their own Countries and if the Governour will allow no religion then Atheisme is the true religion Then the blessed Apostles were very unwise to suffer for their conscience because they would obey God rather than man Then the blessed Martyrs were ill advised to suffer such torments for a false religion which was not warranted or indeed which was for bidden by the Soveraign Magistrates And so I have heard from a Gentleman of quality well deserving credit that Mr. Hobbes and he talking of self-preservation he pressed Mr. Hobbes with this argument drawn from holy Martyrs To which Mr. Hobbes gave answer They were all fools This bolt was soon shot but the primitive Church had a more venerable esteem of the holy Martyrs whose sufferings they called palms their Prison a Paradise and their death-day their birth-day of their glory to whose memory they builded Churches and instituted festivalls whose monuments God himself did honour with frequent miracles He asketh why the Bible should not be canonicall in Constantinople as well as in other places if it were not as he saith His question is Apocryphall and deserveth no other answer but another question Why a ship being placed in a stream is more apt to fall down the stream than to ascend up against the stream It is no marvel if the World be apt to follow a sensuall religion which is agreeable to their own appetites But that any should embrace a religion which surpasseth their own understandings and teacheth them to deny themselves and to saile against the stream of their own natural corruptions this is the meer goodnesse of God He saith That a Conquerour makes no laws over the conquered by virtue of his power and conquest but by virtue of their assent Most vainly urged like all the rest Unjust Conquerours gain no right but just Conquerours gain all right Omnia dat qui justa negat Just conquerors do not use to ask the assent of those whom they have conquered in lawfull war but to command obedience See but what a pretâ—…y liberty he hath found out for conquered persons They may chuse whether they will obey or dye Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem What is this to the purpose to prove that Conquerours make laws by the assent of those whom they have conquered nothing at all And yet even thus much is not true upon his principle Conquered Persons are not free to live or die indifferently according to his principles but they are necessitated either to the one or the other to live slaves or dye captives He hath found out a much like assent of children to the laws of their Ancestors without which he would make us believe that the laws do not bind When a child cometh to strength enough to do mischief and to judgement that they are preserved from mischief by fear of the sword that doth protect them in the very act of receiving protection and not renouncing it they obliege themselves to the laws of their protectours And here he inserteth further some of his peculiar errours as this That Parents who are not subject to others may lawfully take away the lives of their children and Magistrates take away the lives of their Subjects without any fault or crime if they do but doubt of their obedience Here is comfortable doctrine for children that their parents may knock out their brains lawfully And for Subjects that their Soveraigns may lawfully hang them up or behead them without any offence committed if they do but doubt of their obedience And for Soveraigns that their Subjects are quitted of their allegiance to them so soon as they do but receive actual protection from another And for all men if they do receive protection from a Turk or an heathen or whomsoever they are obliged to his Turkish Heathenish Idolatrous Sacrilegious or impious laws Can such opinions as these live in the World surely no longer â—…han men recover their right wits Demadesâ—…hreatned â—…hreatned Phocion That the Athenians would destroy him when they fall into their mad fits And thee Demades said Phocion when they returne to their right minds He saith That I would have the Iudge to condemn no man for a chrime that is necessitated As if saith he the Iudge could know what acts are neressary unlesse he knew all that had anteceded both visible and invisible If all acts be necessary it is an easie thing for the Judge to know what acts are necessey I say more that no crime can be necessitated for if it be necessitated it is no crime And so much all Judges know firmly or else they are not fit to be Judges Surely he supposeth there are or have been or may be some Stoicall Judges in the World He is mistaken no Stoick wss ever fit to be a Judge either Capitall or Civill And in truth Stoicall principles do overthrow both all Judges and Judgments He denieth that he ever said that all Magistrates at first were elective Perhaps not in so many words but he hath told us again that no law can be unjust because every Subject chuseth his law in chusing his Law-giver If every Law-giver be elective then every Soveraign Magistrate is elective for every Soveraign Magistrate is a Law-giver And he hath justified the laws of the Kings of Egypt of Assyria of Persia upon this ground because they were made by him to whom the people had given the Legislative power He addeth That it appears that I am of opinion that a law may be made to command the will Nothing lesse if he speaks of the law of man My argument was drawn from the lesser to the greater thus If that law be unjust which commands a man to do that which is impossible for him to do then that law is likewise unjust which commands him to will that which is impossible for him to will He seeth I condemne them both but much more the later Yet upon his principles he who commandeth a man to do impossibilities commandeth him to will impossibilities because without willing them he cannot do them My argument is ad hominem and goes upon his own grounds That though the action be necessitated neverthelesse the will to break the law maketh the action unjust And yet he maintaineth that the will is as much or more necessitated than the action because he maketh a man free to do if he will but not free to will If a man ought not to be punished for a necessitated act then neither ought he to be punished for a necessitated will I said truely That a just law justly executed is a cause of justice He inferreth that he hath shewed that all laws are just and all just laws are justly executed And hereupon he concludeth That I confesse that all I reply unto here is true Do I confesse that all laws are just No I have demonstrated the contrary or do I believe that all just laws are justly executed It may be so in Platos Common-wealth or in Sr.
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
the reward which is then to be given to breach of faith but onely a belief grounded upon other mens saying that they know it supernaturally or that they know those that knew them that knew others that knew it supernaturally 14. Davids killing of Uriah was no injury to Uriah because the right to do what he pleased was given him by Uriah himself 15. To whom it belongeth to determine controversies which may arise from the divers interpretation of Scripture he hath an imperial power over all men which acknowledge the Scriptures to be the word of God 16. What is theft what is murder what is adultry and universally what is an injury is known by the civil law that is the commands of the Soveraign 17. He admitteth the incestuous copulations of the Heathens according to their heathenish lawes to have been lawful marriages Though the Scripture teach us expressely that for those abominations the land of Canaan spewed out her inhabitants Exod. 18. 28. 18. I say that no other Article of faith besides this that Iesus is Christ is necessary to a Christian man for salvation 19. Because Christs kingdom is not of this world therefore neither can his Ministers unlesse they be Kings require obedience in his name They had no right of commanding no power to make lawes 20. I passe by his errours about oathes about vows about the resurrections about the kingdom of Christ about the power of the keyes binding loosing excommunication c. His ignorant mistakes of meritum congrui and condigni active and passive obedience and many more for fear of being tedious to the Reader His whole works are an heape of mishapen errours and absurd paradoxes vented with the confidence of a Jugler the brags of a Mountebanck and the authority of some Pythagoras or third Cato lately dropped down from heaven Thus we have seen how the Hobbian principles do destroy the existence the simplicity the ubiquity the eternity and infinitenesse of God the doctrine of the blessed Trinity the Hypostatical union the Kingly Sacerdotal and Prophetical Offices of Christ the being and operation of the Holy Ghost Heaven Hell Angels Devils the immortality of the Soul the Catholick and all National Churches the holy Scriptures holy Orders the holy Sacraments the whole frame of Religion and the Worship of God the laws of Nature the reality of Goodnesse Justice Piety Honesty Conscience and all that is Sacred If his Disciples have such an implicite faith that they can digest all these things they may feed with Oestriches CHAP. 2. That the Hobbian Principles do destroy all relations between man and man and the whole frame of a Common wealth THe first Harping-iron is thrown at the heart of this great Whale that is his Religion for with the heart a man believeth unto righteousnesse Now let him look to his chine that is his Compage or Common-wealth My next task is to shew that he destroyeth all relations between man and man Prince and subject Parent and child Husband and wife Master and servant and generally all Society It is enough to dash the whole frame of his Leviathan or common-wealth in pieces That he confesseth it is without example as if the molding of a Common-wealth were no more than the making of gun-powder which was not found out by long experience but by meer accident The greatest objection saith T. H. is that of practice when men ask when and where such power has by subjects been acknowledged It is a great objection indeed Experience the Mistrisse of fooles is the best and almost the onely proof of the goodnesse or badnesse of any form of government No man knoweth where a shooe wringeth so well as he that weareth it A new Physitian must have a new Church-yard wherein to bury those whom he killeth And a new unexperienced Polititian commonly putteth all into a combustion Men rise by degrees from common souldiers to be decurions from decurions to be Centurions from Centurions to be Tribunes and from Tribunes to be Generals by experience not by speculation Alexander did but laugh at that Oratour who discoursed to him of Military affairs The Locrian law was well grounded that whosoever moved for any alteration in the tried policy of their Common-wealth should make the proposition at his own perill with an halter about his neck New Statesmen promise golden mountains but like fresh flies they bite deeper than those which were chased away before them It were a strange thing to hear a man discourse of the Philosophers Stone who never bestowed a groatsworth of charcole in the inquiry It is as strange to hear a man dictate so