speaking the thing understood or named is called Hypostasis in respect of the name so also a Body coloured is the Hypostasis Substance and Subject of the colour and in like manner of all its other Accidents Essence and all other abstract names are words artificial belonging to the Art of Logick and signifies only the manner how we consider the Substance it self And of this I have spoken sufficiently in Pag. 371.372 of my Leviathan Body Lat. Corpus Grae. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is that Substance which hath Magnitude indeterminate and is the same with Corporeal Substance but A Body is that which hath Magnitude determinate and consequently is understood to be totum or integrum aliquid Pure and Simple Body is Body of one and the same kind in every part throughout and if mingled with Body of another kind though the total be compounded or mixt the parts nevertheless retain their simplicity as when water and wine are mixt the parts of both kinds retain their simplicity For water and wine cannot both be in one and the same place at once Matter is the same with Body But never without respect to a Body which is made thereof Form is the aggregate of all Accidents together for which we give the Matter a new name so Albedo whiteness is the Form of Album or white Body So also Humanity is the Essence of man and Deity the Essence of Deus Spirit is Thin Fluid Transparent Invisible Body The word in Latin signifies Breath Aire Wind and the like In Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiro Flo. I have seen and so have many more two waters one of the River the other a Mineral Water so like that no man could discern the one from the other by his sight yet when they have been both put together the whole substance could not by the eye be distinguished from milk Yet we know that the one was not mixt with the other so as every part of the one to be in every part of the other for that is impossible unless two Bodies can be in the the same place How then could the change be made in every part but only by the Activity of the Mineral water changing it every where to the Sense and yet not being every where and in every part of the water If then such gross Bodies have so great Activity what shall we think of Spirits whose kinds be as many as there be kinds of Liquor and Activity greater Can it then be doubted but that God who is an infinitely fine Spirit and withall intelligent can make and change all species and kinds of Body as he pleaseth but I dare not say that this is the way by which God Almighty worketh because it is past my apprehension yet it serves very well to demonstrate that the Omnipotence of God implieth no contradiction and is better than by pretence of magnifying the fineness of the divine Substance to reduce it to a Spright or Phantasm which is Nothing A Person Lat. Persona signifies an intelligent Substance that acteth any thing in his own or anothers Name or by his own or anothers Authority Of this Definition there can be no other proof than from the use of that word in such Latin Authors as were esteem'd the most skilful in their own Language of which number was Cicero But Cicero in an Epistle to Atticus saith thus Vnus sustineo tres Personas Mei Adversarii Judicis That is I that am but one man sustain three Persons mine own Person the Person of my Adversary and the Person of the Judge Cicero was here the Substance intelligent one man and because he pleaded for himself he calls himself his own Person and again because he pleaded for his Adversary he says he sustained the Person of his Adversary and lastly because he himself gave the Sentence he says he sustained the Person of the Judge In the same sence we use the word in English vulgarly calling him that acteth by his own Authority his own Person and him that acteth by the Authority of another the Person of that other And thus we have the exact meaning of the word Person The Greek Tongue cannot render it for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is properly a Face and Metaphorically a Vizard of an Actor upon the Stage How then did the Greek Fathers render the word Person as it is in the blessed Trinity Not well Instead of the word Person they put Hypostasis which signifies Substance from whence it might be inferr'd that the three Persons in the Trinity are three divine Substances that is three Gods The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they could not use because Face and Vizard are neither of them honourable Attributes of God nor explicative of the meaning of the Greek Church Therefore the Latin and consequently the English Church renders Hypostasis every where in Athanasius his Creed by Person But the word Hypostatical Vnion is rightly retained and used by Divines as being the Union of two Hypostases that is of two Substances or Natures in the Person of Christ. But seeing they also hold the Soul of our Saviour to be a Substance which though separated from his Body subsisted nevertheless in it self and consequently before it was separated from his Body upon the Cross was a distinct Nature from his Body