The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 04 (of 11)

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 clothes upon their backs, who did never know magistrate but their father, yet have their God, and their religious rights 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, unity, ubiquity. 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 atheism. 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 hath the least relation in the world to God. As if a man were like the colt of a wild ass in the wilderness, without any owner or obligation. Thus in describing the laws of nature, this great clerk forgetteth the God of nature, and the main and principal laws of nature, which contain a man’s 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. IV, proved them severally, one by one, out of the Scriptures: which his Lordship had read and knew. It was therefore an unjust charge of his to say, I had not one word in them that concerns religion, or that hath the least relation in the world to God; and this upon no other ground than that I added not to every article, this law is 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 myself 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 diocese, 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, profaneness, rebellious principles, and all other vices, by eloquent and powerful disgracing of 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 damage they receive by it in the end. In one word, he is a learned minister that can preach such sermons as St. Chrysostom preached to the Antiochians, when he was presbyter in that city. Could his Lordship find in my book, that I arrogated to myself the eloquence or wisdom of St. Chrysostom, or the ability of governing the church? It is one thing to know what is to be done, another thing to know how to do it. But his Lordship was pleased to use any artifice to disgrace me in any kind whatsoever.

J. D. Perhaps he will say that he handleth the laws of nature there, only so far as may serve to the constitution or settlement of a commonwealth. In good time, let it be so. He hath devised us a trim commonwealth, which is founded neither upon religion towards God, nor justice towards man; but merely upon self-interest, and self-preservation. Those rays of heavenly light, those natural seeds of religion, which God himself hath imprinted in the heart of man, are more efficacious towards preservation of a society, whether we regard the nature of the thing, or the blessing of God, than all his pacts, and surrenders, and translations of power. He who unteacheth men their duty to God, may make them eye-servants, so long as their interest doth oblige them to obey; but is no fit master to teach men conscience and fidelity.

T. H. He has not yet found the place where I contradict either the existence, or infiniteness, or incomprehensibility, or unity, or ubiquity of God. I am therefore yet absolved of atheism. But I am, he says, inconsistent and irreconcileable with myself; that is, I am (though he says not so) he thinks, a forgetful blockhead. I cannot help that: but my forgetfulness appears not here. Even his Lordship, where he says, “those rays of heavenly light, those seeds of religion, which God himself hath imprinted in the heart of man (meaning natural reason), are more efficacious to the preservation of society, than all the pacts, surrenders, and translating of power,” had forgotten to except the old pact of the Jews, and the new pact of Christians. But pardoning that, did he hope to make any wise man believe, that when this nation very lately was an anarchy, and dissolute multitude of men, doing every one what his own reason or imprinted light suggested, they did again out of the same light call in the king, and peace again, and ask pardon for the faults, which that their illumination had brought them into, rather than out of fear of perpetual danger and hope of preservation?

J. D. Without religion, societies are like but soapy bubbles, quickly dissolved. It was the judgment of as wise a man as T. H. himself, though perhaps he will hardly be persuaded to it, that Rome owed more of its grandeur to religion, than either to strength or stratagems. We have not exceeded the Spaniards in number, nor the Gauls in strength, nor the Carthaginians in craft, nor the Grecians in art, &c. but we have overcome all nations by our piety and religion.

T. H. Did not his Lordship forget himself here again, in approving this sentence of Tully, which makes the idolatry of the Romans, not only better than the idolatry of other nations; but also better than the religion of the Jews, whose law Christ himself says he came not to destroy but to fulfil? And that the Romans overcame both them and other nations by their piety, when it is manifest that the Romans overran the world by injustice and cruelty, and that their victories ought not to be ascribed to the piety of the Romans, but to the impiety as well of the Jews as of other nations? But what meant he by saying “Tully was as wise a man as T. H. himself, though perhaps he will hardly be persuaded to it?” Was that any part of the controversy? No: then it was out of his way. God promiseth to assist good men in their way, but not out of their way. It is therefore the less wonder that his Lordship was in this place deserted of the light, which God imprints in the hearts of rudest savages.

J. D. Among his laws he inserteth gratitude to men as the third precept of the law of nature; but of the gratitude of mankind to their Creator, there is a deep silence. If men had sprung up from the earth in a night, like mushrooms or excrescences, without all sense of honour, justice, conscience, or gratitude, he could not have vilified the human nature more than he doth.

