present time I am forced to in my defence not against the Church but against the accusations and arguments oâ— my Adversaries For the Church though it excommunicates for scandalous life and for teaching false Doctrines yet it professeth to impose nothing to be held as Faith but what may be warranted by Scripture and this the Church it self saith in thâ— 20th of the 39 Articles of Religion Anâ— therefore I am permitted to alledge Scrâ—pture at any time in the defence of my Belief J. D. But they that in one case are grieved in another must be relieved If perchance T. H. hath given his Disciples any discontent in his Doctrine of Heaven and the holy Angels and the glorified Souls of the Saints he will make them amends in his Doctrine of Hell and the Devils and the damned Spirits First of the Devils He fancieth that all those Devils which our Saviour did cast out were Phrensies and all Demoniacks or Persons possessed no other than Mad-men And to justifie our Saviour's speaking to a Disease as to a Person produceth the example of inchanters But he declareth himself most clearly upon this Subject in his Animadversions upon my reply to his defence of fatal destiny There are in the Scripture two sorts of things which are in English translated Devils One is that which is called Satan Diabolus Abaddon which signifieth in English an Enemy an Accuser and a destroyer of the Church of God in which sence the Devils are but wicked men The other sort of Devils are called in the Scripture Daemonia which are the feigned Gods of the Heathen and are neither Bodies nor spiritual Substances but meer fancies and fictions of terrified hearts feigned by the Greeks and other Heathen People which St. Paul calleth Nothings So T.H. hath killed the great infernal Devil and all his black Angels and left no Devils to be feared but Devils Incarnate that is wicked men T. H. As for the first words cited Levi. page 38 39. I refer the Reader to the place it self and for the words concerning Satan I leave them to the judgment of the Learned J. D. And for Hell he describeth the Kingdom of Satan or the Kingdom of darkness to be a confederacy of deceivers He telleth us that the places which set forth the torments of Hell in holy Scripture do design Metaphorically a grief and discontent of mind from the sight of that eternal felicity in others which they themselves through their own incredulity and disobedience have lost As if Metaphorical descriptions did not bear sad truths in them as well as literal as if final desperation were no more than a little fit of grief or discontent and a guilty conscience were no more than a transitory passion as if it were a loss so easily to be born to be deprived for evermore of the beatifical Vision and lastly as if the Damned besides that unspeakable loss did not likewise suffer actual Torments proportionable in some measure to their own sins and Gods Justice T. H. That Metaphors bear sad truths in them I deny not It is a sad thing to lose this present life untimely Is it not therefore much more a sad thing to lose an eternal happy Life And I believe that he which will venture upon sin with such danger will not stick to do the same notwithstanding the Doctrine of eternal torture Is it not also a sad truth that the Kingdom of darkness should be a Confederacy of deceivers J. D. Lastly for the damned Spirits he declareth himself every where that their sufferings are not eternal The Fire shall be unquenchable and the Torments everlasting but it cannot be thence inferred that he who shall be cast into that Fire or be tormented with those Torments shall endure and resist them so as to be eternally burnt and tortured and yet never be destroyed nor dye And though there be many places that affirm everlasting fire into which men may be cast successivily one after another for ever yet I find none that affirm that there shall be an everlasting life therein of any individual Person If he had said and said only that the pains of the Damned may be lessened as to the degree of them or that they endure not for ever but that after they are purged by long torments from their dross and Corruptions as Gold in the fire both the damned Spirits and the Devils themselves should be restored to a better condition he might have found some Ancients who are therefore called the merciful Doctors to have joyned with him though still he should have wanted the suffrage of the Catholick Church T. H. Why does not his Lordship cite some place of Scripture here to prove that all the Reprobates which are dead live eternally in torment We read indeed That everlasting Torments were prepared for the Devil and his Angels whose natures also are everlasting and that the Beast and the false Prophet shall be tormented everlastingly but not that every Reprobate shall be so They shall indeed be cast into the same fire but the Scripture says plainly enough that they shall be both Body and Soul destroyed there If I had said that the Devils themselves should be restored to a better condition his Lordship would have been so kind as to have put me into the number of the Merciful Doctors Truly if I had had any Warrant for the possibility of their being less enemies to the Church of God than they have been I would have been as merciful to them as any Doctor of them all As it is I am more merciful than the Bishop J. D. But his shooting is not at rovers but altogether at randome without either President or Partner All that eternal sire all those torments which he acknowledgeth is but this That after the Resurrection the Reprobate shall be in the estate that Adam and his Posterity were in after the sin committed saving that God promised a Redeemer to Adam and not to them Adding that they shall live as they did formerly Marry and give in Marriage and consequently engender Children perpetually after the Resurrection as they did before which he calleth an immortallity of the kind but not of the persons of men It is to be presumed that in those their second lives knowing certainly from T. H. that there is no hope of Redemption for them from corporal death upon their well-doing nor fear of any Torments after death for their ill-doing they will pass their times here as pleasantly as they can This is all the Damnation which T. H. fancieth T. H. This he has urged once before and I answered to it That the whole Paragraph was to prove that for any Text of Scripture to the contrary men might after the Resurrection live as Adam did on earth and that notwithstanding the Text of St. Luke chap. 20. verse 34 35 36. Marry and propagate But that they shall do so is no assertion of mine His Lordship knew I held that after the Resurrection there
