Chapter X (6)

_J. D._ But it is not worthy of my labour, nor any part of my intention, to pursue every shadow of a question which he springeth. It shall suffice to gather a posy of flowers (or rather a bundle of weeds) out of his writings, and present them to the reader, who will easily distinguish them from healthful plants by the rankness of their smell. Such are these which follow.

_T. H._ As for the following posy of flowers, there wants no more to make them sweet, than to wipe off the venom blown upon some of them by his Lordship’s breath.

_J. D._ 1. _To be delighted in the imagination only of being possessed of another man’s goods, servants, or wife, without any intention to take them from him by force or fraud, is no breach of the law which saith: Thou shalt not covet._

_T. H._ What man was there ever, whose imagination of anything he thought would please him, was not some delight? Or what sin is there, where there is not so much as an intention to do injustice? But his Lordship would not distinguish between delight and purpose, nor between a wish and a will. This was venom. I believe that his Lordship himself, even before he was married, took some delight in the thought of it, and yet the woman then was not his own. All love is delight, but all love is not sin. Without this love of that which is not yet a man’s own, the world had not been peopled.

_J. D._ 2. _If a man by the terror of present death be compelled to do a fact against the law, he is totally excused, because no law can oblige a man to abandon his own preservation; nature compelleth him to the fact._ The like doctrine he hath elsewhere. _When the actor doth anything against the law of nature by the command of the author, if he be obliged by former covenants to obey him, not he, but the author breaketh the law of nature._

_T. H._ The second flower is both sweet and wholesome.

_J. D._ 3. _It is a doctrine repugnant to civil society, that whatsoever a man does against his conscience, is sin._

_T. H._ It is plain, that to do what a man thinks in his own conscience to be sin, is sin; for it is a contempt of the law itself; and from thence ignorant men, out of an erroneous conscience, disobey the law, which is pernicious to all government.

_J. D._ 4. _The kingdom of God is not shut but to them that sin, that is, to them who have not performed due obedience to the laws of God; nor to them, if they believe the necessary articles of the Christian faith._

5. _We must know that the true acknowledging of sin is repentance itself._

6. _An opinion publicly appointed to be taught cannot be heresy; nor the sovereign princes that authorized the same, heretics._

_T. H._ The fourth, fifth, and sixth smell well. But to say, that the sovereign prince in England is a heretic, or that an act of parliament is heretical, stinks abominably; as it was thought _primo Elizabethæ_.

_J. D._ 7. _Temporal and spiritual government are but two words to make men see double, and mistake their lawful sovereign, &c. There is no other government in this life, neither of state nor religion, but temporal._

8. _It is manifest, that they, who permit a contrary doctrine to that which themselves believe and think necessary_ (to salvation), _do against their consciences, and will, as much as in them lieth, the eternal destruction of their subjects_.

_T. H._ The seventh and eighth are roses and jessamine. But his leaving out the words (_to salvation_) was venom.

_J. D._ 9. _Subjects sin if they do not worship God according to the laws of the commonwealth._

_T. H._ The ninth he hath poisoned, and made it not mine. He quotes my book _De Cive_, cap. XV. 19, where I say, _regnante Deo per solam rationem naturalem_, that is, _before the Scripture was given_, they sinned that refused to worship God, according to the rites and ceremonies of the country; which hath no ill scent, but to undutiful subjects.

_J. D._ 10. _To believe in Jesus (in Jesum), is the same as to believe that Jesus is Christ._

_T. H._ And so it is always in the Scripture.

_J. D._ 11. _There can be no contradiction between the laws of God, and the laws of a Christian commonwealth._ Yet, we see Christian commonwealths daily contradict one another.

_T. H._ The eleventh is also good. But his Lordship’s instance, _that Christian commonwealths contradict one another_, has nothing to do here. Their laws do indeed contradict one another, but contradict not the law of God. For God commands their subjects to obey them in all things, and his Lordship himself confesseth that their laws, though erroneous, bind the conscience. But Christian commonwealths would seldom contradict one another, if they made no doctrine law, but such as were necessary to salvation.

_J. D._ 12. _No man giveth but with intention of some good to himself. Of all voluntary acts, the object is to every man his own good._ Moses, St. Paul, and the Decii were not of his mind.

_T. H._ That which his Lordship adds to the twelfth, namely, that Moses, St. Paul, and the Decii were not of my mind, is false. For the two former did what they did for a good to themselves, which was eternal life; and the Decii for a good fame after death. And his Lordship also, if he had believed there is an eternal happiness to come, or thought a good fame after death to be anything worth, would have directed all his actions towards them, and have despised the wealth and titles of the present world.

_J. D._ 13. _There is no natural knowledge of man’s estate after death, much less of reward which is then to be given to breach of faith, but only a belief grounded upon other men’s saying, that they know it supernaturally, or that they know those that knew them that knew others that knew it supernaturally._

_T. H._ The thirteenth is good and fresh.

_J. D._ 14. _David’s killing of Uriah was no injury to Uriah; because the right to do what he pleased, was given him by Uriah himself._

_T. H._ David himself makes this good, in saying, _to thee only have I sinned_.