T. H. My Lord discovers here an ignorance of such method as is necessary for lawful and strict reasoning, and explication of the truth in controversy. And not only that, but also how little able he is to fix his mind upon what he reads in other men’s writings. When I had defined ingratitude universally, he finds fault that I do not mention ingratitude towards God, as if his Lordship knew not that an universal comprehends all the particulars. When I had defined equity universally, why did he not as well blame me for not telling what that equity is in God? He is grateful to the man of whom he receives a good turn, that confesseth, or maketh appear he is pleased with the benefit he receiveth. So also gratitude towards God is to confess his benefits. There is also, in gratitude towards men, a desire to requite their benefits; so there is in our gratitude towards God, so far to requite them, as to be kind to God’s ministers, which I acknowledged in making sacrifices a part of natural divine worship; and the benefit of those sacrifices is the nourishment of God’s ministers. It appears therefore, that the bishop’s attention in reading my writings, was either weak in itself, or weakened by prejudice.

J. D. From this shameful omission or preterition of the main duty of mankind, a man might easily take the height of T. H. his religion. But he himself putteth it past all conjectures. His principles are brim full of prodigious impiety. In these four things, opinions of ghosts, ignorance of second causes, devotion to what men fear, and taking of things casual for prognostics, consisteth the natural seed of religion; the culture and improvement whereof, he referreth only to policy. Human and divine politics, are but politics. And again, mankind hath this from the conscience of their own weakness, and the admiration of natural events, that the most part of men believe that there is an invisible God, the maker of all visible things. And a little after he telleth us, that superstition proceedeth from fear without right reason, and atheism from an opinion of reason without fear; making atheism to be more reasonable than superstition. What is now become of that divine worship which natural reason did assign unto God, the honour of existence, infiniteness, incomprehensibility, unity, ubiquity? What is now become of that dictate or precept of reason, concerning prayers, thanksgivings, oblations, sacrifices, if uncertain opinions, ignorance, fear, mistakes, the conscience of our own weakness, and the admiration of natural events, be the only seeds of religion?

He proceedeth further, that atheism itself, though it be an erroneous opinion, and therefore a sin, yet it ought to be numbered among the sins of imprudence or ignorance. He addeth, that an atheist is punished not as a subject is punished by his king, because he did not observe laws: but 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 man’s obligation to obey God proceedeth from his weakness, (De Cive, XV. 7: vol. II. p. 336): Manifestum est obligationem ad prestandam ipsi (Deo) obedientiam, incumbere hominibus propter imbecilitatem. First, it is impossible that should be a sin of mere 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 itself. Then if nature dictate to us that there is a God, and that this God is to be worshipped in such and such a manner, it is not possible that atheism should be a sin of mere 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 traitor. 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 traitor 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 downright atheist, than to make God to be such a thing as he doth, and at last thrust him into the Devil’s 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 itself, 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 margin. 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 margin, 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 demon, 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 God’s 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? It 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 misreasoning. 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 oftener. 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 successfully 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 signify a denial of a God, no punishment preordained by law, can be too great for such an insolence; because there is no living in a commonwealth with men, to whose oaths we cannot reasonably give credit. As to that I say, an atheist is punished by God not as a subject by his king, but as an enemy; and to my argument for it, namely, because he never acknowledged himself God’s subject, he opposeth, that if nature dictate that there is a God, and to be worshipped in such and such manner, then atheism is not a sin of mere ignorance: as if either I or he did hold that nature dictates the manner of God’s worship, or any article of our creed, or whether to worship with or without a surplice. Secondly, he answers that a rebel is still a subject de jure, though not de facto: and it is granted. But though the king lose none of his right by the traitor’s act, yet the traitor loseth the privilege of being punished by a precedent law; and therefore may be punished at the king’s will, as Ravaillac was for murdering Henry IV of France. An open enemy and a perfidious traitor are both enemies. Had not his Lordship read in the Roman story, how Perseus and other just enemies of that state were wont to be punished? But what is this trifling question to my excusing of atheism? In the seventh paragraph of chapter XV. of my book De Cive, he found the words in Latin, which he here citeth. And to the same sense I have said in my Leviathan, that the right of nature whereby God reigneth over men, is to be derived not from his creating them, as if he required obedience, as of gratitude; but from his irresistible power. This he says is absurd and dishonourable. Whereas first all power is honourable, and the greatest power is most honourable. Is it not a more noble tenure for a king to hold his kingdom, and the right to punish those that transgress his laws, from his power, than from the gratitude or gift of the transgressor. There is nothing therefore here of dishonour to God Almighty. But see the subtilty of his disputing. He saw he could not catch Leviathan in this place, he looks for him in my book De Cive, which is Latin, to try what he could fish out of that: and says I make our obedience to God, depend upon our weakness; as if these words signified the dependence, and not the necessity of our submission, or that incumbere and dependere were all one.

