synod of bishops, who shall call them together? The king. What if he will not? Who should excommunicate him, or if he despise your excommunication, who shall send forth a writ of _significavit_? No; all this was far from his Lordship’s thoughts. The power of the clergy, unless it be upheld legally by the king, or illegally by the multitude, amounts to nothing. But for the multitude, Suarez and the Schoolmen will never gain them, because they are not understood. Besides there be very few bishops that can act a sermon, which is a puissant part of _rhetoric_, so well as divers Presbyterians, and fanatic preachers can do. I conclude therefore, that his Lordship could not possibly believe that the supreme judicature in matter of religion could any where be so well placed as in the head of the church, which is the king. And so his Lordship and I think the same thing; but because his Lordship knew not how to deduce it, he was angry with me because I did it. He says, further, that _by my principles, he that blasphemeth Christ at Constantinople, is a true prophet_: as if a man that blasphemeth Christ, to approve his blasphemy can procure a miracle. For by my principles, no man is a prophet whose prophesy is not confirmed by God with a miracle. In the last place, out of this, that the lawful sovereign is the judge of prophesy, he deduces that then Samuel and other prophets were false prophets, that contested with their sovereigns. As for Samuel, he was at that time the judge, that is to say, the sovereign prince in Israel, and so acknowledged by Saul. For Saul received the kingdom from God himself, who had right to give and take it, by the hands of Samuel. And God gave it to himself only, and not to his seed; though if he had obeyed God, he would have settled it also upon his seed. The commandment of God was, that he should not spare Agag. Saul obeyed not. God therefore sent to Samuel to tell him that he was rejected. For all this, Samuel went not about to resist Saul. That he caused Agag to be slain, was with Saul’s consent. Lastly, Saul confesses his sin. Where is this contesting with Saul? After this God sent Samuel to anoint David, not that he should depose Saul, but succeed him, the sons of Saul having never had a right of succession. Nor did ever David make war on Saul, or so much as resist him, but fled from his persecution. But when Saul was dead, then indeed he claimed his right against the house of Saul. What rebellion or resistance could his Lordship find here, either in Samuel or in David? Besides, all these transactions are supernatural, and oblige not to imitation. Is there any prophet or priest now, that can set up in England, Scotland, or Ireland, another king by pretence of prophecy or religion? What did Jeroboam to the man of God (1 Kings xiii.) that prophesied against the altar in Bethel without first doing a miracle, but offer to seize him for speaking, as he thought, rashly of the king’s act; and after the miraculous withering of his hand, desire the prophet to pray for him? The sin of Jeroboam was not his distrust of the prophet, but his idolatry. He was the sole judge of the truth which the man of God uttered against the altar, and the process agreeable to equity. What is the story of Elijah and Ahab (1 Kings xviii.), but a confirmation of the right even of Ahab to be judge of prophecy? Elijah told Ahab, he had transgressed the commandment of God. So may any minister now tell his sovereign, so he do it with sincerity and discretion. Ahab told Elijah he troubled Israel. Upon this controversy Elijah desired trial. Send, saith he, and assemble all Israel; assemble also the prophets of Baal, four hundred and fifty. Ahab did so. The question is stated before the people thus: if the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, follow him. Then upon the altars of God and Baal were laid the wood and the bullocks; and the cause was to be judged by fire from heaven, to burn the sacrifices; which Elijah procured, the prophets of Baal could not procure. Was not this cause here pleaded before Ahab? The sentence of Ahab is not required; for Elijah from that time forward was no more persecuted by Ahab, but only by his wife, Jezabel. The story of Micaiah (2 Chron. xviii.) is this. Ahab King of Israel consulted the prophets, four hundred in number, whether he should prosper or not, in case he went with Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, to fight against the Syrians at Ramoth-gilead. The prophet Micaiah was also called, and both the kings, Ahab and Jehoshaphat, sat together to hear what they should prophecy. There was no miracle done. The four hundred pronounced victory; Micaiah alone the contrary. The king was judge, and most concerned in the event; nor had he received any revelation in the business. What could he do more discreetly than to follow the counsel of four hundred, rather than of one man? But the event was contrary; for he was slain; but not for following the counsel of the four hundred, but for his murder of Naboth, and his idolatry. It was also a sin in him, that he afflicted Micaiah in prison. But an unjust judgment does not take away from any king his right of judicature. Besides, what is all this, or that of Jeremiah which he cites last, to the question of who is judge of Christian doctrine?