magisterially in Politicks who was never Officer nor Counsellor in his life nor had any opportunity to know the intrigues of any one state If his form of government had had any true worth or weight in it among so many Nations and so many succeeding Generations from the Creation to this day some one or other would have light upon it His Leviathan is but an idol of his own brain Neither is it sufficient to say That in long-lived Common-wealths the subjects never did dispute of the Soveraigns power Power may be moderated where it is not disputed of And even in those kingdomes where it was least disputed of as in Persia they had their fundamental laws which were not alterable at the pleasure of the present Prince Whereof one was as we find in the story of Esther and the book of Daniel that the law of the Medes and Persians altered not much lesse was it alterable by the onely breath of the Princes mouth according to T. H. his Principles He urgeth That though in all places of the World men should lay the foundations of their houses on the sand it could not thence be inferred that so it ought to be He was a ashamed to make the application So suppose all the world should be out of their wits and he onely have his right understanding His supposition is a supposition of an impossibility which maketh an affirmative proposition to turn negative much like this other supposition If the skie fall we shall have larkes that is in plain English We shall have no larkes His argument had held much more strongly thus All the world lay the foundation of their houses upon firm ground and not upon the sand Therefore he who crosseth the practice of the whole world out of an over-weening opinion that he seeth further into a mill-stone than they all is he that builds upon the sand and deserveth well to be laught out of his humour But he persisteth still like one that knows better how to hold a Paradox than a Fort. The skill of making and maintaining Common-wealths consisteth in certain rules as doth Arethmatick and Geometry and not as Tennis-play on practice onely which rules neither poor men had the leisure nor men that have had the leisure have hitherto had the curiosity or the method
wheresoeve he seeth it either in his own sword or another mans Eightly total submission is not as lawful as contribution Ninthly actual submission doth not take away the Soveraigns right or the subjects obligation Tenthly to live under the command or protection of a Conquerour doth not necessarily imply allegiance Lastly much lesse doth it imply an assent to all his laws and an obligation to obey them These are part of T. H. his faults on the one hand against Monarchs opposite enough to peace and tranquillity which none can approve who either have a settlement or wish one But his faults are ten times greater and grosser for Monarchs on the other hand in so much as I have thought sometimes that he observed the method of some old cunning Parliament men who when they had a mind to crosse a bill were alwayes the highest for it in the House and would insert so many and so great inconveniences into the act that they were sure it could never passe Tuta frequensque via est per amici fallere nomen So he maketh the power of Kings to be so exorbitant that no subject who hath either conscience or discretion ever did or can endure so to render Monarchy odious to mankind I passe by his accommodating of the four first Commandments of the Decalogue to Soveraign Princes which concern our duty to Almighty God Let his first Paradox of this kind be this A Monarch doth not bind himself to any man by any pacts for the Empire which he receiveth And it is vain to grant Soveraignty by way of precedent covenants The opinion that any Monarch receiveth his power by covenant that is to say on condition learnedly expounded proceedeth from want of understanding this easie truth that covenants being but words and break marke that have no force to oblige c. but from the publick sword What is now become of all our Coronationoathes and all our Liberties and great Charters Another Paradox is this Every Monarch may make his Successour by his last will and that which one may transfer to another by testament that he may by the same right give or sell whilest he is living Therefore to whomsoever he disposeth it either for love or money it is lawfully disposed And there is no perfect form of government where the disposing of the succession is not in the present Soveraign The whole body of the kingdom of England were of another mind in King Johns case and if he had disposed the Soveraignty to a Turke as some of our Historiographers relate that he made an overture it is not likely that they would have turned Turkish slaves Hear a third Paradox The Soveraign hath so much power over every subject by law as every one who is not subject to another hath ever himself that is absolute to be limitted by the power of the Common-wealth and by no other thing What neither by the Laws of God nor Nature nor Nations nor by the laws of the Land neither co-actively nor directively Would not this man have made an excellent guide for Princes But more of this anon I proceed When the Soveraign commandeth any thing to be done against his own former law the command as to that particular fact is an abrogation of the law Parliaments may shut up their shops there is no need of them to repeale former laws His fifth excesse is a grievous one That before the institution of a Common-wealth every man had a right to do whatsoever he thought necessary to his own preservation subduing hurting or killing any man in order thereunto And this is the foundation of that right of punishing which is exercised in every Common-wealth And his sentence in brief is this That if the Magistrate do examine and condemn the Delinquent then it is properly punishment if not it is an hostile act but both are justifiable Judge Reader whether thou wilt trust St. Paul or T. H. St. Paul telleth us that the Magistrate is the ordinance of God the Minister of God the Revenger of God the Sword-bearer of God to execute wrath upon him that doth evil No saith T. H. punishment is not an act of the Magistrate as he is a Magistrate or as he is an Officer of God to do justice or a revenger of evil deeds but as he is the onely private man who hath not laid down his natural right to kill any man at his own discretion if he do but suspect that he may prove noisome to him or conceive it necessary for his own preservation Who ever heard of such a right before so repugnant to the Laws of God and Nature But observe Reader what is the result of it that the Soveraign may lawfully kill any of his subjects or as many of them as he pleaseth without any fault of theirs without any examination on his part meerly upon suspicion or without any suspicion of the least crime if he do but judge him to be hurtful or noisome as freely as a man may pluck up a weed because it hinders the nourishment of better plants Before the institution of a Common-wealth every one may lawfully be spoiled and killed by every one but in a Common-wealth onely by one that is the Soveraign And by the right of nature we destroy without being unjust all that is noxious both beasts and men He makes no difference between a Christian and a wolfe VVould you know what is noxious with him even whatsoever he thinketh can annoy him VVho would not desire to live in his Common-wealth where the Soveraign may lawfully kill a thousand innocents every morning to his breakfast Surely this is a Common-wealth of fishes where the great ones eat the lesser It were strange if his Subjects should be in a better condition for their fortunes than they are for their lifes no I warrant you do but hear him Thy dominion and thy property is so great and lasteth so long as the Common-wealth that is the Soveraign will Perhaps he meaneth in some extraordinary cases Tush in all cases and at all times When thou didst chuse a Soveraign even in chusing him thou madest him a deed of gift of all thou hast Et tu ergo tuum jus civitate concessisti and therefore thou hast granted all thy right to the Common-wealth Yet some may imagine that his meaning is only that property may be transferred by Laws or Acts of Parliament from one to another As the Lacedemonians when they permitted children to steal other mens goods they transferred the right from the owners to the children No no T. H. is not for general laws but particular verbal mandates The Kings word is sufficient to take any thing from any subject if there be need and the King is judge of that need If by need he did understand extream necessity for the preservation of the Common-wealth it might alter the case But his need is like Ahabs need of
Naboths vineyard There is neither necessity nor Common-wealth in the case The Lacedemonian thefts were warranted by a general law not only consented to universally but sworn unto And if it had been otherwise the value was so small and the advantage apprehended to be so great to the Common-wealth that no honest Subject would contradict it Right and Title may be transferred by Law and there can be no wrong where consent is explicate and universal such consent taketh away all errour But if the consent be onely implicite to the making or admitting of just laws and unjust laws be obtruded in the place of just the Subject suffers justly by his own Act but he or they that were trusted sinne And if he be a Soveraign oweth an account to God if subordinate both to God and man But he justifieth the taking away of mens estates either in part or in whole without president Law or president necessity or subsequent satisfaction And maintaineth that not only the Subject is bound to submit but that the Soveraign is just in doing it I cannot passe by his good affection to the Nobility of Europe In these parts of Europe it hath been taken for a right of certain persons to have place in the highest Councel of State by inheritance but good councel comes not by inheritance And the politicks is an harder study than Geometry I think he mistakes the Councel of State for the Parliament And who more fit to concur in the choice of Laws than they who are most concerned in the Laws than they who must contribute most if there be occasion to the maintenance of the Laws No art is hereditary more than politicks A Musitian doth not beget a Musitian Yet we see the fathers eminence in any Art begets a propension in his posterity to the same And where two or three successive generations do happily insist in the steps one of another they raise an Art to great perfection I do easily acknowledge that Politicks are an harder study than Geometry and the practise more than the Theorye gained more by experience than by study Therefore our Parliaments did prudently permit the eldest sons of Barons to be present at their consultations to fit them by degrees for that person which they must one day sustein But he had a mind to shew the States men his teeth as he had done to all other professions There are many other errours and mistakes in his Politicks as this That Soveraignty cannot be divided or that there cannot be a mixed form of government which is a meer mistaking of the question For though it be sometimes stiled a mixed monarchy because it doth partake