J. D. For T. H. his God is not the God of Christians, nor of any rational men. Our God is every where, and seeing he hath no parts, he must be wholly here, and wholly there, and wholly every where. So nature itself dictateth. It cannot be said honourably of God that he is in a place; for nothing is in a place, but that which hath proper bounds of its greatness. But T. H. his God is not wholly every where. No man can conceive that any thing is all in this place, and all in another place at the same time, for none of these things ever have or can be incident to sense. So far well, if by conceiving he mean comprehending; but then follows, That these are absurd speeches taken upon credit, without any signification at all, from deceived philosophers, and deceived or deceiving Schoolmen. Thus he denieth the ubiquity of God. A circumscriptive, a definitive, and a repletive being in a place, is some heathen language to him.

T. H. Though I believe the omnipotence of God, and that he can do what he will, yet I dare not say how every thing is done, because I cannot conceive nor comprehend either the Divine substance, or the way of its operation. And I think it impiety to speak concerning God any thing of my own head, or upon the authority of philosophers or Schoolmen, which I understand not, without warrant in the Scripture: and what I say of omnipotence, I say also of ubiquity. But his Lordship is more valiant in this place, telling us that God is wholly here, and wholly there, and wholly every where; because he has no parts. I cannot comprehend nor conceive this. For methinks it implies also that the whole world is also in the whole God, and in every part of God. Nor can I conceive how any thing can be called whole, which has no parts, nor can I find anything of this in the Scripture. If I could find it there, I could believe it; and if I could find it in the public doctrine of the Church, I could easily abstain from contradicting it. The Schoolmen say also, that the soul of man (meaning his upper soul, which they call the rational soul) is also wholly in the whole man, and wholly in every part of the man. What is this, but to make the human soul the same thing in respect of man’s body, that God is in respect of the world? These his Lordship calls here rational men, and some of them which applaud this doctrine, would have the high court of parliament corroborate such doctrines with a law. I said in my Leviathan, that it is no honourable attribute to God, to say he is in a place, because infinite is not confined within a place. To which he replies, T. H. his God is not wholly every where. I confess the consequence. For I understand in English, he that says any thing to be all here, means that neither all nor any of the same thing is elsewhere. He says further, I take a circumscriptive, a definitive, and a repletive being in a place to be heathen language. Truly, if this dispute were at the bar, I should go near to crave the assistance of the court, lest some trick might be put upon me in such obscurity. For though I know what these Latin words singly signify, yet I understand not how any thing is in a place definitively and not circumscriptively. For definitively comes from definio, which is to set bounds. And therefore to be in a place definitively, is when the bounds of the place are every way marked out. But to be in a place circumscriptively, is when the bounds of the place are described round about. To be in a place repletively, is to fill a place. Who does not see that this distinction is canting and fraud? If any man will call it pious fraud, he is to prove the piety as clearly as I have here explained the fraud. Besides, no fraud can be pious in any man, but him that hath a lawful right to govern him whom he beguileth; whom the Bishop pretends to govern, I cannot tell. Besides, his Lordship ought to have considered, that every Bishop is one of the great Council, trusted by the King to give their advice with the Lords temporal, for the making of good laws, civil and ecclesiastical, and not to offer them such obscure doctrines, as if, because they are not versed in School-divinity, therefore they had no learning at all, nor understood the English tongue. Why did the divines of England contend so much heretofore to have the Bible translated into English, if they never meant any but themselves should read it? If a lay-man be publicly encouraged to search the Scriptures for his own salvation, what has a divine to do to impose upon him any strange interpretation, unless, if he make him err to damnation, he will be damned in his stead?