_J. D._ 15. _To whom it belongeth to determine controversies which may arise from the divers interpretations of Scripture, he hath an imperial power over all men, which acknowledge the Scripture to be the word of God._

16. _What is theft, what is murder, what is adultery, and universally what is an injury, is known by the civil law, that is, by the commands of the sovereign._

_T. H._ For the fifteenth, he should have disputed it with the head of the church. And as to the sixteenth, I would have asked him by what other law his Lordship would have it determined what is theft, or what is injury, than by the laws made in parliament, or by the laws which distinguish between _meum_ and _tuum_? His Lordship’s ignorance smells rankly ('tis his own phrase in this and many other places, which I have let pass) of his own interest. The King tells us what is sin, in that he tells us what is law. He hath authorized the clergy to dehort the people from sin, and to exhort them, by good motives both from Scripture and reason, to obey the laws; and supposeth them (though under forty years old), by the help they have in the university, able, in case the law be not written, to teach the people, old and young, what they ought to follow in doubtful cases of conscience; that is to say, they are authorized to expound the laws of nature; but not so as to make it a doubtful case, whether the King’s laws be to be obeyed or not. All they ought to do, is from the King’s authority. And therefore this my doctrine is no weed.

_J. D._ 17. He admitteth incestuous _copulations_ of the heathens, _according to their heathenish laws, to have been lawful marriages_. Though the Scripture teach us (Levit. xviii. 28) expressly, that for those abominations the land of Canaan spued out her inhabitants.

_T. H._ The seventeenth he hath corrupted with a false interpretation of the text. For in that chapter, from the beginning to verse twenty, are forbidden marriages in certain degrees of kindred. From verse twenty, which begins with _Moreover_, to the twenty-eighth, are forbidden sacrificing of children to Moloch, and profaning of God’s name, and buggery with man and beast, with this cause expressed, (_For all these abominations have the men of the land done which were before you, and the land is defiled_,) _that the land spue not you out also_. As for marriages within the degrees prohibited, they are not referred to the abominations of the heathen. Besides, for some time after Adam, such marriages were necessary.

_J. D._ 18. _I say that no other article of faith besides this, that Jesus is Christ, is necessary to a Christian man for salvation._

19. _Because Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, therefore neither can his ministers, unless they be kings, require obedience in his name. They have no right of commanding, no power to make laws._

_T. H._ These two smell comfortably, and of Scripture. The contrary doctrine smells of ambition and encroachment of jurisdiction, or rump of the Roman tyranny.

_J. D._ 20. I pass by his errors about oaths, about vows, about the resurrection, about the kingdom of Christ, about the power of the keys, binding, loosing, excommunication, &c., his ignorant mistakes of _meritum congrui_ and _condigni_, active and passive obedience, and many more, for fear of being tedious to the reader.

_T. H._ The terms of School divinity, of which number are _meritum congrui_, _meritum condigni_, and _passive obedience_, are so obscure, as no man living can tell what they mean; so that they that use them may admit or deny their meaning, as it shall serve their turns. I said not that this was their meaning, but that I thought it was so. For no man living can tell what a Schoolman means by his words. Therefore I expounded them according to their true signification. Merit _ex condigno_, is when a thing is deserved by pact; as when I say the labourer is worthy of his hire, I mean _meritum ex condigno_. But when a man of his own grace throweth money among the people, with an intention that what part soever of it any of them could catch he should have, he that catcheth merits it, not by pact, nor by precedent merit, as a labourer, but because it was congruent to the purpose of him that cast it amongst them. In all other meaning these words are but jargon, which his Lordship had learnt by rote. Also _passive obedience_ signifies nothing, except it may be called _passive obedience_ when a man refraineth himself from doing what the law hath forbidden. For in his Lordship’s sense, the thief that is hanged for stealing, hath fulfilled the law; which I think is absurd.

_J. D._ His whole works are a heap of mis-shapen errors, and absurd paradoxes, vented with the confidence of a juggler, the brags of a mountebank, and the authority of some Pythagoras, or third Cato, lately dropped down from heaven.

Thus we have seen how the Hobbian principles do destroy the existence, the simplicity, the ubiquity, the eternity, and infiniteness of God, the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, the hypostatical union, the kingly, sacerdotal, and prophetical office of Christ, the being and operation of the Holy Ghost, heaven, hell, angels, devils, the immortality of the soul, the Catholic and all national churches; the holy Scriptures, holy orders, the holy sacraments, the whole frame of religion, and the worship of God; the laws of nature, the reality of goodness, justice, piety, honesty, conscience, and all that is sacred. If his disciples have such an implicit faith, that they can digest all these things, they may feed with _ostriches_.

