A. I think I can recommend unto you the best that is extant, and such a one as (except a few passages that I mislike) is very well worth your reading. The title of it is, The whole Duty of Man laid down in a plain and familiar way. And, yet, I dare say, that if the Presbyterian ministers, even those of them which were the most diligent preachers of the late sedition, were to be tried by it, they would go near to be found not guilty. He has divided the duty of man into three great branches; which are, his duty to God, to himself, and to his neighbour. In his duty to God, he puts the acknowledgment of him in his essence and his attributes, and in the believing of his word. His attributes are omnipotence, omniscience, infiniteness, justice, truth, mercy, and all the rest that are found in Scripture. Which of these did not those seditious preachers acknow- ledge equally with the best of Christians? The word of 48 BEHEMOTH. Dialogue I.
God are the books of Holy Scripture, received for canonical in England.
B. They receive the word of God; but according to their own interpretation.
A. According to whose interpretation was it received by the bishops and the rest of the loyal party, but their own? He puts for another duty, obedience and submission to God's will. Did any of them, nay, did any man living, do any thing, at any time, against God's will?
B. By God's will, I suppose, he means there his revealed will, that is to say, his commandments, which I am sure they did most horribly break, both by their preaching and otherwise.
A. As for their own actions, there is no doubt but all men are guilty enough, if God deal severely with them, to be damned. And for their preaching, they will say, they thought it agreeable to God's revealed will in the Scriptures. If they thought it so, it was not disobedience, but error. And how can any man prove they thought otherwise?
B. Hypocrisy hath *indeed* this great prerogative above other sins, that it cannot be accused.
A. Another duty he sets down is, to honour him in his house (that is, the Church), in his possessions, in his day, in his word and sacraments.
B. They perform this duty as well, I think, as any other ministers, I mean the loyal party; and the Presbyterians have always had an equal care to have God's house free from profanation; to have tithes duly paid, and offerings accepted; to have the sabbath day kept holy, the word preached, and the Lord's supper and baptism duly adminis- tered. But is not keeping of the feasts and fasts one of those duties that belong to the honour of God? If it be, the Presbyterians fail in that.
A. Why so? They kept some holidays, and they had fasts amongst themselves, though not upon the same days that the Church ordains, but when they thought fit; as when it pleased God to give the King any notable victory.
Dialogue i. BEHEMOTH. 49 And they governed themselves in this point by the Holy Scripture, as they pretend to believe. And who can prove they do not believe so?
B. Let us pass over all other duties, and come to that duty which we owe to the King, and consider whether the doctrine taught by those divines which adhered to the King, be such in that point, as may justify the Presbyterians, that incited the people to rebellion. For that is the thing you call in question.
A. Concerning our duty to our rulers, he hath these words: " An obedience we must pay, either active or passive; the active, in the case of all lawful commands, that is, when- ever the magistrate commands something which is not con- trary to some command of God, we are then bound to act according to that command of the magistrate, to do the things he requires; but when he enjoins anything contrary to what God hath commanded, we are not then to pay him this active obedience; we may, nay we must, refuse thus to act {yet, here we must be very well assured, that the thing is so contrary, and not pretend conscience for a cloak of stubbornness); we are, in that case, to obey God rather than men; but even this is a season for the passive obedience; we must patiently suffer what he inflicts on us for such refusal, and not, to secure ourselves, rise up against him."
B. What is there in this, to give colour to the late rebel- lion?
A. They will say they did it in obedience to God, inas- much as they did believe it was according to the Scripture; out of which they will bring examples, perhaps of David and his. adherents, that resisted King Saul, and of the prophets afterward, that vehemently from time to time preached against the idolatrous Kings of Israel and Judah. Saul was their lawful King, and yet they paid him neither active nor passive obedience; for they did put themselves into a posture of defence against him, though David himself spared his person. And so did the Presbyterians put into their commissions to their general, that they should spare the 5 King's person. Besides, you cannot doubt but that they, who in the pulpit did animate the people to take arms in the defence of the then Parliament, alleged Scripture, that is, the word of God, for it. If it be lawful then for subjects to resist the King, when he commands anything that is against the Scripture, that is, contrary to the command of God, and to be judge of the meaning of the Scripture, it is impossible that the life of any King, or the peace of any , Christian kingdom, can be long secure. It is this doctrine that divides a kingdom within itself, whatsoever the men be, loyal or rebels, that write or preach it publicly. And thus you see that if those seditious ministers be tried by this doctrine, they will come off well enough.