of all the advantages of Aristocracy and Democracy without partaking of their inconveniences yet to speak properly it is more aptly called a temperated or moderated Soveraignty rather than divided or mixed Neither did any English Monarch communicate any essential of Soveraignty to any Subject or Subjects whatsoever All civil power legislative judiciary military was ever exercised in the name of the King and by his authority The three Estates of the Kingdom assembled in Parliament were but suppliants to the King to have such or such Laws enacted What is it then that hath occasioned this mistake though the King hath not granted away any part of his Soveraign power yet he hath restrained himself by his Coronation-oath and by his great Charters from the exercise of some part of it in some cases without such and such requisite conditions except where the evident necessity of the Common-wealth is a dispensation from Heaven for the contrary So he hath restrained himself in the exercise of his legislative power that he will governe his Subjects by no new Laws other than such as they should assent unto It is not then any legislative power which the two Houses of Parliament have either exclusively without the King or inclusively with the King but a receptive or rather a preparative power sine qua non without which no new laws ought to be imposed upon them and as no new laws so no new taxes or imposition which are granted in England by a Statute Law But this it is evident how much his discourse of three souls animating one body is wide from the purpose and his supposition of setting up a supremacy against the Soveraignty Canons against Laws and a ghostly authority against the civil weigheth lesse than nothing seeing we acknowledge That the civil Soveraign hath an Archirectonicall power to see that all Subjects within his dominions do their duties in their several callings for the safety and tranquility of their Common-wealth and to punish those that are exorbitant with the civil sword as well those who derive their habitual power immediatly from Christ as those who derive it from the Soveraign himself Then the constitution of our English policy was not to be blamed the exercise of the power of the keys by authority from Christ was not to be blamed but T. H. deserveth to be blamed who presumeth to censure before he understand Another of his whimsies is That no law can be unjust by a good law I mean not a just law for no law can be unjust c. It is in the Laws of the Common-wealth as in the laws of gaming Whatsoever the Gamsters all agree on is injustice to none of them An opinion absurd in it self and contradictory to his own ground There may be laws tending to the contumely of God to Atheisme to denial of Gods providence to Idolatry all which he confesseth to be crimes of high treason against God There may be Laws against the Law of nature which he acknowledgeth to be the divine Law eternally immutable which God hath made known to all men by his eternal word born in themselves that is to say natural reason But this question whether any law can be unjust hath been debated more fully between him and me in my answer to his Animadversions The true ground of this and many other of his mistakes is this That he fancieth no reality of any natural justice or honesty nor any relation to the Law of God or nature but only to the Laws of the Common-wealth So from one absurdity being admitted many others are apt to follow His Oeconomicks are no better than his Politicks He teacheth parents that they cannot be injurious to their children so long as they are in their power Yes too many wayes both by omission and commission He teacheth mothers that they may cast away their infants or expose them at their own discretion lawfully He teacheth parents indifferently that where they are free from all subjection they may take away the life 's of their children or kill them and this justly What horrid doctrines are these It may be he will tell us that he speaketh only of the state of meer nature but he doth not for he speaketh expressely of Common-wealths and paralleth Fathers with Kings and Lords to
He fancieth that God reigneth by pact over Adam and Eve but this pact became presently voide And if it had stood firm what Kingdom of God by nature could have been before it But he reckons his Kingdom of God by pact from Abraham from him the Kingdom of God by pact takes its beginning But in Abrahams time and before his time the World was full of Kings every City had a King was it not better for their subjects to obey God than them yet that was the Kingdom of God by nature or no Kingdom of God at all Sometimes he saith the Laws of nature are Laws whose Laws such of them as oblige all mankind and in respect of God as he is the God of Nature are natural in respct of the same God as he is King of Kings are Laws and right reason is a Law And he defines the Law of nature to be the deictate of right reason Where by the way observe what he makes to be the end of the Laws of nature The long conservation of our lives and members so much as is in our power By this the Reader may see what he believes of honesty or the life to come At other times he saith that they are no laws Those which we call the Laws of nature being nothing else but certain conclusions understood by reason of things to be done or to be left undone And a law if we speak properly and accurately is the speech of him that commandeth something by right to others to be done or not to be done speaking properly they are not laws as they proceed from nature It is true he addeth in the same place That as they are given by God in holy Scripture they are most properly called Laws for the holy Scripture is the voice of God ruling all things by the greatest right But this will not salve the contradiction for so the Laws of nature shall be no Laws to any but those who have read the Scripture contrary to the sense of all the World And even in this he contradicteth himself also The Bible is a Law to whom to all the World he knoweth it is not How came it then to be a Law to us Did God speak it viva voce to us Have we any other warrant for it than the word of the Prophots Have we seen the miraoles Have we any other assurance of their certainty than the authority of the Church And so he concludeth That the authority of the Church is the authority of the Common-wealth the authority of the Common-wealth the authority of the Soveraign and his authority was given him by us And so the Bible was made Law by the assent of the Subjects And the Bible is their only Law where the civil Soveraign hath made it so Thus in seeking to prove one contradiction we have met with two He teacheth that the Laws of nature are eternal and immutable that which they forbid can never be lawful that which they command never unlawful At other times he teacheth that in war and especially in a war of ast men against all men the Laws of nature are silent And that they do not oblige as Laws before there be a Common-wealth constituted When a Common-wevlth is once setled then are they actually Laws and not before He saith true religion consisteth in obedience to Christs Lieutenants and in giving God such honour both in attributes and actions as they in their severall Lieutenancies shall ordein Which Lieutenant upon earth is the supreme civill magistrate And yet contrary to this he excepteth from the obedience due to soveraign Princes all things that are contrary to the lawes of God who ruleth over rulers Adding that we cannot rightly transfer the obedience due to him upon men And more plainly If a soveraign shall command himself to be worshipped with divine attributes and actions as such as imply an independance upon God or immortality or infinite power to pray unto them being absent or to ask those things of them which only God can give to offer sacrifice or the like Although Kings command us we must ab stein He conefesseth that the subjects of Abraham had sinned if they had denied the existence or providence of God or done any thing that was expressely against the honour of God in obedience to his commands And actions that are naturally signes of contumely cannot be made by humane power a part of divine worship cannot be parts of divine worship and yet religion may consist in such worship is a contradiction He confesseth That if the Common-wealth should command a Subject to say or do something that is contumelious unto God or should forbid him to worship God he ought not to obey And yet maintaineth that a Christian holding firmly the faith of Christ in his heart if he be commanded by his lawful Soveraign may deny Christ with his tongue alledging That profession with the tongue is but an external thing And that it is not he in that case who denieth Christ before men but his Governour and the law of his Country Hath he so soon forgot himself Is not the denial of Christ contumelious to God He affirmeth that if a Soveraign shall grant to a Subject any liberty inconsistent with Soveraign power if the Subject refuse to obey the Soveraigns command being contrary to the liberty granted it is a sin and contrary to his duty for he ought to take notice of what is inconsistent with Soveraignty c. And that such liberty was granted through ignorance of the evil consequence thereof Then a Subject may judge not only what is fit for his own preservation but also what are the essentiall rights of Soveraignty which is contrary to his doctrine elsewhere It belongs to Kings to discern what is good and evil and private men who take to themselves the knowledge of good and evil do covet to be as Kings which consisteth not with the safety of the Common-wealth which he calleth a seditious doctrine and one of the diseases of a Common-wealth Yet such is his forgetfulnesse that he himself licenseth his own book for the Presse and to be taught in the Universities as conteining nothing contrary to the word of God or good manners or to the disturbance of publick tranquility Is not this to take to himself the knowledge of good and evil In one place he saith that the just power of Soveraigns is absolute and to be limited by the strength of the Common-wealth and nothing else In other places he saith his power is to be limitted by the Laws of God and nature As there is that in Heaven though not on earth which he should stand in fear of and whose Laws he ought to obey And though it be not determined in Scripture what Laws every King shall constitute in his dominions yet it is determined what Law he shall not constitute And it is true
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
