the one shall be a true Prophet the other a false And Christ who had the approbation of no Soveraign Prince upon his grounds was to be reputed a false Prophet every where Every man therefore ought to consider who is the Soveraign Prophet that is to say who it is that is Gods Vicegerent upon earth and hath next under God the authority of governing Christian men and to observe for a rule that doctrine which in the name of God he hath commanded to be taught and thereby to examine and try out the truth of those doctrines which pretended Prophets with miracle or without shall at any time advance c. And if he disavow them then no more to obey their voice or if he approve them than to obey them as men to whom God hath given a part of the spirit of their Soveraign Upon his principles the case holdeth as well among Jews and Turks and Heathens as Christians Then he that teacheth transubstantiation in France is a true Prophet he that teacheth it in England a false Prophet He that blasphemeth Christ in Constantinople a true Prophet he that doth the same in Italy a false Prophet Then Samuel was a false Prophet to contest with Saul a Soveraign Prophet So was the man of God who submitted not to the more divine and prophetick spirit of Jeroboam And Elijah for reproving Ahab Then Micaiah had but his deserts to be clapt up in prison and fed with bread of affliction and water of affliction for daring to contradict Gods 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 priviledges And yet more strange that God Almighty should take the part of such rebellious Prophets and justifie their prophesies by the event if it were true that none but the Soveraign in a Christian the reason is the same for Jewish Common-wealth can take notice what is or what is not the word of God Neither doth he use God the holy Ghost more favourably than God the Son Where S. Peter saith Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the holy Spirit He saith By the Spirit is meant the voice of God in a dream or vision supernatural which dreams or visions he maketh to be no more than imaginations which they had in their sleep or in an extasie which in every true Prophet were supernatural but in false Prophets were either natural or feined and more likely to be false than true To say God hath spoken to him in a dream is no more than to say He dreamed that God spake to him c. To say he hath seen a vision or heard a voice is to say That he hath dreamed between sleeping and waking So S. Peters holy Ghost is come to be their own imaginations which might be either feined or mistaken or true As if the holy Ghost did enter onely at their eyes and at their eares not into their understandings nor into their minds Or as if the holy Ghost did not seale unto their hearts the truth and assurance of their Prophesies Whether a new light be infused into their understandings or new graces be inspired into their heart they are wrought or caused or created immediately by the holy Ghost And so are his imaginations if they be supernatural 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 something that is blown into a man and the graces of the holy Ghost to be corporeal graces And the words impowered or infused virtue and inblown or inspired virtue are as absurd and insignificant as a round qnadrangle He reckons it as a common errour That faith and sanctity are not attained by study and reason but by supernatural inspiration or infusion And laieth this for a firm ground Faith and sanctity are indeed not very frequent but yet they are not miracles but brought to passe by education discipline correction and other natural waeyes I would see the greatest Pelagian of them all flie higher Why should he trouble himself about the holy Spirit who acknowledgeth no spirit but either a subtile fluide invisible body or a ghost or other idol or phantasme of the imagination who knoweth no inward grace or intrinsecal holinesse Holy is a word which in Gods kingdome 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 something signified of propriety gotten by consent His holinesse is a relation not a quality but for inward sanctification or reall infused holinesse in respect whereof the third person is called the holy Ghost because he is not onely 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 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 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 Common-wealth Onely 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
without appointing or constituting a subjection without subjection an authorising without authorising What is this He saith that it cannot be said honourably of God that he hath parts or totality which are the attributes of finite things If it cannot be said honourably of God that he hath parts or totality then it cannot be said honourably of God that he is a body for every body hath parts and totality Now hear what he saith Every part of the Universe is body And that which is no body is no part of the Universe And because the Universe is all that which is no part of it is nothing Then if God have no parts and totality God is nothing Let him judge how honourable this is for God He saith We honour not God but dishonour him by any value lesse than infinite And how doth he set an infinite value upon God who every where maketh him to subsist by successive duration Infinite is that to which nothing can be added but to that which subsisteth by successive duration something is added every minute He saith Christ had not a Kingly authority committed to him by his Father in the World but onely consiliary and doctrinal He saith on the contrary That the kingdom of Iudaea was his hereditary right from King David c. And when it pleased him to play the King he required entire obedience Math. 21. 