B. I see it; and wonder at people that have never spoken with God Almighty, nor knowing one more than another what he hath said, when the laws and the preacher disagree, should so keenly follow the minister (for the most part an ignorant, though a ready-tongued, scholar), rather than the i laws, that were made by the King with the consent of the Peers and Commons of the land.
A. Let us examine his words a little nearer. First, con- cerning passive obedience. When a thief hath broken the laws, and according to the law is therefore executed, can any man understand that this suffering of his is in obedience to the law? Every law is a command to do, or to forbear: neither of these is fulfilled by suffering. If any suffering can be called obedience, it must be such as is voluntary; for no involuntary action can be counted a submission to the law. He that means that his suffering should be taken for obedience, must not only not resist, but also not fly, nor hide himself to avoid his punishment. And who is there amongst them that discourse of passive obedience, when his life is in extreme danger, that will voluntarily present himself to the officers of justice? Do not we see that all men, when they are led to execution, are both bound and guarded, and would break loose if they could, and get away? Such is their passive obedience. Christ saith (Matthew xxiii. 2, 3); Dialogue i. BEHEMOTH.
The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses 1 chair; all, therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do: which is a doing an active obedience. And yet the Scribes and Pharisees appear not by the Scripture to have been such godly men, as never to command anything against the revealed will of God.
B. Must tyrants also be obeyed in everything actively? Or is there nothing wherein a lawful King's command may be disobeyed? What if he should command me with my own hands to execute my father, in case he should be con- demned to die by the law?
A. This is a case that need not be put. We never have read nor heard of any King or tyrant so inhuman as to com- mand it. If any did, we are to consider whether that com- mand were one of his laws. For by disobeying Kings, we mean the disobeying of his laws, those his laws that were made before they were applied to any particular person; for the King, though as a father of children, and a master of domestic servants *command many things which bind those children and servants* yet he commands the people in general never but by a precedent law, and as a politic, not a natural person. And if such a command as you speak of were con- trived into a general law (which never was, nor never will be), you were bound to obey it, unless you depart the kingdom after the publication of the law, and before the condemnation of your father.
B. Your author says further, in refusing active obedience to the King, that commanded anything contrary to God's law, we must be very well assured that the thing is so contrary. I would fain know how it is possible to be *weH* assured.
A. I think you do not believe that any of those refusers do, immediately from God's own mouth, receive any com- mand contrary to the command of the King, who is God's lieutenant, nor any other way than you and I do, that is to say, than by the Scriptures. And because men do, for the most part, rather draw the Scripture to their own sense, than follow the true sense of the Scripture, there is no other nay 52 BEHEMOTH. Dialogue I.
to know, certainly, and in all cases, what God commands, or forbids us to do, but by the sentence of him or them that are constituted by the King to determine the sense of the Scripture, upon hearing of the particular case of conscience which is in question. And they that are so constituted are easily known in all Christian commonwealths, whether they be bishops, or ministers, or assemblies, that govern the Church under him or them that have the sovereign power.
B. Some doubts may be raised from this that you now say. For if men be to learn their duty from the sentence which other men shall give concerning the meaning of the Scriptures, and not from their own interpretation, I under- stand not to what end they were translated into English, and every man not only permitted, but also exhorted, to read them. For what could that produce, but diversity of opinion, and consequently (as man's nature is) disputa- tion, breach of charity, disobedience, and at last rebel- lion? Again, since the Scripture was allowed to be read in English, why are not the translations such as might make all that is read, understood even by mean capacities? Did not the Jews, such as could read, understand their law in the Jewish language, as well as we do our statute laws in English? And as for such places of the Scripture, as had nothing of the nature of a law, it was nothing to the duty of the Jews, whether they were understood or not, seeing nothing is punishable but the transgression of some law. The same question I may ask concerning the New Testa- ment. For, I believe, that those men to whom the original language was natural, did understand sufficiently what com- mands and councils were given them by our Saviour and his apostles, and his immediate disciples. Again, how will you answer that question which was put by St. Peter and St. John (Acts iv. 19), when by Annas the high-priest, and others of the Council of Jerusalem, they were forbidden to teach any more in the name of Jesus: Whether is it right in the sight of God, to hearken unto you more than unto God '?
