Chap. 17. de Cive In the Body of the Chapter it is thus The time of Christ's being upon the Earth is called in Scripture the Regeneration often but the Kingdom never When the Son of God comes in Majesty and all the Angels with him then he shall sit on the seat of Majesty My Kingdom is not of this World God sent not his Son that he should judge the World I came not to judge the World but to save the World Man who made me a Judge or Divider amongst you Let thy Kingdom come And other words to the same purpose out of which it is clear that Christ took upon him no Regal Power upon Earth before his Assumption But at his Assumption his Apostles asked him if he would then restore the Kingdom to Israel and he answered it was not for them to know So that hitherto Christ had not taken that Office upon him unless his Lordship think that the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Christ be two distinct Kingdoms From the Assumption ever since all true Christians say daily in their Prayers Thy Kingdom come But his Lordship had perhaps forgot that But when then beginneth Christ to be a King I say it shall be then when he comes again in Majesty with all the Angels And even then he shall reign as he is Man under his Father For St. Paul saith 1 Cor. 15.25 26. He must reign till he hath put all Enemies under his feet the last Enemy that shall be destroyed is Death But when shall God the Father reign again St. Paul saith in the same Chapter verse 28. When all things shall be subdued unto him then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him that God may be all in all And verse 24. Then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God even the Father when he shall have put down all Rule Authority and Power This is at the Resurrection And by this it is manifest that his Lordship was not so well versed in Scripture as he ought to have been J. D. He taketh away his Priestly or Propitiatory Office And although this Act of our Redemption be not alwayes in Scripture called a Sacrifice and Oblation but sometimes a Price yet by Price we are not to understand any thing by the value whereof he could claim right to a Pardon for us from his Offended Father but that Price which God the Father was pleased in mercy to demand And again Not that the Death of one Man though without sin can satisfie for the Offences of all Men in the rigour of Justice but in the mercy of God that ordained such Sacrifices for sin as he was pleased in mercy to accept He knoweth no difference between one who is meer man and one who was both God and man between a Levitical Sacrifice and the All-sufficient Sacrifice of the Cross between the Blood of a Calf and the precious Blood of the Son of God T. H. Yes I know there is a difference between Blood and Blood but not any such as can make a difference in the Case here questioned Our Saviour's Blood was most precious but still it was Humane Blood and I hope his Lordship did never think otherwise or that it was not accepted by his Father for our Redemption J. D. And touching the Prophetical Office of Christ I do much doubt whether he do believe in earnest that there is any such thing as Prophecy in the World He maketh very little difference between a Prophet and a Mad-man and a Demoniack And if there were nothing else says he that bewrayed their madness yet that very arrogating such inspiration to themselves is Argument enough He maketh the pretence of Inspiration in any man to be and always to have been on opinion pernicious to Peace and tending to the dissolution of all Civil Government He subjecteth all Prophetical Revelations from God to the sole Pleasure and Censure of the Soveraign Prince either to Authorize them or to Exauctorate them So as two Prophets prophecying the same thing at the same time in the Dominions of two different Princes the one shall be a true Prophet the other a false And Christ who had the approbation of no Soveraign Prince upon his grounds was to be reputed a false Prophet every where Every man therefore ought to consider who is the Soveraign Prophet that is to say who it is that is Gods Vicegerent upon Earth and hath next under God the Authority of governing Christian Men and to observe for a Rule that Doctrine which in the Name of God he hath Commanded to be taught and thereby to examine and try out the truth of those Doctrines which pretended Prophets with miracle or without shall at any time advance c. And if he disavow them then no more to obey their Voice or if he approve them then to obey them as Men to whom God hath given a part of the Spirit of their Soveraign Upon his Principles the case holdeth as well among Jews and Turks and Heathens as Christians Then he that teacheth Transubstantiation in France is a true Prophet he that teacheth in it England a false Prophet He that blasphemeth Christ in Constantinople a true Prophet he that doth the same in Italy a false Prophet Then Samuel was a false Prophet to contest with Saul a Soveraign Prophet So was the Man of God who submitted not to the more Divine and Prophetick Spirit of Jeroboam And Elijah for reproving Ahab Then Michaiah had but his deserts to be clapt up in Prison and fed with Bread of Affliction and Water of Affliction for daring to contradict God's Vice-gerent upon Earth And Jeremiah was justly thrown into a Dungeon for Prophecying against Zedekiah his Liege Lord. If his Principles were true it were strange indeed that none of all these Princes nor any other that ever was in the World should understand their own Priviledges And yet more strange that God Almighty should take the part of such Rebellious Prophets and justifie their Prophesies by the Event if is were true that none but the Soveraign in a Christian the reason is the same for Jewish Commonwealth can take notice what is or what is not the Word of God T. H. To remove his Lordship's doubt in the first place I confess there was true Prophesie and true Prophets in the Church of God from Abraham down to our Saviour the greatest Prophet of all and the last of the Old Testament and first of the New After our Saviour's time till the death of St. John the Apostle there were true Prophets in the Church of Christ Prophets to whom God spake supernaturally and testified the truth of their Mission by Miracles Of those that in the Scripture are called Prophets without Miracles and for this cause only that they spake in the Name of God to Men and in the name of Men to God there are have been and shall be in the Church
