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A43970
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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 heresie, and the punishment thereof. By Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury
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Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing H2211; ESTC R19913
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73,412
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166
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and Sanctity are indeed not very frequent but yet they are not Miracles but brought to pass by Education Discipline Correction and other natural wayes I would see the greatest Pelagian of them all fly higher 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 Vertue those words are intelligible enough J. D. Why should he trouble himself about the Holy Spirit who acknowledgeth no Spirit but either a subtil fluid body or a Ghost or other Idol or Phantasm of the imagination who knoweth no inward Grace or intrinsecal Holyness Holy is a word which in Gods Kingdom answereth to that which men in their Kingdoms use to call publick or the Kings And again wheresoever the word Holy is taken properly there is still some thing signified of propriety gotten by consent His Holiness is a Relation not a Quality for inward sanctification or real infused holiness in respect whereof the third 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 sence is a Relation not a Quality All the Learned agree that Quality is an Accident so that in attributing to God Holiness as a Quality he contradicts himself for he has in the beginning of this his discourse denyed and rightly that any Accident is in God saying whatsoever is in God is the Divine Substance He affirms also that to attribute any Accident to God is to deny the simplicity of the Divine Substance And thus his Lordship makes God as I do a Corporeal Spirit Both here and throughout he discovers so much ignorance as had he charged me with error only and not with Atheism I should not have thought it necessary to answer him J. D. We are taught in our Creed to believe the Catholick or Universal Church But T. H. teacheth us the contrary That if there be more Christian Churches than one all of them together are not one Church personally And more plainly Now if the whole number of Christians be not contained in one Common-wealth they are not one Person nor is there an Vniversal Church that hath any Authority over them And again The Vniversal Church is not one Person of which it can be said that it hath done or Decreed or Ordained or Excommunicated or Absolved This doth quite overthrow all the Authority of General Councils All other Men distinguish between the Church and the Common-wealth only T. H. maketh them to be one and the same thing The Common-wealth of Christian men and the Church of the same are altogether the same thing called by two names for two reasons For the matter of the Church and of the Common-wealth is the same namely the same Christian men and the Form is the same which consisteth in the lawful power of convocating them And hence he concludeth That every Christian Common-wealth is a Church endowed with all spiritual Authority And yet more fully The Church if it be one Person is the same thing with the Common-wealth of Christians called a Common-wealth because it consisteth of men united in one Person their Soveraign And a Church because it consisteth in Christian men united in one Christian Soveraign Upon which account there was no Christian Church in these Parts of the World for some hundreds of years after Christ because there was no Christian Soveraign 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 indued with Authority universal to govern all Christian men on Earth no more than there is one Universal Soveraign Prince or State on Earth that hath right to govern all Mankind I deny also that the whole Clergy of a Christian Kingdom or State being assembled are the representative of that Church further than the Civil Laws permits or can lawfully assemble themselves unless by the command or by the leave of the Soveraign Civil Power I say further that the denyal of this point tendeth in England towards the taking away of the Kings Supremacy in causes Ecclesiastical But his Lordship has not here denyed any thing of mine because he has done no more but set down my words He says further that this Doctrine destroyes the Authority of all General Councils which I confess Nor hath any General Council at this day in this Kingdom the force of a Law nor ever had but by the Authority of the King 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 Soveraign The like he saith of the Old Testament made Canonical by Esdras And of the New Testament That it was not the Apostles which made their own Writings Canonical but every Convert made them so to himself Yet with this restriction That until the Soveraign Ruler had prescribed them they were but Counsel and Advice which whether good or bad he that was counselled might without injustice refuse to observe and being contrary to the Laws established could not without injustice observe He maketh the Primitive Christians to have been in a pretty condition Certainly the Gospel was contrary to the Laws then established But most plainly The word of the Interpreter of the Scripture is the word of God And the same is the Interpreter of the Scripture and the Soveraign Judge of all Doctrines that is the Soveraign Magistrate to whose Authority we must stand no less than to theirs who at first did commend the Scripture to us for the Canon of Faith Thus if Christian Soveraigns of different Communications do clash one with another in their interpretations or misinterpretation of Scripture as they do daily then the word of God is contradictory to it self or that is the word of God in one Common-wealth which is the word of the Devil in another Common-wealth And the same thing may be true and not true at the same time Which is the peculiar priviledge of T.H. to make
