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
gathered directly from the Soripture 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 sit 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 the 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 had corrected this Error sooner if I had sooner found it For though I was told by Dr. Cosins now Bishop of Duresme that the place above-cited was not applicable enough to the Doctrine of the Trinity yet I could not in reviewing the same espy the defect till of late when being sollicited from beyond Sea to translate the Book into Latin and fearing some other man might do it not to my liking I examined this passage and others of the like sence more narrowly But how concludes his Lordship out of this that I put out of the Creed these words The Father eternal the Son eternal the Holy Ghost eternal Or these words Let us make man after our Image out of the Bible Which last words neither I nor Bellarmine put out of the Bible but we both put them out of the number of good Arguments to prove the Trinity for it is no unusual thing in the Hebrew as may be seen by Bellarmine's quotations to joyn a Noun of the plural Number with a Verb of the singular And we may say also of many other Texts of Scripture alledged to prove the Trinity that they are not so firm as that high Article requireth But mark his Lordship's Scholastick charity in the last words of this period Such bold presumption requireth another manner of confutation This Bishop and others of his opinion had been in their Element if they had been Bishops in Queen Maries time J. D. Concerning God the Son forgetting what he had said elsewhere where he calleth him God and Man and the Son of God incarnate he doubteth not to say that the word Hypostatical is canting As if the same Person could be both God and Man without a Personal that is an Hypostatical Union of the two Natures of God and Man T. H. If Christian Profession be as certainly it is in England a Law and if it be of the nature of a Law to be made known to all men that are to obey it in such manner as they may have no excuse for disobedience from their ignorance then without doubt all words unknown to the people and as to them insignificant are Canting The word Substance is understood by the Vulgar well enough when it is said of a Body but in other sence not at all except for their Riches But the word Hypostatical is understood only by those and but few of those that are learned in the Greek Tongue and is properly used as I have said before of the Union of the two Natures of Christ in one Person So
and for the second Banished And thus did Heresie which at first was the name of private Opinion and no Crime by vertue of a Law of the Emperor made only for the Peace of the Church become a Crime in a Pastor and punishable with Deprivation first and next with Banishment After this part of the Creed was thus established there arose presently many new Heresies partly about the Interpretation of it and partly about the Holy Ghost of which the Nicene Council had not determined Concerning the part established there arose Disputes about the Nature of Christ and the word Hypostasis id est Substance for of Persons there was yet no mention made the Creed being written in Greek in which Language there is no word that answereth to the Latine word Persona And the Union as the Fathers called it of the Humane and Divine Nature in Christ Hypostatical caused Eutyches and after him Dioscorus to affirm there was but one Nature in Christ thinking that whensoever two things are united they are one And this was condemned as Arianism in the Councils of Constantinople and Ephesus Others because they thought two living and rational Substances such as are God and Man must needs be also two Hypostases maintained that Christ had two Hypostases But these were two Heresies condemned together Then concerning the Holy Ghost Nestorius Bishop of Constantinople and some others denied the Divinity thereof And whereas about seventy years before the Nicene Council there had been holden a Provincial Council at Carthage wherein it was Decreed that those Christians which in the Persecutions had denyed the Faith of Christ should not be received again into the Church unless they were again baptized This also was condemned though the President in that Council were that most sincere and pious Christian Cyprian And at last the Creed was made up entire as we have it in the Calcedonian Council by addition of these words And I believe in the Holy Ghost the Lord and Giver of Life who proceedeth from the Father and the Son Who with the Father the Son together is Worshipped and Glorified Who spake by the Prophets And I believe one Catholick Apostolick Church I acknowledge one Baptism for the Remission of Sins And I look for the Resurrection of the Dead and the Life of the World to come In this addition are condemned first the Nestorians and others in these words Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified And secondly the Doctrine of the Council of Carthage in these words I believe one Baptism for the Remission of Sins For one Baptism is not there put as opposite to several sorts or manners of Baptism but to the iteration of it St. Cyprian was a better Christian than to allow any Baptism that was not in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost In the General Confession of Faith contained in the Creed called the Nicene Creed there is no mention of Hypostasis nor of Hypostatical Union nor of Corporeal nor of Incorporeal nor of Parts the understanding of which words being not required of the Vulgar but only of the Pastors whose disagreement else might trouble the Church nor were such Points necessary to Salvation but set abroach for ostentation of Learning or else to dazle men with design to lead them towards some ends of their own The Changes of prevalence in the Empire between the Catholicks and the Arians and how the great Athanasius the most fierce of the Catholicks was banished by Constantine and afterwards restored and again banished I let pass only it is to be remembred that Athanasius is suppos'd to have made his Creed then when banished he was in Rome Liberius being Pope by whom as is most likely the word Hypostasis as it was in Athanasius's Creed was disliked For the Roman Church could never be brought to receive it but instead thereof used their own word Persona But the first and last words of that Creed the Church of Rome refused not For they make every Article not only those of the body of the Creed but all the Definitions of the Nicene Fathers to be such as a man cannot be saved unless he believe them all stedfastly though made only for Peace sake and to unite the minds of the Clergy whose Disputes were like to trouble the Peace of the Empire After these four first General Councils the Power of the Roman Church grew up a pace and either by the negligence or weakness of the succeeding Emperors the Pope did what he pleased in Religion There was no Doctrine which tended to the Power Ecclesiastical or to the Reverence of the Clergy the contradiction whereof was not by one Council or another made Heresie and punished arbitrarily by the Emperors with Banishment or Death And at last Kings themselves and Commonwealths unless they purged their Dominions of Hereticks were Excommunicated Interdicted and their Subjects let loose upon them by the Pope insomuch as to an ingenuous and serious Christian there was nothing so dangerous as to enquire concerning his own Salvation of the Holy Scripture the careless cold Christian was safe and the skilful Hypocrite a Saint But this is a Story so well known as I need not insist upon it any longer but proceed to the Hereticks here in England and what Punishments were ordained for them by Acts of Parliament All this while the Penal Laws against Hereticks were such as the several Princes and States in their own Dominions thought fit to enact The Edicts of the Emperors made their Punishments Capital but for the manner of the Execution left it to the Prefects of Provinces And when other Kings and States intended according to the Laws of the Roman Church to extirpate Hereticks they ordained such Punishment as they pleased The first Law that was here made for the punishments of Hereticks called Lollards and mentioned in the Statutes was in the fifth year of the Reign of Richard the Second occasioned by the Doctrine of John Wickliff and his Followers which Wickliff because no Law was yet ordained for his punishment in Parliament by the favour of John of Gaunt the King's Son during the Reign of Edward the third had escaped But in the fifth year of the next King which was Richard the Second there passed an Act of Parliament to this effect That Sheriffs and some others should have Commissions to apprehend such as were certified by the Prelates to be Preachers of Heresie their Fautors Maintainers and Abettors and to hold them in strong Prison till they should justifie themselves according to the Law of Holy Church So that hitherto there was no Law in England by which a Heretick could be put to Death or otherways punished than by imprisoning him till he was reconciled to the Church After this in the next King's Reign which was Henry the Fourth Son of John of Gaunt by whom Wickliffe had been favoured and who in his aspiring to the Crown had needed the good
AN ANSWER TO A BOOK Published by Dr. BRAMHALL late Bishop of Derry CALLED The Catching of the Leviathan Together With an Historical Narration Concerning HERESIE And the Punishment thereof By THOMAS HOBBES of Malmesbury LONDON Printed for W. Crooke at the Green Dragon without Temple-Barr 1682. TO THE READER AS in all things which I have written so also in this Piece I have endeavoured all I can to be perspicuous but yet your own attention is always necessary The late Lord Bishop of Derry published a Book called The Catching of Leviathan in which he hath put together divers Sentences pickt out of my Leviathan which stand there plainly and firmly proved and sets them down without their Proofs and without the order of their dependance one upon another and calls them Atheism Blasphemy Impiety Subversion of Religion and by other names of that kind My request unto you is That when he cites my words for Erroneous you will be pleased to turn to the place it self and see whether they be well proved and how to be understood Which labour his Lordship might have saved you if he would have vouchsafed as well to have weighed my Arguments before you as to have shewed you my Conclusions His Book containeth two Chapters the one concerning Religion the other concerning Politicks Because he does not so much as offer any refutation of any thing in my Leviathan