Soveraign is the Judge of Prophesie he deduces That then Samuel and other Prophets were false Prophets that contested with their Soveraigns As for Samuel he was at that time the Judge that is to say the Soveraign Prince in Israel and so acknowledged by Saul For Saul received the Kingdom from God himself who had right to give and take it by the hands of Samuel And God gave it him to himself only and not to his Seed though if he had obeyed God he would have setled it also upon his Seed The Commandement of God was that he should not spare Agag Saul obeyed not God therefore sent Samuel to tell him that he was rejected For all this Samuel went not about to resist Saul That he caused Agag to be slain was with Sauls consent Lastly Saul confesses his sin Where is this contesting with Saul After this God sent Samuel to anoint David not that he should depose Saul but succeed him the Sons of Saul having never had a right of Succession Nor did ever David make War on Saul or so much as resist him but fled from his persecution But when Saul was dead then indeed he claimed his right against the House of Saul What Rebellion or Resistance could his Lordship find here either in Samùel or in David Besides all these Transactions are supernatural and oblige not to imitation Is there any Prophet or Priest now that can set up in England Scotland or Ireland another King by pretence of Prophesie or Religion What did Jeroboam to the man of God 1 Kings 13 that prophesied against the Altar in Bethel without first doing a Miracle but offer to seize him for speaking as he thought rashly of the Kings Act and after the miraculous withering of his Hand desire the Prophet to pray for him The sin of Jeroboam was not his distrust of the Prophet but his Idolatry He was the sole Judge of the truth which the man of God uttered against the Altar and the process agreeable to equity What is the story of Eliah and Ahab 1 Kings 18. but a confirmation of the Right even of Ahab to be the Judge of Prophesie Eliah told Ahab he had transgressed the Commandement of God So may any Minister now tell his Soveraign so he do it with sincerity and discretion Ahab told Eliah he troubled Israel Upon this controversie Eliah desired tryal Send saith he and assemble all Israel Assemble also the Prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty Ahab did so The Question is stated before the People thus If the Lord be God follow him but if Baal follow him Then upon the Altars of God and Baal were laid the Wood and the Bullocks and the cause was to be judged by Fire from Heaven to burn the Sacrifices which Eliah procured the Prophets of Baal could not procure Was not this cause here Pleaded before Ahab The Sentence of Ahab is not required for Eliah from that time forward was no more persecuted by Ahab but only by his Wife Jezabel The story of Micaiah 2 Cron. 18. is this Ahab King of Israel consulted the Prophets four hundred in number whether he should prosper or not in case he went with Jehosaphat King of Judah to fight against the Syrians at Ramoth-gilead The Prophet Micaiah was also called and both the Kings Ahab and Jehosaphat sat together to hear what they should prophecy There was no Miracle done The 400 pronounced Victory Micaiah alone the contrary The King was Judge and most concern'd in the event nor had he received any Revelation in the business What could he do more discreetly than to follow the Counsel of 400 rather than of one Man But the event was contrary for he was slain but not for following the Counsel of the 400 but for his Murder of Naboth and his Idolatry It was also a sin in him that he afflicted Micaiah in Prison but an unjust Judgment does not take away from any King his right of Judicature Besides what 's all this or that of Jeremiah which he cites last to the Question of who is Judge of Christian Doctrine J. D. Neither doth he use God the Holy Ghost more favourably than God the Son Where St. Peter saith Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit He saith By the Spirit is meant the Voice of God in a Dream or Vision Supernatural which Dreams or Visions he maketh to be no more than imaginations which they had in their sleep or in an extasie which in every true Prophet were Supernatural but in false Prophets were either natural or feigned and more likely to be false than true To say God hath spoken to him in a Dream is no more than to say he dreamed that God spake to him c. To say he hath seen a Vision or heard a Voice is to say That he hath dreamed between sleeping and waking So St. Peter's Holy Ghost is come to be their own imaginations which might be either feigned or mistaken or true As if the Holy Ghost did enter only at their eyes and at their ears not into their understandings nor into their minds Or as if the Holy Ghost did not seal unto their hearts the truth and assurance of their Prophesies Whether a new light be infused into their understandings or new graces be inspired into their heart they are wrought or caused or created immediately by the Holy Ghost And so are his imaginations if they be Supernatural T. H. For the places of my Leviathan he cites they are all as they stand both true and clearly proved the setting of them down by Fragments is no Refutation nor offers he any Argument against them His consequences are not deduced I never said that the Holy Ghost was an Imagination or a Dream or a Vision but that the Holy Ghost spake most often in the Scripture by Dreams and Visions supernatural The next words of his As if the Holy Ghost did enter only at their eyes and at their ears not into their understandings nor into their minds I let pass because I cannot understand them His last words Whether new light c. I understand and approve J. D. But he must needs fall into these absurdities who maketh but a jest of inspiration They who pretend Divine inspiration to be a supernatural entring of the Holy Ghost into a Man are as he thinks in a very dangerous Dilemma for if they worship not the Men whom they conceive to be inspired they fall into impiety and if they worship them they commit Idolatry So mistaking the Holy Ghost to be corporeal some thing that is blown into a Man and the Graces of the Holy Ghost to be corporeal Graces And the words inpoured or infused virtue and inblown or inspired virtue are as absurd and insignificant as a round Quadrangle He reckons it as a common error That faith and sanctity are not attained by study and reason but by supernatural inspiration or infusion And layeth this for a firm ground Faith
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 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
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