Chapter X (5)

_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 forty-third chapter of my _Leviathan_, have proved that this article, _Jesus is the Christ_, is the _unum necessarium_, _the only article necessary to salvation_; to which his Lordship hath not offered any objection. And he, it seems, would have necessary to salvation every doctrine he himself thought so. Doubtless in this article, _Jesus is the Christ_, every church is infallible; for else it were no church. Then he says, I overthrow this again by saying that Christian sovereigns are the _supreme pastors_, that is, heads of their own churches; _That they have their authority jure divino; that all other pastors have it jure civili_. How came any Bishop to have authority over me, but by letters patent from the king? I remember a parliament wherein 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 cœlum empyræum_, that is, the heaven of the blessed, where the saints shall live eternally with God. And again, _I have not found any text that can probably be drawn to prove any ascension of the saints into heaven, that is to say, into any cœlum empyræum_. But he concludeth positively, that _Salvation shall be upon earth, when God shall reign at the coming of Christ in Jerusalem_. And again, _In short, the kingdom of God is a civil kingdom_, &c. called also _the kingdom of heaven, and the kingdom of glory_. All the Hobbians can hope for, is, to be restored to the same condition which Adam was in before his fall. So saith T. H. himself: _From whence may be inferred, that the elect, after the resurrection, shall be restored to the estate wherein Adam was before he had sinned_. As for the beatifical vision, he defineth it to be a word unintelligible.

_T. H._ This _cœlum empyræum_ for which he pretendeth so much zeal, where is it in the Scripture, where in the book of Common Prayer, where in the canons, where in the homilies of the church of England, or in any part of our religion? What has a Christian to do with such language? Nor do I remember it in Aristotle. Perhaps it may be in some Schoolman or commentator on Aristotle, and his Lordship makes it in English the _heaven of the blessed_, as if _empyræum_ signified _that which belongs to the blessed_. St. Austin says better; that after the day of judgment all that is not heaven shall be hell. Then for _beatifical vision_, how can any man understand it, that knows from the Scripture that no man ever saw or can see God. Perhaps his Lordship thinks that the happiness of the life to come is not real, but a vision. As for that which I say (_Leviathan_, p. 625), I have answered to it already.

_J. D._ But considering his other principles, I do not marvel much at his extravagance in this point. To what purpose should a _cœlum empyræum_, or heaven of the blessed, serve in his judgment, who maketh the blessed angels that are the inhabitants of that happy mansion, to be either idols of the brain, that is in plain English, nothing, or thin, subtile, fluid bodies, destroying the angelical nature. _The universe being the aggregate of all bodies, there is no real part thereof that is not also body._ And elsewhere, _Every part of the universe is body, and that which is not body, is no part of the universe. And because the universe is all, that which is no part of it is nothing, and consequently nowhere._ How? By this doctrine he maketh not only the angels, but God himself to be nothing. Neither doth he salve it at all, by supposing erroneously angels to be corporeal spirits, and by attributing the name of incorporeal spirit to God, _as being a name of more honour, in whom we consider not what attribute best expresseth his nature, which is incomprehensible, but what best expresseth our desire to honour him_. Though we be not able to comprehend perfectly what God is, yet we are able perfectly to comprehend what God is not, that is, he is not imperfect, and therefore he is not finite, and consequently he is not corporeal. This were a trim way to honour God indeed, to honour him with a lie. If this that he says here be true, that _every part of the universe is a body, and whatsoever is not a body is nothing_, then, by this doctrine, if God be not a body, God is nothing: not an incorporeal spirit, but _one of the idols of the brain_, a mere nothing, though they think they dance under a net, and have the blind 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 day-light, than it slips down again to the bottom, and serves him so perpetually. For so his Lordship rolls this and other questions with much ado, till they come to the light of Scripture, and then they vanish; and he vexing, sweating, and railing, goes to it again, to as little purpose as before. From that I say of the universe, he infers, that I make God to be nothing: but infers it absurdly. He might indeed have inferred that I make him a corporeal, but yet a pure spirit. I mean by the universe, the aggregate of all things that have being in themselves; and so do all men else. And because God has a being, it follows that he is either the whole universe, or part of it. Nor does his Lordship go about to disprove it, but only seems to wonder at it.