_J. D._ Neither doth he use God the Holy Ghost, more favourably than God the Son. Where St. Peter saith, holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit; he saith, _By the spirit, is meant the voice of God in a dream or vision supernatural_; which dreams or visions, he maketh to be no more than _imaginations which they had in their sleep, or in an extasy, which in every true prophet were supernatural, but in false prophets were either natural or feigned_, and more likely to be false than true. To say, _God hath spoken to him in a dream, is no more than to say, he dreamed that God spake to him, &c. To say, he hath seen a vision or heard a voice, is to say, that he hath dreamed between sleeping and waking._ So St. Peter’s Holy Ghost, is come to be their own imaginations, which might be either feigned, or mistaken, or true. As if the Holy Ghost did enter only at their eyes, and at their ears, not into their understandings, nor into their minds; or as if the Holy Ghost did not seal unto their hearts the truth and assurance of their prophecies. Whether a new light be infused into their understandings, or new graces be inspired into their heart, they are wrought, or caused, or created immediately by the Holy Ghost; and so are his _imaginations_, if they be supernatural.
_T. H._ For the places of my _Leviathan_ he cites, they are all, as they stand, both true and clearly proved. The setting of them down by fragments is no refutation; nor offers he any arguments against them. His consequences are not deduced. I never said that the Holy Ghost was an imagination, or a dream, or a vision, but that the Holy Ghost spake most often in the Scripture by dreams and visions supernatural. The next words of his, _as if the Holy Ghost did enter only at their eyes, and at their ears, not into their understandings, nor into their minds_, I let pass, because I cannot understand them. His last words, _Whether new light, &c._ I understand and approve.
_J. D._ But he must needs fall into these absurdities, who maketh but a jest of inspiration. _They who pretend Divine inspiration to be a supernatural entering of the Holy Ghost into a man, are_, as he thinks, _in a very dangerous dilemma; for if they worship not the men whom they conceive to be inspired, they fall into impiety; and if they worship them, they commit idolatry_. So mistaking the Holy Ghost to be corporeal, something that is blown into a man, and the graces of the Holy Ghost to be corporeal graces. And the words, _inpoured or infused virtue_, and, _inblown or inspired virtue, are as absurd and as insignificant, as a round quadrangle_. He reckons it as a common error, that _faith and sanctity are not attained by study and reason, but by supernatural inspiration or infusion_. And layeth this for a firm ground; _faith and sanctity are indeed not very frequent, but yet they are not miracles, but brought to pass by education, discipline, correction, and other natural ways_. I would see the greatest Pelagian of them all, fly higher.
_T. H._ I make here no jest of inspiration. Seriously, I say, that in the proper signification of the words _inspiration_ and _infusion_, to say virtue is inspired, or infused, is as absurd as to say a quadrangle is round. But metaphorically, for God’s bestowing of faith, grace, or other virtue, those words are intelligible enough.
_J. D._ Why should he trouble himself about the Holy Spirit, who acknowledgeth no spirit, but either a subtle fluid body, or a ghost, or other idol or phantasm of the imagination; who knoweth no inward grace or intrinsical holiness? _Holy is a word which in God’s kingdom answereth to that, which men in their kingdoms use to call public, or the king’s._ And again, _wheresoever the word, holy, is taken properly, there is still something signified of propriety gotten by consent_. His holiness is a relation, not a quality; for inward sanctification, or real infused holiness, (in respect whereof the third person is called the Holy Ghost, because he is not only holy in himself, but also maketh us holy), he is so great a stranger to it, that he doth altogether deny it, and disclaim it.