shall be at all no wicked men but the Elect all that are have been and hereafter shall be shall live on earth But St. Peter says there shall then be a new Heaven and a new Earth J. D. In summ I leave it to the free judgment of the understanding Reader by these few instances which follow to judge what the Hobbian Principles are in point of Religion Ex ungue leonem First that no man needs to put himself to any hazzard 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 denyed the true God as much in effect as if he had done it with his Lips Alas why did St. Peter Weep so bitterly for denying his Master out of fear of his Life or Members It seems he was not acquainted with these Hobbian Principles And in the same place he layeth down this general Conclusion This we may say that whatsoever a Subject is compelled to in obedience to his 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 Soveraign's nor is it he that in this case denyeth Christ before men but his Governor and the Law of his Country His instance in a Mahometan commanded by a Christian Prince to be present at Divine Service is a weak mistake springing from his gross ignorance in Case-Divinity not knowing to distinguish between an erroneous Conscience as the Mahometans is and a Conscience rightly informed T. H. In these his two first instances I confess his Lordship does not much belye me But neither does he confute me Also I confess my ignorance in his Case-Divinity which is grounded upon the Doctrine of the School-men Who to decide Cases of Conscience take in not only the Scriptures but also the Decrees of the Popes of Rome for the advancing of the Dominion of the Roman Church over Consciences whereas the true decision of Cases of Consciences ought to be grounded only on Scripture or natural Equity I never allowed the denying of Christ with the Tongue in all men but expresly say the contrary Lev. pag. 362. in these words For an unlearned man that is in the power of an Idolatrous King or State if commanded on pain of death to worship before an Idol he detesteth the Idol in his heart he doth well though if he had the fortitude to suffer death rather than worship it he should do better But if a Pastor who as Christ's messenger has undertaken to teach Christ's Doctrine to all Nations should do the same it were not only a sinful scandal in respect of other Christian mens Consciences but a persidious forsaking of his charge Therefore St. Peter in denying Christ sinned as being an Apostle And 't is sin in every man that should now take upon him to preach against the power of the Pope to leave his Commission unexecuted for fear of the fire but in a meer Traveller not so The three Children and Daniel were worthy Champions of the true Religion But God requireth not of every man to be a Champion As for his Lordship's words of complying with the times they are not mine but his own spightful Paraphrase J. D. Thirdly if this be not enough he giveth licence to a Christian to commit Idolatry or at least to do an Idolatrous act for fear of death or corporal danger To pray unto a King voluntarily for fair weather or for any thing which God only can do for us is divine Worship and Idolatry On the other side if a King compel a man to it by the terror of death or other great corporal punishment it is not Idolatry His reason is because it is not a sign that he doth inwardly honour him as a God but that he is desirous to save himself from death or from a miserable life If seemeth T. H. thinketh there is no divine Worship but internal And that it is lawful for a man to value his own life or his limbs more than his God How much is he wiser than the three Children or Daniel himself who were thrown the first into a fiery Furnace the last into the Lions Denn because they refused to comply with the Idolatrous Decree of their Soveraign Prince T. H. Here also my words are truly cited But his Lordship understood not what the word Worship signifies and yet he knew what I meant by it To think highly of God as I had defined it is to honour him But to think is internal To Worship is to signifie that Honour which we inwardly give by signs external This understood as by his Lordship it was all he says to it is but a cavil J. D. A fourth Aphorism may be this That which is said in the Scripture it is better to obey God than man hath place in the Kingdom of God by Pact and not by Nature Why Nature it self doth teach us it is better to obey God than men Neither can he say that he intended this only of obedience in the use of indifferent actions and gestures in the service of God commanded by the Common-wealth 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 T. H. Here again appears his unskilfulness in reasoning Who denyes but it is alwayes and in all causes better to obey God than Man But there is no Law neither divine nor humane that ought to be taken for a Law till we know what it is and if a divine Law till we know that God hath commanded it to be kept We agree that the Scriptures are the Word of God But they are a Law by Pact that is to us who have been Baptized into the Covenant To all others it is an invitation only to their own benefit 'T is true that even nature suggesteth to us that the Law of God is to be obeyed rather than the Law of man But nature does not suggest to us that the Scripture is the Law of God much less how every Text of it ought to be interpreted But who then shall suggest this Dr. Bramhall I deny it Who then The stream of Divines Why so Am I that have the Scripture it self before my eyes obliged to venture my eternal life upon their interpretation how learned soever they pretend to be when no counter-security that they can give me will save me harmless If not the stream of Divines who then
serve their turns I said not that this was their meaning but that I thought it was so For no man living can tell what a School man means by his words Therefore I expounded them according to their true signification Merit ex condigno is when a thing is deserved by Pact as when I say the Labourer is worthy of his hire I mean meritum ex condigno But when a man of his own grace throweth Money among the people with an intention that what part soever of it any of them could catch he that catcheth merits it not by Pact nor by precedent Merit as a Labourer but because it was congruent to the purpose of him that cast it amongst them In all other meaning these words are but Jargon which his Lordship had learnt by rote Also passive obedience signifies nothing except it may be called passive obedience when a man refraineth himself from doing what the Law hath forbidden For in his Lordship's sense the Thief that is hang'd for stealing hath fulfilled the Law which I think is absurd J. D. His whole works are a heap of mishapen Errors and absurd Paradoxes vented with the confidence of a Jugler the brags of a Mountebank 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 Infiniteness of God the Doctrine of the blessed Trinity the Hypostatical Union the Kingly Sacerdotal and Prophetical Office 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 Goodness 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 Ostriches T. H. He here concludes his first Chapter with bitter Reproaches to leave in his Reader as he thought a sting supposing perhaps that he will Read nothing but the beginning and end of his Book as is the custom of many men But to make him lose that petty piece of cunning I must desire of the Reader one of these two things Either that he would read with it the places of my Leviathan which he cites and see not only how he answers my arguments but also what the arguments are which