doth not afflict the children of men willingly except it be for sin Fools are afflicted because of their transgression The afflictions as he calleth them of those creatures that cannot sin that is brute beasts are alltogether of another nature They were created for the use of man they were given for the sustenance of men every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you even as the green herb have I given you all things But the tormenting even of the brute creatures needlessely for the pleasing of our sensual appetites or the satisfaction of our humour is not onely unchristian but unhumane A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruell God hath made two covenants with man none with the beasts He saith It is no more cruelty to afflict a man with endlesse torment for sin than without sin when he might without trouble have kept him from sinning Is it not great pitty that T. H. was not of God Almighties councel when he ordered the World that he might have advised him to have made man impeccable which he might have done without any trouble or that otherwise his fall and consequently his punishment might be justly imputed to God himself It was well enacted in the laws of the twelve tables Ad divos adeunto caste pietatem adhibento qui secus faxit Deus ipse vindex erit our addresses to God ought to be pure and devout they who do otherwise will find God himself the revenger Doth T. H. believe St. Jude That God hath reserved the Angels that kept not their first estate in everlasting chains under darknesse unto the judgement of the great day God could by his absolute power have kept them in their first estate yet he would not By his absolute power he can do all things which do not implic imperfection or contradiction but by his ordinate power he cannot change his decrees nor alter whathe hath ordained Acts of grace may be free but punishments must be alwayes just That King who doth not pardon a willfull traitour is not equally guilty of murther with him that hangs up an innocent Subject Then to answer fully to his question Why God suffered man to sinne having power to withhold him To preserve that order and course which he had established in the World and to draw a greater good out of evill for the further manifestation of his own glory First the manifestation of his power as St. Austin saith He that created all things very good and did foreknow that evill would arise from good knew likewise that it appeerteined rather to his most Almighty goodnesse to draw good out of evill then not to suffer evill Secondly the manifestation of his providence in suffering man whom he had indowed with freedom of will and power sufficient to resist and overcome Satan either to conquer or yield at his own choice Thirdly the manifestation of his justice and mercy by punishing some out of the corrupted masse justly and saving others out of his meer mercy If T. H. thinks vainly that the onely manifestation of Gods power is a sufficient ground for the punishment of men in hell fire without their own faults or crimes how much better may good Christians conclude That the greater manifestation of Gods power and providence and justice and mercy is a sufficient ground for the punishment of men with the like torments for their own crimes His second answer is set down by way of interrogation What infallible evidence hath the Bishop that a man shal be eternally in torments never die Even the authority of our Saviour and the Holy Scriptures which call it an everlasting fire an eternall fire a fire that is not quenched everlasting punishment everlasting chains the worm that never dyeth and the fire that goeth not out Go ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devill and his angels The Bishop hath the testimony of the Athanasian creed that they who have done good shall go into life everlasting and they that have done evil into everlasting fire He hath the testimony of the universall Church of all ages except a few Originists If T. H. have no more than his own single private authority to oppose against all these he is a bold man They who question everlasting torments will not stick to question everlasting life To his demand about the second death I answer This is the second death if he could see wood for trees In the next place he urgeth how that inconveniencies follow from our opinion First That mans liberty to will quite takes away the prescience of God for if man have it in his power to will or not to will it cannot be certainly foreknown what he will will The second That Gods prescience doth take away liberty by making all events necessary from eternity for it is impossible that that should not come to passe or come to passe otherwise than it was foreknown which God foreknoweth shall come to passe And if it be impossible that it should not come to passe then it is necessary that it should come to passe This is too severe first to make us take prescience quite away and yet with the same breath to argue against us from prescience But for once I will give him a cleaâ—… solution to both his pretended demonstrations and let him see that there is no necessity that men must either turn blocks without liberty or sacrilegious to rob God of his prescience But I give him it upon a condition That hereafter before he take away either prescience or liberty he will first take away this answer and not repeat us the same thing over and over again to no purpose To the first inconvenience I answer That a thing may be said to be foreknown two wayes either as it is in its causes before it be produced and so I confesse That if the free Agent have it in his power to will or not to will there is no determinate truth of future contingents that is in their causes and consequently no prescience or foreknowledge in that respect or else a thing may be said to be foreknown as it is or shall be in it self in the nature of things after it is produced And thus every particular event that shall be untill the end of the World is foreknown or to speak more properly is known to God from all eternity For in Gods knowledge there is neither before nor after past nor to come Those things which are past or to come to us are allwayes present to God whose infinite understanding that is himself doth encompasse all times and events in one instant of eternity and so doth prevent or anticipate all differences of time Time is the measure of all our acts but Gods knowledge being infinite is not measured but by eternity so that which is a prescience or a before-hand knowledge as he calleth it to us is a present
every ordinance of man for the Lords sake Passive obedience is a mean between active obedience and rebellion To just laws which are the ordinances of right reason active obedience is due To unjust laws which are the ordinances of reason erring passive obedience is due Who shall hope to escape exception when this innocent difinition is quarrelled at I wish his own principles were half so loiall He saith I take punishment for a kind of revenge and therefore can never agree with him who takes it for nothing else but for a correction or for an example c. I take punishment in the same sense that all Authours both sacred and civil Divines and Philosophers Lawyers and generally all Classick Writers have ever taken it That is for an evill of passion which is inflicted for an evill of action So to passe by other Authours as sleighted by him the holy Scripture doth allwayes take it As wherefore doth a living man complain for the punishment of his sins And this is an heinous crime yea it is an iniquity to be punished by the Iudges And thou hast punished us lesse than our iniquities deserved Yea punishment doth not onely presuppose sin but the measure of punishment the degree of sin He that despised Moses law died without mercy of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy who hath trampled under foot the son of God The Judge was commanded to cause the offender to be beaten according to the fault This truth we learned from the ferula's and rods which we smarted under when we were boyes And from the gibbets and axes and wheeles which are prepared for offenders Omnis paena si justa est peccati paena est That the punishment of Delinquents hath other ends also there is no doubt Nemo prudens punit quia peccatum est sed ne peccetur Punishment respects the Delinquent in the first place either to amend him or to prevent his doing of more mischief Secondly it regardeth the party suffering to repair his honour or preserve him from contempt or secure him for the time to come Lastly it respects other persons that the suffering of a few may be exâ—…mplary and an admonition to many But herein lies his errour That punishment is for nothing else but for correction or example God spared not the Angels that sinned but cast them down into Hell That was no correction And at the last Judgement Go ye cursed into everlasting fire there is neither correction nor example but in both instances there is punishment Whence it is apparent that some punishment especially divine doth look onely at the satisfaction of justice I gave five instances of unjust laws Pharaohs law to drown the Israelitish children Nebuchadnezars law to cast them who would not commit idolatry into the firey Furnace Darius his law that whosoever prayed to God for thirty dayes should be cast into the Den of Lions Ahashuerosh his law to destroy the Jewish Nation root and branch The Pharisees law to excommunicate all those who confessed Christ. To all these he answereth nothing in particular but in general he giveth this answer That they were just laws in relation to their subjects because all laws made by him to whom the people have given the Legislative power are the acts of every one of that people and no man can do injustice to himself But they were unjust actions in relation to God He feareth the Bishop will think this dâ—…scourse too subtile Nay rather the Bishop thinketh it too flat and dull Dii te Damasippe deaeque Tale judâ—…cium donent tenere I have answered his reason before that it is a Sophistical fallacy flowing from the accidental subordination of the causes A man may will the Law-giver and yet not will the Law That is one reply to his distinction Secondly I reply That when the people did give them the Legislative power they gave a Kingly power to preserve and protect their Subjects they meant not a power to drown them to burn them to cast them to the Lions to root them out from the earth by the means of unjust bloody tyrannical laws made on purpose to be pitfalls to catch Subjects Hear himself No man can transferre or lay down his right to save himself from death wounds and imprisonment If the right be not transferred in such cases then the law is groundlesse and unjust and made without the consent of the Subject They did not give they did not intend to give they could not give them a divine power or rather a power paramount above God To command idolatry to forbid all prayer and invocation of Gods holy Name And therefore though such laws do not warrant rebellion because it is better to die innocent than to live nocent yet that hindereth not but such laws are un-just both towards God and towards man Thirdly if these laws had been just in relation to the Subjects then the Subjects had been bound to obey them actively but they were not bound to obey them actively yea they were bound not to obey them The Midwives feared God and did not as the King of Egypt commanded them The three children answered Be it known unto thee O King that we will not serve thy gods nor worship thy golden image which thou hast set up The Parents of Moses are commended for their faith in saving Moses contrary to the Kings commandment Fourthly Subjects have given to their Soveraigns as well Judiciary as Legislative power over themselves but their Judiciary power doth not justifie their unjust acts or sentences even towards their Subjects Elias accused Ahab of murther And Elisha called his son Joram The son of a murderer Sauls injustice towards the Gibeonites did draw the guilt of blood upon his House And the Lord was not satisfied until the Gibeonites had received satisfaction He himself stileth Davids act towards Uriah murther Certainly murther is not just either towards God or towards man Therefore neither doth the Legislative power justifie their unjust lawes Fiftly of all Law-givers those who are placed freely by the people have the least pretence to such an absolute and universal resignation of all the property and interest of the Subject For it is to be presumed that the people who did chuse them had more regard to their own good than to the good of their Law-giver and did look principally at the protection of their own persons and the preservation of their own rights and did contract accordingly As we see in the most flourishing Monarchies of the World as that of the Medes and Persians They had their fundamental laws which were not in the single power of the present Law-giver to alter or violate by a new law or command without injustice If a pupill shall chuse a Tutour or Guardian for himself he investeth him with all his power he obligeth himself to make good all his acts Neverthelesse he may wrong