how will they avoid this Objection That then Christ had three Natures three Hypostases without granting that his Resurrection was a new vivification and not a return of his Soul out of Heaven into the Grave The contrary is not determined by the Church Thus far in explication of the words that occur in this Controversie Now I return again to his Lordship's Discourse J. D. When they have taken away all incorporeal Spirits what do they leave God himself to be He who is the Fountain of all Being from whom and in whom all Creatures have their Being must needs have a real Being of his own And what real Being can God have among Bodies and Accidents for they have left nothing else in the Universe Then T. H. may move the same Question of God which he did of Devils I would gladly know in what Classis of Entities the Bishop ranketh God Infinite Being and participated Being are not of the same nature Yet to speak according to humane apprehension apprehension and comprehension differ much T. H. confesseth that natural Reason doth dictate to us that God is Infinite yet natural Reason cannot comprehend the Infiniteness of God I place him among incorporeal Substances or Spirits because he hath been pleased to place himself in that rank God is a Spirit Of which place T. H. giveth his opinion that it is unintelligible and all others of the same nature and fall not under humane understanding They who deny all incorporeal Substances can understand nothing by God but either Nature not Naturam naturantem that is a real Author of Nature but Naturam naturatam that is the orderly
that they fell in hand with the work so quickly For the first Rector of the University of Paris as I have read somewhere was Peter Lombard who first brought in them the Learning called School-Divinity and was seconded by John Scot of Duns who lived in or near the same time whom any ingenious Reader not knowing what was the Design would judge to have been two the most egregious Blockheads in the World so obscure and senseless are their Writings And from these the School-men that succeeded learnt the trick of imposing what they list upon their Readers and declining the force of true Reason by Verbal Forkes I mean Distinctions that signifie nothing but serve only to astonish the multitude of ignorant Men. As for the understanding Readers they were so few that these new sublime Doctors cared not what they thought These School men were to make good all the Articles of Faith which the Popes from time to time should command to be believ'd amongst which there were very many inconsistent with the Rights of Kings and other Civil Sovereigns as asserting to the Pope all Authority whatsoever they should declare to be necessary in ordine ad spiritualia that is to say in order to Religion From the Universities also it was That all Preachers proceeded and were poured out into City and Country to terrifie the People into an absolute obedience to the Pope's Canons and Commands which for fear of wakening Kings and Princes too much they durst not yet call Laws From the Universities it was That the Philosophy of Aristotle was made an Ingredient to Religion as serving for a Salve to a great many of absurd Articles concerning the Nature of Christ's Body and the Estate of Angels and Saints in Heaven which Articles they thought fit to have believed because they bring some of them profit and others reverence to the Clergy even to the meanest of them for when they shall have made the People believe that the meanest of them can make the Body of Christ who is there that will not both shew them reverence and be liberal to them or to the Church especially in the time of their sickness when they think they make and bring unto them their Saviour B. But what advantage to them in these Impostures was the Doctrine of Aristotle A. They have made more use of his obscurity than of his Doctrine for none of the Ancient Philosophers Writings are comparable to those of Aristotle for their aptness to puzzle and entangle men with words and to breed Disputation which must at last be ended in the Determination of the Church of Rome and yet in the Doctrine of Aristotle they made use of many Points as first the Doctrine of seperated Essences B. What are seperated Essences A. Seperated Beings B. Seperated from what A. From every thing that is B. I cannot understand the Being of any thing which I understand not to be but what can they make of that A. Very much in questions concerning the Nature of God and concerning the Estate of Man's Soul after death in Heaven Hell and Purgatory by which you and every man knows how great obedience and how much Money they gain from the Common People Whereas Aristotle holdeth the Soul of Man to be the first giver of motion to the Body and consequently to it self they make use of that in the Doctrine of Free-will what and how they gain by that I will not say He holdeth forth that there be many things that come to pass in this World from no necessity of Causes but meer Contingency Casualty and Fortune B. Methinks in this they make God stand idle and to be a meer Spectator of the