he produceth against them or else that he would forbear to condemn me so much as in his thought for otherwise he is unjust The name of Bishop is of great Authority but these words are not the words of a Bishop but of a passionate School-man too fierce and unseemly in any man whatsoever Besides they are untrue Who that knows me will say I have the confidence of a Jugler or that I use to brag of any thing much less that I play the Mountebank What my works are he was no fit Judge But now he has provoked me I will say thus much of them that neither he if he had lived could nor I if I would can extinguish the light which is set up in the World by the greatest part of them and for these Doctrines which he impugneth I have few opposers but such whose Profit or whose Fame in Learning is concerned in them He accuses me first of destroying the Existence of God that is to say he would make the World believe I were an Atheist But upon what ground Because I say that God is a Spirit but Corporeal But to say that is allowed me by St. Paul that says There is a Spiritual Body and there is an Animal Body 1 Cor. 15. He that holds that there is a God and that God is really somewhat for Body is doubtlesly a real Substance is as far from being an Atheist as is possible to be But he that says God is an Incorporeal Substance no man can be sure whether he be an Atheist or not For no man living can tell whether there be any Substance at all that is not also Corporeal For neither the word Incorporeal nor Immaterial nor any word equivalent to it is to be found in Scripture or in Reason But on the contrary that the Godhead dwelleth bodily in Christ is found in Colos 2.9 and Tertullian maintains that God is either a Corporeal Substance or Nothing Nor was he ever condemned for it by the Church For why Not only Tertullian but all the learned call Body not only that which one can see but also whatsoever has magnitude or that is somewhere for they had greater reverence for the Divine Substance than that they durst think it had no Magnitude or was no where But they that hold God to be a Phantasm as did the Exorcists in the Church of Rome that is such a thing as were at that time thought to be the Sprights that were said to walk in Church-yards and to be the Souls of men buried they do absolutely make God to be nothing at all But how Were they Atheists No. For though by ignorance of the consequence they said that which was equivolent to Atheism yet in their hearts they thought God a Substance and would also if they had known what Substance and what Corporeal meant have said he was a Corporeal Substance So that this Atheism by consequence is a very easie thing to be fallen into even by the most Godly men of the Church He also that says that God is wholly here and wholly there and wholly every where destroys by consequence the Unity of God and the Infiniteness of God and the Simplicity of God And this the Schoolmen do and are therefore Atheists by consequence and yet they do not all say in their hearts that there is no God So also his Lordship by exempting the Will of man from being subject to the necessity of God's Will or Decree denies by consequence the Divine Praescience which also will amount to Atheism by consequence But out of this that God is a Spirit corporeal and infinitely pure there can no unworthy or dishonourable consequence be drawn Thus far to his Lordship's first Chapter in Justification of my Leviathan as to matter of Religion and especially to wipe off that unjust slander cast upon me by the Bishop of Derry As for the second Chapter which concerns my Civil Doctrines since my errors there if there be any will not tend very much to my disgrace I will not take the pains to answer it Whereas his Lordship has talked in his discourse here and there ignorantly of Heresie and some others have not doubted to say publickly that there be many Heresies in my Leviathan I will add hereunto for a general answer an Historical relation concerning the word Heresie from the first use of it amongst the Graecians till this present time FINIS AN Historical Narration CONCERNING HERESIE AND THE Punishment thereof BY
THOMAS HOBBES OF MALMESBURY At veluti Pueri trepidant atque omnia caecis In tenebris metuunt Sic nos in luce timemus Interdum nihilo quae sunt metuenda magis quà m Quae Pueri in tenebris pavitant metuuntque futura Lucr. lib. 2.3 6. LONDON Printed in the Year 1682. Haereseâ—s Larvas Seclarum immania Monstra Hobbius invicto dispulit ingenio AN Historical Narration CONCERNING HERESIE AND THE Punishment thereof THE word Heresie is Greek and signifies a taking of any thing and particularly the taking of an Opinion After the study of Philosophy begun in Greece and the Philosophers disagreeing amongst themselves had started many Questions not only about things Natural but also Moral and Civil because every man took what Opinion he pleased each several Opinion was called a Heresie which signified no more than a private Opinion without reference to truth or falshood The beginners of these Heresies were chiefly Pythagoras Plato Aristotle Epicurus Zeno men who as they held many Errors so also found they out many true and useful Doctrines in all kinds of Learning and for that cause were well esteemed of by the greatest Personages of their own times and so also were some few of their Followers But the rest ignorant men and very often needy Knaves having learned by heart the Opinions of these admir'd Philosophers and pretending to take after them made use thereof to get their Living by the teaching of Rich mens Children that happened to be in love with those great Names Tho' by their impertinent Discourse sordid and ridiculous Manners they were generally despised of what Sect or Heresie soever whether they were Pythagoreans or Academicks Followers of Plato or Peripateticks Followers of Aristotle Epicureans or Stoicks Followers of Zeno For these were the names of Heresies or as the Latines call them Sects à sequendo so much talkt of from after the time of Alexander till this present day and that have perpetually troubled or deceived the people with whom they lived and were never more numerous than in the time of the Primitive Church The Heresie of Aristotle by the Revolutions of time has had the good fortune to be predominant over the rest However originally the name of Heresie was no disgrace nor the word Heretick at all in use Tho' the several Sects especially the Epicureans and the Stoicks hated one another and the Stoicks being the fiercer men used to revile those that differed from them with the most despightful words they could invent It cannot be doubted but that by the preaching of the Apostles and Disciples of Christ in Greece and other parts of the Roman Empire full of these Philosophers many thousands of men were converted to the Christian Faith some really and some feignedly for factious ends or for need for Christians lived then in common and were charitable and because most of these Philosophers had better skill in Disputing and Oratory than the Common people and thereby were better qualified both to defend and propagate the Gospel there is no doubt I say but most of the