T. H. To remove his Lordship’s doubt in the first place, I confess there was true prophesy and true prophets in the church of God, from Abraham down to our Saviour, the greatest prophet of all, and the last of the Old Testament, and first of the New. After our Saviour’s time, till the death of St. John the apostle, there were true prophets in the church of Christ, prophets to whom God spake supernaturally, and testified the truth of their mission by miracles. Of those that in the Scripture are called prophets without miracles, (and for this cause only, that they spake in the name of God to men, and in the name of men to God), there are, have been, and shall be in the church, innumerable. Such a prophet was his Lordship, and such are all pastors in the Christian church. But the question here is of those prophets that from the mouth of God foretell things future, or do other miracle. Of this kind I deny there has been any since the death of St. John the Evangelist. If any man find fault with this, he ought to name some man or other, whom we are bound to acknowledge that they have done a miracle, cast out a devil, or cured any disease by the sole invocation of the Divine Majesty. We are not bound to trust to the legend of the Roman saints, nor to the history written by Sulpitius of the life of St. Martin, or to any other fables of the Roman clergy, nor to such things as were pretended to be done by some divines here in the time of king James. Secondly, he says I make little difference between a prophet, and a madman or demoniac; to which I say, he accuses me falsely. I say only thus much, that I see nothing at all in the Scripture that requireth a belief, that demoniacs were any other thing than madmen. And this is also made very probable out of Scripture, by a worthy divine, Mr. Mede. But concerning prophets, I say only that the Jews, both under the Old Testament and under the New, took them to be all one with madmen and demoniacs; and prove it out of Scripture by many places, both of the Old and New Testament. Thirdly, that the pretence or arrogating to one’s-self Divine inspiration, is argument enough to show a man is mad, is my opinion; but his Lordship understands not inspiration in the same sense that I do. He understands it properly of God’s breathing into a man, or pouring into him the Divine substance, or Divine graces. And in that sense, he that arrogateth inspiration unto himself, neither understands what he saith, nor makes others to understand him: which is properly madness in some degree. But I understand inspiration in the Scripture metaphorically, for God’s guidance of our minds to truth and piety. Fourthly, whereas he says, I make the pretence of inspiration to be pernicious to peace; I answer, that I think his Lordship was of my opinion; for he called those men, which in the late civil war pretended the spirit, and new light, and to be the only faithful men, fanatics; for he called them in his book, and did call them in his life-time, fanatics. And what is a fanatic but a madman? And what can be more pernicious to peace, than the revelations that were by these fanatics pretended? I do not say there were not doctrines of other men, not called fanatics, as pernicious to peace as their’s were, and in great part a cause of those troubles. Fifthly, from that I make prophetical revelations subject to the examination of the lawful sovereign, he inferreth, that two prophets prophecying the same thing at the same time, in the dominions of two different princes, the one shall be a true prophet, the other a false. This consequence is not good: for seeing they teach different doctrines, they cannot both of them confirm their doctrine with miracles. But this I prove, in the place (vol. iii. p. 426) he citeth, that whether either of their doctrines shall be taught publicly or not, it is in the power of the sovereign of the place only to determine. Nay, I say now further, if a prophet come to any private man in the name of God, that man shall be judge whether he be a true prophet or not, before he obey him. See 1 John, iv. 1. Sixthly, whereas he says that, upon my grounds, Christ was to be reputed a false prophet every where, because his doctrine was received no where; his Lordship had read my book more negligently, than was fit for one that would confute it. My ground is this; that Christ in right of his Father was king of the Jews, and consequently supreme prophet, and judge of all prophets. What other princes thought of his prophesies, is nothing to the purpose. I never said that princes can make doctrines or prophesies true or false; but I say every sovereign prince has a right to prohibit the public teaching of them, whether false or true. But what an oversight is it in a divine, to say that Christ had the approbation of no sovereign