Games of Fortune for what God is the cause of must needs come to pass and in my opinion nothing else But because there must be some ground for the Justice of the Eternal Torment of the damned perhaps it is this that mens Wills and Propensions are not they think in the Hands of God but of themselves and in this also I see somewhat conducing to the Authority of the Church A. This is not much nor was Aristotle of such credit with them but that when his Opinion was against theirs they could slight him Whatsoever he says is impossible in nature they can prove well enough to be possible from the Almighty Power of God who can make many Bodies to be in one and the self-same place and one Body to be in many places at the same time if the Doctrine of Transubstantiation require it though Aristotle deny it I like not the Design of drawing Religion into an Art whereas it ought to be a Law and though not the same in all Countries yet in every Country undisputable nor that they teach it not as Arts ought to be taught by shewing first the meaning of their Terms and then deriving from them the truth they would have us believe nor that their Terms are for the most part unintelligible though to make it seem rather want of Learning in the Reader than want of fair dealing in themselves They are for the most part Latin and Greek words wryed a little at the point towards the Native Language of the several Countries where they are used But that which is most intolerable is that all Clerks are forced to make as if they believed them if they mean to have any Church-preferment the Keys whereof are in the Pope's Hands and the Common People whatsoever they believe of those subtile Doctrines are never esteemed better Sons of the Church for their Learning There is but one way there to Salvation that is extraordinary Devotion and Liberality to the Church and readiness for the Churches sake if it be requir'd to fight against their Natural and Lawful Sovereigns B. I see what use they make of Aristotle's Logick Physicks and Metaphysicks but I see not yet how his Politicks can serve their turn A. Nor I. It has I think done them no good though it has done us here much hurt by accident for men grown weary at last of the Insolence of the Priests and examining the truth of these Doctrines that were put upon them began to search the sense of the Scriptures as they are in the learned Languages and consequently studying Greek and Latin became acquainted with the Democratical Principles of Aristotle and Cicero and from the love of their Eloquence fell in love with their Politicks and that more and more till it grew into the Rebellion we now talk of without any other advantage to the Roman Church but that it was a weakening to us whom since we broke out of their Net in the time of Henry the 8 th they have continually endeavoured to recover B. What have they gotten by the teaching of Aristotle's Ethicks A. It is some advantage to them that neither the Morals of Aristotle nor of any other have done them any harm nor us any good Their Doctrines have caused a great deal of dispute concerning Vertue and Vice
there no particular instance of action or words out of which they argued that endeavour of his to subvert the fundamental Laws of Parliament whereof they accused him A Yes they said he gave the King counsel to reduce the Parliament to their Duty by the Irish Army which not long before my Lord of Strafford himself had caused to be Levied there for the King's Service but it was never proved against him that he advised the King to use it against the Parliament B. What are those Laws that are called fundamental for I understand not how one Law can be more fundamental than another except only that Law of Nature that binds us all to obey him whosoever he be whom lawfully and for our own safety we have promised to obey nor any other fundamental Law to a King but Salus Populi the safety and well-being of his People A. This Parliament in the use of their words when they accused any man never regarded the signification of them but the weight they had to aggravate their accusation to the ignorant multitude which think all faults hainous that are express'd in hainous terms if they hate the Person accus'd as they did this man not only for being of the King's Party but also for deserting the Parliaments Party as an Apostate B. I pray you tell me also what they meant by Arbitrary Government which they seemed so much to hate Is there any Governour of a People in the World that is forced to govern them or forced to make this and that Law whether he will or no I think not or if any be he that forces him does certainly make Laws and govern arbitrarily A. That 's true and the true meaning of the Parliament was that not the King but they themselves should have the Arbitrary Government not only of England but of Ireland and as it appeared by the event of Scotland also B. How the King came by the Government of Scotland and Ireland by descent from his Ancestors every body can tell but if the King of England and his Heirs should chance which God forbid to fail I cannot imagine what