Pastors of the Primitive Church were for that reason chosen out of the number of these Philosophers who retaining still many Doctrines which they had taken up on the authority of their former Masters whom they had in reverence endeavoured many of them to draw the Scriptures every one to his own Heresie And thus at first entred Heresie into the Church of Christ Yet these men were all of them Christians as they were when they were first baptized Nor did they deny the Authority of those Writings which were left them by the Apostles and Evangelists tho' they interpreted them many times with a bias to their former Philosophy And this Dissention amongst themselves was a great scandal to the Unbelievers and which not only obstructed the way of the Gospel but also drew scorn and greater Persecution upon the Church For remedy whereof the chief Pastors of Churches did use at the rising of any new Opinion to assemble themselves for the examining and determining of the same wherein if the Author of the Opinion were convinced of his Error and subscribed to the Sentence of the Church assembled then all was well again but if he still persisted in it they laid him aside and considered him but as an Heathen man which to an unfeigned Christian was a great Ignominy and of force to make him consider better of his own Doctrine and sometimes brought him to the acknowledgment of the Truth But other punishment they could inflict none that being a right appropriated to the Civil Power So that all the punishment the Church could inflict was only Ignominy and that among the Faithful consisting in this that his company was by all the Godly avoided and he himself branded with the name of Heretick in opposition to the whole Church that condemned his Doctrine So that Catholick and Heretick were terms relative and here it was that Heretick became to be a Name and a name of Disgrace both together The first and most troublesome Heresies in the Primitive Church were about the Trinity For according to the usual curiosity of Natural Philosophers they could not abstain from disputing the very first Principles of Christianity into which they were baptized In the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost Some there were that made them allegorical Others would make one Creator of Good and another of Evil which was in effect to set up two Gods one contrary to another supposing that causation of evil could not be attributed to God without Impiety From which Doctrine they are not far distant that now make the first cause of sinful actions to be every man as to his own sin Others there were that would have God to be a body with Parts organical as Face Hands Fore-parts and Back-parts Others that Christ had no real body but was a meer Phantasm For Phantasms were taken then and have been ever since by unlearned and superstitious men for things real and subsistent Others denyed the Divinity of Christ Others that Christ being God and Man was two Persons Others confest he was one Person and withal that he had but one Nature And a great many other Heresies arose from the too much adherence to the Philosophy of those times whereof some were supprest for a time by St. John's publishing his Gospel and some by their own unreasonableness vanished and some lasted till the time of Constantine the Great and after When Constantine the Great made so by the assistance and valour of the Christian Souldiers had attained to be the only Roman Emperor he also himself became a Christian and caused the Temples of the Heathen Gods to be demolished and authorized Christian Religion only to be publick But towards the latter end of his time there arose a Dispute in the City of Alexandria between Alexander the Bishop and Arius a Presbyter of the same City wherein Arius maintained first That Christ was inferiour to his
likewise Consubstantial in the Nicene Creed is properly said of the Trinity But to an English man that understands neither Greek nor Latin and yet is as much concerned as his Lordship was the word Hypostatical is no less Canting than Eternal now J. D. He alloweth every man who is commanded by his lawful Soveraign to deny Christ with his tongue before men T. H. I allow it in some Cases and to some men which his Lordship knew well enough but would not mention I alledged for it in the place cited both Reason and Scripture though his Lordship thought it not expedient to take notice of either If it be true that I have said why does he blame it If false why offers he no Argument against it neither from Scripture nor from Reason Or why does he not show that the Text I cite is non applicable to the Question or not well interpreted by me First He barely cites it because he thought the words would sound harshly and make a Reader admire them for Impiety But I hope I shall so well instruct my Reader are I leave this place that this his petty Art will have no effect Secondly The Cause why he omitted my Arguments was That he could not answer them Lastly The Cause why he urgeth neither Scripture nor Reason against it was That he saw none sufficient My Argument from Scripture was this Leviathan pag. 271. taken out of 2 Kings 5.17 where Naaman the Syrian saith to Elisha the Prophet Thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt-offering nor sacrifice to other Gods but unto the Lord. In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant that when my Master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there and he leaneth on my hand and I bow my self in the house of Rimmon when I bow my self in the house of Rimmon the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing and he said unto him Go in peace What can be said to this Did not Elisha say it from God Or is not this Answer of the Prophet a permission When St. Paul and St. Peter commanded the Christians of their time to obey their Princes which then were Heathens and Enemies of Christ did they mean they should lose their Lives for disobedience Did they not rather mean they should preserve both their Lives and their Faith believing in Christ as they did by this denial of the tongue having no command to the contrary If in this Kingdom a Mahometan should be made by terror to deny Mahomet and go to Church with us would any man condemn this Mahometan A denyal with the mouth may perhaps be prejudicial to the power of the Church but to retain the Faith of Christ stedfastly in his Heart cannot be prejudicial to his Soul that hath undertaken no charge to preach to Wolves whom they know will destroy them About the time of the Council of Nice there was a Canon made which is extant in the History of the Nicene Council concerning those that being Christians had been seduced not terrified to a denyal of Christ and again repenting desired to be readmitted into the Church in which Canon it was ordain'd that those men should be no otherwise readmitted than to be in the number of the Catechised and not to be admitted to the Communion till a great many years penitence Surely the Church then would have been more merciful to them that did the same upon terror of present death and torments Let us now see what his Lordship might though but