truth of God the goodnesse of God the justice of God and the power of God In the next place I demanded how shall a man praise God who believeth him to be a greater Tyrant than ever was in the World creating millions to burn eternally without their own fault to expresse his power He answereth That the word Tyrant was sometimes taken in a good sense A pretty answer and to good purpose when all the world sees that it is taken here in the worst sense And when he hath fumbled thus a while after the old manner all his answer is a recrimination How can the Bishop praise God for his goodnesse who thinks he hath created millions of millions to burn eternally when he could have kept them so easily from cōmitting any fault I do not believe that God created millions nor so much as one single person to burn eternally which is as true as his other slander in this place That I withdraw the will of man from Gods dominion Both the one and the other are far from me His principles may lead him upon such precipices mine do not God created not man to burn but to serve him here and to be glorified by him and with him hereafter That many men do misse this end is not Gods fault who gave them sufficient strength to have conquered and would have given them a larger supply of grace if they had sought it but mans God was not bound to reverse his own decrees or change the order of the government of the World which he himself had justly instituted to hold up a man from sinning against his will when he could by his Almighty power draw good out of evil and a greater degree of glory out of the fall of man Concerning the number of those who are reprobated for their sins I have nothing to say but that secret things belong unto the Lord our God and things revealed to us and to our children My next demands were How shall a man hear the Word of God with that reverence and devotion and faith that is requisite who believeth that God causeth his Gospel to be preached to the much greater part of Christians without any intention that they should be saved Secondly How shall a man prepare himself for the receiving of the Sacrament with care and conscience who apprehendeth that eating and drinking unworthily is not the cause of damnation but because God will damne a man therefore he necessitateth him to eat and drink unworthily To which two demands he giveth one answer That faith is the gift of God if they have faith they shall both hear the Word and receive the Sacraments worthily and if they have no faith they shall neither hear the Word nor receive the Sacraments worthily There needeth no more to be said to evidence to all the World that he doth utterly destroy and quite take away all care all solicitude all devotion and preparation of our selves for holy duties If God give us faith we can want nothing If God do not give us faith we can have nothing We use to say truly That God doth not deny his grace to them who do their endeavours The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force and how much more shall your father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him St. Paul maketh hearing to be the way to obtain faith How shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard And exhorteth Christians to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling Devout prayers and hearing and reading and participating did use to be the way to get faith and to increase faith As in our naturall life so in our spirituall life we must earn our bread in the sweat of our brows Such desperate opinions as these which are invented onely to colour idlenesse and quench devotion are the pillows of Satan We believe none are excluded from the benefit of Christs passion but onely they who exclude themselves Absolute exclusion is opposed to exclusion upon supposition which usefull and necessary destinction if he do not or will not understand we have no reason to phancy it one jot the worse for his supercilious censures My next demand was How shall a man make a free vow to God who believes himself to be able to perform nothing but as he is extrinsecally necessitated To this he answers That the necessity of vowing before he vowed hindred not the freedom of his vow This it self is absurd enough but whether it be his misapprehension or his cunning to avoid the force of an argument he comes far short both of the force and of the hope of this reason which was this If a man be not left in any thing to his own disposition and have no power over his own future actions but is antecedently determined to what he must doe and must not doe and yet knoweth not what he is extrinsecally determined to do and not to do then it is not onely folly but impiety for him to vow that which he knoweth not whether it be in his power to perform or not But upon his grounds every man is antecedently determined to every thing he shall do and yet knoweth not how he is determined Universall necessity and free vows cannot possibly consist together My last demand was how shall a man condemne or accuse himself for his sinnes who thinketh himself to be like a watch wound up by God His answer is Though a man think himself necessitated to what he shall do yet if he do not think himself necessitated and wound up to impenitence there will follow no impediment to repentance My argument looketh at the time past his answer regardeth the time to come both ways he is miserably entangled First for the time past If a man was wound up as a watch by God to all the individuall actions which he hath done then he ought not to accuse or condemn any man for what he hath done for according to his grounds neither he nor they did any thing but what was the secret and irresistible will of God that they should do And when the secret will of God is made known by the event we ought all to submit unto it Much lesse can any man accuse or condemn himself without hypocrisie for doing that which if his life had lain a thousand times upon it he could not have helped nor done otherwise than he did The very same reason holdeth for the time to come There is the same necessity in respect of Gods decree the same inevitability on our parts for the future that is for the time past The same submission is due to to the secret will of God when it shall be declared by the event How ill he hath been able to reconcile his principles with the truth and goodnesse and justice and power of God and with those Christian duties which we owe unto God as vows repentance and
Soveraign Princes are often contradictory one to another One commandeth to worship Christ another forbiddeth it One forbiddeth to offer sacrifice to idols another commandeth it Yea the same person may both forbid idolatry in general and yet authorise it in particular Or forbid it by the publick laws of the Country and yet authorise it by his personal commands Thirdly true Religion is alwayes justified in the sight of God But obedience to the commands of Soveraign Princes is not always justified in the sight of God This is clearly proved out of his own expresse words Whatsoever is commanded by the Soveraign power is as to the Subject though not so alwayes in the sight of God justified by their command VVhence it is evident by his own confession that the wicked commands of Soveraigne Princes are not justified by their Royal authority but are wicked and repugnant to the Law of God And consequently that of the Apostle hath place here Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge ye True Religion hath alwayes reference unto God Fourthly true Religion doth not consist in obedience to any laws whatsoever which are repugnant to the Moral Law of God or to the law of Nature This Proposition is granted by himself The laws of nature are immutable and eternal And all Writers do agree that the law of nature is the same with the moral Law Again Soveraigns are all Subjects to the law of nature because such laws be Divine and cannot by any man or Common-wealth be abrogated And in all things not contrary to the moral Law that is to say to the law of nature all Subjects are bound to obey that of Divine Law which is declared to be so by the laws of the Common-wealth But the commands of a Soveraign Prince may be repugnant not onely to the Moral Law or the law of nature but even to the laws of the Common-wealth This assumption is proved four wayes First by his own confession It is manifest enough that when a man receiveth two contrary commands and knows that one of them is Gods he ought to obey that and not the other If there can be no such contrary commands then it is not manifest nor yet true Secondly this is pâ—…oved by his resolution of two queres The fist is this Whether the City or the Soveraign Prince be to be obeyd if he command directly to do any thâ—…ng to the contumely of God or forbid to worship God To which he answereth directly non esse obediendam that he ought not to be obeyed And he gives this reason Because the subjects before the constitution of the Common-wealth had no right to deny the honour due unto God and therefore could transferre no right to command such things to the common-wealth The like he hath in his Leviathan Actions which do naturally signifie contumely cannot by humane power be made a part of Divine Worship As if the denial of Christ upon a Soveraigns command which he justifieth were not contumelious to Christ or as if subjects before the constitution of the common-wealth had any right themselves to deny Christ. But such palpable contradictions are no novelties with him How doth true Religion consist in obedience to the commands of a Soveraign if his commands may be contumelious to God and deny him that worship which is due unto him by the eternal and immutable law of nature and if he be not to be obeyed in such commands His second question is If a Soveraign Prince should command himself to be worshipped with Divine Worship and Attributes whether he ought to be obeyed To which he answereth That although Kings should command it