Title the Parliament of England can acquire thereby to either of those Nations A. Yes they 'l say they had been conquer'd anciently by the English Subjects Money B. Like enough and suitable to the rest of their impudence A. Impudence in Democratical Assemblies does almost all that 's done 't is the Goddess of Rhetorick and carries proof with it for what ordinary man will not from so great boldness of affirmation conclude there is great probability in the thing affirmed Upon this Accusation he was brought to his Tryal in Westminster-Hall before the House of Lords and found guilty and presently after declared Traitor by a Bill of Attainder that is by Act of Parliament B. It is a strange thing that the Lords should be induced upon so light grounds to give a Sentence or give their Assent to a Bill so prejudicial to themselves and their Posterity A. 'T was not well done and yet as it seems not ignorantly for there is a Clause in the Bill that it should not be taken hereafter for an example that is for a prejudice in the like Case hereafter B. That 's worse than the Bill it self and is a plain Confession that their Sentence was unjust for what harm is there in the Examples of just Sentences Besides if hereafter the like Case should happen the Sentence is not at all made weaker by such a Provision A. Indeed I believe that the Lords most of them were not of themselves willing to condemn him of Treason they were awed to it by the clamor of Common People that came to Westminster crying out Justice Justice against the Earl of Strafford the which were caused to flock thither by some of the House of Commons that were well assur'd after the triumphant welcome of Prin Burton and Bastwick to put the People into tumult upon any occasion they desir'd They were awed unto it partly also by the House of Commons it self which if it desir'd to undo a Lord had no more to do but to vote him a Delinquent B. A Delinquent what 's that A Sinner is 't not Did they mean to undo all Sinners A. By Delinquent they meant only a Man to whom they would do all the hurt they could but the Lords did not yet I think suspect they meant to cashiere their whole House B. It 's a strange thing the whole House of Lords should not perceive that the ruin of the King's Power and the weakening of it was the ruin or weakening of themselves for they could not think it likely that the People ever meant to take the Sovereignty from the King to give it to them who were few in number and less in power than so many Commoners because less beloved by the People A. But it seems not so strange to me for the Lords for their personal abilities as they were no less so also they were no more skilful in the Publick Affairs than the Knights and Burgesses for there is no reason to think that if one that is to day a Knight of the Shire in the Lower House be to morrow made a Lord and a Member of the Higher House is therefore wiser than he was before They are all of both Houses prudent and able Men as any in the Land in the business of their private Estates which require nothing but diligence and natural Wit to govern them but for the Government of a Common-wealth neither wit nor prudence nor diligence is enough without infallible Rules and the true Science of Equity and Justice B. If this be true it is impossible any Common-wealth in the World whether Monarchy Aristocratie or Democratie should continue long without change or Sedition tending to change either of the Government or of the Governors A. 'T is true nor have any the greatest Common-wealths in the World been long free from Sedition The Greeks had for a while their petty Kings and then by Sedition came to be petty Common-wealths and then growing to be greater Common-wealths by Sedition again became Monarchies and all for want of Rules of Justice for the Common People to take notice of which if the People had known in the beginning of every of these Seditions the Ambitious Persons could never had the hope to disturb their Government after it had been once setled for Ambition can do little without hands and few hands it would have if the Common People were as diligently instructed in the true Principles of their Duty as they are terrified and amazed by Preachers with fruitless and dangerous Doctrines concerning the Nature of Man's Will and many other Philosophical Points that tend not at all to the salvation of the Soul in the World to come nor to their ease in this life but only to the direction towards the Clergy of that Duty which they ought to perform to the King B. For ought I see all the States of