J. D. Our God is immutable without any shadow of turning by change, to whom all things are present, nothing past, nothing to come. But T. H. his God is measured by time, losing something that is past, and acquiring something that doth come every minute. That is as much as to say, that our God is infinite, and his God is finite; for unto that which is actually infinite, nothing can be added, neither time nor parts. Hear himself: Nor do I understand what derogation it can be to the Divine perfection, to attribute to it potentiality, that is in English, power (so little doth he understand what potentiality is) and successive duration. And he chargeth it upon us as a fault, that we will not have eternity to be an endless succession of time. How, successive duration, and an endless succession of time in God? Then God is not infinite, then God is older to-day than he was yesterday. Away with blasphemies! Before, he destroyed the ubiquity of God, and now he destroyeth his eternity.

T. H. I shall omit both here and henceforth his preambulatory, impertinent, and uncivil calumnies. The thing he pretends to prove is this. That it is a derogation to the Divine power to attribute to it potentiality (that is in English power) and successive duration. One of his reasons is, God is infinite, and nothing can be added to infinite, neither of time nor of parts: it is true. And therefore I said, God is infinite and eternal, without beginning or end, either of time or place; which he has not here confuted, but confirmed. He denies potentiality and power to be all one, and says I little understand what potentiality is. He ought therefore in this place to have defined what potentiality is: for I understand it to be the same with potentia, which is in English power. There is no such word as potentiality in the Scriptures, nor in any author of the Latin tongue. It is found only in School-divinity, as a word of art, or rather as a word of craft, to amaze and puzzle the laity. And therefore I no sooner read than interpreted it. In the next place he says, as wondering: How, an endless succession of time in God! Why not? God’s mercy endureth for ever, and surely God endureth as long as his mercy; therefore there is duration in God, and consequently endless succession of time. God who in sundry times and divers manners spake in time past, &c. But in a former dispute with me about free-will, he hath defined eternity to be nunc stans, that is an ever standing now, or everlasting instant. This he thinks himself bound in honour to defend. What reasonable soul can digest this? We read in Scripture, that a thousand years with God, is but as yesterday. And why? but because he sees as clearly to the end of a thousand years, as to the end of a day. But his Lordship affirms, that both a thousand years and a day are but one instant, the same standing now, or eternity. If he had showed an holy text for this doctrine, or any text of the book of Common Prayer (in the Scripture and book of Common Prayer is contained all our religion), I had yielded to him; but School-divinity I value little or nothing at all. Though in this he contradict also the School-men, who say the soul is eternal only a parte post, but God is eternal both a parte post, and a parte ante. Thus there are parts in eternity; and eternity being, as his Lordship says, the Divine substance, the Divine substance has parts, and nunc stans has parts. Is not this darkness? I take it to be the kingdom of darkness, and the teachers of it (especially of this doctrine, that God, who is not only optimus, but also maximus, is no greater than to be wholly contained in the least atom of earth, or other body, and that his whole duration is but an instant of time) to be either grossly ignorant or ungodly deceivers.

J. D. Our God is a perfect, pure, simple, indivisible, infinite essence; free from all composition of matter and form, of substance and accidents. All matter is finite, and he who acteth by his infinite essence, needeth neither organs nor faculties (id est, no power, note that), nor accidents, to render him more complete. But T. H. his God is a divisible God, a compounded God, that hath matter, or qualities, or accidents. Hear himself. I argue thus: The Divine substance is indivisible; but eternity is the Divine substance. The major is evident, because God is actus simplicissimus; the minor is confessed by all men, that whatsoever is attributed to God, is God. Now listen to his answer: The major is so far from being evident, that actus simplicissimus signifieth nothing. The minor is said by some men, thought by no man; whatsoever is thought is understood. The major was this, the Divine substance is indivisible. Is this far from being evident? Either it is indivisible, or divisible. If it be not indivisible, then it is divisible, then it is materiate, then it is corporeal, then it hath parts, then it is finite by his own confession. Habere partes, aut esse totum aliquid, sunt attributa finitorum. Upon this silly conceit he chargeth me for saying, that God is not just, but justice itself; not eternal, but eternity itself; which he calleth unseemly words to be said of God. And he thinketh he doth me a great courtesy in not adding blasphemous and atheistical. But his bolts are so soon shot, and his reasons are such vain imaginations, and such drowsy phantasies, that no sober man doth much regard them. Thus he hath already destroyed the ubiquity, the eternity, and the simplicity of God. I wish he had considered better with himself, before he had desperately cast himself upon these rocks.