colourably have alledged from Scripture against it There be three places only that seem to favour his Lordship's opinion The first is where Peter denyed Christ and weepeth The second is Acts 5.29 Then Peter and the other Apostles answered and said we ought to obey God rather than men The third is Luke 12.9 But he that denyeth me shall be denyed before the Angels of God T. H. For answer to these Texts I must repeat what I have written and his Lordship read in my Leviathan pag. 362. For an unlearned man that is in the power of an Idolatrous King or State if commanded on pain of Death to worship before an Idol doing it he detesteth the Idol in his Heart he doth well though if he had the fortitude to suffer Death rather than worship it he should do better But if a Pastor who as Christ's Messenger has undertaken to teach Christ's Doctrine to all Nations should do the same it were not only a sinful Scandal in respect of other Christian Mens Consciences but a perfidious forsaking of his Charge In which words I distinguish between a Pastor and one of the Sheep of his Flock St. Peter sinned in denying Christ and so does every Pastor that having undertaken the Charge of Preaching the Gospel in the Kingdom of an Infidel where he could expect at the undertaking of his Charge no less than Death And why but because he violates his Trust in doing contrary to his Commission St. Peter was an Apostle of Christ and bound by his voluntary undertaking of that Office not only to Confess Christ but also to Preach him before those Infidels whom he knew would like Wolves devour him And therefore when Paul and the rest of the Apostles were forbidden to preach Christ they gave this Answer We ought to obey God rather than Men. And it was to his Disciples only which had undertaken that Office that Christ saith he that denyeth me before Men shall be denyed before the Angels of God And so I think I have sufficiently answered this place and shewed that I do not allow the denying of Christ upon any colour of Torments to his Lordship nor to any other that has undertaken the Office of a Preacher Which if he think right he will perhaps in this case put himself into the number of those whom he calls merciful Doctors whereas now he extends his severity beyond the bounds of common equity He has read Cicero and perhaps this Story in him The Senate of Rome would have sent Cicero to treat of Peace with Marcus Antonius but when Cicero had shewed them the just fear he had of being killed by him he was excused and if they had forced him to it and he by terror turned Enemy to them he had in equity been excusable But his Lordship I believe did write this more valiantly than he would have acted it J. D. He Deposeth Christ from his true Kingly Office making his Kingdom not to Commence or begin before the day of Judgment And the Regiment wherewith Christ Governeth his Faithful in this Life is not properly a Kingdom but a Pastoral Office or a right to Teach And a little after Christ had not Kingly Authority committed to him by his Father in this World but only Consiliary and Doctrinal T. H. How do I take away Christs Kingly Office He neither draws it by Consequence from my Words nor offers any Argument at all against my Doctrine The words he cites are in the Contents of
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
Contradictories to be true together T. H. There is no doubt but by what Authority the Scripture or any other Writing is made a Law by the same Authority the Scriptures are to be interpreted or else they are made Law in vain But to obey is one thing to believe is another which distinction perhaps his Lordship never heard of To obey is to do or forbear as one is commanded and depends on the Will but to believe depends not on the Will but on the providence and guidance of our hearts that are in the hands of God Almighty Laws only require obedience Belief requires Teachers and Arguments drawn either from Reason or from some thing already believed Where there is no reason for our Belief there is no reason we should believe The reason why men believe is drawn from the Authority of those men whom we have no just cause to mistrust that is of such men to whom no profit accrues by their deceiving us and of such men as never used to lye or else from the Authority of such men whose Promises Threats and Affirmations we have seen confirmed by God with Miracles If it be not from the Kings Authority that the Scripture is Law what other Authority makes it Law Here some man being of his Lordships judgment will perhaps laugh and say 't is the Authority of God that makes them Law I grant that But my question is on what Authority they believe that God is the Author of them Here his Lordship would have been at a Nonplus and turning round would have said the Authority of the Scripture makes good that God is their Author If it be said we are to believe the Scripture upon the Authority of the Universal Church why are not the Books we call Apocrypha the Word of God as well as the rest If this Authority be in the Church of England then it is not any other than the Authority of the Head of the Church which is the King For without the Head the Church is mute the Authority therefore is in the King which is all that I contended for in this point As to the Laws of the Gentiles concerning Religion in the Primitive times of the Church I confess they were contrary to Christian Faith But none of their Laws nor Terrors nor a mans own Will are able to take away Faith though they can compel to an external obedience and though I may blame the Ethnick Princes for compelling men to speak what they thought not yet I absolve not all those that have had the Power in Christian Churches from the same fault For I believe since the time of the first four General Councels there have been more Christians burnt and killed in the Christian Church by Ecclesiastical Authority than by the Heathen Emperors Laws for Religion only without Sedition All that the Bishop does in this Argument is but a heaving at the Kings Supremacy Oh but says he if two Kings interpret a place of Scripture in contrary sences it will follow that both sences are true It does not follow For the interpretation though it be made by just Authority must not therefore always be true If the Doctrine in the one sence be necessary to Salvation then they that hold the other must dye in their sins and be Damned But if the Doctrine in neither sence be necessary to Salvation then all is well except perhaps that they will call one another Atheists and fight about it J. D. All the power vertue use and efficacy which he ascribeth to the Holy Sacraments is to be signs or commemorations As for any sealing or confirming or conferring of Grace he acknowledgeth nothing The same he saith particularly of Baptism Upon which grounds a Cardinals red Hat or a Serjeant at Arms his Mace may be called Sacraments as well as Baptism or the holy Eucharist if they be only signs and commemorations of a benefit If he except that Baptism and the Eucharist are of Divine institution But a Cardinals red Hat or a Serjeant at Arms his Mace are not He saith truly but nothing to his advantage or