Substance, but that the Man at his Resurrection shall be revived by God, and raised to Judgement, 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. 2.17.) 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. 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, etc. 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 Judgement 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. 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 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 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 risen 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? '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, etc. 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 learned 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 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 Writ 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 itself saith in th● 20th of the 39 Articles of Religion. An● therefore I am 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 Frenzies, 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 Daemonia, 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 (Levi. page 38, 39) I refer the Reader to the place itself; and for the words concerning Satan, I leave them to the judgement 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 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 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 be 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 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 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 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.  J. D. 
But his shooting is not at rovers, but altogether at random, without either Precedent 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 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. 20. verse 34, 35, 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 says, there shall then be a new Heaven and a new Earth.  J. D. 
In sum I leave it to the free judgement 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 etc. 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 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.  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 (Leu. 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 men's Consciences, but a  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 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 complying 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 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 Lion's 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 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 Commonwealth, 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.  T. H. 
Here again appears his unskilfulness in reasoning. Who denies, but it is always, and in all causes better to obey God than Man? But there is no Law, neither divine nor humane that aught 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 Baptised 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. 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 what 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 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, than 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 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.  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, etc. 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 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, 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 temporising 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 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 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 forbidden  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 the 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 deserved 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 your 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 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 sense, more dishonourable to God, more inglorious to the humane nature. That God should create Man and leave him presently without any Rules, to his own ordering of himself, as the Ostridg leaveth her 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. '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 Commonwealth, and are therefore part of the Law Civil. If they were Laws in their own nature, than 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 Friar. What is Injust 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 Injust but Sovereign Kings or Sovereign 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 forbidden  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 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 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) 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 chief, 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 and 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 praesumitur pro Rege & 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 go 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 forbade, 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, and 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.  T. 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 any thing he thought would please him, when 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 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.  T. H. 
The second Flower is both sweet and wholesome.  J. D. 
3. It is a Doctrine repugnant to Civil Society, that whatsoever a man does against his Conscience is sin.  T. H. 
'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 itself; and from thence ignorant men, our 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 Authorised the same Heretics.  T. H. 
The 4th. 5th. and 6th. smoll well. But to say, that the Sovereign Prince in England is a Heretic, or that an Act of Parliament is Heretical, stinks abominably, as 'twas thought Primo Elizabethae.  J. D. 
7. Temporal and Spiritual government are but two words to make men see double and mistake their lawful Sovereign, etc. 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 7th. and 8th. are Roses and Jassamin. But his leaving out the words [to Salvation] was venom.  J. D. 
9 Subject's sin if they do not worship God according to the Laws of the Commonwealth.  T. H. 
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.  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 11th. is also good. But his Lordship's instance, That Christian Commonwealths 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 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 Deccis. were not of his mind.  T. H. 
That which his Lordship adds to the 12th. namely, that Moses, St. Paul, and the Deccis 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 Deccis 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.  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 13th. 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 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 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 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 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.  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 expressly, that for those abominations the Land of Canaan spewed our her Inhabitants, Levit. 18.28.  T. H. 
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 gins with Moreover (to the 28th.) are forbidden Sacrificing of Children to Molech, 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 spew 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, Losing, Excommunication, etc. 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 tears 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 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 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 learned 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 misshapen 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, 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 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 citys, 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 and unseemly in any man whatsoever. Besides, they are untrue. Who that knows me will say I have the confidence of a Juggler, 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 doubtlessly 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 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 not 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 Churchyards, 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 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 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 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.  
FINIS.   

AN Historical Narration CONCERNING HERESY, AND THE Punishment thereof.  
BY THOMAS HOBBES OF MALMESBURY.  
At veluti Pueri trepidant, atque omnia caecis  
In tenebris metuunt: Sic nos in luce timemus  
Interdum nihilo quae sunt metuenda magis, quàm  
Quae Pueri in tenebris pavitant, metuuntque futura.  Lucr. lib. 2.3, 6. 
LONDON, Printed in the Year 1682.   

Haerese●s Larvas, Seclarum immania Monstra  
Hobbius invicto dispulit ingenio.   