_T. H._ The word _holy_ I had defined in the words which his Lordship here sets down, and by the use thereof in the Scripture made it manifest, that that was the true signification of the word. There is nothing in learning more difficult than to determine the signification of words. That difficulty excuses him. He says that _holiness_, in my sense, is a relation, not a quality. All the learned agree that quality is an accident: so that in attributing to God _holiness_, as a quality, he contradicts himself. For he has in the beginning of this his discourse denied, and rightly, that any accident is in God; saying, whatsoever is in God is the Divine substance. He affirms also, that to attribute any accident to God, is to deny the simplicity of the Divine substance. And thus his Lordship makes God, as I do, a corporeal spirit. Both here, and throughout, he discovers so much ignorance, as had he charged me with error only, and not with atheism, I should not have thought it necessary to answer him.
_J. D._ We are taught in our creed to believe the catholic or universal church. But T. H. teacheth us the contrary: _That if there be more Christian churches than one, all of them together are not one church personally_. And more plainly: _Now if the whole number of Christians be not contained in one commonwealth, they are not one person, nor is there an universal church, that hath any authority over them_. And again: _The universal church is not one person, of which it can be said, that it hath done, or decreed, or ordained, or excommunicated, or absolved_. This doth quite overthrow all the authority of general councils.
All other men distinguish between the church and the commonwealth; only T. H. maketh them to be one and the same thing. _The commonwealth of Christian men, and the church of the same, are altogether the same thing, called by two names for two reasons. For the matter of the church and of the commonwealth is the same, namely, the same Christian men; and the form is the same, which consisteth in the lawful power of convocating them._ And hence he concludeth, that _every Christian commonwealth is a church endowed with all spiritual authority_. And yet more fully: _The church if it be one person, is the same thing with the commonwealth of Christians; called a commonwealth, because it consisteth of men united in one person their sovereign; and a church, because it consisteth in Christian men united in one Christian sovereign_. Upon which account there was no Christian church in these parts of the world, for some hundreds of years after Christ, because there was no Christian sovereign.
_T. H._ For answer to this period, I say only this; that taking the church, as I do, in all those places, for a company of Christian men on earth incorporated into one person, that can speak, command, or do any act of a person, all that he citeth out of what I have written is true; and that all private conventicles, though their belief be right, are not properly called churches; and that there is not any one universal church here on earth, which is a person indued with authority universal to govern all Christian men on earth, no more than there is one universal sovereign prince or state on earth, that hath right to govern all mankind. I deny also that the whole clergy of a Christian kingdom or state being assembled, are the representative of that church further than the civil laws permit; or can lawfully assemble themselves, unless by the command or by the leave of the sovereign civil power. I say further, that the denial of this point tendeth in England towards the taking away of the king’s supremacy in causes ecclesiastical. But his Lordship has not here denied any thing of mine, because he has done no more but set down my words. He says further, that this doctrine destroys the authority of all general councils; which I confess. Nor hath any general council at this day in this kingdom the force of a law, nor ever had, but by the authority of the king.
_J. D._ Neither is he more orthodox concerning the holy Scriptures: _hitherto_, that is, for the books of Moses, _the power of making the Scripture canonical, was in the civil sovereign_. The like he saith of the Old Testament, made canonical by Esdras. And of the New Testament, that _it was not the apostles which made their own writings canonical, but every convert made them so to himself_: yet with this restriction, that _until the sovereign ruler had prescribed them, they were but counsel and advice, which whether good or bad, he that was counselled might without injustice refuse to observe, and being contrary to the laws established, could not without injustice observe_. He maketh the primitive Christians to have been in a pretty condition. Certainly the gospel was contrary to the laws then established. But most plainly, _The word of the interpreter of the Scripture is the word of God_. And the _same is the interpreter of the Scripture, and the sovereign judge of all doctrines_, that is, the sovereign magistrate, _to whose authority we must stand no less, than to theirs, who at first did commend the Scripture to us for the canon of faith_. Thus if Christian sovereigns, of different communications, do clash one with another, in their interpretation, or misinterpretation of Scripture, as they do daily, then the word of God is contradictory to itself; or that is the word of God in one commonwealth, which is the word of the Devil in another commonwealth. And the same thing may be true, and not true at the same time: which is the peculiar privilege of T. H. to make contradictories to be true together.