_T. H._ He here concludes his first chapter with bitter reproaches, to leave in his reader, as he thought, a sting; supposing perhaps that he will read nothing but the beginning and end of his book, as is the custom of many men. But to make him lose that petty piece of cunning, I must desire of the reader one of these two things. Either that he would read with it the places of my _Leviathan_ which he cites, and see not only how he answers my arguments, but also what the arguments are which he produceth against them; or else, that he would forbear to condemn me, so much as in his thought: for otherwise he is unjust. The name of Bishop is of great authority; but these words are not the words of a bishop, but of a passionate Schoolman, too fierce and unseemly in any man whatsoever. Besides, they are untrue. Who that knows me, will say that I have the confidence of a juggler, or that I use to brag of anything, much less that I play the mountebank? What my works are, he was no fit judge. But now he has provoked me, I will say thus much of them, that neither he, (if he had lived), nor I, if I would, could extinguish the light which is set up in the world by the greatest part of them: and for these doctrines which he impugneth, I have few opposers, but such whose profit, or whose fame in learning is concerned in them. He accuses me first of destroying the existence of God; that is to say, he would make the world believe I were an atheist. But upon what ground? Because I say, that God is a spirit, but _corporeal_. But to say that, is allowed me by St. Paul, that says (1 Cor. xv. 44): _There is a spiritual body, and there is an animal body_. He that holds there is a God, and that God is really somewhat, (for _body_ is doubtlessly a _real substance_), is as far from being an atheist, as it is possible to be. But he that says God is an _incorporeal substance_, no man can be sure whether he be an atheist or not. For no man living can tell whether there be any _substance_ at all, that is not also _corporeal_. For neither the word _incorporeal_, nor _immaterial_, nor any word equivalent to it, is to be found in Scripture, or in reason. But on the contrary, that _the Godhead dwelleth bodily in Christ_, is found in Colos. ii. 9; and Tertullian maintains that God is either a _corporeal substance_ or _nothing_. Nor was he ever condemned for it by the church. For why? Not only Tertullian, but all the learned, call _body_, not only that which one can see, but also whatsoever has magnitude, or that is somewhere; for they had greater reverence for the divine substance, than that they durst think it had no _magnitude_, or was _nowhere_. But they that hold God to be a phantasm, as did the exorcists in the Church of Rome, that is, such a thing as were at that time thought to be the sprights, that were said to walk in churchyards and to be the souls of men buried, do absolutely make God to be nothing at all. But how? Were they atheists? No. For though by ignorance of the consequence they said that which was equivalent to atheism, yet in their hearts they thought God a substance, and would also, if they had known what _substance_ and what _corporeal_ meant, have said he was a corporeal substance. So that this _atheism by consequence_ is a very easy thing to be fallen into, even by the most godly men of the church. He also that says that God is _wholly here_, and _wholly there_, and _wholly every where_, destroys by consequence the unity of God, and the infiniteness of God, and the simplicity of God. And this the Schoolmen do, and are therefore _atheists by consequence_, and yet they do not all say in their hearts that there is no God. So also his Lordship by exempting the will of man from being subject to the necessity of God’s will or decree, denies by _consequence_ the Divine prescience, which also will amount to _atheism by consequence_. But out of this, that God is a _spirit corporeal_ and _infinitely pure_, there can no unworthy or dishonourable consequence be drawn.

Thus far to his Lordships first chapter, in justification of my _Leviathan_ as to matter of religion; and especially to wipe off that unjust slander cast upon me by the Bishop of Derry. As for the second chapter, which concerns my civil doctrines, since my errors there, if there be any, will not tend very much to my disgrace, I will not take the pains to answer it.

Whereas his Lordship has talked in his discourse here and there ignorantly of heresy, and some others have not doubted to say publicly, that there be many heresies in my _Leviathan_; I will add hereunto, for a general answer, an historical relation concerning the word Heresy, from the first use of it amongst the Grecians till this present time.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

AN
HISTORICAL NARRATION
CONCERNING
HERESY,

AND

THE PUNISHMENT THEREOF.

-------

“Nam veluti pueri trepidant, atque omnia cæcis
In tenebris metuunt: sic nos in luce timemus
Interdum, nihilo quæ sunt metuenda magis, quam
Quæ pueri in tenebris pavitant, finguntque futura.”
LUCRETIUS, Lib. II. 54-57.

HÆRESEɷS LARVAS, SECTARUM IMMANIA MONSTRA
HOBBIUS INVICTO DISPULIT INGENIO.

CONCERNING HERESY,
AND

THE PUNISHMENT THEREOF.

--------------

The word _heresy_ is Greek, and signifies a taking of any thing, and particularly the taking of an opinion. After the study of philosophy began in Greece, and the philosophers, disagreeing amongst themselves, had started many questions, not only about things natural, but also moral and civil; because every man took what opinion he pleased, each several opinion was called a _heresy_; which signified no more than a private opinion, without reference to truth or falsehood. The beginners of these heresies were chiefly Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Zeno; men, who as they held many errors, so also found they out many true and useful doctrines, in all kinds of learning: and for that cause were well esteemed of by the greatest personages of their own times; and so also were some few of their followers.

But the rest, ignorant men, and very often needy knaves, having learned by heart the opinions of these admired philosophers, and pretending to take after them, made use thereof to get their living by the teaching of rich men’s children that happened to be in love with those great names: though by their impertinent discourse, sordid and ridiculous manners, they were generally despised, of what sect or heresy soever; whether they were Pythagoreans; or Academics, followers of Plato; or Peripatetics, followers of Aristotle; Epicureans; or Stoics, followers of Zeno. For these were the names of heresies, or, as the Latins call them, _sects, a sequendo_, so much talked of from after the time of Alexander till this present day, and that have perpetually troubled or deceived the people with whom they lived, and were never more numerous than in the time of the primitive church.

The heresy of Aristotle, by the revolutions of time, has had the good fortune to be predominant over the rest. However, originally the name of _heresy_ was no disgrace, nor the word _heretic_ at all in use: though the several sects, especially the Epicureans and the Stoics, hated one another; and the Stoics, being the fiercer men, used to revile those that differed from them, with the most despiteful words they could invent.