But paulo majora canamus. My next charge is, that he destroys the very being of God, and leaves nothing in his place, but an empty name. For by taking away all incorporeal substances, he taketh away God himself. The very name, saith he, of an incorporeal substance, is a contradiction. And to say that an angel or spirit, is an incorporeal substance, is to say in effect, that there is no angel or spirit at all. By the same reason to say, that God is an incorporeal substance, is to say there is no God at all. Either God is incorporeal; or he is finite, and consists of parts, and consequently is no God. This, that there is no incorporeal spirit, is that main root of atheism, from which so many lesser branches are daily sprouting up.

T. H. God is indeed a perfect, pure, simple, infinite substance; and his name incommunicable, that is to say, not divisible into this and that individual God, in such manner as the name of man is divisible into Peter and John. And therefore God is individual; which word amongst the Greeks is expressed by the word indivisible. Certain heretics in the primitive church, because special and individual are called particulars, maintained that Christ was a particular God, differing in number from God the Father. And this was the doctrine that was condemned for heresy in the first council of Nice, by these words, God hath no parts. And yet many of the Latin fathers, in their explications of the Nicene creed, have expounded the word consubstantial, by the community of nature, which different species have in their genus, and different individuals in the species; as if Peter and John were consubstantial, because they agree in one human nature; which is contrary, I confess, to the meaning of the Nice fathers. But that in a substance infinitely great, it should be impossible to consider any thing as not infinite, I do not see it there condemned. For certainly he that thinks God is in every part of the church, does not exclude him out of the churchyard. And is not this a considering of him by parts? For dividing a thing which we cannot reach nor separate one part thereof from another, is nothing else but considering of the same by parts. So much concerning indivisibility from natural reason; for I will wade no further, but rely upon the Scriptures. God is nowhere said in the Scriptures to be indivisible, unless his Lordship meant division to consist only in separation of parts, which I think he did not. St. Paul indeed saith (1 Cor. i. 13): Is Christ divided? Not that the followers of Paul, Apollos, and Cephas, followed some one part, some another of Christ; but that thinking differently of his nature, they made as it were different kinds of him. Secondly, his Lordship expounds simplicity, by not being compounded of matter and form, or of substance and accidents, unlearnedly. For nothing can be so compounded. The matter of a chair is wood; the form is the figure it hath, apt for the intended use. Does his Lordship think the chair compounded of the wood and the figure? A man is rational: does it therefore follow that reason is a part of the man? It was Aristotle deceived him, who told him that a rational living creature, is the definition of a man, and that the definition of a man was his essence; and therefore the Bishop and other Schoolmen, from this that the word rational is a part of these words, man is a rational living creature, concluded that the essence of man was a part of the man, and a rational man the same thing with a rational soul. I should wonder how any man, much more a doctor of divinity, should be so grossly deceived, but that I know naturally the generality of men speak the words of their masters by rote, without having any ideas of the things, which the words signify. Lastly, he calls God an essence. If he mean by essence the same with ens, τὸ ὄν, I approve it. Otherwise, what is essence? There is no such word in the Old Testament. The Hebrew language, which has no word answerable to the copulative est, will not bear it. The New Testament hath οὐσία, but never for essence, nor for substance, but only for riches. I come now to his argument in mood and figure, which is this, the Divine substance is indivisible. That is the major. Eternity is the Divine substance. That is the minor. Ergo, the Divine substance is indivisible. The major, he says, is evident, because God is actus simplicissimus. The minor is confessed, he thinks, by all men, because whatsoever is attributed to God, is God. To this I answered, that the major was so far from being evident, that actus simplicissimus signifieth nothing, and that the minor was understood by no man. First, what is actus in the major? Does any man understand actus for a substance, that is, for a thing subsisting by itself? Is not actus, in English, either an act or an action, or nothing? Or is any of these substance? If it be evident, why did he not explain actus by a definition? And as to the minor, though all men in the world understand that the Eternal is God, yet no man can understand that the eternity is God. Perhaps he and the Schoolmen mean by actus, the same that they do by essentia. What is the essence of a man, but his humanity; or of God, but his Deity; of great, but greatness; and so of all other denominating attributes? And the words, God and Deity, are of different signification. John Damascene, a father of the church, expounding the Nicene creed, denies plainly that the Deity was incarnate; but all true Christians hold that God was incarnate. Therefore God and the Deity signify divers things; and therefore eternal and eternity are not the same, no more than a wise man and his wisdom are the same; nor God and his justice the same thing: and universally it is false, that the attribute in the abstract is the same with the substance, to which it is attributed. Also it is universally true of God, that the attribute in the concrete, and the substance to which it is attributed, is not the same thing.