prince, when he had the approbation of God, who was king of the Jews, and Christ his viceroy, and the whole Scripture written (John, xx. 31) to prove it; when his miracles declared it; when Pilate confessed it; and when the apostles' office was to proclaim it? Seventhly, if we must not consider, in points of Christian faith, who is the sovereign prophet, that is, who is next under Christ our supreme head and governor, I wish his Lordship would have cleared, ere he died, these few questions. Is there not need of some judge of controverted doctrines? I think no man can deny it, that has seen the rebellion that followed the controversy here between Gomar and Arminius. There must therefore be a judge of doctrines. But, says the Bishop, not the king. Who then? Shall Dr. Bramhall be this judge? As profitable an office as it is, he was more modest than to say that. Shall a private layman have it? No man ever thought that. Shall it be given to a Presbyterian minister? No; it is unreasonable. Shall a synod of Presbyterians have it? No; for most of the Presbyters in the primitive church were undoubtedly subordinate to bishops, and the rest were bishops. Who then? A synod of bishops? Very well. His Lordship being too modest to undertake the whole power, would have been contented with the six-and-twentieth part. But, suppose it in a synod of bishops, who shall call them together? The king. What if he will not? Who should excommunicate him, or if he despise your excommunication, who shall send forth a writ of significavit? No; all this was far from his Lordship’s thoughts. The power of the clergy, unless it be upheld legally by the king, or illegally by the multitude, amounts to nothing. But for the multitude, Suarez and the Schoolmen will never gain them, because they are not understood. Besides there be very few bishops that can act a sermon, which is a puissant part of rhetoric, so well as divers Presbyterians, and fanatic preachers can do. I conclude therefore, that his Lordship could not possibly believe that the supreme judicature in matter of religion could any where be so well placed as in the head of the church, which is the king. And so his Lordship and I think the same thing; but because his Lordship knew not how to deduce it, he was angry with me because I did it. He says, further, that by my principles, he that blasphemeth Christ at Constantinople, is a true prophet: as if a man that blasphemeth Christ, to approve his blasphemy can procure a miracle. For by my principles, no man is a prophet whose prophesy is not confirmed by God with a miracle. In the last place, out of this, that the lawful sovereign is the judge of prophesy, he deduces that then Samuel and other prophets were false prophets, that contested with their sovereigns. As for Samuel, he was at that time the judge, that is to say, the sovereign prince in Israel, and so acknowledged by Saul. For Saul received the kingdom from God himself, who had right to give and take it, by the hands of Samuel. And God gave it to himself only, and not to his seed; though if he had obeyed God, he would have settled it also upon his seed. The commandment of God was, that he should not spare Agag. Saul obeyed not. God therefore sent to Samuel to tell him that he was rejected. For all this, Samuel went not about to resist Saul. That he caused Agag to be slain, was with Saul’s consent. Lastly, Saul confesses his sin. Where is this contesting with Saul? After this God sent Samuel to anoint David, not that he should depose Saul, but succeed him, the sons of Saul having never had a right of succession. Nor did ever David make war on Saul, or so much as resist him, but fled from his persecution. But when Saul was dead, then indeed he claimed his right against the house of Saul. What rebellion or resistance could his Lordship find here, either in Samuel or in David? Besides, all these transactions are supernatural, and oblige not to imitation. Is there any prophet or priest now, that can set up in England, Scotland, or Ireland, another king by pretence of prophecy or religion? What did Jeroboam to the man of God (1 Kings xiii.) that prophesied against the altar in Bethel without first doing a miracle, but offer to seize him for speaking, as he thought, rashly of the king’s act; and after the miraculous withering of his hand, desire the prophet to pray for him? The sin of Jeroboam was not his distrust of the prophet, but his idolatry. He was the sole judge of the truth which the man of God uttered against the altar, and the process agreeable to equity. What is the story of Elijah and Ahab (1 Kings xviii.), but a confirmation of the right even of Ahab to be judge of prophecy? Elijah told Ahab, he had transgressed the commandment of God. So may any minister now tell his sovereign, so he do it with sincerity and