It cannot be doubted, but that, by the preaching of the apostles and disciples of Christ, in Greece and other parts of the Roman empire full of these philosophers, many thousands of men were converted to the Christian faith, some really, and some feignedly, for factious ends, or for need; for Christians lived then in common, and were charitable. And because most of these philosophers had better skill in disputing and oratory than the common people, and thereby were better qualified both to defend and propagate the Gospel, there is no doubt, I say, but most of the pastors of the primitive church were for that reason chosen out of the number of these philosophers; who retaining still many doctrines which they had taken up on the authority of their former masters, whom they had in reverence, endeavoured many of them to draw the Scriptures every one to his own heresy. And thus at first entered heresy into the church of Christ. Yet these men were all of them Christians; as they were, when they were first baptized. Nor did they deny the authority of those writings which were left them by the Apostles and Evangelists, though they interpreted them, many times, with a bias to their former philosophy. And this dissention amongst themselves, was a great scandal to the unbelievers, and which not only obstructed the way of the Gospel, but also drew scorn and greater persecution upon the church.

For remedy whereof, the chief pastors of churches did use, at the rising of any new opinion, to assemble themselves for the examining and determining of the same. Wherein, if the author of the opinion were convinced of his error, and subscribed to the sentence of the church assembled, then all was well again: but if he still persisted in it, they laid him aside, and considered him but as an heathen man; which to an unfeigned Christian, was a great ignominy, and of force to make him consider better of his own doctrine; and sometimes brought him to the acknowledgment of the truth. But other punishment they could inflict none; that being a right appropriated to the civil power. So that all the punishment the church could inflict, was only ignominy; and that among the faithful, consisting in this, that his company was by all the godly avoided, and he himself branded with the name of _heretic_, in opposition to the whole church, that condemned his doctrine. So that _catholic_ and _heretic_ were terms relative; and here it was that _heretic_ came to be a name, and a name of disgrace, both together.

The first and most troublesome heresies of the primitive church, were about the Trinity. For, according to the usual curiosity of natural philosophers, they could not abstain from disputing the very first principles of Christianity, into which they were baptized, _in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost_. Some there were that made them allegorical. Others would make one creator of good, and another of evil; which was in effect to set up two Gods, one contrary to another; supposing that causation of evil could not be attributed to God, without impiety. From which doctrine they are not far distant, that now make the first cause of sinful actions to be every man as to his own sin. Others there were, that would have God to be a body with parts organical, as face, hands, fore-parts, and back-parts. Others, that Christ had no real body, but was a mere phantasm: for phantasms were taken then, and have been ever since, by unlearned and superstitious men, for things real and subsistent. Others denied the divinity of Christ. Others, that Christ, being God and man, was two persons. Others confessed he was one person, and withal that he had but one nature. And a great many other heresies arose from the too much adherence to the philosophy of those times: whereof some were suppressed for a time by St. John’s publishing his Gospel, and some by their own unreasonableness vanished, and some lasted till the time of Constantine the Great, and after.

When Constantine the Great, made so by the assistance and valour of the Christian soldiers, had attained to be the only Roman Emperor, he also himself became a Christian, and caused the temples of the heathen gods to be demolished, and authorised Christian religion only to be public. But towards the latter end of his time, there arose a dispute in the city of Alexandria, between Alexander the Bishop, and Arius, a presbyter of the same city; wherein Arius maintained, first, that Christ was inferior to his Father; and afterwards, that he was no God, alleging the words of Christ, _my Father is greater than I_: the bishop, on the contrary, alleging the words of St. John, _and the word was God_; and the words of St. Thomas, _my Lord and my God_. This controversy presently, amongst the inhabitants and soldiers of Alexandria, became a quarrel, and was the cause of much bloodshed in and about the city; and was likely then to spread further, as afterwards it did. This so far concerned the Emperor’s civil government, that he thought it necessary to call a general council of all the bishops and other eminent divines throughout the Roman Empire, to meet at the city of Nice. When they were assembled, they presented the Emperor with libels of accusation one against another. When he had received these libels into his hands, he made an oration to the fathers assembled, exhorting them to agree, and to fall in hand with the settlement of the articles of faith, for which cause he had assembled them; saying, whatsoever they should decree therein, he would cause to be observed. This may perhaps seem a greater indifferency, than would in these days be approved of. But so it is in the history; and the articles of faith necessary to salvation, were not thought then to be so many as afterwards they were defined to be by the Church of Rome.