_J. D._ To what purpose should a _cœlum empyræum_ serve in his judgment, who denieth the immortality of the soul? _The doctrine is now, and hath been a long time, far otherwise; namely, that every man hath eternity of life by nature, inasmuch as his soul is immortal._ Who supposeth that _when a man dieth, there remaineth nothing of him but his carcase_? Who maketh the word _soul_ in Holy Scripture to signify always either the life, or the living creature; and expoundeth the casting of body and soul into hell-fire, to be _the casting of body and life into hell-fire_? Who maketh this orthodox truth, that the souls of men are substances distinct from their bodies, to be _an error contracted by the contagion of the demonology of the Greeks, and a window that gives entrance to the dark doctrine of eternal torments_? Who expoundeth these words of Solomon (_Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God that gave it_) thus, _God only knows what becometh of a man’s spirit when he expireth_? He will not acknowledge that there is a spirit, or any substance distinct from the body. I wonder what they think doth keep their bodies from stinking.

_T. H._ He comes here to that which is a great paradox in School-divinity. The grounds of my opinion are the canonical Scripture, and the texts which I cited I must again recite, to which I shall also add some others. My doctrine is this: first, _that the elect in Christ, from the day of judgment forward, by virtue of Christ’s passion and victory over death, shall enjoy eternal life, that is, they shall be immortal_. Secondly, _that there is no living soul separated in place from the body, more than there is a living body separated from the soul_. Thirdly, _that the reprobate shall be revived to judgment, and shall die a second death in torments, which death shall be everlasting_. Now let us consider what is said to these points in the Scripture, and what is the harmony therein of the Old and New Testament.

And first, because the word _immortal soul_, is not found in the Scriptures, the question is to be decided by evident consequences from the Scripture. The Scripture saith of God expressly (1 Tim. vi. 16) that _He only hath immortality, and dwelleth in 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 xiv. 13, 14): _When thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: and thou shalt be blessed, for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of them that be just_. It follows hence that the reward of the elect is not before the resurrection. What reward then enjoys a separated soul in heaven, or any where else, till that day come, or what has he to do there till the body rise again? Again, St. Paul says (Rom. ii. 6-8): _God will render to every man according to his works. To them, who by patient continuance in well doing seek for honour, glory, and immortality, eternal life. But unto them that be contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath._ Here it is plain that God gives eternal life only to well doers, and to them that seek, not to them that have already, immortality. Again (2 Tim. i. 10): _Christ hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light, through the Gospel_. Therefore before the Gospel of Christ, nothing was immortal but God. And St. Paul, speaking of the day of judgment (1 Cor. xv. 54), saith, that _this mortal shall put on immortality_, and _that then death is swallowed up in victory_. There was no immortality of any thing mortal till death was overcome, and that was at the resurrection. And John, viii. 51: _Verily, verily, if a man keep my sayings he shall never see death_; that is to say, he shall be immortal. But it is nowhere said, that he which keeps not Christ’s sayings shall never see death, nor be immortal: and yet they that say that the wicked, body and soul, shall be tormented everlastingly, do therein say they are immortal. Matth. x. 28: _Fear not them that can kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but fear him that is able to destroy both soul and body in hell_. Man cannot kill a soul; for the man killed shall revive again. But God can destroy the soul and body in hell, as that it shall never return to life. In the Old Testament (Gen. vii. 4) we read: _I will destroy every living substance that I have made, from off the face of the earth_; therefore, if the souls of them that perished in the Flood were substances, they were also destroyed in the Flood, and were not immortal. Matth. xxv. 41: _Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels_. These words are to be spoken in the day of judgment, which judgment is to be in the clouds. And there shall stand the men that are reprobated alive, where souls, according to his Lordship’s doctrine, were sent long before to hell. Therefore at that present day of judgment they had one soul by which they were there alive, and another soul in hell. How his Lordship could have maintained this, I understand not. But by my doctrine, that the soul is not a separated substance, but that the man at his resurrection shall be revived by God, and raised to judgment, and afterwards body and soul destroyed in hell-fire, which is the second death, there is no such consequence or difficulty to be inferred. Besides, it avoids the unnecessary disputes about where the soul of Lazarus was for four days he lay dead. And the order of the divine process is made good, of not inflicting torments before the condemnation pronounced.