I come now to his next period or paragraph, wherein he would fain prove, that by denying incorporeal substance, I take away God’s existence. The words he cites here are mine: to say an angel or spirit is an incorporeal substance, is to say in effect there is no angel nor spirit at all. It is true also, that to say that God is an incorporeal substance, is to say in effect there is no God at all. What alleges he against it, but the School-divinity which I have already answered? Scripture he can bring none, because the word incorporeal is not found in Scripture. But the Bishop, trusting to his Aristotelian and Scholastic learning, hath hitherto made no use of Scripture, save only of these texts: 1 Cor. ix. 7: Who hath planted a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof; or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? and Rev. iv. 11: Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, honour, and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they were created: thereby to prove that the right of God to govern and punish mankind is not derived from his omnipotence. Let us now see how he proves incorporeity by his own reason without Scripture. Either God, he saith, is incorporeal or finite. He knows I deny both, and say he is corporeal and infinite: against which he offers no proof, but only, according to his custom of disputing, calls it the root of atheism; and interrogates me, what real thing is left in the world, if God be incorporeal, but body and accidents? I say there is nothing left but corporeal substance. For I have denied, as he knew, that there is any reality in accidents; and nevertheless maintain God’s existence, and that he is a most pure, and most simple corporeal spirit. Here his Lordship catching nothing, removes to the eternity of the Trinity, 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 hath as many persons as there be 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 Lordship’s School-argument; now let me come with my Scripture-argument. St. Paul, concerning Christ (Col. ii. 9) saith thus: In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. This place Athanasius, a great and zealous doctor in the Nicene Council, and vehement enemy of Arius the heretic, who allowed Christ to be no otherwise God, than as men of excellent piety were so called, expoundeth thus: The fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him bodily, (Greek σωματικῶς), id est θεϊκῶς, 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 heretics who maintained that Jesus Christ had not a true real body, but was only a phantasm or spright, such as the Latins call 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 showed 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 further 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 these words, God has no parts.