When Constantine had ended his oration, he caused the aforesaid libels to be cast into the fire, as became a wise king and a charitable Christian. This done, the fathers fell in hand with their business, and following the method of a former creed, now commonly called _the Apostles' Creed_, made a confession of faith, _viz._: I BELIEVE IN ONE GOD, THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH, AND OF ALL THINGS VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE: in which is condemned the polytheism of the Gentiles: AND IN ONE LORD JESUS CHRIST, THE ONLY BEGOTTEN SON OF GOD: against the many sons of the many Gods of the heathen: BEGOTTEN OF HIS FATHER BEFORE ALL WORLDS, GOD OF GOD: against the Arians: VERY GOD OF VERY GOD: against the Valentinians, and against the heresy of Apelles and others, who made Christ a mere phantasm: LIGHT OF LIGHT: this was put in for explication, and used before to that purpose by Tertullian: BEGOTTEN, NOT MADE, BEING OF ONE SUBSTANCE WITH THE FATHER: in this again they condemn the doctrine of Arius. For this word, _of one substance_, in Latin _consubstantialis_, but in Greek ὁμοούσιος, that is, _of one essence_, was put as a touchstone to discern an Arian from a Catholic; and much ado there was about it. Constantine himself, at the passing of this creed, took notice of it for a hard word; but yet approved of it, saying, that in a divine mystery it was fit to use _divina et arcana verba_; that is, divine words, and hidden from human understanding: calling that word ὁμοούσιος, divine, not because it was in the divine Scripture, (for it is not there) but because it was to him _arcanum_, that is, not sufficiently understood. _And in this again appeared the indifferency of the Emperor, and that he had for his end, in the calling of the Synod, not so much the truth, as the uniformity of the doctrine, and peace of his people that depended on it._ The cause of the obscurity of this word ὁμοούσιος, proceeded chiefly from the difference between the Greek and Roman dialect, in the philosophy of the Peripatetics. The first principle of religion in all nations, is, _that God is_, that is to say, that God really is something, and not a mere fancy; but that which is really something, is considerable alone by itself, as being _somewhere_. In which sense a man is a thing real; for I can consider him _to be_, without considering any other thing _to be_ besides him. And for the same reason, the earth, the air, the stars, heaven, and their parts, are all of them things real. And because whatsoever is real here, or there, or in any place, has dimensions, that is to say, magnitude; that which hath magnitude, whether it be visible or invisible, finite or infinite, is called by all the learned a _body_. It followeth, that all real things, in that they are _somewhere_, are corporeal. On the contrary, essence, deity, humanity, and such like names, signify nothing that can be considered, without first considering there is an _ens_, a god, a man, &c. So also if there be any real thing that is _white_ or _black_, _hot_ or _cold_, the same may be considered by itself; but whiteness, blackness, heat, coldness, cannot be considered, unless it be first supposed that there is some real thing to which they are attributed. These real things are called by the Latin philosophers, _entia_, _subjecta_, _substantiæ_; and by the Greek philosophers, τὰ ὄντα ὑποκειμενα, ὑποστάμενα. The other, which are incorporeal, are called by the Greek philosophers, οὐσία συμβεβηχότα, φαντάσματα; but most of the Latin philosophers used to convert οὐσία into _substantia_, and so confound real and corporeal things with incorporeal: which is not well; for essence and substance signify divers things. And this mistake is received, and continues still in these parts, in all disputes, both of philosophy and divinity; for in truth _essentia_ signifies no more, than if we should talk ridiculously of the _isness_ of the thing that is. BY WHOM ALL THINGS WERE MADE. This is proved out of St. John i. 1, 2, 3, and Heb. i. 3, and that again out of Gen. i. where God is said to create every thing by his sole word, as when he said: _Let there be light, and there was light_. And then, that Christ was that Word, and in the beginning with God, may be gathered out of divers places of Moses, David, and other of the prophets. Nor was it ever questioned amongst Christians, except by the Arians, but that Christ was God eternal, and his incarnation eternally decreed. But the Fathers, all that write expositions on this creed, could not forbear to philosophize upon it, and most of them out of the principles of Aristotle; which are the same the Schoolmen now use; as may partly appear by this, that many of them, amongst their treatises of religion, have affected to publish principles of logic and physics according to the sense of Aristotle; as Athanasius, and Damascene. And so some later divines of note, still confound the concrete with the abstract, _deus_ with _deitas_, _ens_ with _essentia_, _sapiens_ with _sapientia_, _æternus_ with _æternitas_. If it be for exact and rigid truth sake, why do they not say also, that holiness is a holy man, covetousness a covetous man, hypocrisy an hypocrite, and drunkenness a drunkard, and the like, but that it is an error? The Fathers agree that the Wisdom of God is the eternal Son of God, by whom all things were made, and that he was incarnate by the Holy Ghost, if they meant it in the abstract: for if _deitas_ abstracted be _deus_, we make two Gods of one. This was well understood by John Damascene, in his treatise _De Fide Orthodoxa_, which is an exposition of the Nicene creed; where he denies absolutely that _deitas_ is _deus_, lest seeing God was made man, it should follow, the Deity was made man; which is contrary to the doctrine of all the Nicene Fathers. The attributes therefore of God in the abstract, when they are put for God, are put _metonymically_; which is a common thing in Scripture; for example, Prov. viii. 25, where it is said: _before the mountains were settled, before the hills, was I brought forth_; the wisdom there spoken of, being the wisdom of God, signifies the same with the wise God. This kind of speaking is also ordinary in all languages. This considered, such abstracted words ought not to be used in arguing, and especially in the deducing the articles of our faith; though in the language of God’s eternal worship, and in all godly discourses, they cannot be avoided; and the creed itself is less difficult to be assented to in its own words, than in all such expositions of the Fathers. WHO FOR US MEN AND OUR SALVATION CAME DOWN FROM HEAVEN, AND WAS INCARNATE BY THE HOLY GHOST OF THE VIRGIN MARY, AND WAS MADE MAN. I have not read of any exception to this; for where Athanasius in his creed says of the Son, _He was not made, but begotten_, it is to be understood of the Son as he was God eternal; whereas here it is spoken of the Son as he is man. And of the Son, also as he was man, it may be said he was begotten of the Holy Ghost; for a woman conceiveth not, but of him that begetteth; which is also confirmed, (Matth. i. xx): _That which is begotten in her_, (τὸ γενεθεν), _is of the Holy Ghost_. AND WAS ALSO CRUCIFIED FOR US UNDER PONTIUS PILATE: HE SUFFERED AND WAS BURIED: AND THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES, AND ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN, AND SITTETH ON THE RIGHT HAND OF THE FATHER: AND HE SHALL COME AGAIN WITH GLORY TO JUDGE BOTH THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. WHOSE KINGDOM SHALL HAVE NO END. Of this part of the creed I have not met with any doubt made by any Christian. Hither the Council of Nice proceeded in their general confession of faith, and no further.