Now as to the harmony of the two Testaments, it is said in the Old (Gen. ii. 17): _In the day that thou eatest of the tree of knowledge, dying thou shalt die: moriendo morieris_: that is, when thou art dead thou shalt not revive; for so hath Athanasius expounded it. Therefore Adam and Eve were not immortal by their creation. Then (Gen. iii. 22): _Behold the man is become as one of us: now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever, &c._ Here they had had an immortality by the gift of God if they had not sinned. It was therefore sin that lost them eternal life. He therefore that redeemed them from sin was the author of their immortality, which consequently began in the day of judgment, when Adam and Eve were again made alive by admission to the new tree of life, which was Christ.

Now let us compare this with the New Testament; where we find these words (1 Cor. xv. 21): _since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead_. Therefore all the immortality of the soul, that shall be after the resurrection, is by Christ, and not by the nature of the soul. Verse 22: _As by Adam all die, even so in 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 own order; Christ the first-fruits, afterwards they that are Christ’s, at his coming_. Therefore none shall be made alive till the coming of Christ. Lastly, as when God had said, _that day that thou eatest of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt die_, though he condemned him then, yet he suffered him to live a long time after; so when Christ had said to the thief on the cross, _this day thou shalt be with me in Paradise_, yet he suffered him to lie dead till the general resurrection, for no man rose again from the dead before our Saviour’s coming, and conquering death.

If God bestowed immortality on every man then when he made him, and he made many to whom he never purposed to give his saving grace, what did his Lordship think that God gave any man immortality with purpose only to make him capable of immortal torments? It is a hard saying, and I think cannot piously be believed. I am sure it can never be proved by the canonical Scripture.

But though I have made it clear that it cannot be drawn by lawful consequence from Scripture, that man was created with a soul immortal, and that the elect only, by the grace of God in Christ, shall both bodies and souls from the resurrection forward be immortal; yet there may be a consequence well drawn from some words in the rites of burial, that prove the contrary, as these: _Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy, to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed_, &c. And these: _Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord_: which are words authorised by the church. I wonder his Lordship, that had so often pronounced them, took no notice of them here. But it often happens that men think of those things least, which they have most perfectly learnt by rote. I am sorry I could not, without deserting the sense of Scripture and mine own conscience, say the same. But I see no just cause yet, why the church should be offended at it. For the church of England pretendeth not, as doth the church of Rome, to be above the Scripture; nor forbiddeth any man to read the Scripture; nor was I forbidden, when I wrote my _Leviathan_, to publish anything which the Scriptures suggested. For when I wrote it, I may safely say there was no lawful church in England, that could have maintained me in, or prohibited me from writing anything. There was no bishop; and though there was preaching, such as it was, yet no common prayer. For extemporary prayer, though made in the pulpit, is not common prayer. There was then no church in England, that any man living was bound to obey. What I write here at this present time I am forced to in my defence, not against the church, but against the accusations and arguments of my adversaries. For the church, though it excommunicates for scandalous life, and for teaching false doctrines, yet it professeth to impose nothing to be held as faith, but what may be warranted by Scripture: and this the church itself saith in the twentieth of the Thirty-nine Articles of religion. And therefore I 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 phrenzies; and all _demoniacs_, or persons possessed, _no other than madmen_: and to justify _our Saviour’s speaking to a disease as to a person_, produceth the example of enchanters. But he declareth himself most clearly upon this subject, in his animadversions upon my reply to his defence of fatal destiny. _There are in the Scripture two sorts of things which are in English translated devils. One is that which is called Satan, Diabolus Abaddon, which signifieth in English an enemy, an accuser, and a destroyer of the church of God; in which sense the devils are but wicked men. The other sort of devils are called in the Scripture Dæmonia, which are the feigned Gods of the heathen, and are neither bodies nor spiritual substances, but mere fancies, and fictions of terrified hearts, feigned by the Greeks, and other heathen people, which St. Paul calleth nothings._ So T. H. hath killed the great infernal Devil, and all his black angels, and left no devils to be feared, but devils incarnate, that is, wicked men.