A. The case is not the same. Peter and John had seen Dialogue r. BEHEMOTH. 53 and daily conversed with our Saviour; and by the miracles he wrought, did know he was God, and consequently knew certainly that their disobedience to the high-priest's present command was just. Can any minister now say, that he hath immediately from God's own mouth received a com- mand to disobey the King, or know otherwise than by the Scripture, that any command of the King, that hath the form and nature of a law, is against the law of God, which in divers places, directly and evidently, commandeth to obey him in all things? The text you cite does not tell us, that a minister's authority, rather than a Christian King's, shall decide the questions that arise from the different interpretations of the Scripture. And therefore, where the King is head of the Church, and by consequence (to omit that the Scripture itself was not received but by the authority of Kings and States) chief judge of the rectitude of all interpretations of the Scripture, to obey the King's laws and public edicts, is not to disobey, but to obey God. A minister ought not to think that his skill in the Latin, Greek, or Hebrew tongues, if he have any, gives him a privi- lege to impose upon all his fellow subjects his own sense, or what he pretends to be his sense, of every obscure place of Scripture: nor ought he, as oft as he *thinks he* hath found out some fine interpretation, not before thought on by others, to think he had it by inspiration: for he cannot be assured of that; no, nor that his interpretation, as fine as he thinks it, is not false: and then all this stubbornness and contumacy' towards the King and his laws, is nothing but pride of heart and ambition, or else imposture. And whereas you think it needless, or perhaps hurtful, to have the Scriptures in English, I am of another mind. There are so many places of Scripture easy to be understood, that teach both true faith and good morality (and that as fully as is necessary to salvation), of which no seducer is able to dispossess the mind (of any ordinary readers), that the reading of them is so profitable as not to be forbidden with- out great damage to them and the commonwealth.
54 BEHEMOTH. Dialogue r.
B. All that is required, both in faith and manners, for man's salvation is (I confess) set down in Scripture as plainly as can be. Children obey your parents in all things: Servants obey your masters: Let all -men be subject to the higher powers, whether it be the King or those that are sent by him: Love God with all your soul, and your neighbour as yourself: are words of the Scripture, which are well enough understood; but neither children, nor the greatest part of men, do understand why it is their duty to do so. They see not that the safety of the commonwealth, and conse- quently their own, depends upon their doing it. Every man by nature (without discipline) does in all his actions look upon, as far as he can see, the benefit that shall redound to himself from his obedience. He reads that covetousness is the root of all evil; but he thinks, and sometimes finds, it is the root of his estate. And so in other cases, the Scripture says one thing, and they think another, weighing the commodities or incommodities of this present life only, which are in their sight, never putting into the scales the good and evil of the life to come, which they see not.
A. All this is no more than happens where the Scripture is sealed up in Greek and Latin, and the people taught the same things out of them by preachers. But they that are of a condition and age, fit to examine the sense of what they read, and that take a delight in searching out the grounds of their duty, certainly cannot choose but by their reading of the Scriptures come to such a sense of their duty, as not only to obey the laws themselves, but also to induce others to do the same. For commonly men of age and quality are followed by their inferior neighbours, that look more upon the example of those men whom they reverence, and whom they are unwilling to displease, than upon precepts and laws.