2. Go into the village over against you and streightway ye shall find an assetied and a colt with her loose them and bring them unto me And if any man say ought unto you ye shall say The Lord hath need of them He saith The institution of eternal punishment was before sin And if the command be such as cannot be obeyed without being damned to eternal death then it were madnesse to obey it And what evil hath excommunicatien in it but the consequent eternal punishment At other times he saith there is no eternal punishment It is evident that there shall be a second death of every one that shall be condemned at the day of Iudgement after which he shall die no more He who knoweth no soul nor spirit may well be ignorant of a spiritual death He saith It is a doctrine repugnant to civil society that whatsoever a man does against his conscience is sin Yet he himself saith It is a sin whatsoever one doth against his conscience for they that do that despise the Law He saith That all power secular and spiritual under Christ is united in the Christian Common-wealth that is the Christian Soveraign Yet he himself saith on the contrary It cannot be doubted of that the power of binding and loosing that is of remotting and retaining sins which we call the power of the keyes was given by Christ to future Pastours in the same manner as to the present Apostles And all power of remitting sin which Christ himself had was given to the Apostles All spiritual power is in the Christian Magistrate Some spiritual power that is the power of the keyes is in the successours of the Apostles that is not in the Christian Magistrate is a contradiction He confesseth That it is manifest that from the ascension of Christ until the conversion of Kings the power Ecclesiastical was in the Apostles and so delivered unto their successours by imposition of hands And yet straight forgetting himself he taketh away all power from them even in that time when there were no Christian Kings in the World He alloweth them no power to make any Ecclesiastical laws or constitutions or to impose any manner of commands upon Christians The office of the Apostles was not to command but teach As Schoole-Masters not as Commanders Yet Schoole-Masters have some power to command He suffereth not the Apostles to ordain but those whom the Church appointeth nor to excommunicate or absolve but whom the Church pleaseth He maketh the determination of all controversies to rest in the Church not in the Apostles And resolveth all questions into the authority of the Church The election of Doctours and Prophets did rest upon the authority of the Church of Antioch And if it be inquired by what authority it came to passe that it was received for the command of the Holy Ghost which those Prophets and Doctors said proceeded from the Holy Ghost we must necessarily answer By the authority of the Church of Antioch Thus every where he ascribeth all authority to the Church none at all to the Apostles even in those times before there were Christian Kings He saith not tell it to the Apostles but tell it to the Church that we may know the definitive sentence whether sin or no sin is not left to them but to the Church And it is manifest that all authority in spiritual things doth depend upon the authority of the Church Thus not contented with single contradictions he twisteth them together for according to his definition of a Church there was no Christian Church at Antioch or in those parts of the World either then or long after Hear him A Church is a company of men professing Christian Religion united in the person of one Soveraign at whose command they ought to assemble and without whose authority they ought not to assemble Yet there was no Christian Soveraign in those parts of the World then or for two hundred years after and by consequence according to his definition no Church He teacheth That when the civil Soveraign is an infidel every one of his own subjects that resisteth him sinneth against the Laws of God and rejecteth the counsel of the Apostles that admonisheth all Christians to obey their Princes and all children and servants to obey their Parents and Masters in all things As for not resisting he is in the right but for obeying in all things in his sense it is an abominable errour Upon this ground he alloweth Christians to deny Christ to sacrifice to idols so they preserve faith in their hearts He telleth them They have the license that Naaman had and need not put themselves into danger for their faith That is they have liberty to do any external acts which their infidel Soveraigns shall command them Now hear the contrary from himself When Soveraigns are not Christians in spiritual things that is in those things which pertain to the manner of worshipping God some Church of Christians is to be followed Adding that when we may not obey them yet we may not resist them but eundum est ad Christum per martyrium we ought to suffer for it He confesseth That matter and power are indifferent to contrary forms and contrary acts And yet maintaineth every where that all matter is necessitated by the outward causes to one individual form that is it is not indifferent And all power by his Principles is limitted and determined to one particular act Thus he scoffeth at me for the contrary very learnedly