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

_J. D._ And for _hell_, he describeth the _kingdom of Satan_, or the _kingdom of darkness_, to be _a confederacy of deceivers_. He telleth us that the places, which set forth the torments of hell in holy Scripture, _do design metaphorically a grief and discontent of mind, from the sight of that eternal felicity in others, which they themselves, through their own incredulity and disobedience, have lost_. As if metaphorical descriptions did not bear sad truths in them, as well as literal; as if final desperation were no more than a little fit of grief or discontent; and a guilty conscience were no more than a transitory passion; as if it were a loss so easily to be borne, to be deprived for evermore of the beatifical vision; and lastly, as if the damned, besides that unspeakable loss, did not likewise suffer actual torments, proportionable in some measure to their own sins, and God’s justice.

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

_J. D._ Lastly, for the damned spirits, he declareth himself every where, that their sufferings are not eternal. _The fire shall be unquenchable, and the torments everlasting; but it cannot be thence inferred, that he who shall be cast into that fire, or_ _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 successively one after another for ever; yet I find none that affirm that there shall be an everlasting life therein of any individual person._ If he had said, and said only, that the pains of the damned may be lessened, as to the degree of them, or that they endure not for ever, but that after they are purged by long torments from their dross and corruptions, as gold in the fire, both the damned spirits and the devils themselves should be restored to a better condition; he might have found some ancients (who are therefore called _the merciful doctors_) to have joined with him; though still he should have wanted the suffrage of the Catholic church.

_T. H._ Why does not his Lordship cite some place of Scripture here to prove, that all the reprobates which are dead, live eternally in torment? We read indeed, that everlasting torments were prepared for the Devil and his angels, whose natures also are everlasting; and that the _Beast_ and the _false prophet_ shall be tormented everlastingly; but not that every reprobate shall be so. They shall indeed be cast into the same fire; but the Scripture says plainly enough, that they shall be both body and soul destroyed there. If I had said that the devils themselves should be restored to a better condition, his Lordship would have been so kind as to have put me into the number of the _merciful doctors_. Truly, if I had had any warrant for the possibility of their being less enemies to the church 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 fire_, all those torments which he acknowledgeth, is but this, that _after the resurrection, the reprobate shall be in the estate that Adam and his posterity were in, after the sin committed, saving that God promised a redeemer to Adam and not to them_: adding, _that they shall live as they did formerly, marry and give in marriage; and consequently engender children perpetually after the resurrection, as they did before_: which he calleth _an immortality of the kind, but not of the persons of men_. It is to be presumed, that in those their second lives, knowing certainly from T. H. that there is no hope of redemption for them from corporal death upon their well-doing, nor fear of any torments after death for their ill-doing, they will pass their times here as pleasantly as they can. This is all the damnation which T. H. fancieth.

_T. H._ This he has urged once before, and I answered to it, that the whole paragraph was to prove, that for any text of Scripture to the contrary, men might, after the resurrection, live as Adam did on earth; and that, notwithstanding the text of St. Luke, (chap. xx. 34-36), _Marry and propagate_. But that they shall do so, is no assertion of mine. His Lordship knew I held, that after the resurrection there shall be at all no wicked men; but the elect (all that are, have been, and hereafter shall be) shall live on earth. But St. Peter (2 Epist. iii. 13) says, there shall then be _a new heaven and a new earth_.

_J. D._ In sum I leave it to the free judgment of the understanding reader, by these few instances which follow, to judge what the Hobbian principles are in point of religion. _Ex ungue leonem._

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

Secondly, he alloweth subjects, being commanded by their sovereign, to deny Christ. _Profession with the tongue is but an external thing, and no more than any other gesture, whereby we signify our obedience: and wherein a Christian, holding firmly in his heart the faith of Christ, hath the same liberty which the prophet Elisha allowed to Naaman, &c. who by bowing before the idol Rimmon, denied the true God as much in effect, as if he had done it with his lips._ Alas, why did St. Peter weep so bitterly for denying his master, out of fear of his life or members? It seems he was not acquainted with these Hobbian principles. And in the same place he layeth down this general conclusion: _This we may say, that whatsoever a subject is compelled to, in obedience to his sovereign, and doth it not in order to his own mind, but in order to the laws of his country, that action is not his, but his sovereign’s; nor is it he, that in this case denieth Christ before men, but his governor and the law of his country_. His instance, in a Mahometan commanded by a Christian prince to be present at divine service, is a weak mistake, springing from his gross ignorance in case-divinity, not knowing to distinguish between an erroneous conscience, as the Mahometan’s is, and a conscience rightly informed.