The lawful Assembly of Pastors or of Bishops But there can be no lawful Assembly in England without the Authority of the King The Scripture therefore what it is and how to be interpreted is made known unto us here by no other way than the Authority of our Soveraign Lord both in Temporals and Spirituals The Kings Majesty And where he has set forth no Interpretation there I am allowed to follow my own as well as any other man Bishop or not Bishop For my own part all that know me know also it is my opinion That the best government in Religion is by Episcopacy but in the King 's Right not in their own But my Lord of Derry not contented with this would have the utmost resolution of our Faith to be into the Doctrine of the Schools I do not think that all the Bishops be of his mind If they were I would wish them to stand in fear of that dreadful Sentence All covet all lose I must not let pass these words of his Lordship If divine Law and humane Law clash one with another without doubt it is better evermore to obey God than man Where the King is a Christian believes the Scripture and hath the Legislative power both in Church and State and maketh no Laws concerning Christian Faith or divine Worship but by the Counsel of his Bishops whom he trusteth in that behalf if the Bishops counsel him aright what clashing can there be between the divine and humane Laws For if the Civil Law be against God's Law and the Bishops make it clearly appear to the King that it clasheth with divine Law no doubt he will mend it by himself or by the advice of his Parliament for else he is no professor of Christ's Doctrine and so the clashing is at an end But if they think that every opinion they hold though obscure and unnecessary to Salvation ought presently to be Law then there will be clashings innumerable not only of Laws but also of Swords as we have found it too true by late experience But his Lordship is still at this that there ought to be for the divine Laws that is to say for the interpretation of Scripture a Legislative power in the Church distinct from that of the King which under him they enjoy already This I deny Then for clashing between the Civil Laws of Indels with the Law of God the Apostles teach that those their Civil Laws are to be obeyed but so as to keep their Faith in Christ entirely in their hearts which is an obedience easily performed But I do not believe that Augustus Caesar or Nero was bound to make the holy Scripture Law and yet unless they did so they could not attain to eternal life J. D. His fifth conclusion may be that the sharpest and most succesful Sword in any War whatsoever doth give Soveraign Power and Authority to him that hath it to approve or reject all sorts of Theological Doctrines concerning the Kingdom of God not according to their truth or falshood but according to that influence which they have upon political affairs Hear him But because this Doctrine will appear to most men a novelty I do but propound it maintaining nothing in this or any other Paradox of Religion but attending the end of that dispute of the Sword concerning the Authority not yet amongst my Country-men decided by which all sorts of Doctrine are to be approved or rejected c. For the points of Doctrine concerning the Kingdom of God have so great influence upon the Kingdom of Man as not to be determined but by them that under God have the Soveraign Power Careat successibus opto Quisquis ab eventu facta notanda putat Let him evermore want success who thinketh actions are to be judged by their events This Doctrine may be plausible to those who desire to fish in troubled Waters But it is justly hated by those which are in Authority and all those who are lovers of peace and tranquillity The last part of this conclusion smelleth rankly of Jeroboam Now shall the Kingdom return to the house of David if this people go up to do Sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem whereupon the King took counsel and made two Calves of Gold and said unto them It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem behold thy Gods O Israel which brought thee out of the Land of Aegypt But by the just disposition of Almighty God this Policy turned to a sin and was the utter destruction of Jeroboam and his Family It is not good jesting with edge-tools nor playing with holy things Where men make their greatest fastness many times they find most danger T. H. His Lordship either had a strange Conscience or understood not English Being at Paris when there was no Bishop nor Church in England and every man writ what he pleased I resolved when it should please God to restore the Authority Ecclesiastical to submit to that Authority in whatsoever it should determine This his Lordship construes for a temporizing and too much indifferency in Religion and says further that the last part of my words do smell of Jeroboam To the contrary I say my words were modest and such as in duty I ought to use And I profess still that whatsoever the Church of England the Church I say not every Doctor shall forbid me to say in matter of Faith I shall abstain from saying it excepting this point That Jesus Christ the Son of God dyed for my sins As for other Doctrins I think it unlawful if the Church define them for any Member of the Church to contradict them J. D. His sixth Paradox is a rapper the Civil Laws are the Rules of good and evil just and unjust honest and dishonest and therefore what the Lawgiver commands that is to be accounted good what he forbids bad And a little after before Empires were just and unjust were not as whose nature is Relative to a Command every action in its own nature is indifferent That it is just or unjust proceedeth from the right of him that commandeth Therefore lawful Kings make those things which they command Just by commanding them and those things which they forbid Vnjust by forbidding them To this add his definition of a sin that which one doth or omitteth saith or willeth contrary to the reason of the Common-wealth that is the Civil Laws Where by the Laws he doth not understand the Written Laws elected and approved by the whole Common-wealth but the verbal Commands or Mandates of him that hath the Soveraign Power as we find in many places of his Writings The Civil Laws are nothing else but the Commands of him that is endowed with Soveraign Power in the Common-wealth concerning the future actions of his Subjects And the Civil Laws are fastned to the Lips of that man who hath the Soveraign Power Where are we In Europe or in Asia Where they ascribed a Divinity to their Kings and to
Deus we make two Gods of one This was well understood by Damascene in his Treatise De Fide Orthodoxa which is an Exposition of the Nicene Creed where he denies absolutely that Deitas is Deus lest seeing God was made man it should follow the Deity was made man which is contrary to the Doctrine of all the Nicene Fathers The Attributes therefore of God in the Abstract when they are put for God are put Metonymically which is a common thing in Scripture for Example Prov. 8.28 where it is said Before the mountains were setled before the Hills was I brought forth the Wisdom there spoken of being the Wisdom of God signifies the same with the wise God This kind of speaking is also ordinary in all Languages This considered such abstracted words ought not to be used in Arguing and especially in the deducing the Articles of our Faith though in the Language of God's eternal Worship and in all Godly Discourses they cannot be avoided And the Creed it self is less difficult to be assented to in its own words than in all such Expositions of the Fathers Who for us men and our Salvation came down from Heaven and was uncarnate by the holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made Man I have not read of any exception to this For where Athanasius in his Creed says of the Son He was not made but begotten it is to be understood of the Son as he was God Eternal whereas here it is spoken of the Son as he is man And of the Son also as he was man it may be said he was begotten of the Holy Ghost for a Woman conceiveth not but of him that begetteth which is also confirmed Mat. 1 20. That which is begotten in her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is of the Holy Ghost And was also Crucified for us under Pontius Pilate he suffered and was buried And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures and ascended into Heaven and fitteth on the right hand of the Father And he shall come again with Glory to judge both the Quick and the Dead Whose Kingdom shall have no end Of this part of the Creed I have not met with any doubt made by any Christian Hither the Council of Nice proceedeth in their general Confession of Faith and no further This finished some of the Bishops present at the Council seventeen or eighteen whereof Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea was one not sufficiently satisfied refused to subscribe till this Doctrine of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be better explained Thereupon the Council Decreed that whosoever shall say that God hath parts shall be Anathematized to which the said Bishops subscribed And Eusebius by Order of the Council wrote a Letter the Copies whereof were sent to every absent Bishop that being satisfied with the reason of their subscribing they also should subscribe The reason they gave of their Subscription was this That they had now a form of words prescribed by which as a Rule they might guide themselves so as not to violate the Peace of the Church By this it is manifest that no man was an Heretick but he that in plain and direct words contradicted that Form by the Church prescribed and that no man could be made an Heretick by Consequence And because the said Form was not put into the body of the Creed but directed only to the Bishops there was no reason to punish any Lay-person that should speak to the contrary But what was the meaning of this Doctrine That God has no Parts Was it made Heresie to say that God who is a real substance cannot be considered or spoken of as here or there or any where which are parts of places Or that there is any real thing without length every way that is to say which hath no Magnitude at all finite nor infinite Or is there any whole substance whose two halves or three thirds are not the same with that whole Or did they mean to condemn the Argument of Tertullian by which he confuted Apelles and other Hereticks of his time namely Whatsoever was not Corporeal was nothing but Fantasm and not Corporeal for Heretical No certainly no Divines say that They went to establish the Doctrine of One individual God in Trinity to abolish the diversity of species in God not the distinction of here and there in substance When St. Paul asked the Corinthians Is Christ divided He did not think they thought him impossible to be considered as having hands and feet but that they might think him according to the manner of the Gentiles one of the Sons of God as Arius did but not the only begotten Son of God And thus also it is expounded in the Creed of Athanasius who was present in that Council by these words Not confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substances that is to say that God is not divided into three Persons as man is divided into Peter James and John nor are the three persons one and the same person But Aristotle and from him all the Greek Fathers and other Learned Men when they distinguish the general Latitude of a word they call it Division as when they divide Animal into Man and Beast they call these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Species and when they again divide the Species Man into Peter and John they call these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 partes individuae And by this confounding the division of the substance with the distinction of words divers men have been led into the Error of attributing to God a Name which is not the name of any substance at all viz. Incorporeal By these words God has no parts thus explained together with the part of the Creed which was at that time agreed on many of those Heresies which were antecedent to that first General Council were condemned as that of Manes who appeared about thirty years before the Reign of Constantine by the first Article I believe in one God though in other words it seems to me to remain still in the Doctrine of the Church of Rome which so ascribeth a Liberty of the Will to Men as that their Will and Purpose to commit sin should not proceed from the Cause of all things God but originally from themselves or from the Devil It may seem perhaps to some that by the same words the Anthropomorphites also were then Condemned And certainly if by Parts were meant not persons Individual but Pieces they were Condemned For Face Arms Feet and the like are pieces But this cannot be for the Anthropomorphites appeared not till the time of Valens the Emperor which was after the Council of Nice between forty and fifty years and was not condemned till the second General Council at Constantinople Now for the Punishment of Hereticks ordained by Constantine we read of none but that Ecclesiastical Officers Bishops and other Preachers if they refused to subscribe to this Faith or taught the contrary Doctrine were for the first Fault Deprived of their Offices