T. H. His Lordship either had a strange conscience, or understood not English. Being at Paris when there was no bishop nor church in England, and every man writ what he pleased, I resolved (when it should please God to restore the authority ecclesiastical) to submit to that authority, in whatsoever it should determine. This his Lordship construes for a temporizing and too much indifferency in religion; and says further, that the last part of my words do smell of Jeroboam. To the contrary, I say my words were modest, and such as in duty I ought to use. And I profess still, that whatsoever the church of England (the church, I say, not every doctor) shall forbid me to say in matter of faith, I shall abstain from saying it, excepting this point, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for my sins. As for other doctrines, I think it unlawful, if the church define them, for any member of the church to contradict them.
J. D. His sixth paradox is a rapper: The civil laws are the rules of good and evil, just and unjust, honest and dishonest; and therefore what the lawgiver commands, that is to be accounted good, what he forbids, bad. And a little after: Before empires were, just and unjust were not, as whose nature is relative to a command, every action in its own nature is indifferent. That is, just or unjust proceedeth from the right of him that commandeth. Therefore lawful kings make those things which they command just, by commanding them, and those things which they forbid, unjust by forbidding them. To this add his definition of a sin, that which one doth, or omitteth, saith, or willeth, contrary to the reason of the commonwealth, that is, the (civil) laws. Where by the laws he doth not understand the written laws, elected and approved by the whole commonwealth, but the verbal commands or mandates of him that hath the sovereign power, as we find in many places of his writings. The civil laws are nothing else but the commands of him, that is endowed with sovereign power in the commonwealth, concerning the future actions of his subjects. And the civil laws are fastened to the lips of that man who hath the sovereign power.
Where are we? In Europe? or in Asia, where they ascribed a divinity to their kings, and, to use his own phrase, made them mortal gods; O king, live for ever? Flatterers are the common moths of great palaces, where Alexander’s friends are more numerous than the king’s friends. But such gross, palpable, pernicious flattery as this is, I did never meet with, so derogatory both to piety and policy. What deserveth he who should do his uttermost endeavour to poison a common fountain, whereof all the commonwealth must drink? He doth the same who poisoneth the mind of a sovereign prince.
Are the civil laws the rules of good and bad, just and unjust, honest and dishonest? And what, I pray you, are the rules of the civil law itself? Even the law of God and Nature. If the civil laws swerve from these more authentic laws, they are Lesbian rules. What the lawgiver commands is to be accounted good, what he forbids, bad. This was just the garb of the Athenian sophisters, as they are described by Plato. Whatsoever pleased the great beast, the multitude, they call holy, and just, and good. And whatsoever the great beast disliked, they called evil, unjust, profane. But he is not yet arrived at the height of his flattery. Lawful kings make those things, which they command, just by commanding them. At other times, when he is in his right wits, he talketh of sufferings, and expecting their reward in heaven. And going to Christ by martyrdom. And if he had the fortitude to suffer death he should do better. But I fear all this was but said in jest. How should they expect their reward in heaven, if his doctrine be true, that there is no reward in heaven? Or how should they be martyrs, if his doctrine be true, that none can be martyrs, but those who conversed with Christ upon earth? He addeth, before empires were, just and unjust were not. Nothing could be written more false in his sense, more dishonourable to God, more inglorious to the human nature; than that God should create man, and leave him presently without any rules, to his own ordering of himself, as the ostrich leaveth her eggs in the sand. But in truth there have been empires in the world ever since Adam. And Adam had a law written in his heart by the finger of God, before there was any civil law. Thus they do endeavour to make goodness, and justice, and honesty, and conscience, and God himself, to be empty names, without any reality, which signify nothing, further than they conduce to a man’s interest. Otherwise he would not, he could not, say, that every action as it is invested with its circumstances, is indifferent in its own nature.