purpose seeing he deriveth all the Authority of the Word and Sacraments in respect of Subjects and all our obligation to them from the Authority of the Soveraign Magistrate without which these words repent and be Baptized in the name of Jesus are but Counsel no Command And so a Serjeant at Arms his Mace and Baptism proceed both from the same Authority And this he saith upon this filly ground That nothing is a Command the performance whereof tendeth to our own benefit He might as well deny the Ten Commandments to be Commands because they have an advantagious promise annexed to them Do this and thou shalt live And Cursed is every one that continueth not in all the words of this Law to do them T. H. Of the Sacraments I said no more than that they are Signs or Commemorations He finds fault that I add not Seals Confirmations and that they confer grace First I would have asked him if a Seal be any thing else besides a Sign whereby to remember somewhat as that we have promised accepted acknowledged given undertaken somewhat Are not other Signs though without a Seal of force sufficient to convince me or oblige me A Writing obligatory or Release signed only with a mans name is as Obligatory as a Bond signed and sealed if it be sufficiently proved though peradventure it may require a longer Process to obtain a Sentence but his Lordship I think knew better than I do the force of Bonds and Bills yet I know this that in the Court of Heaven there is no such difference between saying signing and sealing as his Lordship seemeth here to pretend I am Baptized for a Commemoration that I have enrolled my self I take the Sacrament of the Lords Supper to Commemorate that Christ's Body was broken and his Blood shed for my redemption What is there more intimated concerning the nature of these Sacraments either in the Scripture or in the Book of Common-Prayer Have Bread and Wine and Water in their own Nature any other Quality than they had before the Consecration It is true that the Consecration gives these bodies a new Relation as being a giving and dedicating of them to God that is to say a making of them Holy not a changing of their Quality But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken English to be thought perfect in the French language so his Lordship I think to seem a perfect understander of the unintelligible language of the Schoolmen pretends an ignorance of his Mother Tongue He talks here of Command and Counsel as if he were no English man nor knew any difference between their significations What English man when he commandeth says more than Do this yet he looks to be obeyed if obedience be due unto him But when he says Do this and thou shalt have such or such a Reward he encourages him or advises him or
them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for Honour Glory and Immortality Eternal Life But unto them that be contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath Here it is plain that God gives Eternal Life only to well doers and to them that seek not to them that have already Immortality Again 1 Tim. 1.10 Christ hath abolished Death and brought Life and Immortality to light through the Gospel Therefore before the Gospel of Christ nothing was Immortal but God And St. Paul speaking of the day of Judgment 1 Cor. 15.54 saith that This Mortal shall put on Immortality and that then Death is swallowed in Victory There was no Immortality of any thing Mortal till Death was overcome and that was at the Resurrection And John 8.52 Verily Verily if a man keep my sayings he shall never see Death that is to say he shall be Immortal but it is no where said that he which keeps not Christ's sayings shall never see Death nor be Immortal and yet they that say that the wicked Body and Soul shall be tormented everlastingly do therein say they are Immortal Mat. 10.28 Fear not them that can kill the Body but are not able to kill the Soul but fear him that is able to destroy both Soul and Body in Hell Man cannot kill a Soul for the Man kill'd shall revive again But God can destroy the Soul and Body in Hell as that it shall never return to life In the Old Testament we read Gen. 7.4 I will destroy every living Substance that I have made from off the face of the Earth therefore if the Souls of them that perished in the Flood were Substances they were also destroyed in the Flood and were not Immortal Math. 25.41 Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels These words are to be spoken in the day of Judgment which Judgment is to be in the Clouds And there shall stand the men that are reprobated alive where Souls according to his Lordships Doctrine were sent long before to Hell Therefore at that present day of Judgment they had one Soul by which they were there alive and another Soul in Hell How his Lordship could have maintained this I understand not But by my Doctrine that the Soul is not a separated Substance but that the Man at his Resurrection shall be revived by God and raised to Judgment and afterwards Body and Soul destroyed in Hell-fire which is the second death there is no such consequence or difficulty to be inferred Besides it avoids the unnecessary disputes about where the Soul of Lazarus was for four dayes he lay dead And the order of the Divine Process is made good of not inflicting torments before the Condemnation pronounced Now as to the harmony of the two Testaments it is said in the old Gen. 2.17 In the day that thou eatest of the Tree of Knowledge dying thou shalt dye Moriendo morieris that is when thou art dead thou shalt not revive for so hath Athanasius expounded it Therefore Adam and Eve were not Immortal by their Creation Then Gen. 3.22 Behold the man is become as one of us Now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the Tree of Life and eat and live for ever c. Here they had had an Immortality by the gift of God if they had not sinned It was therefore sin that lost them Eternal-life He therefore that redeemed them from sin was the Author of their Immortality and consequently began in the day of Judgment when Adam and Eve were again made alive by admission to the new Tree of Life which was Christ Now let us compare this with the New Testament Where we find these words 1 Cor. 15.21 since by Man came Death by Man came also the Resurrection of the dead Therefore all the Immortality of the Soul that shall be after the Resurrection is by Christ and not by the nature of the Soul verse 22. As by Adam all dye even so in Christ shall all be made alive Therefore since we dyed by Adam's sin so we shall live by Christ's Redemption of us that is after the Resurrection Again verse 23. But every man in his order Christ the first Fruits afterwards they that are Christs at his coming Therefore none shall be made alive till the coming of Christ Lastly as when God had said That day that thou eatest of the Tree of Knowledg of Good and Evil thou shalt dye though he condemned him then yet he suffered him to live a long time after so when Christ had said to the Thief on the Cross this day thou shalt be with me in Paradise yet he suffered him to lye dead till the General Resurrection for no man rose again from the dead before