This finished, some of the bishops present at the Council (seventeen or eighteen, whereof Eusebius Bishop of Cæsarea was one) not sufficiently satisfied, refused to subscribe till this doctrine of ὁμοούσιος should be better explained. Thereupon the Council decreed, that whosoever shall say that God hath parts, shall be anathematized; to which the said bishops subscribed. And Eusebius, by order of the Council, wrote a letter, the copies whereof were sent to every absent bishop, that being satisfied with the reason of their subscribing, they also should subscribe. The reason they gave of their subscription was this, _that they had now a form of words prescribed, by which, as a rule, they might guide themselves so, as not to violate the peace of the church_. By this it is manifest, that no man was an heretic, but he that in plain and direct words contradicted that form by the church prescribed, and that no man could be made _an heretic by consequence_. And because the said form was not put into the body of the creed, but directed only to the bishops, there was no reason to punish any lay-person that should speak to the contrary.

But what was the meaning of this doctrine, _that God has no parts_? Was it made heresy to say, that God, who is a real substance, cannot be considered or spoken of as _here_ or _there_, or any where, which are parts of places? Or that there is any real thing without length every way, that is to say, which hath no magnitude at all, finite, nor infinite? Or is there any whole substance, whose two halves or three thirds are not the same with that whole? Or did they mean to condemn the argument of Tertullian, by which he confuted Apelles and other heretics of his time, namely, _whatsoever was not corporeal, was nothing but phantasm, and not corporeal_, for heretical? No, certainly, no divines say that. They went to establish the doctrine of _one individual God in Trinity_; to abolish the diversity of species in God, not the distinction of _here_ and _there_ in substance. When St. Paul asked the Corinthians, _Is Christ divided_, he did not think they thought him impossible to be considered as having hands and feet, but that they might think him, according to the manner of the Gentiles, one of the sons of God, as Arius did; but not the only-begotten Son of God. And thus also it is expounded in the Creed of Athanasius, who was present in that council, by these words, _not confounding the persons, nor dividing the substances_; that is to say, that God is not divided into three persons, as man is divided into Peter, James, and John; nor are the three persons one and the same person. But Aristotle, and from him all the Greek Fathers, and other learned men, when they distinguish the general latitude of a word, they call it division; as when they divide _animal_ into man and beast, they call these εἴδη, _species_; and when they again divide the _species_ man into Peter and John, they call these μίρη, _partes individuæ_. And by this confounding the division of the substance with the distinction of words, divers men have been led into the error of attributing to God a name, which is not the name of any substance at all, _viz._ _incorporeal_.

By these words, _God has no parts_, thus explained, together with the part of the _creed_ which was at that time agreed on, many of those heresies which were antecedent to that first general Council, were condemned; as that of Manes, who appeared about thirty years before the reign of Constantine, by the first article, _I believe in one God_; though in other words it seems to me to remain still in the doctrine of the church of Rome, which so ascribeth a liberty of the will to men, as that their will and purpose to commit sin, should not proceed from the cause of all things, God; but originally from themselves or from the Devil. It may seem perhaps to some, that by the same words the Anthropomorphites also were then condemned: and certainly, if by parts were meant not persons individual, but pieces, they were condemned: for face, arms, feet, and the like, are pieces. But this cannot be, for the Anthropomorphites appeared not till the time of Valens the Emperor, which was after the Council of Nice between forty and fifty years; and were not condemned till the second general Council at Constantinople.

Now for the punishment of heretics ordained by Constantine, we read of none; but that ecclesiastical officers, bishops and other preachers, if they refused to subscribe to this faith, or taught the contrary doctrine, were for the first fault deprived of their offices, and for the second banished. And thus did heresy, which at first was the name of private opinion, and no crime, by virtue of a law of the Emperor, made only for the peace of the church, become a crime in a pastor, and punishable with deprivation first, and next with banishment.

