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A65817 The Leviathan found out, or, The answer to Mr. Hobbes's Leviathan in that which my Lord of Clarendon hath past over by John Whitehall ... Whitehall, John, fl. 1679-1685. 1679 (1679) Wing W1866; ESTC R5365 68,998 178

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not Flesh and Bones as ye see me have And if not Flesh and Bones of what must a Spirit consist that is corporeal I hope Mr. Hobbes will not say that 't is made like his deciding Sword of Iron and Steel But the apprehension that we can have of a Spirit is that it is something that is no object of our Senses and so not Mathematically descriptable but an object of our Understandings which apprehend that a good Spirit is wise and knowing and that an evil Spirit is subtle and cunning But what shall we say then of Mr. Hobbes his Spirit that is his Soul which is neither wise subtle nor cunning To this I shall only say that I think 't is no Body by reason it hath actuated every part of his Body and been in the same for near 80 Years together which it could not have been had it been Body for this would be to make several Bodies in one place at the same time which Mr. Hobbes disallows of So then the Soul of Man must be something that is not Body that is as we call it Spirit or Spiritual substance created by God in Man as Life was breathed into Adam and all other living creatures But Mr. Hobbes after his Philosophical discourse concerning the corporeousness of a Spirit cites Texts of Scripture to shew what the meaning of Spirit is there His first is Gen. 1. 2. where 't is said That the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the Waters This he saith is meant a wind wrought by God because motion is attributed to it and consequently place and nothing can be moved that changeth not place or hath not dimension and whatsoever hath dimension is Body Admirable Philosophy For mark the Argument motion and place belong to Bodies therefore nothing but a Body can have motion or place Suppose a Man should reply upon Mr. H●bbes and say Ears belong to an Ass therefore nothing but an Ass can have Ears what a trouble would this be to Mr. Hobbes to be made an Ass by his own Argument which supposeth all things to be the same to which any one circumstance or qualification equally belongeth But fully to answer Mr. Hobbes motion in this place of Scripture is intended as I think of the special and extraordinary operation of God's Spirit though some Interpreters take it I confess to be a wind impulsed by God's Spirit like Gen. 8.1 upon the Waters and not to denote God's moving from place to place as Bodies do for in that sence neither motion nor place can be attributed to God who is every where but in no place either circumscriptively or definitively as Bodies are But it follows not therefore that God by his Spirit cannot extraordinarily act in one place more than another without becoming a Body as he did in the creation upon the Waters And 't is not sence to say that of necessity dimension m●st belong to that which hath motion or place because that Bodies that have motion and place have dimension for 't is to make a general conclusion of the Being of a thing from a particular qualification and that would be to make Men Beasts and Beasts Men as I hinted before But I confess that the word Spirit in Scripture and common discourse hath various significations as Mr. Hobbes hath plentifully discoursed but what that makes to the impossibility of a substance being incorporeal I know not neither do I think it conceptible And I cannot agree with Mr. Hobbes in his several quotations of Scripture that mention our Savour who was indowed with God's Spirit and 't is abominable to question it and several eminent Persons as Gideon c. to be indowed with God's Spirit that those places as he saith only mean that our Saviour and others had special virtues for such purposes but that God had not inspired his Spirit into them to inable them to perform such and such things as when he cites the 6. of Iudges v. 34. which saith that the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon that is saith Mr. Hobbes Gideon had courage to defend God's people And this let me add that if it was barely courage in Gideon it was the strangest courage that I ever read of except that of Ionathan to attack so great an host as that of Midian was with only 300 Men and the arms of them nothing but Trumpets Lamps and Pitchers But if this Interpretation of Mr. Hobbes was true Oliver Cromwel or any other valiant Man might be said to have God's Spirit as well as Gideon although we do not find that so much as any of David's Worthies in the repetition of their great acts are said to have it when we cannot suppose but that they had as much courage as Gideon and upon that account might as easily have been said to have God's Spirit if by God's Spirit in such Men is only meant courage What folly then is it for Mr. Hobbes to affirm this having no warrant for it but his own fancy To which he hath given so great a latitude as in this Chapter most damnably and prophanely to make nothing of the blessed Spirit of God but a Ghost as p. 209. which in other places he makes the companion of Goblins both which he takes to be as indeed they are the imaginations of distempered brains such as Mr. Hobbes his was when he wrote this interpretation of places of Scripture of this kind when in p. 58. he saith That the Scriptures mean by the Spirit of God in Man a Man's Spirit inclined to godliness and here he saith they mean the particular virtues Men are indowed with for such purposes and whether this be not the next thing to a contradiction I shall refer to any one that hath so much virtue and godliness as to speak true for a godly Man that is one devout towards God may not be indowed with any other virtue And then Mr. Hobbes comes to Texts of Scripture concerning our Saviour as to this matter it is Luke the 4 th v. 1. and Matth. 4. 1. that express our Saviour to be full of God's Spirit This saith Mr. Hobbes was a zeal to do God's work but saith he to say God was fill'd with God is improper and insignificant And this last I shall be beholding to Mr. Hobbes for hereafter when I come to p. 268. where Mr. Hobbes denies the existence of God the Holy Ghost and the Godhead of the Son for here he confesseth the Godhead of both of them But to return to this page I am now upon Mr. Hobbes is certainly upon a wrong ground though I will not say how the blessed Spirit of God is communicated or infused into Man or was in our blessed Saviour to suppose that God the Holy Ghost must be infused into the Godhead of the Son and that the Godhead must be full of the Godhead for our Saviour had an humane Nature which he might not out of his good pleasure indow with all the graces of