_T. H._ There is no doubt but by what authority the Scripture or any other writing is made a law, by the same authority the Scriptures are to be interpreted, or else they are made law in vain. But to obey is one thing, to believe is another; which distinction perhaps his Lordship never heard of. To obey is to do or forbear as one is commanded, and depends on the will; but to believe, depends not on the will, but on the providence and guidance of our hearts that are in the hands of God Almighty. Laws only require obedience; belief requires teachers and arguments drawn either from reason, or from some thing already believed. Where there is no reason for our belief, there is no reason we should believe. The reason why men believe, is drawn from the authority of those men whom we have no just cause to mistrust, that is, of such men to whom no profit accrues by their deceiving us, and of such men as never used to lie, or else from the authority of such men whose promises, threats, and affirmations, we have seen confirmed by God with miracles. If it be not from the king’s authority that the Scripture is law, what other authority makes it law? Here some man being of his Lordship’s judgment, will perhaps laugh and say, it is the authority of God that makes them law. I grant that. But my question is, on what authority they believe that God is the author of them? Here his Lordship would have been at a nonplus, and turning round, would have said the authority of the Scripture makes good that God is their author. If it be said we are to believe the Scripture upon the authority of the universal church, why are not the books we call Apocrypha the word of God as well as the rest? If this authority be in the church of England, then it is not any other than the authority of the head of the church, which is the king. For without the head the church is mute. The authority therefore is in the king; which is all that I contended for in this point. As to the laws of the Gentiles, concerning religion in the primitive times of the church, I confess they were contrary to Christian faith. But none of their laws, nor terrors, nor a man’s own will, are able to take away faith, though they can compel to an external obedience; and though I may blame the _Ethnic_ princes for compelling men to speak what they thought not, yet I absolve not all those that have had the power in Christian churches from the same fault. For I believe, since the time of the first four general councils, there have been more Christians burnt and killed in the Christian church by ecclesiastical authority, than by the heathen emperors' laws, for religion only without sedition. All that the Bishop does in this argument is but a heaving at the King’s supremacy. Oh, but, says he, if two kings interpret a place of Scripture in contrary senses, it will follow that both senses are true. It does not follow. For the interpretation, though it be made by just authority, must not therefore always be true. If the doctrine in the one sense be necessary to salvation, then they that hold the other must die in their sins, and be damned. But if the doctrine in neither sense be necessary to salvation, then all is well, except perhaps that they will call one another atheists, and fight about it.
_J. D._ All the power, virtue, use, and efficacy, which he ascribeth to the holy sacraments, is to be _signs or commemorations_. As for any sealing, or confirming, or conferring of grace, he acknowledged! nothing. The same he saith particularly of baptism: upon which grounds a cardinal’s red hat, or a serjeant-at-arms his mace, may be called sacraments as well as baptism, or the holy eucharist, if they be only signs and commemorations of a benefit. If he except, that baptism and the eucharist are of Divine institution; but a cardinal’s red hat or a serjeant-at-arms his mace are not: he saith truly, but nothing to his advantage or purpose, seeing he deriveth all the authority of the word and sacraments, in respect of subjects, and all our obligation to them, from the authority of the sovereign magistrate, without which these words, _Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus_, are but counsel, no command. And so a serjeant-at-arms his mace, and baptism, proceed both from the same authority. And this he saith upon this silly ground, _that nothing is a command, the performance whereof tendeth to our own benefit_. He might as well deny the Ten Commandments to be commands, because they have an advantageous promise annexed to them, _Do this and thou shalt live_; and _cursed is every one that continueth not in all the words of this law to do them_.