our Saviours coming and conquering death If God bestowed Immortality on every man then when he made him and he made many to whom he never purposed to give his saving Grace what did his Lordship think that God gave any man Immortality with purpose only to make him capable of Immortal Torments 'T is a hard saying and I think cannot piously be believed I am sure it can never be proved by the Canonical Scripture But though I have made it clear that it cannot be drawn by lawful consequence from Scripture that Man was Created with a Soul Immortal and that the Elect only by the Grace of God in Christ shall both Bodies and Souls from the Resurrection forward be Immortal yet there may be a Consequence well drawn from some words in the Rites of Burial that prove the contrary as these Forasmuch as it hath pleased Abmighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the Soul of our dear Brother here departed c. And these Almighty God with whom do live the Spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord. Which are words Authorised by the Church I wonder his Lordship that had so often pronounced them took no notice of them here But it often happens that men think of those things least which they have most perfectly learnt by rote I am sorry I could not without deserting the sence of Scripture and mine own Conscience say the same But I see no just cause yet why the Church should be offended at it For the Church of England pretendeth not as doth the Church of Rome to be above the Scripture nor forbiddeth any man to Read the Scripture nor was I forbidden when I Wrote my Leviathan to Publish any thing which the Scriptures suggested For when I Wrote it I may safely say there was no lawful Church in England that could have maintained me in or prohibited me from Writing any thing There was no Bishop and though there were Preaching such as it was yet no Common-Prayer For Extemporary Prayer though made in the Pulpit is not Common-Prayer There was then no Church in England that any man living was bound to obey What I Write here at this
credit As to that I say An Atheist is punished by God not as a Subject by his King but as an Enemy and to my argument for it namely because he never acknowledged himself Gods Subject He opposeth That if nature dictate that there is a God and to be worshiped in such and such manner then Atheism is not a sin of meer ignorance as if either I or he did hold that Nature dictates the manner of Gods Worship or any article of our Creed or whether to worship with or without a Surplice Secondly he answers that a Rebel is still a Subject de Jure though not de Facto And 't is granted But though the King lose none of his right by the Traytors act yet the Traytor loseth the priviledg of being punisht by a praecedent Law and therefore may be punish'd at the Kings will as Ravillac was for murdering Henry the 4th of France An open Enemy and a perfidious Traytor are both enemies Had not his Lordship read in the Roman story how Perseus and other just enemies of that State were wont to be punished But what is this trifling question to my excusing of Atheism In the seventh Paragraph of my Book de Cive he found the words in Latin which he here citeth And to the same sense I have said in my Leviathan That the right of nature whereby God raigneth over men is to be derived not from his creating them as if he required obedience as of Gratitude but from his irresistable Power This he says is absurd and dishonourable Whereas first all power is honourable and greatest power is most honourable It is not a more noble tenure for a King to hold his Kingdom and the right to punish those that transgress his Laws from his Power than from the gratitude or gift of the Transgressor There is nothing therefore here of dishonour to God Almighty But see the subtility of his disputing He saw he could not catch Leviathan in this place he looks for him in my Book de Cive which is Latine to try what he could fish out of that And says I make our obedience to God depend upon our weakness as if these words signified the Dependence and not the necessity of our submission or that incumbere and dependere were all one J. D. 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 denieth the Ubiquity of God A Circumscriptive a Definitive and a Repletive being in a place is some heathen language to him T. H. Though I believe the Omnipotence of God and that he can do what he will yet I dare not say how every thing is done because I cannot conceive nor comprehend either the Divine substance or the way of its operation And I think it Impiety to speak concerning God any thing of my own head or upon the Authority of Philosophers or School-men which I understand not without warrant in the Scripture And what I say of Omnipotence I say also of Ubiquity But his Lordship is more valiant in this place telling us that God is wholly here and wholly there and wholly every where because he has no parts I cannot comprehend nor conceive this For methinks it implies also that the whole World is also in the whole God and in every part of God nor can I conceive how any thing can be called Whole which has no parts nor can I find any thing of this in the Scripture If I could find it there I could believe it and if I could find it in the publick Doctrine of the Church I could easily abstain from contradicting it The School-men say also that the Soul of Man meaning his upper Soul which they call the rational Soul is also wholly in the whole man and wholly in every part of the man What is this but to make the humane Soul the same thing in respect of mans Body that God is in respect of the World These his Lordship calls here rational men and some of them which applaud this Doctrine would have the High Court of Parliament corroborate such Doctrines with a Law I said in my Leviathan that it is no honourable attribute to God to say he is in a place because infinite is not confined within a place To which he replies T. H. his God is not wholly every where I confess the consequence For I understand in English he that says any thing to be all here means that neither all nor any of the same thing is else where He says further I â—ake a Circumscriptive a Definitive and a Repletive being in a place to be Heathen Language Truly if this Dispute were at â—he Bar I should go near to crave the asistance of the Court lest some trick might be put upon me in such obscurity â—or though I know what these Latin words singly signifie yet I understand not â—ow any thing is in a Place Definitively and not Circumscriptively For Definitively comes from definio which is to set bounds And therefore to be in a Place Definitively is when the bounds of the place are every way marked out But to be in a place Circumscriptively is when the bounds of the place are described round about To be in a Place Repletive is to fill a place Who does not see that this dictinction is Canting and Fraud If any man will call it Pious Fraud he is to prove the Piety as clearly as I have here explained the Fraud Besides no Fraud can be Pious in any man but him that hath a lawful Right to govern him whom he beguileth whom the Bishop pretends to govern I cannot tell Besides his Lordship ought to have considered that every Bishop is one of the Great Councel trusted by the King to give their advice with the Lords Temporal for the making of good Laws Civil and Ecclesiastical and not to offer them such obscure Doctrines as if because they are not versed in School-divinity therefore they had no Learning at all nor understood the English Tongue Why did the Divines of England contend so much heretofore to have the Bible translated into English if they never meant any but themselves should read it If a Lay-man be publickly encouraged to search the Scriptures for his own