_T. H._ In these his two first instances, I confess his Lordship does not much belie me. But neither does he confute me. Also I confess my ignorance in his case-divinity, which is grounded upon the doctrine of the Schoolmen; who to decide cases of conscience, take in, not only the Scriptures, but also the decrees of the popes of Rome, for the advancing of the dominion of the Roman church over consciences; whereas the true decision of cases of consciences ought to be grounded only on Scripture, or natural equity. I never allowed the denying of Christ with the tongue in all men, but expressly say the contrary (_Leviathan_, vol. iii. p. 656) in these words: _For an unlearned man that is in the power of an idolatrous king or state, if commanded on pain of death to worship before an idol, he detesteth the idol in his heart, he doth well; though if he had the fortitude to suffer death rather than worship it, he should do better. But if a pastor, who as Christ’s messenger has undertaken to teach Christ’s doctrine to all nations, should do the same, it were not only a sinful scandal in respect of other Christian men’s consciences, but a perfidious forsaking of his charge._ Therefore St. Peter, in denying Christ, sinned, as being an apostle. And it is sin in every man that should now take upon him to preach against the power of the Pope, to leave his commission unexecuted for fear of the fire; but in a mere traveller, not so. The three children and Daniel were worthy champions of the true religion. But God requireth not of every man to be a champion. As for his Lordship’s words of _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 anything which God only can do for us, is Divine worship, and idolatry. On the other side, if a king compel a man to it by the terror of death, or other great corporal punishment, it is not idolatry._ His reason is, because _it is not a sign, that he doth inwardly honour him as a God, but that he is desirous to save himself from death, or from a miserable life_. It seemeth T. H. thinketh there is no Divine worship but internal: and that it is lawful for a man to value his own life or his limbs more than his God. How much is he wiser than the three children, or Daniel himself, who were thrown, the first into a fiery furnace, the last into the lions' den, because they refused to comply with the idolatrous decree of their sovereign prince?

_T. H._ Here also my words are truly cited. But his Lordship understood not what the word _worship_ signifies; and yet he knew what I meant by it. To think highly of God, as I had defined it, is to honour him. But _to think_ is internal. To worship, is to signify that honour, which we inwardly give, by signs _external_. This understood, as by his Lordship it was, all he says to it, is but a cavil.

_J. D._ A fourth aphorism may be this, _that, which is said in the Scripture, it is better to obey God than man, hath place in the kingdom of God by pact, and not by nature_. Why? Nature itself 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 human law clash one with another, without doubt it is evermore better to obey God than man.