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 somthing that is past and acquiring somthing that doth come every minute That is as much as to say That our God is infinite and his God is finite for unto that which is actually infinite nothing can be added neither time nor parts Hear himself Nor do I understand what derogation it can be to the divine perfection to attribute to it Potentiality that is in English Power so little doth he understand what Potentiality is and successive duration And he chargeth it upon us as a fault that will not have eternity to be an endless succession of time How successive duration and an endless succession of time in God Then God is infinite then God is elder to day than he was yesterday Away with Blasphemies Before he destroyed the Ubiquity of God and now he destroyeth his Eternity 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 wondring How an endless succession of time in God! Why not Gods mercy endureth for ever and surely God endureth as long as his mercy therefore there is duration in God and consequently endless succession of time God who in sundry times and divers manners spake in time past c. But in a former dispute with me about Free-will he hath defined Eternity to be Nuno stans that is an ever standing now or everlasting instant This he thinks himself bound in honour to defend What reasonable soul can digest this We read in Scripture that a thousand years with God is but as yesterday And why but because he sees as clearly to the end of a thousand years as to the end of a day But his Lordship affirms That both a thousand years and a day are but one instant the same standing Now or Eternity If he had shewed an holy Text for this Doctrine or any Text of the Book of Common Prayer in the Scripture and Book of Common Prayer is contained all our Religion I had yielded to him but School-Divinity I value little or nothing at all Though in this he contradict also the School-men who say the Soul is eternal only à parte post but God is eternal both à parte post and à parte ante Thus there are parts in eternity and eternity being as his Lordship says the divine substance the divine substance has parts and Nunc stans has parts Is not this darkness I take it to be the Kingdom of Darkness and the teachers of it especially of this Doctrine That God who is not only Optimus but also Maximus is no greater than to be wholly contained in the least Atome of earth or other body and that his whole duration is but an instant of time to be either grosly 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 compleat But T. H. his God is a divisible God a compounded God that hath matter or qualities or accidents Hear himself I argue thus The divine substance is indivisible but eternity is the divine substance The Major is evident because God is Actus simplicissimus the Minor is confessed by all men that whatsoever is attributed to God is God Now listen to his answer The Major is so far from being evident that Actus simplicissimus signifieth nothing The Minor is said by some men thought by no man whatsoever is thought is understood The Major was this The divine substance is indivisible Is this far from being evident Either it is indivisible or divisible If it be not indivisible then it is divisible then it is materiate then it is corporeal then it hath parts then it is finite by his own confession Habere partes aut esse totum aliquid sunt attributa finitorum Upon this silly conceit he chargeth me for saying That God is not just but justice it self not eternal but eternity it self which he calleth unseemly words to be said of God And he thinketh he doth me a great courtesie in not adding Blasphemous and Atheistical But his Bolts are so soon shot and his Reasons are such vain Imaginations and such drowsie Phantasies that no sad man doth much regard them Thus he hath already destroyed the Ubiquity the Eternity and the Simplicity of God I wish he had considered better with himself before he had desperately cast himself upon these Rocks But paulo majora canamus my next charge is That he destroys the very being of God and leaves nothing in his place but an empty name For by taking away all incorporeal substances he taketh away God himself The very name saith he of an incorporeal substance is a Contradiction And to say that an Angel or Spirit is an incorporeal substance is to say in effect that there is no Angel or Spirit at all By the same reason to say That God is an incorporeal substance is to say there is no God at all Either God is incorporeal or he is finite and consists of parts and consequently is no God This That there is 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