discretion. Ahab told Elijah he troubled Israel. Upon this controversy Elijah desired trial. Send, saith he, and assemble all Israel; assemble also the prophets of Baal, four hundred and fifty. Ahab did so. The question is stated before the people thus: if the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, follow him. Then upon the altars of God and Baal were laid the wood and the bullocks; and the cause was to be judged by fire from heaven, to burn the sacrifices; which Elijah procured, the prophets of Baal could not procure. Was not this cause here pleaded before Ahab? The sentence of Ahab is not required; for Elijah from that time forward was no more persecuted by Ahab, but only by his wife, Jezabel. The story of Micaiah (2 Chron. xviii.) is this. Ahab King of Israel consulted the prophets, four hundred in number, whether he should prosper or not, in case he went with Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, to fight against the Syrians at Ramoth-gilead. The prophet Micaiah was also called, and both the kings, Ahab and Jehoshaphat, sat together to hear what they should prophecy. There was no miracle done. The four hundred pronounced victory; Micaiah alone the contrary. The king was judge, and most concerned in the event; nor had he[he] received any revelation in the business. What could he do more discreetly than to follow the counsel of four hundred, rather than of one man? But the event was contrary; for he was slain; but not for following the counsel of the four hundred, but for his murder of Naboth, and his idolatry. It was also a sin in him, that he afflicted Micaiah in prison. But an unjust judgment does not take away from any king his right of judicature. Besides, what is all this, or that of Jeremiah which he cites last, to the question of who is judge of Christian doctrine?
J. D. Neither doth he use God the Holy Ghost, more favourably than God the Son. Where St. Peter saith, holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit; he saith, By the spirit, is meant the voice of God in a dream or vision supernatural; which dreams or visions, he maketh to be no more than imaginations which they had in their sleep, or in an extasy, which in every true prophet were supernatural, but in false prophets were either natural or feigned, and more likely to be false than true. To say, God hath spoken to him in a dream, is no more than to say, he dreamed that God spake to him, &c. To say, he hath seen a vision or heard a voice, is to say, that he hath dreamed between sleeping and waking. So St. Peter’s Holy Ghost, is come to be their own imaginations, which might be either feigned, or mistaken, or true. As if the Holy Ghost did enter only at their eyes, and at their ears, not into their understandings, nor into their minds; or as if the Holy Ghost did not seal unto their hearts the truth and assurance of their prophecies. Whether a new light be infused into their understandings, or new graces be inspired into their heart, they are wrought, or caused, or created immediately by the Holy Ghost; and so are his imaginations, if they be supernatural.
T. H. For the places of my Leviathan he cites, they are all, as they stand, both true and clearly proved. The setting of them down by fragments is no refutation; nor offers he any arguments against them. His consequences are not deduced. I never said that the Holy Ghost was an imagination, or a dream, or a vision, but that the Holy Ghost spake most often in the Scripture by dreams and visions supernatural. The next words of his, as if the Holy Ghost did enter only at their eyes, and at their ears, not into their understandings, nor into their minds, I let pass, because I cannot understand them. His last words, Whether new light, &c. I understand and approve.
J. D. But he must needs fall into these absurdities, who maketh but a jest of inspiration. They who pretend Divine inspiration to be a supernatural entering of the Holy Ghost into a man, are, as he thinks, in a very dangerous dilemma; for if they worship not the men whom they conceive to be inspired, they fall into impiety; and if they worship them, they commit idolatry. So mistaking the Holy Ghost to be corporeal, something that is blown into a man, and the graces of the Holy Ghost to be corporeal graces. And the words, inpoured or infused virtue, and, inblown or inspired virtue, are as absurd and as insignificant, as a round quadrangle. He reckons it as a common error, that faith and sanctity are not attained by study and reason, but by supernatural inspiration or infusion. And layeth this for a firm ground; faith and sanctity are indeed not very frequent, but yet they are not miracles, but brought to pass by education, discipline, correction, and other natural ways. I would see the greatest Pelagian of them all, fly higher.