AN Historical Narration CONCERNING HERESY, AND THE Punishment thereof.  
THE word Heresy 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 Heresy; which signified no more than a private Opinion, without reference to truth or falsehood. The beginners of these Heresies were chief 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 admired Philosophers, and pretending to take after them, made use thereof to get their Living by the teaching of Rich men's 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 Heresy soever; whether they were Pythagoreans, or Academics (Followers of Plato) or Peripatetics (Followers of Aristotle: Epicureans or Stoics) (Followers of Zeno) For these were the names of Heresies, or (as the Latins call them) Sects, à sequendo, so much talked 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 Heresy of Aristotle, by the Revolutions of time has had the good fortune to be predominant over the rest. However originally the name of Heresy was no disgrace, nor the word Heretic at all in use. Tho' the several Sects, especially the Epicureans and the Stoics, hated one another; and the Stoics 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 draw the Scriptures every one to his own Heresy. And thus at first entered Heresy into the Church of Christ. Yet these men were all of them Christians; as they were when they were first baptised: 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 Dissension 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, than 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 acknowledgement 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 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 Heretic in opposition to the whole Church, that condemned his Doctrine. So that Catholic and Heretic were terms relative; and here it was that Heretic 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 baptised, 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, Foreparts and Backparts. Others, that Christ had no real body, but was a mere Phantasm: (For Phantasms were taken then, and have been ever since, by unlearned and superstitious men, for things real and subsistent.) Others denied the Divinity of Christ. Others, that Christ being God and Man, was two Persons. Others confessed 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 suppressed 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 Soldiers) 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 public. 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 inferior to his Father; and afterwards, That he was no God, alleging the words of Christ, My Father is greater than I The Bishop on the contrary alleging the words of St. John, And the Word was God; and the words of St. Thomas, My Lord and my God. This Controversy presently amongst the Inhabitants and Soldiers 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 Emperor's 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 days 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 Heresy of Apelles, and others, who made Christ a mere 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 Catholic: 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 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 Uniformity of the Doctrine, and peace of his People that depended on it. The cause of the obscurity of this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, proceeded chief from the difference between the Greek and Roman Dialect, in the Philosophy of the Peripatetics. The first Principle of Religion in all Nations, is, That God is, that is to say, that God really is Something, and not a mere fancy; but that which is really something, is considerable alone by itself, as being somewhere. In which sense 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 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, signify nothing that can be considered, without first considering there is an Ens, a God, a Man, etc. So also if there be any real thing that is white or black, hot or cold, the same may be considered by itself; 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 Latin Philosophers, Entia subjecta, substantiae; and by the Greek Philosophers, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The other, which are Incorporeal, are called by the Greek Philosophers, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; but most of the Latin Philosophers use to convert 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into substantia, and so confound real and corporeal things with incorporeal; which is not well: For Essence and Substance signify 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 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 writ Expositions on this Creed, could not forbear to philosophise upon it, and most of them out of the Principles of Aristotle: Which are the same the Schoolmen now use; as may partly appear by this, that many of them, amongst their. Treatises of Religion, have affected to publish Logic and Physic 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, Hypocrisy 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 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 settled, 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 itself 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 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 risen 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 Bishop's 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, that whosoever shall say that God hath parts, shall be Anathematised; 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 Heretic, but he that in plain and direct words contradicted that Form by the Church prescribed, and that no man could be made an Heretic 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 Heresy 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 the same with that whole? Or did they mean to condemn the Argument of Tertullian, by which he confuted Apelles and other Heretics of his time; namely, Whatsoever was not Corporeal, was nothing but Phantasm, 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 they again divide the Species Man into Peter and John, they call these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, parts 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 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 Heretics 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 Heresy, which at first was the name of private Opinion, and no Crime, by virtue 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 Latin word Persona. And the Union, as the Fathers called it, of the Humane and Divine Nature in Christ, Hypostatical, 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 denied the Faith of Christ, should not be received again into the Church unless they were again baptised: This also was condemned, though the Precedent 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 spoke by the Prophets. And I believe one Catholic & Apostolic 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 dazzle men, with design to lead them towards some ends of their own. The Changes of prevalence in the Empire between the Catholics and the Arians, and how the great Athanasius, the most fierce of the Catholics, was banished by Constantine, and afterwards restored, and again banished, I let pass; only it is to be remembered, that Athanasius is supposed 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' 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 steadfastly; 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 Heresy, and punished arbitrarily by the Emperors with Banishment or Death. And at last Kings themselves, and Commonwealths, unless they purged their Dominions of Heretics, were Excommunicated, Interdicted, and their Subjects let lose upon them by the Pope; insomuch as to an ingenuous and serious Christian, there was nothing so dangerous as to inquire 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 Heretics here in England, and what Punishments were ordained for them by Acts of Parliament. All this while the Penal Laws against Heretics 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 Heretics, they ordained such Punishment as they pleased. The first Law that was here made for the punishments of Heretics 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 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 Heresy, their Fautors, Maintainers and Abettors, and to hold them in strong Prison, till they should justify themselves, according to the Law of Holy Church. So that hitherto there was no Law in England, by which a Heretic 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 Wickliff 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 Heresy; and that an obstinate Heretic 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 Heretics, called Lollards, was to subvert the Christian Faith, the Law of God, the Church and the Realm: And that an Heretic convict should forfeit all his Fee-simple 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 Heretic 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 Heretics.  
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 Queen's 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 former Laws concerning the punishments of Heretics, 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 Majesty's Name, to execute the Power Ecclesiastical; in which Commission the Commissioners were forbidden to adjudge any thing to be Heresy, which was not declared to be Heresy by some of the first four General Counsels: But there was no mention made of General Counsels, 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 Heretics were to be punished, but it was granted to them, that they might declare or not declare, as they pleased, to be Heresy or not Heresy, any of those Doctrines which had been Condemned for Heresy in the first four General Counsels. So that during the time that the said High Commission was in being, there was no Statute by which a Heretic could be punished otherways, than by the ordinary Censures of the Church; nor Doctrine accounted Heresy, unless the Commissioners had actually declared and published, That all that which was made Heresy by those Four Counsels, should be Heresy also now: But I never heard that any such Declaration was made either by Proclamation, or by Recording it in Churches, or by public Printing, as in penal Laws is necessary; the breaches of it are excused by ignorance: Besides, if Heresy had been made Capital, or otherwise civilly punishable, either the Four General Counsels themselves, or at least the Points condemned in them, aught 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 Heresy, 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 up of the Presbyterate, pursued the Rebellion, and put down both Episcopacy and Monarchy, erecting a power by them called The Commonwealth, 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 public Doctrine of the Church. It pleased God about Twelve years after the Usurpation of this Rump, to restore His most Gracious Majesty that now is, to his Father's 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 Heresy, when neither the Bishops before the War had declared what was Heresy, 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, patiented, 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.  
FINIS.