And thus I have answered his accusation concerning the eternity and existence of the Divine substance, and made it appear that in truth, the question between us, is whether God be a phantasm (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 ὑπόστασις, ὑποσταν, ὑποσταμενον, signify the same thing, namely, a ground, a base, any thing that has existence or subsistence in itself, anything that upholdeth that which else would fall, in which sense 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 (Heb. xi. 1) a substance, because it is the foundation or base of our hope; for faith failing, our hope falls. And (2 Cor. ix. 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. i. 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 phantasm; as when a man seeth his face in the water, his real face is called the hypostasis of the phantastic 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 logic, and signify only the manner how we consider the substance itself. And of this I have spoken sufficiently in my Leviathan (vol. III. page 672). Body (Latin, corpus, σῶμα) 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 mixed, the parts nevertheless retain their simplicity, as when water and wine are mixed, the parts of both kinds retain their simplicity. For water and wine can not 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, air, wind, and the like. In Greek πνεῡμα from πνέω, 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 mixed 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 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 is an infinitely fine Spirit, and withal 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 (Latin, persona) signifies an intelligent substance, that acteth any thing in his own or another’s name, or by his own or another’s authority. Of this definition there can be no other proof than from the use of that word, in such Latin authors as were esteemed the most skilful in their own language, of which number was Cicero. But Cicero, in an epistle to Atticus, saith thus: Unus sustineo tres personas, mei, adversarii, et 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 sense 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 πρὸσωπον 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 inferred, that the three persons in the Trinity are three Divine substances, that is, three Gods. The word πρὸσωπον 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 union 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 itself, 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 controversy. 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 classes of entities, the Bishop ranketh God? Infinite being and participated being are not of the same nature. Yet to speak according to human 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 human 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 politic 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 subtile distinguisher, what middle nature there were between an infinitely subtile substance, and a mere 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 subtile and nothing, and be less subtile than infinitely subtile, and yet more subtile than a thought. It 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 other 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 it 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 is 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 Scripture, 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 fit 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 four thousand 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 sovereign 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. Question. What dost thou chiefly learn in these articles of thy belief? Answer. 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. It is I that catched myself, for saying, instead of by the ministry of Moses, in the person of Moses. But this error I no sooner saw, than I no less publicly corrected than 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 Durham, 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 solicited 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 sense 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 join a noun of the plural number with a verb of the singular. And we may say also of many other texts of Scripture alleged to prove the Trinity, that they are not so firm as that high article requireth. But mark his Lordship’s Scholastic 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 Mary’s 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 sense 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 likewise consubstantial in the Nicene creed, is properly said of the Trinity. But to an Englishman 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 sovereign, 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 alleged 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 not 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 ere 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, vol. III. p. 493) taken out of 2 Kings v. 17-19, 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 myself in the house of Rimmon: when I bow myself 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 denial 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 denial of Christ, and again repenting, desired to be readmitted into the church; in which canon it was ordained, that those men should be no otherwise readmitted than to be in the number of the cathechised, 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 alleged from Scripture against it. There be three places only that seem to favour his Lordship’s opinion. The first is where Peter denied Christ, and weepeth. The second is, Acts v. 29: Then Peter and the other Apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men. The third is, Luke xii. 9: But he that denieth me before men, shall be denied before the angels of God.

For answer to these texts, I must repeat what what I have written, and his Lordship read in my Leviathan, p. 656. 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 men’s 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 denieth Christ, 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 who, 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 denieth me before men, shall be denied before the angels of God. And so I think I have sufficiently answered this place, and showed 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 showed 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 regimen, 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 Christ’s 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 chap. XVII. De Cive (vol. II). In the body of the chapter it is thus: The time of Christ’s being upon the earth is called, in Scripture, the regeneration often, but the kingdom never. When the Son of God comes in majesty, and all the angels with him, then he shall sit on the seat of majesty. My kingdom is not of this world. God sent not his Son that he should judge the world. I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. Man, who made me a judge or divider amongst you? Let thy kingdom come. And other words to the same purpose. Out of which it is clear that Christ took upon him no regal power upon earth before his assumption. But at his assumption his Apostles asked him if he would then restore the kingdom to Israel, and he answered, it was not for them to know. So that hitherto Christ had not taken that office upon him, unless his Lordship think that the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of Christ, be two distinct kingdoms. From the Assumption ever since, all true Christians say daily in their prayers, Thy kingdom come. But his Lordship had perhaps forgot that. But when then beginneth Christ to be a king? I say it shall be then, when he comes again in majesty with all the angels. And even then he shall reign (as he is man) under his Father. For St. Paul saith (1 Cor. xv. 25, 26): He must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet; the last enemy that shall be destroyed, is death. But when shall God the Father reign again? St. Paul saith in the same chapter, verse 28: When all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. And verse 24: Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule, authority, and power. This is at the resurrection. And by this it is manifest, that his Lordship was not so well versed in Scripture as he ought to have been.

J. D. He taketh away his priestly or propitiatory office. And although this act of our redemption be not always in Scripture called a sacrifice and oblation, but sometimes a price; yet by price we are not to understand anything, by the value whereof he could claim right to a pardon for us from his offended Father, but that price which God the Father was pleased in mercy to demand. And again: Not that the death of one man, though without sin, can satisfy for the offences of all men in the rigour of justice, but in the mercy of God, that ordained such sacrifices for sin, as he was pleased in mercy to accept. He knoweth no difference between one who is mere man, and one who was both God and man; between a Levitical sacrifice, and the all-sufficient sacrifice of the cross; between the blood of a calf, and the precious blood of the Son of God.