upon the Earth where 't is already And to shew that there is now and was then such a place as Hell look Prov. 15. 11. where 't is said that Hell and destruction are before the eyes of the Lord that is he knows what the wicked there suffer To end this see Mark 9. 44● 46 48. where 't is said the worm dieth not that is the lash of Conscience and the fire is not quenched speaking of a Man's being cast into Hell So then if the worm dies not the subject of that worm must live that is the wicked person and the fire of Hell is said to be as everlasting For 't is not quenched which must be intended never shall be quenched And to stop Mr. Hobbes his Mouth as to the eternity of punishment and reward look Matth. 25. 46. These shall go into everlasting punishment but the righteous into life eternal And that the Soul lives after the death of the Body until the resurrection see Eccl. 12. 7. where Solomon speaking of Man's dissolution saith The dust that is the Body shall return to the Earth and the Spirit to God that gave it And Acts 7. 59. Stephen when stoned said Lord Iesus receive my Spirit These two Texts must be intended of living Spirits for what should God do with dead Spirits which are nothing who is God of the living and not of the dead None of which Texts Mr. Hobbes takes any notice of save that in Mark of the worm not dying To which he saith 't is metaphorically to be understood and this answer would serve for any thing else as well as this I shall pass the rest of Mr. Hobbes his absurdities in this Chapter about these matters save one at the latter end where he jumps again into setting the place of Men's eternal happiness upon Earth and p. 246. cites Isaiah 33. v. 20 21● 22 23 24. to be full in the matter which is so far from the matter that it is only Scripture to signifie God's destruction of the Assyrians and the Iews deliverance from them But whether the punishment be by fire or without I shall not argue though the Texts say it is which are better authority than ever I heard to the contrary only I hope no Man will venture upon the punishment which is everlasting Matth. 25. 46. presuming upon Mr. Hobbes his assertions to be true Neither do I think any good Man will think the merits of our blessed Lord and Saviour the less for what Mr. Hobbes in this Chapter saith who after he hath been endeavouring to make all Religion a foppery to set up Idolatrous worship to debase our Saviour in respect of his miracles to make the credibility of the Scriptures questionable to deprive God of his Attributes now comes p. 248. to undervalue the sufferings of our Saviour and saith That the sufferings of our Saviour were no satisfaction or price for sin whereby Christ could claim right to a pardon for us from his offended Father but that price that God in mercy was pleased to demand And this he further explains himself in p. 261. I acknowledge that the sufferings of our Saviour were all that God demanded as a satisfaction for sin but when our Saviour had performed what God did require it was an absolute satisfaction And this is clear reason in the transactions of Men when the debt is paid by ones self or an other or that is paid that is required there is a full satisfaction and the prisoner or he that paid the debt may of right claim his discharge So may Christ of right claim a pardon for us from his Father when the satisfaction for sin is paid For although there was no reason that our Saviour should suffer for us but meer mercy as 't was God's mercy to accept of Christ in our stead yet 't is great Reason that when he hath suffered for our sins he should of right claim to have us delivered from the punishment of them And he was the true Scape-goat that carried all our sins into the Land of forgetfulness And Matth. 1. 21. He shall save his people from their sins that is by his merits defend them from his Father's wrath With which Text agrees 18. Matth. 11. 1 Tim. 1. 15. He came to save sinners and multitudes of Texts to this purpose And besides God when he first promised Christ to mankind said That he should break the Serpent's head that is by his own efficacy for he was God as well as Man and that gave power to effect and value to satisfie But Mr. Hobbes his conceit had been good in case that after a sinner had lain in Hell seven years God had said this is enough and had freed him Here 't is true the sinner could not have claimed a right to a pardon for what he had suffered but that suffering was all that God was pleased in mercy to demand for that a sinner can never make a full satisfaction for his sin But here we cannot but suppose God the Father and his Innocent Son as it were making I speak it with reverence a contract The Father as it were saying If you 'l suffer I will take it as a satisfaction for Man's sin And his Son saying I will for he voluntarily laid down his life it was not taken from him and those sufferings God would not dispense with suffer for sinners or in their stead Certainly now he hath suffered he may of right claim a pardon for sinners But as to this matter I wave further Discourse there being so many Treatises upon it Mr. Hobbes p. 250 251. saith That the Israelites obligation to obey Moses was only from their desire and promise at mount Sinai Exod. 20. 18. where they said Speak thou to us and we will hear but let not God speak to us lest we die Certainly any rational Man would wonder at such a fancy when 't is apparent that Moses was God's messenger by the many miracles wrought by his Hands both in Egypt from whence he led them and at the red Sea where they were miraculously saved and the Egyptians drowned and by many other miracles before they came to mount Sinai And upon that account as so apparently sent by God they were bound to obey Moses or disobey God himself and this promise at mount Sinai was only to free them from the terror they had undergone before But that which Mr. Hobbes drives at in this conceit may be to persuade Men that they need not obey any of the Prophets Apostles or Ministers of the Gospel since without their express promise so to do And so further labours to enervate the authority of the Scriptures and Gospel Ministry But as Mr. Hobbes gave Moses a smaller authority in this than one would have expect●d so in p. 252. he gives him and all succeeding Monarchs a greater trouble than 't is reasonable to impose upon them For he saith That all Soveraigns are the sole interpreters of God's commands and that