an unhandsome thing for a man to derive his opinion concerning truth by succession from his Ancestor I answer That just possession is either by law or by prescription I have all laws Divine and Humane Ecclesiastical and Civil and a prescription of two thousand years or at least ever since Christianity came into the World for liberty His opinion of universal Destiny by reason of a necessary connexion of the second causes was never the general nor the common nor the current opinion of the World and hath been in a manner wholly buried for sixteen hundred years and now is first conjured out of its grave by him to disturb the World If this be just possession an High-way robber may plead possession so soon as ever he hath stripped an honest Traveller It is not onely no unhandsome thing but it is a most comely and commendable thing for a man to derive his religion by the universal approbation of the Christian World from the purest Primitive Times throughout all ages and never to deviate further from the steps of his Ancestors than they had first degenerated from their predecessors And where he telleth us That the first Christians did not derive Christianity from their Ancestours It is very true but very impertinent For they had not their religion from their own invention or presumption as he hath his opinions but by Divine Revelation confirmed with miracles When he is able to produce as authentick proof for his Paradoxes as they did for their religion he saith something That which he calleth my scâ—…rrilous argumentation he that drinks well sleeps well c. is none of mine but a common example used in Logick to shew the weaknesse of such forms of arguings as his is when the dependance is not necessary and essentiall but contingent and accidental as it is in his argument here All actions are from God by a general power but not determinately The like contingent connexion there is between action and sense sense and memory memory and election This is enough to shew the weaknesse of his argument But he hath one main fault more he hath put more in the conclusion than there was in the premisses He saith If by liberty I had understood onely liberty of action and not liberty of will it had been an easie matter to reconcile it with prescience and the decrees of God I answer first That liberty of action without liberty of will is but a mock liberty and a new nothing like an empty bottle given to a child to satisfie his thirst Where there is no liberty to will there is no liberty to act as hath been formerly demonstrated Secondly The liberty to will is as reconciliable with the prescience and decrees of God as the liberty to act Gods decrees do extend at least as much to acting as to willing Thirdly This liberty of acting without a liberty of willing is irreconciliable with all the other attributes of God his truth his justice his goodnesse and his power and setting the decrees of God in opposition one with another How should a man have a liberty to act and have no liberty to will when he cannot act freely except he will freely because willing is a necessary cause or means of acting That which followeth about Gods aspect and intuition is meerly a contention about words and such words as are received and approved by all Authours Gods intuition is not of the same nature with ours we poor Creatures do stand in need of organs but God who is a pure simple infinite essence cannot be made perfecter by organs or accidents Whatsoever he seeth or knoweth he seeth or knoweth by his essence The lesse T. H. understood the terms of Aspect and Intuition the more apt he was to blonder them He pleadeth If liberty cannot stand with necessity it cannot stand with the decrees of God of which decrees necessity is a consequent And he citeth some body without name who said The will of God is the necessity of all things I deny his consequence Liberty is consistent with Gods decrees though it be not consistent with universal necessity The reason is plain because liberty is a consequent of Gods decrees as well as necessity He who said that the will of God was the necessity of all things was St. Austine I wish he would stand to his judgement or to his sense of those words The meaning of those words is not that God doth will that all things should be necessary But that whatsoever God doth will that must necessarily be If he will have all things necessary then all things must be necessary If he will have all things free then all things must be free If he will have some things necessary and somethings free then some things must be necessary and some things free When God formed man of the dust of the earth he might have formed him either a child or a man but whether he should be formed the one or the other it was not in the condition of the Creature but in the pleasure of the Creator whose will is the necessity of things What doth this concern the liberty of man Nothing It concerned him more to have understood St. Austines distinction between Gods will and his prescience in the same place What God willeth shall necessarily be that is according to an absolute antecedent necessity What God foreknows shall truely be that is onely by a necessity of infallability I might produce the whole world against him in this cause But because he renounced Rumaine authorities I have been sparing to alledge one testimony against him But to free Saint Austin from all suspition of concurring in such a desperate cause I will onely cite one place of an hundred Neither is that necessity to be feared which the Stoicks fearing were careful to distinguish the causes of things so that some they substracted from necessity some they subjected to necessity And in those which they would not have to be under necessity they placed our wills least they should not be free if they were subjected to necessity For if that be to be called our necessity which is not in our power but effecteth what it can all though we will not such as is the necessity of death it is manifest that our wills whereby we live well or ill are not under such a necessity c. Here he may find the two sorts of necessity which we have had so much contention about the one in our power which is not opposed to liberty the other not in our power that is an antecedent extrinsecal necessity which destroyeth liberty but he saith that it is manifest that our wills are not subject to such an antecedent necessity Here he may see that his friends the Stoicks the great Patrons of necessity were not for universall necessity as he is nor did countenance necessity to the prejudice of the liberty of the will Onely to permit and to permit liberty do not