yet we ought to abstain from such attributes as signifie his independence upon God or inmortality or infinite power or the like And from such actions as do signifie the same As to pray unto him being absent to aske those things of him which none but God can give as rain and fair weather or to offer sacrifice to him Then true Religion may sometimes consist in disobedience to the commands of Soveraign Princes Thirdly that the commands of Soveraign Princes in point of Religion may be contrary to the law of nature which needeth no new promulgation or reception doth appear by all those duties internal and external which by his own confession nature doth injoyn us to perform towards God and all which may be and have been countermanded by Soveraign Princes as to acknowledge the existence of God his unity his infinitenesse his providence his creation of the World his omnipotence his eternity his incomprehensibility his ub quity To worship him and him onely with Divine worship with prayes with thanksgivings with oblations and with all expressions of honour Lastly this is proved by examples Nebuchadnezar commanded to worship a golden image And Darius made a decree that no man should ask any petition of any God or man for thirty dayes save of the King onely Yet the transgression of both these commands of Soveraign Princes was justified by God as true Religion Fiftly Christ will deny no man before his Father for true Religion But those who deny Christ before men to fulfil the commands of an earthly Prince he will deny before his father which is in Heaven And therefore Christ encourageth his Disciples against these dangers which might fall upon them by disobedience to such unlawful commands Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell But Mr. Hobs hath found out an evasion for such Renegadoes 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 lawes 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 If this Fig-leafe would have served the turn Shedrach Meshach and Abednego needed not to have been cast into the fiery Furnace For though they had worshipped the golden image by this doctrine they had not been idolaters but Nebuchadnezar onely and his Princes If this were true Daniel might have escaped the Lions Den If he had forborne his praises to God Darius had been faulty and not he But these holy Saints were of another minde I hope though he might in his baste and passion censure the blessed Martyrs to be fooles which were so many that there were five thousand for every day in the year except the calends of January when the Heathens were so intent upon their devotions that they neglected the slaughter of the poor Christians yet he will not esteem himself wiser than Daniel Behold thou art wiser than Daniel was an hyperbolical or rather an ironical expression With the heart man believeth unto righteousnesse
and with the mouth is confession made unto salvation If a man deny Christ with his mouth the faith of the heart will not serve his turn Sixthly Christ denounceth damnation to all those who for saving of their lives do deny their Religion and promiseth eternal life to all those who do seale the truth of their Christian faith with their blood against the commands of heathenish Magistrates Who soever will save his life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it Christ doth not promise eternal life for violation of true Religion Lastly no Christian Soveraign or Common-wealth did ever assume any such authority to themselves Never any subjects did acknowledge any such power in their Soveraigns Never any Writer of Politicks either waking or dreaming did ever phansie such an unlimitted power and authority in Princes as this which he ascribeth to them not onely to make but to justifie all doctrines all laws all religions all actions of their Subjects by their commands as if God Almighty had reserved onely Soveraign Princes under his own Jurisdiction and quitted all the rest of mankind to Kings and Common-wealths In vain ye worship me teaching for doctrine the commandments of men that is to say making true religion to consist in obedience to the commands of men If Princes were heavenly Angels free from all ignorance and passions such an unlimited power might better become them But being mortal men it is dangerous least Phaeton-like by their violence or unskilfulnesse they put the whole Empire into a flame It were too too much to make their unlawful commands to justifie their Subjects If the blind lead the blind both fall into the ditch He who imposeth unlawful commands and he who obeyeth them do both subject themselves to the judgements of God But if true religion do consist in active obedience to their commands it justifieth both their Subjects and themselves True religion can prejudice no man He taketh upon him to refute the distinction of obedience into active and passive As if a sin against the law of nature could be expiated by arbitrary punishments imposed by men Thus it happeneth to men who confute that which they do not understand Passive obedience is not for the expiation of any fault but for the maintenance of innocence When God commands one thing and the soveraign Prince another we cannot obey them both actively therefore we chuse to obey God rather than men and yet are willing for the preservation of peace to suffer from man rather than to resist If he understood this distinction well it hath all those advantages which he fancieth to himself in his new platform of government without any of those inconveniences which do attend it And whereas he intimateth that our not obeying our Soveraign actively is a sin against the law of nature meaning by the violation of our promised obedience it is nothing but a grosse mistake no Subjects ever did nor ever could make any such pact to obey the commands of their Soveraign actively contrary to the law of God or nature This reason drawn from universal practise was so obvious that he could not misse to make it an objection The greatest objection is that of the practice when men ask where and when such power has by Subjects been acknowledged A shrewd objection indeed which required a more solid answer then to say That though in all places of the World men should lay the foundation of their houses on the sand it could not thence be inferred that so it ought to be As if there were no more difficulty in founding and regulating a Common-wealth then in distinguishing between a loose sand and a firm rock or as if all Societies of men of different tempers of different humours of different manners and of different interests must of necessity be all ordered after one and the same manner If all parts of the World after so long experience do practise the contrary to that which he fancieth he must give me leave to suspect that his own grounds are the quick-sands and that his new Common-wealth is but a Castle founded in the aire That a Soveraign Prince within his own dominions is custos utriusque tabulae the keeper of both the Tables of the Law to see that God be duely served and justice duely administred between man and man and to punish such as transgresse in either kind with civil punishment That he hath an Architectonical power to see that each of his Suctjects do their duties in their several callings Ecclesiasticks as well as Seculars That the care and charge of seeing that no doctrine be taught his Subjects but such as may consist with the general peace and the authority to prohibit seditious practices and opinions do reside in him That a Soveraign Prince oweth no account of his actions to any mortal man That the Kings of England in particular have been justly declared by Act of Parliament Supreme Governours in their own kingdoms in all causes over all persons as well Ecclesiastical as Civil is not denyed nor so much as questioned by me Otherwise a kingdom or a Common-wealth should be destitute of necessary means for its own preservation To all this I do readily assent all this I have vindicated upon surer grounds than those desperate and destructive principles which he supposeth But I do utterly deny that true religion doth consist in obedience to Soveraign Magistrates or that all their injunctions ought to be obeyed not onely passively but actively or that he is infallible in his laws and commands or that his Soveraign authority doth justifie the active obedience of his Subjects to his unlawful commands Suppose a King should command his Judges to set Naboth on high among the people and to set two sons of Belial before him to bear witnesse against him saying Thou didst blaspheme God and the King and then carry him out and stone him that he may dye The regal authority could neither justifie such an unlawful command in the King nor obedience in the Judges Suppose a King should set up a golden Image as Nebucadnezar did and command all his Subjects to adore it his command could not excuse his Subjects from idolatry much lesse change idolatry into true religion His answer to the words of Peter and John do signifie nothing The High Priest and his Councel commanded the Apostles not to teach in the name of Jesus Here was sufficient humane authority yet say the Apostles Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge ye The question was not what were the commands that was clear enough what God commanded and what man commanded but who was to be obeyed which could admit no debate He asketh What has the Bishop to doe with what God sayes to me when I read the Scriptures more than I have to do with what God sayes to him when he reads them
sin yet it ought to be numbred among the sins of imprudence or ignorance He addeth that an Atheist is punished not as a Subject is punished by his King because he did not observe laws but as an enemy by an enemy because he would not accept laws His reason is because the Atheist never submitted his will to the will of God whom he never thought to be And he concludeth that mans obligation to obey God proceedeth from his weaknesse Manifestum est obligationem ad prestandum ipsi Deo obedientiam incumbere hominibus propter imbecilitatem First it is impossible that should be a sin of meer ignorance or imprudence which is dirictly contrary to the light of natural reason The laws of nature need no new promulgation being imprinted naturally by God in the heart of man The law of nature was written in our hearts by the finger of God without our assent or rather the law of nature is the assent it self Then if nature dictate to us that there is a God and that this God is to be worshipped in such and such manner it is not possible that Atheisme should be a sin of meer ignorance Secondly a rebellious Subject is still a Subject de jure though not de facto by right though not by deed And so the most cursed Atheist that is ought by right to be the Subject of God and ought to be punished not as a just enemy but as a disloyal traytour Which is confessed by himself This fourth sin that is of those who do not by word and deed confesse one God the supreme King of Kings in the natural kingdom of God is the crime of high treason for it is a denial of divine power or Atheisme Then an Atheist is a traitour to God and punishable as a disloial Subject not as an enemy Lastly it is an absurd and dishonourable assertion to