T. H. My sixth paradox he calls a rapper. A rapper, a swapper, and such like terms, are his Lordship’s elegancies. But let us see what this rapper is: it is this; the civil laws are the rules of good and evil, just and unjust, honest and dishonest. Truly, I see no other rules they have. The Scriptures themselves were made law to us here, by the authority of the commonwealth, and are therefore part of the law civil. If they were laws in their own nature, then were they laws over all the world, and men were obliged to obey them in America, as soon as they should be shown there, though without a miracle, by a friar. What is unjust, but the transgression of a law? Law therefore was before unjust: and the law was made known by sovereign power before it was a law: therefore sovereign power was antecedent both to law and injustice. Who then made unjust but sovereign kings or sovereign assemblies? Where is now the wonder of this rapper, that lawful kings make those things which they command just, by commanding them, and those things which they forbid unjust, by forbidding them? Just and unjust were surely made. If the king made them not, who made them else? For certainly the breach of a civil law is a sin against God. Another calumny which he would fix upon me, is, that I make the King’s verbal commands to be laws. How so? Because I say, the civil laws are nothing else but the commands of him that hath the sovereign power, concerning the future actions of his subjects. What verbal command of a king can arrive at the ears of all his subjects, which it must do ere it be a law, without the seal of the person of the commonwealth, which is here the Great Seal of England? Who, but his Lordship, ever denied that the command of England was a law to Englishmen? Or that any but the King had authority to affix the Great Seal of England to any writing? And who did ever doubt to call our laws, though made in Parliament, the King’s laws? What was ever called a law, which the King did not assent to? Because the King has granted in divers cases not to make a law without the advice and assent of the lords and commons, therefore when there is no parliament in being, shall the Great Seal of England stand for nothing? What was more unjustly maintained during the Long Parliament, besides the resisting and murdering of the King, than this doctrine of his Lordship’s? But the Bishop endeavoured here to make the multitude believe I maintain, that the King sinneth not, though he bid hang a man for making his apparel otherwise than he appointed, or his servant for negligent attendance. And yet he knew I distinguished always between the King’s natural and politic capacity. What name should I give to this wilful slander? But here his Lordship enters into passion, and exclaims: Where are we, in Europe or in Asia? Gross, palpable, pernicious flattery, poisoning of a commonwealth, poisoning the King’s mind. But where was his Lordship when he wrote this? One would not think he was in France, nor that this doctrine was written in the year 1658, but rather in the year 1648, in some cabal of the King’s enemies. But what did put him into this fit of choler? Partly, this very thing, that he could not answer my reasons; but chiefly, that he had lost upon me so much School-learning in our controversy touching Liberty and Necessity: wherein he was to blame himself, for believing that the obscure and barbarous language of School-divinity, could satisfy an ingenuous reader, as well as plain and perspicuous English. Do I flatter the King? Why am I not rich? I confess his Lordship has not flattered him here.
J. D. Something there is which he hath a confused glimmering of, as the blind man sees men walking like trees, which he is not able to apprehend and express clearly. We acknowledge, that though the laws or commands of a sovereign prince be erroneous, or unjust, or injurious, such as a subject cannot approve for good in themselves; yet he is bound to acquiesce, and may not oppose or resist, otherwise than by prayers and tears, and at the most by flight. We acknowledge that the civil laws have power to bind the conscience of a Christian, in themselves, but not from themselves, but from him who hath said, Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. Either they bind Christian subjects to do their sovereign’s commands, or to suffer for the testimony of a good conscience. We acknowledge that in doubtful cases, semper præsumitur pro rege et lege, the sovereign and the law are always presumed to be in the right. But in plain evident cases, which admit no doubt, it is always better to obey God than man. Blunderers, whilst they think to mend one imaginary hole, make two or three real ones. They who derive the authority of the Scriptures or God’s law from the civil laws of men, are like those who seek to underprop the heavens from falling, with a bulrush. Nay, they derive not only the authority of the Scripture, but even the law of nature itself, from the civil law. The laws of nature (which need no promulgation) in the condition of nature are not properly laws, but qualities which dispose men to peace and obedience. When a commonwealth is once settled, then are they actually laws, and not before. God help us, into what times are we fallen, when the immutable laws of God and nature are made to depend upon the mutable laws of mortal men, just as one should go about to control the sun by the authority of the clock.
T. H. Hitherto he never offered to mend any of the doctrines he inveighs against; but here he does. He says I have a glimmering of something I was not able to apprehend and express clearly. Let us see his Lordship’s more clear expression. We acknowledge, saith he, that though the laws or commands of a sovereign prince be erroneous, or unjust, or injurious, such as a subject cannot approve for good in themselves, yet he is bound to acquiesce, and may not oppose or resist otherwise than by prayers and tears, and at the most by flight. Hence it follows clearly, that when a sovereign has made a law, though erroneous, then, if his subject oppose it, it is a sin. Therefore I would fain know, when a man has broken that law by doing what it forbad, or by refusing to do what it commanded, whether he have opposed this law or not. If to break the law be to oppose it, he granteth it. Therefore his Lordship has not here expressed himself so clearly, as to make men understand the difference between breaking a law and opposing it. Though there be some difference between breaking of a law, and opposing those that are sent with force to see it executed; yet between breaking and opposing the law itself, there is no difference. Also, though the subject think the law just, as when a thief is by law condemned to die, yet he may lawfully oppose the execution, not only by prayers, tears, and flight, but also (as I think) any way he can. For though his fault were never so great, yet his endeavour to save his own life is not a fault. For the law expects it, and for that cause appointeth felons to be carried bound and encompassed with armed men to execution. Nothing is opposite to law, but sin: nothing opposite to the sheriff, but force. So that his Lordship’s sight was not sharp enough to see the difference between the law and the officer. Again, We acknowledge, says he, that the laws have power to bind the conscience of a Christian in themselves, but not from themselves. Neither do the Scriptures bind the conscience because they are Scriptures, but because they were from God. So also the book of English Statutes bindeth our consciences in itself, but not from itself, but from the authority of the king, who only in the right of God has the legislative powers. Again he saith, We acknowledge that in doubtful cases, the sovereign and the law are always presumed to be in the right. If he presume they are in the right, how dare he presume that the cases they determine are doubtful? But, saith he, in evident cases which admit no doubt, it is always better to obey God than man. Yes, and in doubtful cases also, say I. But not always better to obey the inferior pastors than the supreme pastor, which is the king. But what are those cases that admit no doubt? I know but very few, and those are such as his Lordship was not much acquainted with.
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.