_T. H._ Here again appears his unskilfulness in reasoning. Who denies, but it is always, and in all cases, better to obey God than man? But there is no law, neither Divine nor human, that ought to be taken for a law, till we know what it is; and if a Divine law, till we know that God hath commanded it to be kept. We agree that the Scriptures are the word of God. But they are a law by pact, that is, to us who have been baptized into the covenant. To all others it is an invitation only to their own benefit. It is true that even nature suggesteth to us that the law of God is to be obeyed rather than the law of man. But nature does not suggest to us that the Scripture is the law of God, much less how every text of it ought to be interpreted. But who then shall suggest this? Dr. Bramhall? I deny it. Who then? The stream of divines? Why so? Am I, that have the Scripture itself before my eyes, obliged to venture my eternal life upon their interpretation, how learned soever they pretend to be, when no counter-security, that they can give me, will save me harmless? If not the stream of divines, who then? The lawful assembly of pastors, or of bishops? But there can be no lawful assembly in England without the authority of the King. The Scripture, therefore, 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 human law clash one with another, without doubt it is better evermore to obey God than man_. Where the king is a Christian, believes the Scripture, and hath the legislative power both in church and state, and maketh no laws concerning Christian faith, or Divine worship, but by the counsel of his bishops whom he trusteth in that behalf; if the bishops counsel him aright, what clashing can there be between the Divine and human laws? For if the civil law be against God’s law, and the bishops make it clearly appear to the king that it clasheth with Divine law, no doubt he will mend it by himself, or by the advice of his parliament; for else he is no professor of Christ’s doctrine, and so the clashing is at an end. But if they think that every opinion they hold, though obscure and unnecessary to salvation, ought presently to be law, then there will be clashings innumerable, not only of laws, but also of swords, as we have found it too true by late experience. But his Lordship is still at this, that there ought to be, for the Divine laws, that is to say for the interpretation of Scripture, a legislative power in the church, distinct from that of the King, which under him they enjoy already. This I deny. Then for clashing between the civil laws of infidels with the law of God, the apostles teach that those their civil laws are to be obeyed, but so as to keep their faith in Christ entirely in their hearts; which is an obedience easily performed. But I do not believe that Augustus Cæsar or Nero was bound to make the holy Scripture law; and yet unless they did so, they could not attain to eternal life.

_J. D._ His fifth conclusion may be, that the sharpest and most successful sword, in any war whatsoever, doth give sovereign power and authority to him that hath it, to approve or reject all sorts of theological doctrines, concerning the kingdom of God, not according to their truth or falsehood, but according to that influence which they have upon political affairs. Hear him: _but because this doctrine will appear to most men a novelty, I do but propound it, maintaining nothing in this or any other paradox of religion, but attending the end of that dispute of the sword concerning the authority (not yet amongst my countrymen decided) by which all sorts of doctrine are to be approved or rejected_, &c. _For, the points of doctrine concerning the kingdom of God, have so great influence upon the kingdom of man, as 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 (1 Kings xii. 26-28): _Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David, if this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem; whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, it is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem, behold thy Gods, O Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt_. But by the just disposition of Almighty God, this policy turned to a sin, and was the utter destruction of Jeroboam and his family. It is not good jesting with edge-tools, nor playing with holy things: where men make their greatest fastness, many times they find most danger.

_T. H._ His Lordship either had a strange conscience, or understood not English. Being at Paris when there was no bishop nor church in England, and every man writ what he pleased, I resolved (when it should please God to restore the authority ecclesiastical) to submit to that authority, in whatsoever it should determine. This his Lordship construes for a temporizing and too much 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 is, _just or unjust proceedeth from the right of him that commandeth. Therefore lawful kings make those things which they command just, by commanding them, and those things which they forbid, unjust by forbidding them._ To this add his definition of a sin, _that which one doth, or omitteth, saith, or willeth, contrary to the reason of the commonwealth, that is, the (civil) laws_. Where by the laws he doth not understand the written laws, elected and approved by the whole commonwealth, but the verbal commands or mandates of him that hath the sovereign power, as we find in many places of his writings. _The civil laws are nothing else but the commands of him, that is endowed with sovereign power in the commonwealth, concerning 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 deserveth he who should do his uttermost endeavour to poison a common fountain, whereof all the commonwealth must drink? He doth the same who poisoneth the mind of a sovereign prince.

Are _the civil laws the rules of good and bad, just and unjust, honest and dishonest_? And what, I pray you, are the rules of the civil law itself? Even the law of God and Nature. If the civil laws swerve from these more authentic laws, they are Lesbian rules. _What the lawgiver commands is to be accounted good, what he forbids, bad._ This was just the garb of the Athenian sophisters, as they are described by Plato. Whatsoever pleased the great beast, the multitude, they call holy, and just, and good. And whatsoever the great beast disliked, they called evil, unjust, profane. But he is not yet arrived at the height of his flattery. _Lawful kings make those things, which they command, just by commanding them._ At other times, when he is in his right wits, he talketh of sufferings, and _expecting their reward in heaven. And going to Christ by martyrdom. And if he had the fortitude to suffer death he should do better._ But 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 be true, that _none can be martyrs, but those who conversed with Christ upon earth_? He addeth, _before empires were, just and unjust were not_. Nothing could be written more false in his sense, more dishonourable to God, more inglorious to the human nature; than that God should create man, and leave him presently without any rules, to his own ordering of himself, as the ostrich leaveth her eggs in the sand. But in truth there have been empires in the world ever since Adam. And Adam had a law written in his heart by the finger of God, before there was any civil law. Thus they do endeavour to make goodness, and justice, and honesty, and conscience, and God himself, to be empty names, without any reality, which signify nothing, further than they conduce to a man’s interest. Otherwise he would not, he could not, say, that _every action as it is invested with its circumstances, is indifferent in its own nature_.