uningenuous adversary he is In my first discourse of Liberty I had these words we ought not to desert a certain truth because we are not able to comprehend the certain manner To which he answereth And I say the same In my defence I repeate the same words adding these Such a truth is that which I maintain That the will of man in ordinary actions is free from extrinsecal determination A truth demonstrable by reason received and believed by all the World And therefore though I be not able to comprehend or expresse exactly the certain manner how it consists with Gods eternal prescience and decrees which exceed my weake capacity yet I ought to adhere to that truth which is manifest So first he quarrelleth now with that truth which formerly he yeilded Secondly that which I spake upon supposition though I be not able he setteth down positively in his collection which is beyond his capacity Thirdly he leaveth out the word exactly A man may comprehend truly that which he doth not comprehend exactly Fourthly he omitteth fraudulently these words the certain manner A truth may be certain and demonstrable and yet the manner of it not demonstrable or a man may know several wayes of reconciling two truths together And yet fluctuate in his judgement to which of them certainly and expressely he ought to adhere It is certain that by the force of a mans arme a stone is thrown upwards And yet the certain manner how to reconcile this with another truth That whatsoever acteth upon another body acteth by a touching is not so easily found out The incarnation of Christ is certain yet the certain manner passeth both my capacity and his Lastly I do not say as he suggesteth that that truth which is demonstrable by reason passeth my capacity but the certain and exact manner how to reconcile this truth with another truth Yet there are sundry wayes of reconciling of them And I have shewed him one in the same Section which he is not able to refute See how his discourse hangs together like ropes of sand The prescience and decrees of God passe the capacity of mortal man therefore the liberty of the will is not demonstrable by reason From the hard words and non-sense of the Schooles he passeth to my little Logick and no Philosophy It skilleth not much what he saith unlesse he were a greater clerke He hath passed over a great part of my defence untouched But I have not omitted one sentence thoroughout his Animadversions wherein I could find any one grain of reason And among the rest have satisfied his silly censures or ignorant exceptions in their proper places and the splinters of those broken reedes stick in his own fingers Before he concludes he draweth up a summary of what he and I have maintained very confusedly most imperfectly and in part falsely Methinks it resembleth that unskilfull Painter who durst not leave his pictures to the free judgement of the beholders unless he writ over their heads This is a dog and this is a beare we had such a summary or draught of the Controversie in his Fountains of Arguments before his Animadversions as a Proeme And now we have such another breveate in the conclusion by way of Epilogue after his Animadversions He is very diffident of his cause who standeth in need of such Proemes and Epilogues and dare not trust the indifferent Reader to chuse his own diet unlesse he do first choppe it and chew it for him and then thrust it down his throat The last word may be efficacious with an ignorant multitude who are like a ship at Hulle every wave puts it into a new positure But more accurate palates do naucitate and loath such thrice sodden coleworts I leave the Reader to compare plea with plea and proofe with proofe And let truth overcome Thus he concludeth with a short Apology least the Reader should think that he hath not used me with that respect which he ought or might have done without disadvantage to his cause His onely reason is because divens in their bookes and sermons without answering any of his arguments have exclaimed against him and reviled him for some things delivered by him in his book De Cive What doth this concern me No more than the man in the Moon Yes he saith whereof the Bishop of Derry is one Most falsely I never preached against him nor write against his book De Cive but privately to himself and then with more respect than either he or it deserved But his meaning was not by this Apology to make me any reparation but to deterre others from medling with him least he should make examples of them as he boasteth that he hath done of me Beware Reader he beareth hay on his hornâ—… If he have gained any thing by his disrespect much good may it do him I do not envy him Let the Reader judge And if he have any sparke of ingenuity left in him let himself judge whether he hath made an example of me or of himself Or if he like it better let him thrust his head into a bush and suppose that no body seeth his errours because he is not willing to take notice of them himself The catching OF LEVIATHAN OR THE GREAT WHALE Demonstrating out of Mr. Hobs his own Works That no man who is throughly an Hobbist can be a good Christian or a good Common-wealths man or reconcile himself to himself Because his Principles are not only destructive to all Religion but to all Societies extinguishing the Relation between Prince and Subject Parent and Child Master and Servant Husband and Wife and abound with palpable contradictions By Iohn Bramhall D. D. and Bishop of Derry Prov. 12. 