concluded I needed not to have answered either of them Yet to the first I here answer because the words Atheism Impiety and the like are words of the greatest defamation possible And this I had done sooner if I had sooner known that such a Book was extant He wrote it ten years since and yet I never heard of it till about three Months since so little talk there was of his Lordship's Writings If you want leasure or care of the questions between us I pray you condemn me not upon report To judge and not examine is not just Farewell T. Hobbes CHAP. I. That the Hobbian Principles are destructive to Christianity and all Religion J.D. THe Image of God is not altogether defaced by the fall of Man but that there will remain some practical notions of God and Goodness which when the mind is free from vagrant desires and violent passions do shine as clearly in the heart as other speculative notions do in the head Hence it is That there was never any Nation so barbarous or savage throughout the whole world which had not their God They who did never wear cloaths upon their backs who did never know Magistrate but their Father yet have their God and their Religious Rites and Devotions to him Hence it is That the greatest Atheists in any sudden danger do unwittingly cast their eyes up to Heaven as craving aid from thence and in a thunder creep into some hole to hide themselves And they who are conscious to themselves of any secret Crimes though they be secure enough from the justice of men do yet feel the blind blows of a Guilty Conscience and fear Divine Vengeance This is acknowledged by T. H. himself in his lucid Intervals That we may know what worship of God natural reason doth assign let us begin with his attributes where it is manifest in the first place That existency is to be attributed to him To which he addeth Infiniteness Incomprehensibility Vnity Vbiquity Thus for Attributes next for Actions Concerning external Actions wherewith God is to be worshipped the most general precept of reason is that they be signs of honour under which are contained Prayers Thanksgivings Oblations and Sacrifices T. H. Hitherto his Lordship discharges me of Atheisme What need he to say that All Nations how barbarous soever yet have their Gods and Religious Rites and Atheists are frighted with thunder and feel the blind blows of Conscience It might have been as apt a Preface to any other of his Discourses as this I expect therefore in the next place to be told that I deny again my afore recited Doctrine J. D. Yet to let us see how inconsistent and irreconcileable he is with himself elsewhere reckoning up all the Laws of Nature at large even twenty in number he hath not one word that concerneth Religion or that hath the least relation in the world to God As if a man were like the Colt of a wild Asse in the wilderness without any owner or obligation Thus in describing the Laws of Nature this great Clerk forgeteth the God of Nature and the main and principle Laws of Nature which contains a mans duty to his God and the principal end of his Creation T. H. After I had ended the discourse he mentions of the Laws of Nature I thought it fittest in the last place once for all to say they were the Laws of God then when they were delivered in the Word of God but before being not known by men for any thing but their own natural reason they were but Theorems tending to peace and those uncertain as being but conclusions of particular men and therefore not properly Laws Besides I had formerly in my Book De Cive cap. 4. proved them severally one by one out of the Scriptures which his Lordship had â—ead and knew 'T was therefore an unjust charge of his to say I had not one word â—n them that concerns Religion or that hath the least relation in the world to God and this upon no other ground then â—hat I added not to every article This Law 〈◊〉 in the Scripture But why he should call me ironically a great Clerk I cannot tell I suppose he would make men believe I arrogated to my self all the learning of a great Clerk Bishop or other inferior Minister A Learned Bishop is that Bishop that can interpret all parts of Scripture truly and congruently to the harmony of the whole that has learnt the History and Laws of the Church down from the Apostles time to his own and knows what is the nature of a Law Civil Divine Natural and Positive and how to govern well the Parochial Ministers of his Diocess so that they may both by Doctrine and Example keep the people in the belief of all Articles of Faith necessary to Salvation and in obedience to the Laws of their Country This is a Learned Bishop A Learned Minister is he that hath learned the way by which men may be drawn from Avarice Pride Sensuality Prophaness Rebellious Principles and all other vices by eloquent and powerful disgracing them both from Scripture and from Reason and can terrify men from vice by discreet uttering of the punishments denounced against wicked men and by deducing rationally the dammage they receive by it in the end In one word he is a Learned Minister that can preach such Sermons as St. Chrisostom preached to the Antiochians when he was Presbyter in that City Could his Lordship find in my Book that I arrogated to my self the eloquence or wisdom of St. Chrisostom or the ability of governing the