make our obedience to God to depend upon our weaknesse because we cannot help it and not upon our gratitude because we owe our being and preservation to him Who planteth a vineyard and eateth not of the fruit thereof Or who feedeth a flock and eateth not of the milk of the flock And again Thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory and honour and power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created But it were much better or at least not so ill to be a downright Atheist than to make God to be such a thing as he doth and at last thrust him into the devils office to be the cause of all sinne For T. H. his god is not the God of Christians nor of any rational men Our God is every where and seeing he hath no parts he must be wholly here and wholly there and wholly every where So nature it self dictateth It cannot be said honourably of God that he is in a place for nothing is in a place but that which hath proper bounds of its greatness But T. H. his God is not wholly every where No man can conceive that any thing is all in this place and all in another place at the same time for none of these things ever have or can be incident to sense So far well if by conceiving he mean comprehending But then follows That these are absurd speeches taken upon credit without any signification at all from deceived Philosophers and deceived or deceiving School-men Thus he denyeth the ubiquity of God A circumscriptive a definitive and a repletive being in a place is some heathen language to him Our God is immutable without any shadow of turning by change to whom all things are present nothing past nothing to come But T. H. his god is measured by time losing something that is past and acquiring something that doth come every minute That is as much as to say That our God is infinite and his god is finite for unto that which is actually infinite nothing can be added neither time nor parts Hear himself Nor do I understand what derogation it can be to the divine perfection to attribute to it potentiality that is in English power so little doth he understand what potentiality is and successive duration And he chargeth it upon us as a fault that will not have eternity to be an endlesse succession of time How successive duration and an endlesse succession of time in God Then God is finite 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 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 nor accidents to render him more compleat But T. H. his god is a divisible god a compounded god that hath matter and 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 uttributa 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 maiora canamus my next charge is That he destroyes the very being of God and leaves nothing in his place but an empty name For by taking away all incorporal substances he taketh away God himself The very name saith he of an incorporal 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 incorporal substance is to say there is no God at all Either God is incorporal or he is
in a mean for he himself doth never observe a mean All his bolts fly over or under but at the right mark it is in vain to expect him Sometimes he fancieth an omnipotence in Kings sometimes he strippeth them of their just rights Perhaps he thinketh that it may fall out in politicks as it doth sometimes in physick Bina venena invant Two contrary poysons may become a Cordial to the Common-wealth I will begin with his defects where he attributeth too little to Regal power Fist he teacheth that no man is bound to go to warfare in person except he do voluntarily undertake it A man that is commanded as a Souldier to fight against the enemy may neverthelesse in many cases refuse without injustice Of these many cases he setteth down onely two First when he substituteth a sufficient souldier in his place for in this case he deserteth not the service of the Common-wealth Secondly there is allowance to be made for natural timorousnesse or men of feminine courage This might passe as a municipal law â—…tc exempt some persons at some time in some places But to extend it to all persons places and times is absurd and repugnant to his own grounds who teacheth that justice and injustice do depend upon the command of the Soveraign that whatsoever he commandeth he maketh lawful and just by commanding it His two cases are two great impertinencies and belong to the Soveraign to do or not to do as Graces whoso is timerous or fearful let him depart not to the Subjects as right He forgetteth how often he hath denied all knowledge of good and evill to Subjects and subjected their will absolutely to the will of the Soveraign The Soveraign may use every mans strength and wealth at his pleasure His acknowledgement that the Soveraign hath right enough to punish his refusal with death is to no purpose The question is not whether his refusal be punishable or not but whether it be just or not Upon his principles a Soveraign may justly enough put the most innocent Subject in the World to death as we shall see presently And his exception when the defence of the Common-wealth requireth at once the help of all that are able to bear armes is no answer to the other case and it self a case never like to happen He must be a mortall god indeed that can bring all the hands in a Kingdome to fight at one battle Another of his principles is this Security is the end for which men make themselves subjects to others which if it be not enjoyed no man is understood to have subjected himself to others or to have lost his right to defend himself at his own discretion Neither is any man understood to have bound himself to any thing or to have relinquished his right over all things before his own security be provided for What ugly consequences do flow from this paradox and what a large window it openeth to sedition and rebellion I leave to the readers judgement Either it must be left to the soveraign determination whether the subjects security be sufficiently provided for And then in vain is any mans sentence expected against himself or to the discretion of the subject as the words themselves do seem to import and then there need no other bellowes to kindle the fire of a civill war and put a whole commonwealth into a combustion but this seditious Article We see the present condition of Europe what it is that most soveraignes have subjects of a different communion from themselves and are necessitated to tolerate different rites for fear least whilst they are plucking up the tares they should eradicate the wheat And he that should advise them to do otherwise did advise them to put all into fire and flame Now hear this mercifull and peaceable Author It is manifest that they do against conscience and wish as much as is in them the eternall destruct on of their subjects who do not cause such doctrine and such worship to be taught and exhibited to their subjects as they themselves do believe to conduce to their eternall salvation or tolerate the contrary to be taught and exhibited Did this man write waking or dreaming And howsoever in words he denie all resistance to the soveraign yet indeed he admitteth it No man is bound by his pacts whatsoever they be not to resist him who bringeth upon him death or wounds or other bodily dammage by this learning the Scholler if he be able may take the rod out of his masters hand and whip him It followeth Seeing therefore no man is bound to that which is impossible they who are to suffer death or wounds or rather corporall dammage and are not constant enough to endure them are not obliged to suffer them And more fully In case a great many men together have already resisted the soveraign power unjustly or committed some capitall crime for which every one of them expecteth death whether have they not the liberty to join together and assist and defend one another certainly they have for they do but defend their lives which the guilty man may as well do as the innocent There was indeed unjustice in the first breach of their duty Their bearing of armes subsequent to it though it be to maintain what they have done is no new unjust act Why should we not change the name of Leviathan into the Rebells catechism Observe the difference between the primitive spirit and the Hobbian spirit The Thebaean Legion of known valour in a good cause when they were able to resist did chuse rather to be cut in pieces to a man than defend themselves against their Emperour by armes because they would rather die innocent than live nocent But T. H. alloweth Rebells and conspirators to make good their unlawfull attempts by armes was there ever such a trumpetter of rebellion heard of before perhaps he may say that he alloweth them not to justifie their unlawfull acts but to defend themselves First this is contrary to himself for he alloweth them to maintain what they had unjustly done This is too much and too intolerable but this is not all Secondly If they chance to win the field who must suffer for their faults or who dare thenceforward call their Acts unlawfull Will you hear what a casuist he is And for the other instance of attaining soveraignty by rebellion it is manifest that though the event follow yet because it cannot reasonably be expected but rather the contrary and because by gaining it so others are taught to gain the same in like manner the attempt thereof is against reason And had he no other reasons indeed against horrid Rebellion but these two It seemeth he accounteth conscience or the bird in the breast to be but an Idoll of the brain And the Kingdome of heaven as he hath made it not valuable enough to be ballanced against an earthly Kingdome And as for hell he hath expounded it