B. These men, of the condition and age you speak of, are, in my opinion, the unfittest of all others to be trusted with the reading of the Scriptures. I know you mean such as have studied the Greek or Latin, or both tongues, and Dialogue i. BEHEMOTH. 55 that are withal such as love knowledge, and consequently take delight in finding out the meaning of the most hard texts, or in thinking they have found it, in case it be new and not found out by others. These are therefore they, that pretermitting the easy places which teach them their duty, fall to scanning only of the mysteries of religion. Such as are: how it may be made out with wit, That there be three that bear rule in heaven, and those three but one? How the Deity could be made flesh? Hoiv that flesh could be really present in many places at once? Where is the place, and what the torments, of hell? And other metaphysical doctrines: Whether the will of man be free, or governed by the will of God? Whether sanctity comes by inspiration or education? By whom Christ now speaks to us, whether by the King, or by the clergy, or by the Bible, to every man that reads it and interprets it to himself, or by private spirit to every private man? These and the like points are the study of the curious, and the cause of all our late mischief, and the cause that makes the plainer sort of men, whom the Scripture had taught belief in Christ, love towards God, obedience to the King, and sobriety of behaviour, forget it all, and place their religion in the disputable doctrines of these your wise men.
A. I do not think these men fit to interpret the Scripture to the rest, nor do I say that the rest ought to take their interpretation for the word of God. Whatsoever is necessary for them to know, is so easy, as not to need interpretation: whatsoever is more, does them no good. But in case any of those unnecessary doctrines shall be authorized by the laws of the King or other state, I say it is the duty of every subject not to speak against them: inasmuch as it is every man's duty to obey him or them that have the sovereign power, and the wisdom of all such powers to punish such as shall publish or teach their private interpretations, when they are contrary to the law, and likely to incline men to sedition or disputing against the law.
B. They must punish then the most of those that have BEHEMOTH. Dialogue i.
had their breeding in the Universities. For such curious questions in divinity are first started in the Universities, and so are all those politic questions concerning the rights of civil and ecclesiastic government; and there they are furnished with arguments for liberty out of the works of Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Seneca, and out of the histories of Rome and Greece, for their disputation against the necessary power of their sovereigns. Therefore I despair of any last- ing peace amongst ourselves, till the Universities here shall bend and direct their studies to the settling of it, that is, to the teaching of absolute obedience to the laws of the King, and to his public edicts under the Great Seal of England. For I make no doubt, but that solid reason, backed with the authority of so many learned men, will more prevail for the keeping of us in peace within ourselves, than any victory can do over the rebels. But I am afraid that it is impossible to bring the Universities to such a compliance with the actions of state, as is necessary for the business.
A. Seeing the Universities have heretofore from time to time maintained the authority of the Pope, contrary to all laws divine, civil, and natural, against the right of our Kings, why can they not as well, when they have all manner of laws and equity on their side, maintain the rights of him that is both sovereign of the kingdom, and head of the Church?
B. Why then were they not in all points for the King's power, presently after that King Henry VIII. was in Parlia- ment declared head of the Church, as much as they were before for the authority of the Pope?
A. Because the clergy in the Universities, by whom all things there are governed, and the clergy without the Universities, as well bishops as inferior clerks, did think that the pulling down of the Pope was the setting up of them (as to England) in his place, and made no question, the greatest part of them, but that their spiritual power did depend not upon the authority of the King, but of Christ himself, derived to them by a successive imposition of Dialogue I. BEHEMOTH. 57 hands from bishop to bishop; notwithstanding they knew that this derivation passed through the hands of popes and bishops whose authority they had cast off. For though they were content that the divine right, which the Pope pretended to in England, should be denied him, yet they thought it not so fit to be taken from the Church of England, whom they now supposed themselves to represent. It seems they did not think it reasonable that a woman, or a child, or a man that could not construe the Hebrew, Greek, or Latin Bible, nor knew perhaps the declensions and conjugations of Greek or Latin nouns and verbs, should take upon him to govern so many learned doctors in matters of religion; meaning matters of divinity: for religion has been for a long time, and is now by most people, taken for the same thing with divinity, to the great advantage of the clergy.
B. And especially now amongst the Presbyterians. For I see few that are by them esteemed very good Christians, besides such as can repeat their sermons, and wrangle for them about the interpretation of the Scripture, and fight for them also with their bodies or purses, when they shall be required. To believe in Christ is nothing with them, unless you believe as they bid you. Charity is nothing with them, unless it be charity and liberality to them, and partaking with them in faction. How we can have peace while this is our religion, I cannot tell. Hceret lateri lethalis arundo. The seditious doctrine of the Presbyterians has been stuck so hard into the people's heads and memories (I cannot say into their hearts; for they understand nothing in it, but that they may lawfully rebel), that I fear the commonwealth will never be cured.
A. The two great virtues, that were severally in Henry VII. and Henry VIII., when they shall be jointly in one King, will easily cure it. That of Henry VII. was, without much noise of the people to fill his coffers; that of Henry VIII. was an early severity; but this without the former cannot be exercised.
B. This that you say looks (methinks) like an advice to 58 BEHEMOTH. Dialogue r.
the King, to let them alone till he have gotten ready money enough to levy and maintain a sufficient army, and then to fall upon them and destroy them.
A. God forbid that so horrible, unchristian, and inhuman a design should ever enter into the King's heart. I would have him to have money enough readily to raise an army to suppress any rebellion, and to take from his enemies all hope of success, that they may not dare to trouble him in the reformation of the Universities; but to put none to death without actual committing such crimes as are already made capital by the laws. The core of rebellion, as you have seen by this, and read of other rebellions, are the Universities; which nevertheless are not to be cast away, but to be better disciplined: that is to say, that the politics there taught be made to be (as true politics should be) such as are fit to make men know, that it is their duty to obey all laws whatsoever that shall by the authority of the King be enacted, till by the same authority they shall be repealed; such as are fit to make men understand, that the civil laws are God's laws, as they that make them are by God appointed to make them; and to make men know, that the people and the Church are one thing, and have but one head, the King; and that no 'man has title to govern under him, that has it not from him; that the King owes his crown to God only, and to no man, ecclesiastic or other; and that the religion they teach there, be a quiet waiting for the coming again of our blessed Saviour, and in the mean time a resolution to obey the King's laws (which also are God's laws); to injure no man, to be in charity with all men, to cherish the poor and sick, and to live soberly and free from scandal; without mingling our religion with points of natural philosophy, as freedom of will, incorporeal sub- stance, everlasting nows, ubiquities, hypostases, which the people understand not, nor will ever care for. When the Universities shall be thus disciplined, there will come out of them, from time to time, well-principled preachers, and they that are now ill-principled, from time to time fall away.
Dialogue I. BEHEMOTH. 59 B. I think it a very good course, and perhaps the only one that can make our peace amongst ourselves constant. For if men know not their duty, what is there that can force them to obey the laws? An army, you will say. But what shall force the army? Were not the trained bands an army? Were they not the janissaries, that not very long ago slew Osman in his own palace at Constantinople? 1 am there- fore of your opinion, both that men may be brought to a love of obedience by preachers and gentlemen that imbibe good principles in their youth at the Universities, and also that we never shall have a lasting peace, till the Universities themselves be in such manner, as you have said, reformed; and the ministers know they have no authority but what the supreme civil power gives them; and the nobility and gentry know that the liberty of a state is not an exemption from the laws of their own country, whether made by an assembly or by a monarch, but an exemption from the constraint and insolence of their neighbours.
And now I am satisfied in this point, I will bring you back to the place from whence my curiosity drew you to this long digression. We were upon the point of ship- money; one of those grievances which the Parliament ex- claimed against as tyranny and arbitrary government; thereby to single out (as you called it) the King from his subjects, and to make a party against him, when they should need it. And now you may proceed, if it please you, to such other artifices as they used to the same purpose.
A. I think it were better to give over here our discourse of this business, and refer it to some other day that you shall think fit.
B. Content. That day I believe is not far off.
6o BEHEMOTH. Dialogue 2.
DIALOGUE II.
A. You are welcome; yet, if you had staid somewhat longer, my memory would have been so much the better provided for you.
B. Nay, I pray you give me now what you have about you; for the rest I am content you take what time you please.
A. After the Parliament had made the people believe that the exacting of ship-money was unlawful, and the people thereby inclined to think it tyrannical; in the next place, to increase their disaffection to his Majesty, they accused him of a purpose to introduce and authorize the Roman religion in this kingdom: than which nothing was more hateful to the people; not because it was erroneous (which they had neither learning nor judgment enough to examine), but because they had been used to hear it in- veighed against in the sermons and discourses of the preachers whom they trusted to. And this was indeed the most effectual calumny, to alienate the people's affections from him, that could be possibly invented. The colour they had for this slander was, first, that there was one Rosetti, Resident (at and a little before that time) from the Pope, with the Queen; and one Mr. George Con, Secretary to the Cardinal Francisco Barberini, nephew to Pope Urban VIII., sent over, under favour and protection of the Queen (as was conceived) to draw as many persons of quality about the court, as he should be able, to reconcile themselves to the Church of Rome: with what success I cannot tell; but it is likely he gained some, especially of the weaker sex; if I may say, they were gained by him, when not his arguments, but hope of favour from the Queen, in all probability prevailed upon them.
B. In such a conjuncture as that was, it had perhaps been better they had not been sent.
A. There was exception taken also at a convent of friars- Dialogue 2. BEHEMOTH. 61 capucins in Somerset-House, though allowed by the articles of marriage: and it was reported, that the Jesuits also were shortly after to be allowed a convent in Clerkenwell. And in the mean time, the principal secretary, Sir Francis Winde- bank, was accused for having by his warrant set at liberty some English Jesuits, that had been taken and imprisoned for returning into England after banishment, contrary to the statute which had made it capital. Also the resort of English Catholics to the Queen's Chapel, gave them colour to blame the Queen herself, not only for that, but also for all the favours that had been shown to the Catholics; in so much that some of them did not stick to say openly, that the King was governed by her.
B. Strange injustice! The Queen was a Catholic by profession, and therefore could not but endeavour to do the Catholics all the good she could: she had not else been truly that which she professed to be. But it seems they meant to force her to hypocrisy, being hypocrites them- selves. Can any man think it a crime in a devout lady, of what sect soever, to seek the favour and benediction of that Church whereof she is a member?
A. To give the Parliament another colour for their accusation on foot, of the King as to introducing of Popery, there was a great controversy between the Epis- copal and Presbyterian clergy about free-will. The dispute began first in the Low Countries, between Gomar and Arminius, in the time of King James, who foreseeing it might trouble the Church of England, did what he could to compose the difference. And an assembly of divines was thereupon got together at Dort, to which also King James sent a divine or two, but it came to nothing; the question was left undecided, and became a subject to be disputed of in the universities here. All the Presbyterians were of the same mind with Gomar: but a very great many others not; and those were called here Arminians, who, because the doctrine of free-will had been exploded as a Papistical doctrine, and because the Presbyterians were far the 62 BEHEMOTH. Dialogue 2.
greater number, and already in favour with the people, were generally hated. It was easy, therefore, for the Parliament to make that calumny pass currently with the people, when the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Laud, was for Arminius, and had a little before, by his power ecclesiastical, forbidden all ministers to preach to the people of predestination; and when all ministers that were gracious with him, and hoped for any Church preferment, fell to preaching and writing for free-will, to the uttermost of their power, as a proof of their ability and merit. Besides, they gave out, some of them, that the Archbishop was in heart a Papist; and in case he could effect a toleration here of the Roman religion, was to have a cardinal's hat: which was not only false, but also without any ground at all for a suspicion.
B. It is a strange thing, that scholars, obscure men, and such as could 1 receive no clarity but from the flame of the state, should be suffered to bring their unnecessary disputes, and together with them their quarrels, out of the universi- ties into the commonwealth; and more strange, that the state should engage in their parties, and not rather put them both to silence.
A. A state can constrain obedience, but convince no error, nor alter the minds of them that believe they have the better reason. Suppression of doctrine does but unite and exasperate, that is, increase both the malice and power of them that have already believed them.