as an Enemy by an Enemy because he would not accept Laws His reason is because the Atheist never submitted his will to the Will of God whom he never thought to be And he concludeth that mans obligation to obey God proceedeth from his weakness Manifestum est obligationem ad prestandum ipsi Deo obedientiam incumbere hominibus propter imbecilitatem First it is impossible that should be a sin of meer ignorance or imprudence which is directly contrary to the light of natural reason The Laws of nature need no new promulgation being imprinted naturally by God in the heart of Man The Law of nature was written in our hearts by the finger of God without our assent or rather the Law of Nature is the assent it self Then if Nature dictate to us that there is a God and that this God is to be worshipped in such and such manner it is not possible that Atheism should be a sin of meer ignorance Secondly a Rebellious Subject is still a Subject De Jure though not De Facto by right though not by deed and so the most cursed Atheist that is ought by right to be the Subject of God and ought to be punished not as a just Enemy but as a disloyal Traytor Which is confessed by himself This fourth Sin that is of those who do not by word and deed confess one God the Supreme King of Kings in the natural Kingdom of God is the Crime of High Treason for it is a denial of Divine Power or Atheism Then an Atheist is a Traytor to God and punishable as a disloyal Subject not as an Enemy Lastly it is an absurd and dishonourable assertion to make our obedience to God to depend upon our weakness because we cannot help it and not upon our gratitude because we owe our being and preservation to him Who planteth a Vineyard and eateth not of the Fruit thereof And who feedeth a Flock and eateth not of the Milk of the Flock And again Thou art worthy O Lord to receive Glory and Honour and Power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created But it were much better or at least not so ill to be a down right Atheist than to make God to be such a thing as he doth and at last thrust him into the Devils Office to be the cause of all Sin T. H. Though this Bishop as I said had but a weak attention in reading and little skill in examining the force of an Argument yet he knew men and the art without troubling their judgments to win their assents by exciting their Passions One Rule of his art was to give his Reader what he would have him swallow a part by it self and in the nature of News whether true or not Knowing that the unlearned that is most men are content to believe rather than be troubled with examining Therefore a little before he put these words T. H. no friend to Religion in the Margent And in this place before he offer at any confutation he says my Principles are brim full of Prodigious Impieties And at the next Paragraph in the Margent he puts that I excuse Atheism This behaviour becomes neither a Bishop nor a Christian nor any man that pretends to good education Fear of invisible powers what is it else in savage people but the fear of somewhat they think a God What invisible power does the reason of a savage man suggest unto him but those Phantasms of his sleep or his distemper which we frequently call Ghosts and the Savages thought Gods so that the fear of a God though not of the true one to them was the beginning of Religion as the fear of the true God was the beginning of wisdom to the Jews and Christians Ignorance of second causes made men fly to some first cause the fear of which bred Devotion and Worship The ignorance of what that power might do made them observe the order of what he had done that they might guess by the like order what he was to do another time This was their Prognostication What Prodigious impiety is here How confutes he it Must it be taken for Impiety upon his bare calumny I said Superstition was fear without reason Is not the fear of a false God or fancied Daemon contrary to right reason And is not Atheism Boldness grounded on false reasoning such as is this the wicked prosper therefore there is no God He offers no proof against any of this but says only I make Atheism to be more reasonable than Superstition which is not true For I deny that there is any reason either in the Atheist or in the Superstitious And because the Atheist thinks he has reason where he has none I think him the more irrational of the two But all this while he argues not against any of this but enquires only what is become of my natural Worship of God and of his Existency Infiniteness Incomprehensibility Unity and Ubiquity As if whatsoever reason can suggest must be suggested all at once First all men by nature had an opinion of Gods Existency but of his other Attributes not so soon but by reasoning and by degrees And for the Attributes of the true God they were never suggested but by the Word of God written In that I say Atheism is a sin of ignorance he says I excuse it The Prophet David says The fool hath said in his heart There is no God Is it not then a sin of folly 'T is agreed between us that right reason dictates There is a God Does it not follow that denying of God is a sin proceeding from mis-reasoning If it be not a sin of ignorance it must be a sin of malice Can a man malice that which he thinks has no being But may not one think there is a God and yet maliciously deny him If he think there is a God he is no Atheist and so the question is changed into this whether any man that