and all the infernall fiends out of the nature of things otherwise he could not have wanted better arguments against such a crying sin Another of his theorems is that no man is obliged by any pacts to accuse himself Which in some cases is true but in his sense and in his latitude and upon his grounds it is most untrue When publick fame hath accused a man before hand he may be called upon to purge himself or suffer When the case is of publick concernment and the circumstances piegnant all nations do take the liberty to examine a man upon oath in his own cause and where the safety and welfare of the commonwealth is concerned as in cases of high treason and for the more full discovery of conspiracies upon the rack Which they could not do lawfully if no man was bound in any case to discover himself His reason is silly For in vain do we make him promise who when he hath performed we know not whether he have performed or not And makes as much against all examination of witnesses as delinquents In vain do we make them give testimony who when they have testified we know not whether they have given right testimony or not But his next conclusion will uncase him fully and shew us what manner of man he is If the commonwealth come into the power of its enemies so that they cannot be resisted he who had the soveraignty before is understood to have lost it What enemies he meaneth such as have the just power of the sword or such as have not what he meaneth by the commonwealth the whole Kingdome or any part of it what he intendeth by cannot be resisted whether a prevalence for want of forces to resist them or a victory in a set battle or a finall cenquest And what he meaneth by losing the soveraignty loosing it de facto or de jure losing the possession only or losing the right also he is silent It may be because he knoweth not the difference Qui pauca considerat facile pronuntiat He that considers little giveth sentence more easily than truly we must search out his sence some where else The obligation of subjects to the soveraign is understood to last as long and no longer than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them c. Wheresoever a man seeth protection either in his own or in anothers sword nature applieth his obedience to it and his endeavour to maintain it By his leave this is right dogs play which alwaies take part with the stronger side But yet this is generall The next is more particular when in a war forreign or intestine the enemies get a final victory so as the forces of the commonwealth keeping the field no longer there is no farther protection of subjects in their loyalty then is the commonwealth dissolved and every man at liberty to protect himself by such courses as his own discretion shall suggest unto him Yet these words final victory are doubtfull When Davids forces were chased out of the Kingdome so that he was not able to protect his subjects in their loyalty could this be called a final victory The next place is home He who hath no obligation to his former soveraign but that of an ordinary subject hath liberty to submit to a Conquerour when the meanes of his life is within the guards and garrisons of the enemy for it is then that he hath no longer protection from him his soveraign but is protected by the adverse party for his contribution And he concludeth that a totall submission is as lawfull as a contribution Which is contrary to the sense of all the world If a lawful soveraign did give a generall release to his subject as well as he giveth him licence to contribute he said something And to top up all these disloyall paradoxes he addeth That they who live under the protection of a Conquerour openly are understood to submit themselves to the government And that in the very act of receiving protection openly and not renouncing it openly they do oblige themselves to obey the lawes of their protector to which in receiving protection they have assented VVhere these Principles prevaile adieu honour and honesty and fidelity and loyalty all must give place to self-interest What for a man to deserte his Soveraign upon the first prevalence of an enemy or the first payment of a petty contribution or the first apparence of a sword that is more able to protect us for the present Is this his great law of nature pactis standum to stand to what we have obliged our selves Then Kings from whom all mens right and property is derived should not have so much right themselves in their own inheritance as the meanest subject It seemeth T. H. did take his Soveraign for better but not for worse Faire fall those old Roman spirits who gave thanks to Terentius Varro after he had lost the great battle of Cannae by his own default because he did not despair of the Common-wealth And would not sell the ground that Hannibal was encamped upon one farthing cheaper than if it had been in time of peace which was one thing that discouraged that great Captain from continuing the siege of Rome His former discourse hath as many faults as lines First all Soveraignty is not from the people He himself acknowledgeth That fatherly Empire or Power was instituted by God in the Creation and was Monarchical Secondly where the application of Soveraign power to the person is from the people yet there are other ends besides protection Thirdly protection is not a condition though it be a duty A failing in duty doth not cancel a right Fourthly protection ought to be mutual The subject ought to defend his King as well as the King his subject If the King be disabled to protect his subject by the subjects own fault because he did not assist him as he ought this doth not warrant the subject to seek protection elsewhere Fifthly he doth not distinguish between a just Conqueror who hath the power of the sword though he abuse it and him that hath no power at all I will try if he can remember whose words these are They that have already instituted a Common-wealth being thereby bound by covenant to own the actions and judgements of one cannot lawfully make a new covenant among themselves to be obedient to any other in any thing whatsoever without his permission And therefore they that are subjects to a Monarch cannot without his leave cast off Monarchy nor transfer their person from him that beareth it to another man This is home both for right and obligation Sixthly there are other requisites to the extinction of the right of a Prince and the obligation of a subject than the present prevalence or conquest of an enemy Seventhly nature doth not dictate to a subject to violate his oaths and allegiance by using his endeavours to maintain protection
shunned 1 Pet. 2. 14. No proper punishment but for sin Lam. 3. 39. 2 Sam. 12. 13. 14. 2 Cor. 4. 17. Matth. 25. 46. Ioh 37. 23. Lam. 3. 33. Psal. 107. 17. Gen. 9. 3. Prov. 12. 10. Why God did not make man impeccable Jude v. 6. Matth. 25. 41 46. Mar. 9. 44 45. Jud. v. 6 7. Punishments of the damned are eternall Gods prescience proveth infalliblity not necessity Resolution proveth election and liberty In the answer to the stating of the question What is necessary Chance is from accidentall concurrence not from ignorance Eccles. 4. 10. Prov. 22. 28. Jer. 18. 15. Ex Plutarchi Polit. ad Trajan Encheiridion c. 16. Math. 7. 6. Exact definitions not frequent What liberty is What is spontaneity What is necessity De interpret l. 1. c. ultimo Necessity of being and acting distinguished Tull. Necessity upon supposition what it is Mark 10. 27. Man is not a passive instrument as the sword in his hand Act. 17. 28. The instance in ambs ace hath lost T. H. his game T. H. his will is no more than the bias of a bowle See stateing of the question answer to Num. 1. St. Austiâ—… more to be credited than T. H De lib. Arbit l. 3. c. 3. To give liberty to two and limite to one is a contradiction According to T. H. his principles all perswasions are vvin We can blame no man justly A lame comparison T. H. maketh himself no better than a wooden toppe T. H his deep skill in Logick His silly definitions Medition liâ—…tle worth without making use of other mens experience Terms of art are unungrateful to rude persons 1 Top. c. 2. ss 2. Ans. to the stat quest fount of Argum. cast Num. 1 3. def Num. 3. Freedom to do if one will without freedom to will a vain distinction Num. 30. 14. Josh. 24. 15. 2 Sam. 24. 12. Deut. 30. 19. Bulla Caroli 4. Exercit. 307. And maketh T. H. a degree worse than the Stâ—…cks Aust. de civit deâ—… l. 5. c. 10. Apud Gellium Iudicium practicé practicum explained Plut. How the object is and how it is not the cause of seeing Num. 3. Spontaneity Ethic. l. 3. c. 2. Num. 3. Conformity signifieth agreeableness as well as likeness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what they are Eth. l. 3. c. 1 2. l. 3. c. 3 4. Phys. l. 2. c. 6. A true will may be changed Num. 8. Num. 25. Voluntarinesse doth not desend on the judgment of other Num. 33. Num. 8. Num. 8. Num. 26. 1 King 3. 11. Election of more than one Verse 5. Ver. 6 7 8 9. Ver. 10. Ver. 11. Ver. 13. Acts 5. 4. Was it not in thy power Explained Out of hatred to true liberty T. H. makes God hypocritical Gods secret and revealed will not contrary And why Fount of Arg. in fine Occulte virtue or influence Job 38 31. It is blasphemy to say that God is the cause of sinne Or to say that sin is efficaciously decreed by God 〈◊〉 no â—…d perâ—…ssion The difference between general and special influence 1 King 21. 9. Fountains of Argâ—…ments Iam. 4. 13 14. Num. 12. Rom. 11. 23. God may oblige himself Jam. 1. 17. God cannot do any unrighteous thing Tit. 1. 2. Num. 〈◊〉 19. 2 Tim. 2. 13. Hebr. 6. 10. Mich. 6. 2. Ezek. 18. 25. Gen. 18. 23 25. Iud. 7. Plut. Num. 10. It is just to afflict innocent persons for their own good Lib. de cive tit Imp. c. 6. n. 18. â—…n is properly irregularity God no cause of irregularity Laws may be unjust Impossibilities made bâ—… our selves may be justly imposed not impossibilities in them selves Acts 5. 29. 1 Pet. 2. 13 Proper punishment is ever vindictive in part Lam. 3. 39. Job 31. 11. Ezra 9. 13. Heb. 10. 28. Deut. 25. 2. 1 Pet. 2 4. Yet further of unjust laws L. 1. 14. Exod. 1. 17. Dan. 3. 18. Heb. 11. 23. 1 King 21. 2 King 6. 32. Dan. 6. 8. Mich. 6. 16. 2 K. 17 19. Isay 10. 1. The authority of the Scripture not dependent on the printer Ammon in lib. de Interpret Mr. R. H. T. H. a fit Catechist for disloial and unnatural persons Num 12. Mankind never without laws De cive c. i. Num 12. Never lawful for private men ordinarily to kill one another Numbers 35. Fount of Arg. Gen. 9. 6. Gen. 4. 10. 1 Sam. 19. 5. 2 King 24. 4. Prov. 28. Deut. 10. 11. Exod. 21. 14. Gen. 9. 6. Joh. 8. 44. T. H. Attorny General for the brute beasts Gen. 1. 28. Gen. 2. 19. Psal. 8. 6. Gen. 9. 3. Prov. 26. 5. Seen and unseen necessity Act. 27. 22. V. 30. If all things be absolutely necessary admonitions are all vaine A litter of absurdities What is morally good Isa. 5. 20. Exod. 1. 21 Rewards of bruits and men differ Rom. 1. 21. What it is to honour God Jam 2. 19. What are devils in his judgement God doth not hinder privately what he commands openly His opinion destroyeth the truth of God And his goodnesse Isa. 28. 21. Wisd. 1. 13. Ezek. 33. 11. Fount of Arg. And his justice And omnipotence making the cause of sinne Amos 3. 6. A right Hobbist cannot praise God Deut. 29. 29. Nor hear the Word or receive the Sacrament worthily Matth. 11. 12. Mat. 7. 11. Rom. 10. 14. Nor vowas he ought Nor repent of his misdeeds What repentance is 2 Cor. 7. 11. Joel 2. 12. Mans concurrence with Gods grace Act. 7. 51. Prov. 1. 24. Mark 1. 15. Rom. 11. 20. Rom. 2. 5. Rev. 3. 20. 1 Cor. 3. 9. 1 Cor. 15. 10. Confidence in praier and the efficacy of it Jam. 1. 6. 1 Tim. 2. 8. Mark 11. 24. Jam. 5. 15. Phil. 1. 19. Isay 38. 5. 1 King 8. 37. 2 Chron. 7. 12. Luk. 17. 13. 18. 2 Cor. 1. 11. T. H. Still mistaketh necessity upon supposition There is more in contingency than ignorance Def. Num. 3. stat of quest cast Num. 1. 3. c. Sin in the world before the civil law Job 4. 18. 2 Pet. 2. 4. Jude 6. Rom. 5. 12. Prov. 8. 15. Rom. 2. 14. 1â—… 15. To command impossibilities is unjust Yet further against his silly distinction free to do if he will not free to will Of monsters What is said to be in deo and what extra deum Exod. 3. 14. To will do in God the same thing He willeth not all he could will Luâ—… 3. 8. T. H. make the will to be compelled Arist. Eth. lib. 3. c. 1. 1 Sam. 28. 23. Est. 1. 8. 2 Cor. 12. 11. Motus primó primi and antipathies To search too boldly into the nature of God is a fault But the greater fault is negligence Rom. 1. 20. Exer c. 12. d. 2. T. H. his liberty omnipotence in shew in deed nothing He dare not refer himself to his own witnesses Terms of Art 1 Cor. 14. 19. A contradiction c. 17. d. 28. Matth. 15. 14. Election and compulsion inconsistent There are mixt actions Eth. l. 3.