19. The lip of truth shall be established for ever but a lying tongue is but for a moment London Printed by E. T. for Iohn Crook at the sign of the Ship in Pauls Church-yard 1658. TO THE Christian Reader CHristian Reader this short Treatise was not intended or sent to the Presse as a compleat Refutation of all Mr. Hobs his errours in Theology and Policy but onely as an Appendix to my Castigations of his Animadversions to let him see the vanity of his petulant scoffes and empty brags and how open he doth lye to the lash whensoever any one will vouchsafe to take him in hand to purpose But some of my good friends have prevailed with me to alter my design and to make this smal Treatise independent upon the other He who clasheth ordinarily with all the Churches in the World about the common principles of Religion He who swerveth so often so affectedly from the approved rules and healthful constitutions of all orderly Common-wealths He who doth not onely disturb but destroy all humane society and all relations between man and man He who cannot preserve unity with himself but ever and anon is inferring and tripping up his own heels by his contradictions needeth no just confutation or single or other Adversary than God and
Reader by these few instances which follow to judge what the Hobbain 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 Soveraign to deny Christ. Profession with the tongue is but an external thing and no more than any other gesture whereby we signifie our obedience And wherein a Christian holding firmly in his heart the faith of Christ hath the same liberty which the Prophet Elisha allowed to Naaman c. Who by bowing before the idol Rimmon 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 seemeth he was not acquainted with these Hobbian principles And in the same place he layeth down this general conclusion This we may say that whatsoever a Subject is compelled to in obedience to his Soveraign and doth it not in order to his own mind but in order to the laws of his Country that action is not his but his Soveraigns nor is it he that in this case denieth Christ before men but his Governour and the law of his Country His instance in a mahumetan commanded by a Christian Prince to be present at divine service is a weak mistake springing from his grosse ignorance in case-divinity not knowing to distinguish between an erroneous conscience as the Mahumetans is and a conscience rightly informed Thirdly if this be not enough he giveth license 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 onely can do for us is divine worship and idolatry On the other side if a King compel a man to it by the terrour 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 Lyons denne because they refused to comply with the idolatrous decree of their Soveraign Prince A fourth aphorisme may be this That which is said in the scripture it is better to obey God than men hath place in the Kingdome of God by pact and not by nature Why nature it self doth teach us that 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 His fifth conclusion may be that the sharpest and most successfull sword in any war whatsoever doth give soveraign power and authority to him that hath it to approve or reject all sorts of Theologicall doctrines concerning the Kingdome of God not according to their truth or falsehood but according to that influence which they have upon political affaires 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 Kingdome of God have so great influence upon the Kingdome of man as not to be determined but by them that under God have the soveraign power Careat successibus opto Quisquis ab eventu facta notanda putat Let him evermore want successe 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 ranckly of Jeroboam Now shall the Kingdome return to the house of David if this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Ierusalem whereupon the King took councell and made two calves of gold and said unto them It is too much for you to go up to Ierusalem 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 edg-tooles nor playing with holy things where men make their greatest fastnesse many times they find most danger His sixth paradox is a rapper The civill lawes are the rules of good and evill 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 lawfull Kings make those things which they command just by commanding them and those things which they forbid unjust by forbidding them To this adde 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 lawes Where by the lawes he doth not understand the written lawes elected and aproved by the whole common-wealth but the verball commands or mandates of him that hath the soveraign power as we find in many places of his writings The civil lawes are nothing else but the commands of him that is endowed with soveraign power in the commonwealth concerning the future actions of his subjects And the civil lawes are fastned to the lips of that man who hath the soveraigne 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 mortall gods O King live for ever Flatterers are the common moaths of great pallaces where Alexanders friends are more numerous than the Kings friends But such grosse palpable pernicious flattery as this is I did never meet with so derogatory both to piety and policy