Salvation what has a Divine to do to impose upon him any strange interpretation unless if he make him err to Damnation he will be damned in his stead J. D. Our God is immutable without any shadow of turning by change to whom all things are present nothing past nothing to come But T. H. his God is measured by time losing somthing that is past and acquiring somthing that doth come every minute That is as much as to say That our God is infinite and his God is finite for unto that which is actually infinite nothing can be added neither time nor parts Hear himself Nor do I understand what derogation it can be to the divine perfection to attribute to it Potentiality that is in English Power so little doth he understand what Potentiality is and successive duration And he chargeth it upon us as a fault that will not have eternity to be an endless succession of time How successive duration and an endless succession of time in God Then God is infinite then God is elder to day than he was yesterday Away with Blasphemies Before he destroyed the Ubiquity of God and now he destroyeth his Eternity T. H. I shall omit both here and henceforth his preambulatory impertinent and uncivil calumnies The thing he pretends to prove is this That it is a derogation to the Divine Power to attribute to it Potentiality that is in English Power and Successive Duration One of his reasons is God is infinite and nothing can be added to infinite neither of time nor of parts It is true And therefore I said God is infinite and eternal without beginning or end either of Time or Place which he has not here confuted but confirmed He denies Potentiality and Power to be all one and says I little understand what Potentiality is He ought therefore in this place to have defined what Potenality is For I understand it to be the same with Potentia which is in English Power There is no such word as Potentiality in the Scriptures nor in any Author of the Latin Tongue It is found only in School-Divinity as a word of Art or rather as a word of Craft to amaze and puzzle the Laity And therefore I no sooner read than intepreted it In the next place he says as wondring How an endless succession of time in God! Why not Gods mercy endureth for ever and surely God endureth as long as his mercy therefore there is duration in God and consequently endless succession of time God who in sundry times and divers manners spake in time past c. But in a former dispute with me about Free-will he hath defined Eternity to be Nuno stans that is an ever standing now or everlasting instant This he thinks himself bound in honour to defend What reasonable soul can digest this We read in Scripture that a thousand years with God is but as yesterday And why but because he sees as clearly to the end of a thousand years as to the end of a day But his Lordship affirms That both a thousand years and a day are but one instant the same standing Now or Eternity If he had shewed an holy Text for this Doctrine or any Text of the Book of Common Prayer in the Scripture and Book of Common Prayer is contained all our Religion I had yielded to him but School-Divinity I value little or nothing at all Though in this he contradict also the School-men who say the Soul is eternal only à parte post but God is eternal both à parte post and à parte ante Thus there are parts in eternity and eternity being as his Lordship says the divine substance the divine substance has parts and Nunc stans has parts Is not this darkness I take it to be the Kingdom of Darkness and the teachers of it especially of this Doctrine That God who is not only Optimus but also Maximus is no greater than to be wholly contained in the least Atome of earth or other body and that his whole duration is but an instant of time to be either grosly ignorant or ungodly Deceivers J. D. Our God is a perfect pure simple indivisible infinite Essence free from all composition of matter and form of substance and accidents All matter is finite and he who acteth by his infinite Essence needeth neither Organs nor Faculties id est no power note that nor accidents to render him more compleat But T. H. his God is a divisible God a compounded God that hath matter or qualities or accidents Hear himself I argue thus The divine substance is indivisible but eternity is the divine substance The Major is evident because God is Actus simplicissimus the Minor is confessed by all men that whatsoever is attributed to God is God Now listen to his answer The Major is so far from being evident that Actus simplicissimus signifieth nothing The Minor is said by some men thought by no man whatsoever is thought is understood The Major was this The divine substance is indivisible Is this far from being evident Either it is indivisible or divisible If it be not indivisible then it is divisible then it is materiate then it is corporeal then it hath parts then it is finite by his own confession Habere partes aut esse totum aliquid sunt attributa finitorum Upon this silly conceit he chargeth me for saying That God is not just but justice it self not eternal but eternity it self which he calleth unseemly words to be said of God And he thinketh he doth me a great courtesie in not adding Blasphemous and Atheistical But his Bolts are so soon shot and his Reasons are such vain Imaginations and such drowsie Phantasies that no sad man doth much regard them Thus he hath already destroyed the Ubiquity the Eternity and the Simplicity of God I wish he had considered better with himself before he had desperately cast himself upon these Rocks But paulo majora canamus my next charge is That he destroys the very being of God and leaves nothing in his place but an empty name For by taking away all incorporeal substances he taketh away God himself The very name saith he of an incorporeal substance is a Contradiction And to say that an Angel or Spirit is an incorporeal substance is to say in effect that there is no Angel or Spirit at all By the same reason to say That God is an incorporeal substance is to say there is no God at all Either God is incorporeal or he is finite and consists of parts and consequently is no God This That there is no incorporeal spirit is that main root of Atheism from which so many lesser branches are daily sprouting up T. H. God is indeed a Perfect Pure Simple Infinite Substance and his Name incommunicable that is to say not divisible into this and that individual God in such manner as the name of Man is divisible into Peter and John And therefore God is individual which word amongst