thinks there is a God dares deliberately deny it For my part I think not For upon what confidence dares any man deliberately I say oppose the Omnipotent David saith of himself My feet were ready to slip when I saw the prosperity of the wicked Therefore it is likely the feet of men less holy slip oftner But I think no man living is so daring being out of passion as to hold it as his opinion Those wicked men that for a long time proceeded so succesfully in the late horrid Rebellion may perhaps make some think they were constant and resolved Atheists but I think rather that they forgot God than believed there was none He that believes there is such an Atheist comes a little too near that opinion himself Nevertheless if words spoken in passion signifie a denial of a God no punishment praeordained by Law can be too great for such an insolence because there is no living in a Common-wealth with men to whose oaths we cannot reasonably give
which these my grounds he says destroy How so I say the Trinity and the Persons thereof are that one pure simple and eternal Corporeal Spirit and why does this destroy the Trinity more than if I had called it Incorporeal He labours here and seeketh somewhat to refresh himself in the word Person by the same grounds he saith every King has as many Persons as there by Justices of Peace in his Kingdom and God Almighty hath as many Persons as there be Kings why not For I never said that all those Kings were that God and yet God giveth that name to the Kings of the earth For the signification of the word Person I shall expound it by and by in another place Here ends his Lordships School Argument now let me come with my Scripture Argument St. Paul concerning Christ Col. 2.9 saith thus In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead Bodily This place Athanasius a great and zealous Doctor in the Nicene Councel and vehement enemy of Arius the Heretick who allowed Christ to be no otherwise God then as men of excellent piety were so called expoundeth thus The fullness of the Godhead dwelleth in him Bodily Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est Realiter So there is one Father for Corporality and that God was in Christ in such manner as Body is in Body Again there were in the primitive Church a sort of Hereticks who maintained that Jesus Christ had not a true real Body but was onely a Phantasm or Spright such as the Latins called Spectra Against the head of this Sect whose name I think was Apelles Tertullian wrote a Book now extant amongst his other Works intituled De Carne Christi wherein after he had spoken of the nature of Phantasms and shewed that they had nothing of reality in them he concludeth with these words whatsoever is not Body is Nothing So here is on my side a plain Text of Scripture and two ancient and learned Fathers nor was this Doctrine of Tertullian condemned in the Council of Nice but the division of the Divine Substance into God the Father God the Son and God the holy Ghost For these words God has no parts were added for explication of the word Consubstantial at the request of the dissenting Fathers and are farther explained both in Athanasius his Creed in these words not three Gods but one God and by the constant Attribute ever since of the Individual Trinity The same words nevertheless do condemn the Anthropomorphites also For though there appeared no Christians that professed that God had an Organical Body and consequently that the Persons were three Individuals yet the Gentiles were all Anthropomorphites and there condemned by those words God has no parts And thus I have answered his accusation concerning the Eternity and Existence of the Divine Substance and made appear that in truth the question between us is whether God be a Phantasme id est an Idol of the Fancy which St. Paul saith is nothing or a Corporeal Spirit that is to say something that has Magnitude In this place I think it not amiss leaving for a little while this Theological dispute to examine the signification of those words which have occasioned so much diversity of opinion in this kind of Doctrine The word Substance in Greek Hypostasis Hypostan Hypostamenon signifie the same thing namely a Ground a Base any thing that has Existence or Subsistence in it self any thing that upholdeth that which else would fall in which sence God is properly the Hypostasis Base and Substance that upholdeth all the world having Subsistence not only in himself but from himself whereas other Substances have their subsistence only in themselves not from themselves But Metaphorically Faith is called a Substance Heb. 11.1 because it is the foundation or Base of our Hope for Faith failing our Hope falls And 2 Cor. 9.4 St. Paul having boasted of the liberal promise of the Corinthians towards the Macedonians calls that promise the ground the Hypostasis of that his boasting And Heb. 1.3 Christ is called the Image of the Substance the Hypostasis of his Father and for the proper and adequate signification of the word Hypostasis the Greek Fathers did always oppose it to Apparition or Phantasme as when a man seeth his face in the water his real face is called the Hypostasis of the phantastick face in the water So also in 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
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
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