_T. H._ My sixth paradox he calls a rapper. A rapper, a swapper, and such like terms, are his Lordship’s elegancies. But let us see what this rapper is: it is this; the civil laws are the rules of good and evil, just and unjust, honest and dishonest. Truly, I see no other rules they have. The Scriptures themselves were made law to us here, by the authority of the commonwealth, and are therefore part of the law civil. If they were laws in their own nature, then were they laws over all the world, and men were obliged to obey them in America, as soon as they should be shown there, though without a miracle, by a friar. What is unjust, but the transgression of a law? _Law_ therefore was before unjust: and the law was made known by sovereign power before it was a law: therefore _sovereign power_ was antecedent both to _law_ and _injustice_. Who then made unjust but sovereign kings or sovereign assemblies? Where is now the wonder of this rapper, _that lawful kings make those things which they command just, by commanding them, and those things which they forbid unjust, by forbidding them_? Just and unjust were surely made. If the king made them not, who made them else? For certainly the breach of a civil law is a sin against God. Another calumny which he would fix upon me, is, that I make the King’s verbal commands to be laws. How so? Because I say, _the civil laws are nothing else but the commands of him that hath the sovereign power, concerning the future actions of his subjects_. What verbal command of a king can arrive at the ears of all his subjects, which it must do ere it be a law, without the seal of the person of the commonwealth, which is here the Great Seal of England? Who, but his Lordship, ever denied that the command of England was a law to Englishmen? Or that any but the King had authority to affix the Great Seal of England to any writing? And who did ever doubt to call our laws, though made in Parliament, the King’s laws? What was ever called a law, which the King did not assent to? Because the King has granted in divers cases not to make a law without the advice and assent of the lords and commons, therefore when there 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 chiefly, that he had lost upon me so much School-learning in our controversy touching _Liberty and Necessity_: wherein he was to blame himself, for believing that the obscure and barbarous language of School-divinity, could satisfy an ingenuous reader, as well as plain and perspicuous English. Do I flatter the King? Why am I not rich? I confess his Lordship has not flattered him here.

_J. D._ Something there is which he hath a confused glimmering of, as the blind man sees _men walking like trees_, which he is not able to apprehend 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 præsumitur pro rege et lege_, the sovereign and the law are always presumed to be in the right. But in plain evident cases, which admit no doubt, it is always better to obey God than man. Blunderers, whilst they think to mend one imaginary hole, make two or three real ones. They who derive the authority of the Scriptures or God’s law from the civil laws of men, are like those who seek to underprop the heavens from falling, with a bulrush. Nay, they derive not only the authority of the Scripture, but even the law of nature itself, from the civil law. _The laws of nature_ (which need no promulgation) _in the condition of nature are not properly laws, but qualities which dispose men to peace and obedience. When a commonwealth is once settled, then are they actually laws, and not before._ God help us, into what times are we fallen, when the immutable laws of God and nature are made to depend upon the mutable laws of mortal men, just as one should 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 forbad, or by refusing to do what it commanded, whether he have opposed this law or not. If to break the law be to oppose it, he granteth it. Therefore his Lordship has not here expressed himself so clearly, as to make men understand the difference between breaking a law and opposing it. Though there be some difference between breaking of a law, and opposing those that are sent with force to see it executed; yet between breaking and opposing the law itself, there is no difference. Also, though the subject think the law just, as when a thief is by law condemned to die, yet he may lawfully oppose the execution, not only by prayers, tears, and flight, but also (as I think) any way he can. For though his fault were never so great, yet his endeavour to save his own life is not a fault. For the law expects it, 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.