After this part of the creed was thus established, there arose presently many new heresies, partly about the interpretation of it, and partly about the Holy Ghost, of which the Nicene Council had not determined. Concerning the part established, there arose disputes about the nature of Christ, and the word _hypostasis_, _id est_, substance; for of persons there was yet no mention made, the creed being written in Greek, in which language there is no word that answereth to the Latin word _persona_. And the union, as the Fathers called it, of the human and Divine nature in Christ, _hypostatical_, caused Eutyches, and after him Dioscorus, to affirm, there was but one nature in Christ; thinking that whensoever two things are united, they are one: and this was condemned as Arianism in the Councils of Constantinople and Ephesus. Others, because they thought two living and rational substances, such as are God and man, must needs be also two _hypostases_, maintained that Christ had two _hypostases_: but these were two heresies condemned together. Then concerning the Holy Ghost, Nestorius Bishop of Constantinople, and some others, denied the divinity thereof. And whereas about seventy years before the Nicene Council, there had been holden a provincial Council at Carthage, wherein it was decreed, that those Christians which in the persecutions had denied the faith of Christ, should not be received again into the church unless they were again baptized: this also was condemned, though the President in that Council was that most sincere and pious Christian, Cyprian. And at last the creed was made up entire as we have it, in the Chalcedonian Council, by addition of these words: AND I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GHOST, THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE, WHO PROCEEDETH FROM THE FATHER AND THE SON. WHO WITH THE FATHER AND THE SON TOGETHER IS WORSHIPPED AND GLORIFIED. WHO SPAKE BY THE PROPHETS. AND I BELIEVE ONE CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH. I ACKNOWLEDGE ONE BAPTISM FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS. AND I LOOK FOR THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD, AND THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME. In this addition are condemned, first the Nestorians and others, in these words: WHO WITH THE FATHER AND THE SON TOGETHER IS WORSHIPPED AND GLORIFIED: and secondly, the doctrine of the Council of Carthage, in these words: I BELIEVE ONE BAPTISM FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS. For one baptism is not there put as opposite to several sorts or manners of baptism, but to the iteration of it. St. Cyprian was a better Christian than to allow any baptism that was not in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In the general confession of faith contained in the creed called the Nicene Creed, there is no mention of _hypostasis_, nor of hypostatical union, nor of corporeal, nor of incorporeal, nor of parts; the understanding of which words being not required of the vulgar, but only of the pastors, whose disagreement else might trouble the church; nor were such points necessary to salvation, but set abroach for ostentation of learning, or else to dazzle men, with design to lead them towards some ends of their own. The changes of prevalence in the empire between the Catholics and the Arians, and how the great Athanasius, the most fierce of the Catholics, was banished by Constantine, and afterwards restored, and again banished, I let pass; only it is to be remembered, that Athanasius is supposed to have made his creed then, when (banished) he was in Rome, Liberius being pope; by whom, as is most likely, the word _hypostasis_, as it was in Athanasius’s Creed, was disliked. For the Roman church could never be brought to receive it, but instead thereof used their own word _persona_. But the first and last words of that creed the church of Rome refused not: for they make every article, not only those of the body of the creed, but all the definitions of the Nicene Fathers to be such, as a man cannot be saved, unless he believe them all stedfastly; though made only for peace sake, and to unite the minds of the clergy, whose disputes were like to trouble the peace of the empire. After these four first general Councils, the power of the Roman church grew up apace; and, either by the negligence or weakness of the succeeding Emperors, the Pope did what he pleased in religion. _There was no doctrine which tended to the power ecclesiastical, or to the reverence of the clergy, the contradiction whereof was not by one Council or another made heresy, and punished arbitrarily by the Emperors with banishment or death._ And at last kings themselves, and commonwealths, unless they purged their dominions of heretics, were excommunicated, interdicted, and their subjects let loose upon them by the Pope; insomuch as to an ingenuous and serious Christian, there was nothing so dangerous as to enquire concerning his own salvation, of the Holy Scripture; the careless cold Christian was safe, and the skilful hypocrite a saint. But this is a story so well known, as I need not insist upon it any longer, but proceed to the heretics here in England, and what punishments were ordained for them by acts of parliament. All this while the penal laws against heretics were such, as the several princes and states, in their own dominions, thought fit to enact. The edicts of the emperors made their punishments capital, but for the manner of the execution, left it to the prefects of provinces: and when other kings and states intended, according to the laws of the Roman church, to extirpate heretics, they ordained such punishment as they pleased. The first law that was here made for the punishment of heretics, called Lollards and mentioned in the Statutes, was in the fifth year of the reign of Richard the Second, occasioned by the doctrine of John Wickliff and his followers; which Wickliff, because no law was yet ordained for his punishment in parliament, by the favour of John of Gaunt, the King’s son, during the reign of Edward the Third, had escaped. But in the fifth year of the next king, which was Richard the Second, there passed an act of parliament to this effect: that sheriffs and some others should have commissions to apprehend such as were certified by the prelates to be preachers of heresy, their fautors, maintainers, and abettors, and to hold them in strong prison, till they should justify themselves, according to the law of holy church. So that hitherto there was no law in England, by which a heretic could be put to death, or otherways punished, than by imprisoning him till he was reconciled to the church. After this, in the next king’s reign, which was Henry the Fourth, son of John of Gaunt, by whom Wickliff had been favoured, _and who in his aspiring to the crown had needed the good will of the bishops_, was made a law, in the second year of his reign, wherein it was enacted, that every ordinary may convene before him, and imprison any person suspected of heresy; and that an obstinate heretic shall be burnt before the people.