concourse of natural Causes as T. H. seemeth to intimate or a fiction of the Brain without real Being cherished for advantage and politick Ends as a profitable Error howsoever dignified with the glorious title of the eternal Cause of all things T. H. To his Lordship's Question here What I leave God to be I answer I leave him to be a most pure simple invisible Spirit Corporeal By Corporeal I mean a Substance that has Magnitude and so mean all learned men Divines and others though perhaps there be some common people so rude as to call nothing Body but what they can see and feel To his second Question What real Being he can have amongst Bodies and Accidents I answer The Being of a Spirit not of a Spright If I should ask any the most subtil Distinguisher what middle nature there were between an infinitely subtil Substance and a meer Thought or Phantasm by what Name could he call it He might call it perhaps an Incorporeal Substance and so Incorporeal shall pass for a middle nature between Infinitely subtil and Nothing and be less subtil than Infinitely subtil and yet more subtil than a thought 'T is granted he says that the Nature of God is incomprehensible Doth it therefore follow that we may give to the divine Substance what negative Name we please Because he says the whole divine Substance is here and there and every where throughout the World and that the Soul of a man is here and there and every where throughout man's Body must we therefore take it for a Mystery of Christian Religion upon his or any Schoolman's word without the Scripture which calls nothing a Mystery but the Incarnation of the eternal God Or is Incorporeal a Mystery when not at all mentioned in the Bible but to the contrary 't is written That the fulness of the Deity was bodily in Christ When the nature of the thing is incomprehensible I can acquiesce in the Scripture but when the signification of words are incomprehensible I cannot acquiesce in the Authority of a Schoolman J. D. We have seen what his Principles are concerning the Deity they are full as bad or worse concerning the Trinity Hear himself A person is he that is represented as often as he is represented And therefore God who has been represented that is personated thrice may properly enough be said to be three Persons though neither the word Person nor Trinity be ascribed to him in the Bible And a little after To conclude the doctrine of the Trinity as far as can be gathered directly from the Scripture is in substance this that the God who is always one and the same was the Person represented by Moses the Person represented by his Son incarnate and the Person represented by the Apostles As represented by the Apostles the holy Spirit by which they spake is God As represented by his Son that was God and Man the Son is that God As represented by Moses and the High Priests the Father that is to say the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is that God From whence we may gather the reason why those Names Father Son and Holy Ghost in the signification of the Godhead are never used in the Old Testament For they are Persons that is they have their Names from representing which could not be till divers Persons had represented God in ruling or in directing under him Who is so bold as blind Bayard The Emblem of a little Boy attempting to lade all the Water out of the Sea with a Cockle-shell doth fit T. H. as exactly as if it had been shaped for him who thinketh to measure the profound and inscrutable Mysteries of Religion by his own silly shallow conceits What is now become of the great adorable Mystery of the blessed undivided Trinity It is shrunk into nothing Upon his grounds there was a time when there was no Trinity And we must blot these words out of our Creed The Father eternal the Son eternal and the Holy Ghost eternal And these other words out of our Bibles Let us make man after our Image Unless we mean that this was a consultation of God with Moses and the Apostles What is now become of the eternal generation of the Son of God if this Sonship did not begin until about 4000 years after the Creation were expired Upon these grounds every King hath as many Persons as there be Justices of Peace and petty Constables in his Kingdom Upon this account God Almighty hath as many Persons as there have been Soveraign Princes in the World since Adam According to this reckoning each one of us like so many Geryons may have as many Persons as we please to make Procurations Such bold presumption requireth another manner of confutation T. H. As for the words recited I confess there is a fault in the Ratiocination which nevertheless his Lordship hath not discovered but no Impiety All that he objecteth is That it followeth hereupon that there be as many Persons of a King as there be petty Constables in his Kingdom And so there are or else he cannot be obeyed But I never said that a King and every one of his Persons are the same Substance The fault I here made and saw not was this I was to prove That it is no contradiction as Lucian and Heathen Scoffers would have it to say of God he was One and Three I saw the true definition of the word Person would serve my turn in this manner God in his own Person both created the World and instituted a Church in Israel using therein the Ministry of Moses the same God in the Person of his Son God and Man redeemed the same World and the same Church the same God in the Person of the Holy Ghost sanctified the same Church and all the faithful men in the World Is not this a clear proof that it is no contradiction to say that God is three Persons and one Substance And doth not the Church distinguish the Persons in the same manner See the words of our Catechism Quest. What dost thou chiefly learn in these Articles of thy Belief Answ. First I learn to believe in God the Father that hath made me and all the World Secondly In God the Son who hath redeemed me and all Mankind Thirdly In God the Holy Ghost that hath sanctified me and all the elect people of God But at what time was the Church sanctified Was it not on the day of Pentecost in the descending of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles His Lordship all this while hath catched nothing 'T is I that catched my self for saying instead of By the Ministry of Moses in the Person of Moses But this Error I no sooner saw then I no less publickly corrected then I had committed it in my Leviathan converted into Latin which by this time I think is printed beyond the Seas with this alteration and also with the omission of some such passages as Strangers are not concerned in And I
of the Jus Divinum of Bishops a thing which before the Reformation here was never allowed them by the Pope Two Jus Divinums cannot stand together in one Kingdom In the last place he mislikes that the Church should Excommunicate by Authority of the King that is to say by Authority of the Head of the Church But he tells not why He might as well mislike that the Magistrates of the Realm should execute their Offices by the Authority of the Head of the Realm His Lordship was in a great error if he thought such incroachments would add any thing to the Wealth Dignity Reverence or Continuance of his Order They are Pastors of Pastors but yet they are the Sheep of him that is on earth their soveraign Pastor and he again a Sheep of that supream Pastor which is in Heaven And if they did their pastoral Office both by Life and Doctrine as they ought to do there could never arise any dangerous Rebellion in the Land But if the people see once any ambition in their Teachers they will sooner learn that than any other Doctrine and from Ambition proceeds Rebellion J. D. It may be some of T. H. his Disciples desire to know what hopes of Heavenly joyes they have upon their Masters Principles They may hear them without any great contentment There is no mention in Scripture nor ground in reason of the Coelum Empyraeum that is the Heaven of the Blessed where the Saints shall live eternally with God And again I have not found any Text that can probably be drawn to prove any Ascention of the Saints into Heaven that is to say into any Coelum Empyraeum But he concludeth positively that Salvation shall be upon earth when God shall Raign at the coming of Christ in Jerusalem And again In short the Kingdom of God is a civil Kingdom c. called also the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of Glory All the Hobbians can hope for is to be restored to the same condition which Adam was in before his fall So saith T.H. himself From whence may be inferred that the Elect after the Resurrection shall be restored to the estate wherein Adam was before he had sinned As for the beatifical vision he defineth it to be a word unintelligible T. H. This Coelum Empyraeum for which he pretendeth so much zeal where is it in the Scripture where in the Book of Common Prayer where in the Canons where in the Homilies of the Church of England or in any part of our Religion What has a Christian to do with such Language Nor do I remember it in Aristotle Perhaps it may be in some Schoolman or Commentator on Aristotle and his Lordship makes it in English the Heaven of the Blessed as if Empyraeum signified That which belongs to the Blessed St. Austin says better that after the day of Judgment all that is not Heaven shall be Hell Then for Beatifical vision how can any man understand it that knows from the Scripture that no man ever saw or can see God Perhaps his Lordship thinks that the happiness of the Life to come is not real but a Vision As for that which I say Lev. pag. 345. I have answered to it already J. D. But considering his other Principles I do not marvel much at his extravagance in this point To what purpose should a Coelum Empyraeum or Heaven of the Blessed serve in his judgment who maketh the blessed Angels that are the Inhabitants of that happy Mansion to be either Idols of the brain that is in plain English nothing or thin subtil fluid bodies destroying the Angelical nature The universe being the aggregate of all bodies there is no real part thereof that is not also body And elsewhere Every part of the Vniverse is Body and that which is not Body is no part of the Vniverse And because the Vniverse is all that which is no part of it is nothing and consequently no where How By this Doctrine he maketh not only the Angels but God himself to be nothing Neither doth he salve it at all by supposing erroneously Angels to be corporeal Spirits and by attributing the name of incorporeal Spirit to God as being a name of more honour in whom we consider not what Attribute best expresseth his nature which is incomprehensible but what best expresseth our desire to honour him Though we be not able to comprehend perfectly what God is yet we are able perfectly to comprehend what God is not that is he is not imperfect and therefore he is not finite and consequently he is not corporeal This were a trim way to honour God indeed to honour him with a lye If this that he say here be true That every part of the Vniverse is a Body and whatsoever is not a Body is nothing Then by this Doctrine if God be not a Body God is nothing not an incorporeal Spirit but one of the Idols of the Brain a meer nothing though they think they dance under a Net and have the blind of Gods incomprehensibility between them and discovery T. H. This of Incorporeal substance he urged before and there I answered it I wonder he so often rolls the same stone He is like Sysiphus in the Poets Hell that there rolls a heavy stone up a hill which no sooner he brings to day-light then it slips down again to the bottom and serves him so perpetually For so his Lordship rolls this and other questions with much adoe till they come to the light of Scripture and then they vanish and he vexing sweating and railing goes to 't again to as little purpose as before From that I say of the Universe he infers that I make God to be nothing But infers it absurdly He might indeed have inferr'd that I make him a Corporeal but yet a pure Spirit I mean by the Universe the Aggregate of all things that have being in themselves and so do all men else And because God has a being it follows that he is either the whole Universe or part of it Nor does his Lordship go about to disprove it but only seems to wonder at it J. D. To what purpose should a Coelum Empyraeum serve in his Judgment who denyeth the immortality of the Soul The Doctrine is now and hath been a long time far otherwise namely that every man hath eternity of life by nature in as much as his Soul is immortal Who supposeth that when a man dyeth there remaineth nothing of him but his Carkase who maketh the word Soul in holy Scripture to signifie always either the Life or the Living Creature And expoundeth the casting of Body and Soul into Hell-fire to be the casting of Body and Life into Hell-fire Who maketh this Orthodox truth that the Souls of men are Substances distinct from their Bodies to be an error contracted by the contagion of the Demonology of the Greeks and a window that gives entrance to the dark Doctrine of eternal torments Who expoundeth these words
of Solomon Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to God that gave it Thus God only knows what becomes of a mans Spirit when he exspireth He will not acknowledge that there is a Spirit or any Substance distinct from the Body I wonder what they think doth keep their Bodies from stinking T. H. He comes here to that which is a great Paradox in School Divinity The grounds of my opinion are the Canonical Scripture and the Texts which I cited I must again recite to which I shall also add some others My Doctrine is this First That the elect in Christ from the day of Judgment forward by vertue of Christ's Passion and Victory over death shall enjoy eternal life that is they shall be Immortal Secondly that there is no living Soul separated in place from the Body more than there is a living Body separated from the Soul Thirdly That the reprobate shall be revived to Judgment and shall dye a second death in Torments which death shall be everlasting Now let us consider what is said to these points in the Scripture and what is the harmony therein of the Old and New Testament And first because the word Immortal Soul is not found in the Scriptures the question is to be decided by evident consequences from the Scripture The Scripture saith of God expresly 1 Tim. 6.16 That He only hath immortality and dwelleth in inaccessible light Hence it followeth that the Soul of man is not of its own nature Immortal but by Grace that is to say by the gift of God And then the question will be whether this grace or gift of God were bestowed on the Soul in the Creation and Conception of the Man or afterwards by his redemption Another question will be in what sence immortality of Torments can be called a gift when all gifts suppose the thing given to be grateful to the receiver To the first of these Christ himself saith Luke 14.13 14. When thou makest a Feast call the Poor the Maimed the Lame the Blind and thou shalt be Blessed for they cannot recompense thee For thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of them that be just It follows hence that the reward of the Elect is not before the Resurrection What reward then enjoyes a separated Soul in Heaven or any where else till that day come or what has he to do there till the Body rise again Again St. Paul says Rom. 2.6 7. God will render to every man according to his works To 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
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 fire 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 be lye 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 perfidious 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 It seemeth T. H. thinketh there is no divine Worship but internal And that it is