T. H. I make here no jest of inspiration. Seriously, I say, that in the proper signification of the words inspiration and infusion, to say virtue is inspired, or infused, is as absurd as to say a quadrangle is round. But metaphorically, for God’s bestowing of faith, grace, or other virtue, those words are intelligible enough.
J. D. Why should he trouble himself about the Holy Spirit, who acknowledgeth no spirit, but either a subtle fluid body, or a ghost, or other idol or phantasm of the imagination; who knoweth no inward grace or intrinsical holiness? Holy is a word which in God’s kingdom answereth to that, which men in their kingdoms use to call public, or the king’s. And again, wheresoever the word, holy, is taken properly, there is still something signified of propriety gotten by consent. His holiness is a relation, not a quality; for inward sanctification, or real infused holiness, (in respect whereof the third person is called the Holy Ghost, because he is not only holy in himself, but also maketh us holy), he is so great a stranger to it, that he doth altogether deny it, and disclaim it.
T. H. The word holy I had defined in the words which his Lordship here sets down, and by the use thereof in the Scripture made it manifest, that that was the true signification of the word. There is nothing in learning more difficult than to determine the signification of words. That difficulty excuses him. He says that holiness, in my sense, is a relation, not a quality. All the learned agree that quality is an accident: so that in attributing to God holiness, as a quality, he contradicts himself. For he has in the beginning of this his discourse denied, and rightly, that any accident is in God; saying, whatsoever is in God is the Divine substance. He affirms also, that to attribute any accident to God, is to deny the simplicity of the Divine substance. And thus his Lordship makes God, as I do, a corporeal spirit. Both here, and throughout, he discovers so much ignorance, as had he charged me with error only, and not with atheism, I should not have thought it necessary to answer him.
J. D. We are taught in our creed to believe the catholic or universal church. But T. H. teacheth us the contrary: That if there be more Christian churches than one, all of them together are not one church personally. And more plainly: Now if the whole number of Christians be not contained in one commonwealth, they are not one person, nor is there an universal church, that hath any authority over them. And again: The universal church is not one person, of which it can be said, that it hath done, or decreed, or ordained, or excommunicated, or absolved. This doth quite overthrow all the authority of general councils.
All other men distinguish between the church and the commonwealth; only T. H. maketh them to be one and the same thing. The commonwealth of Christian men, and the church of the same, are altogether the same thing, called by two names for two reasons. For the matter of the church and of the commonwealth is the same, namely, the same Christian men; and the form is the same, which consisteth in the lawful power of convocating them. And hence he concludeth, that every Christian commonwealth is a church endowed with all spiritual authority. And yet more fully: The church if it be one person, is the same thing with the commonwealth of Christians; called a commonwealth, because it consisteth of men united in one person their sovereign; and a church, because it consisteth in Christian men united in one Christian sovereign. Upon which account there was no Christian church in these parts of the world, for some hundreds of years after Christ, because there was no Christian sovereign.
T. H. For answer to this period, I say only this; that taking the church, as I do, in all those places, for a company of Christian men on earth incorporated into one person, that can speak, command, or do any act of a person, all that he citeth out of what I have written is true; and that all private conventicles, though their belief be right, are not properly called churches; and that there is not any one universal church here on earth, which is a person indued with authority universal to govern all Christian men on earth, no more than there is one universal sovereign prince or state on earth, that hath right to govern all mankind. I deny also that the whole clergy of a Christian kingdom or state being assembled, are the representative of that church further than the civil laws permit; or can lawfully assemble themselves, unless by the command or by the leave of the sovereign civil power. I say further, that the denial of this point tendeth in England towards the taking away of the king’s supremacy in causes ecclesiastical. But his Lordship has not here denied any thing of mine, because he has done no more but set down my words. He says further, that this doctrine destroys the authority of all general councils; which I confess. Nor hath any general council at this day in this kingdom the force of a law, nor ever had, but by the authority of the king.