_T. H._ Of the sacraments I said no more, than that they are _signs_ or _commemorations_. He finds fault that I add not _seals_, _confirmations_, and that they _confer grace_. First, I would have asked him, if a seal be any thing else besides a sign, whereby to remember somewhat, as that we have promised, accepted, acknowledged, given, undertaken somewhat. Are not other _signs_, though without a _seal_, of force sufficient to convince me or oblige me? A writing obligatory, or release, signed only with a man’s name, is as obligatory as a bond signed and sealed, if it be sufficiently proved, though peradventure it may require a longer process to obtain a sentence; but his Lordship I think knew better than I do the force of bonds and bills; yet I know this, that in the court of heaven there is no such difference between saying, signing, and sealing, as his Lordship seemeth here to pretend. I am baptized for a commemoration that I have enrolled myself. I take the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper to commemorate that Christ’s body was broken, and his blood shed for my redemption. What is there more intimated concerning the nature of these sacraments, either in the Scripture or in the book of Common Prayer? Have bread and wine and water in their own nature, any other quality than they had before the consecration? It is true that the consecration gives these bodies a new relation, as being a giving and dedicating of them to God, that is to say a making of them holy, not a changing of their quality. But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken English, to be thought perfect in the French language; so his Lordship, I think, to seem a perfect understander of the unintelligible language of the Schoolmen, pretends an ignorance of his mother-tongue. He talks here of _command_ and _counsel_, as if he were no Englishman, nor knew any difference between their significations. What Englishman, when he commandeth, says more than, _Do this_; yet he looks to be obeyed, if obedience be due unto him. But when he says, _Do this, and thou shalt have such or such a reward_, he encourages him, or advises him, or bargains with him; but commands him not. Oh, the understanding of a Schoolman!
_J. D._ Sometimes he is for holy orders, and giveth to the pastors of the church the right of ordination and absolution, and infallibility, too much for a particular pastor, or the pastors of one particular church. _It is manifest, that the consecration of the chiefest doctors in every church, and imposition of hands, doth pertain to the doctors of the same church._ And, _it cannot be doubted of, but the power of binding and loosing was given by Christ to the future pastors, after the same manner as to his present apostles_. And, _our Saviour hath promised this infallibility in those things which are necessary to salvation, to his apostles, until the day of judgment, that is to say, to the apostles, and pastors to be consecrated by the apostles successively, by the imposition of hands_.
But at other times he casteth all this meal down with his foot. _Christian sovereigns are the supreme pastors, and the only persons whom Christians now hear speak from God, except such as God speaketh to in these days supernaturally._ What is now become of the promised infallibility? And, _it is from the civil sovereign that all other pastors derive their right of teaching, preaching, and all other functions pertaining to that office; and they are but his ministers in the same manner as the magistrates of towns, or judges in courts of justice, and commanders of armies_. What is now become of their ordination? Magistrates, judges, and generals, need no precedent qualifications. He maketh _the pastoral authority of sovereigns to be_ jure divino, _of all other pastors_ jure civili: he addeth, _neither is there any judge of heresy among subjects, but their own civil sovereign_.
Lastly, _the church excommunicateth no man but whom she excommunicateth by the authority of the prince_. And, _the effect of excommunication hath nothing in it, neither of damage in this world, nor terror upon an apostate, if the civil power did persecute or not assist the church: and in the world to come, leaves them in no worse estate, than those who never believed. The damage rather redoundeth to the church. Neither is the excommunication of a Christian subject, that obeyeth the laws of his own sovereign, of any effect._ Where is now their power of binding and loosing?
_T. H._ Here his Lordship condemneth, first my too much kindness to the pastors of the church; as if I ascribed infallibility to every particular minister, or at least to the assembly of the pastors of a particular church. But he mistakes me; I never meant to flatter them so much. I say only that the ceremony of consecration, and imposition of hands, belongs to them; and that also no otherwise than as given them by the laws of the commonwealth. The bishop consecrates, but the king both makes him bishop and gives him his authority. The head of the church not only gives the power of consecration, dedication, and benediction, but may also exercise the act himself if he please. Solomon did it; and the book of canons says, that the King of England has all the right that any good king of Israel had; it might have added, that any other king or sovereign assembly had in their own dominions. I deny that any pastor or any assembly of pastors in any particular church, or all the churches on earth though united, are infallible: yet I say, the pastors of a Christian church assembled are, in all such points as are _necessary to salvation_. But about what points are _necessary to salvation_, he and I differ. For I, in the forty-third chapter of my _Leviathan_, have proved that this article, _Jesus is the Christ_, is the _unum necessarium_, _the only article necessary to salvation_; to which his Lordship hath not offered any objection.
And he, it seems, would have necessary to salvation every doctrine he himself thought so. Doubtless in this article, _Jesus is the Christ_, every church is infallible; for else it were no church. Then he says, I overthrow this again by saying that Christian sovereigns are the _supreme pastors_, that is, heads of their own churches; _That they have their authority jure divino; that all other pastors have it jure civili_. How came any Bishop to have authority over me, but by letters patent from the king? I remember a parliament wherein a bishop, who was both a good preacher and a good man, was blamed for a book he had a little before published in maintenance of the _jus divinum_ of bishops; a thing which before the reformation here, was never allowed them by the pope. Two _jus divinums_ cannot stand together in one kingdom. In the last place he mislikes that the church should excommunicate by authority of the king, that is to say, by authority of the head of the church. But he tells not why. He might as well mislike that the magistrates of the realm should execute their offices by the authority of the head of the realm. His Lordship was in a great error, if he thought such encroachments would add any thing to the wealth, dignity, reverence, or continuance of his order. They are pastors of pastors, but yet they are the sheep of him that is on earth their sovereign pastor, and he again a sheep of that supreme pastor which is in heaven. And if they did their pastoral office, both by life and doctrine, as they ought to do, there could never arise any dangerous rebellion in the land. But if the people see once any ambition in their teachers, they will sooner learn that, than any other doctrine; and from ambition proceeds rebellion.
_J. D._ It may be some of T. H. his disciples desire to know what hopes of heavenly joys they have upon their master’s principles. They may hear them without any great contentment: _There is no mention in Scripture, nor ground in reason, of the cœlum empyræum_, that is, the heaven of the blessed, where the saints shall live eternally with God. And again, _I have not found any text that can probably be drawn to prove any ascension of the saints into heaven, that is to say, into any cœlum empyræum_. But he concludeth positively, that _Salvation shall be upon earth, when God shall reign at the coming of Christ in Jerusalem_. And again, _In short, the kingdom of God is a civil kingdom_, &c. called also _the kingdom of heaven, and the kingdom of glory_. All the Hobbians can hope for, is, to be restored to the same condition which Adam was in before his fall. So saith T. H. himself: _From whence may be inferred, that the elect, after the resurrection, shall be restored to the estate wherein Adam was before he had sinned_. As for the beatifical vision, he defineth it to be a word unintelligible.
_T. H._ This _cœlum empyræum_ for which he pretendeth so much zeal, where is it in the Scripture, where in the book of Common Prayer, where in the canons, where in the homilies of the church of England, or in any part of our religion? What has a Christian to do with such language? Nor do I remember it in Aristotle. Perhaps it may be in some Schoolman or commentator on Aristotle, and his Lordship makes it in English the _heaven of the blessed_, as if _empyræum_ 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 (_Leviathan_, p. 625), 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 _cœlum empyræum_, 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, subtile, 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 universe is body, and that which is not body, is no part of the universe. And because the universe is all, that which is no part of it is nothing, and consequently nowhere._ 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 lie. If this that he says here be true, that _every part of the universe 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 mere nothing, though they think they dance under a net, and have the blind of God’s incomprehensibility between them and discovery.