In the next king’s reign, which was Henry the Fifth, in his second year, was made an act of parliament, wherein it is declared, that the intent of heretics, called Lollards, was to subvert the Christian faith, the law of God, the church, and the realm: and that an heretic convict should forfeit all his fee-simple lands, goods, and chattels, besides the punishment of burning. Again, in the five-and-twentieth year of King Henry the Eighth, it was enacted, that an heretic convict shall abjure his heresies, and refusing so to do, or relapsing, shall be burnt in open place, for example of others. This act was made after the putting down of the Pope’s authority: and by this it appears, that King Henry the Eighth intended no farther alteration in religion, than the recovering of his own right ecclesiastical. But in the first year of his son, King Edward the Sixth, was made an act, by which were repealed not only this act, but also all former acts concerning doctrines, or matters of religion; so that at this time there was no law at all for the punishment of heretics.

Again, in the Parliament of the first and second year of Queen Mary, this act of 1 Edward VI was not repealed, but made useless, by reviving the statute of 25 Henry VIII, and freely putting it in execution; insomuch as it was debated, whether or no they should proceed upon that statute against the Lady Elizabeth, the Queen’s sister.

The Lady Elizabeth, not long after, by the death of Queen Mary, coming to the crown, in the fifth year of her reign, by act of Parliament repealed in the first place all the laws ecclesiastical of Queen Mary, with all other former laws concerning the punishments of heretics: nor did she enact any other punishments in their place. In the second place it was enacted, that the Queen by her letters patents should give a commission to the bishops, with certain other persons, in her Majesty’s name, to execute the power ecclesiastical; in which commission, the commissioners were forbidden to adjudge anything to be heresy, which was not declared to be heresy by some of the first four general Councils: but there was no mention made of general Councils, but only in that branch of the act which authorised that commission, commonly called _the High Commission_; nor was there in that commission anything concerning how heretics were to be punished; but it was granted to them, that they might declare or not declare, as they pleased, to be heresy or not heresy, any of those doctrines which had been condemned for heresy in the first four general Councils. So that during the time that the said High Commission was in being, there was no statute by which a heretic could be punished otherways, than by the ordinary censures of the church; nor doctrine accounted heresy, unless the commissioners had actually declared and published, that all that which was made heresy by those four Councils, should be heresy also now: but I never heard that any such declaration was made either by proclamation, or by recording it in churches, or by public printing, as in penal laws is necessary; the breaches of it are excused by ignorance. Besides, if heresy had been made capital, or otherwise civilly punishable, either the four general Councils themselves, or at least the points condemned in them, ought to have been printed or put into parish churches in English, because without it, no man could know how to beware of offending against them.

Some men may perhaps ask, whether nobody were condemned and burnt for heresy, during the time of the High Commission.

I have heard there were: but they which approve such executions, may peradventure know better grounds for them than I do; but those grounds are very well worthy to be enquired after.

Lastly, in the seventeenth year of the reign of King Charles the First, shortly after that the Scots had rebelliously put down the episcopal government in Scotland, the Presbyterians in England endeavoured the same here. The king, though he saw the rebels ready to take the field, would not condescend to that; but yet in hope to appease them, was content to pass an act of parliament for the abolishing the High Commission. But though the High Commission was taken away, yet the parliament having other ends besides the setting up of the Presbyterate, pursued the rebellion, and put down both episcopacy and monarchy, erecting a power by them called _The Commonwealth_, by others _The Rump_, which men obeyed not out of duty, but for fear; nor were there any human laws left in force to restrain any man from preaching or writing any doctrine concerning religion that he pleased. And in this heat of the war, it was impossible to disturb the peace of the state, which then was none.

And in this time it was, that a book called _Leviathan_ was written in defence of the King’s power, temporal and spiritual, without any word against episcopacy, or against any bishop, or against the public doctrine of the church. It pleased God, about twelve years after the usurpation of this _Rump_, to restore his most gracious Majesty that now is, to his father’s throne, and presently, his Majesty restored the bishops, and pardoned the Presbyterians. But then both the one and the other accused in Parliament this book of heresy, when neither the bishops before the war had declared what was heresy; when if they had, it had been made void by the putting down of the High Commission at the importunity of the Presbyterians. So fierce are men, for the most part, in dispute, where either their learning or power is debated, that they never think of the laws, but as soon as they are offended, they cry out, _crucifige_; forgetting what St. Paul (2 Tim. ii. 24, 25) saith, even in case of obstinate holding of an error: _the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance, to the acknowledging of the truth_: of which counsel, such fierceness as hath appeared in the disputation of divines, down from before the Council of Nice to this present time, is a violation.

FINIS.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CONSIDERATIONS
UPON THE
REPUTATION, LOYALTY, MANNERS,
AND RELIGION,

OF

THOMAS HOBBES,

OF MALMESBURY,

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF,

BY WAY OF

LETTER TO A LEARNED PERSON

(JOHN WALLIS, D.D.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE
BOOKSELLER'S ADVERTISEMENT.
TO THE READERS.

-------

I do here present you with a piece of Mr. Hobbes’s writing; which is not published from an imperfect MS. as his _Dialogue of the Civil Wars of England_ was, by some that had got accidentally a copy of it, absolutely against his consent, as you may see by some passages out of some of his letters to me, which I have here inserted.

In his letter of June, 1679, he saith: