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 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:

“I would fain have published my Dialogue of the Civil Wars of
England, long ago; and to that end I presented it to his Majesty:
and some days after, when I thought he had read it, I humbly
besought him to let me print it; but his Majesty, though he heard
me graciously, yet he flatly refused to have it published.
Therefore I brought away the book, and gave you leave to take
a copy of it; which when you had done, I gave the original to an
honourable and learned friend, who about a year after died. The
King knows better, and is more concerned in publishing of books
than I am: therefore I dare not venture to appear in the
business, lest it should offend him. Therefore I pray you not to
meddle in the business. Rather than to be thought any way to
further or countenance the printing, I would be content to lose
twenty times the value of what you can expect to get, &c. I pray
do not take it ill; it may be I may live to send you somewhat else
as vendible as that: and without offence, I rest Your very
humble servant,
 Thomas Hobbes.”
Chatsworth, June 19, 1679.
(Part of his letter in July, 1679.)
“If I leave any MSS. worth printing, I will leave word you shall
have them, if you please. I am
Your humble servant,
Thomas Hobbes.”
Chatsworth, July 21, 1679.

(Part of his letter, August, 1679.)

“Sir,—I thank you for taking my advice in not stirring about the
printing of my book concerning the civil wars of England, &c. I
am writing somewhat for you to print in English, &c. I am, Sir,
Your humble servant,
Thomas Hobbes.”
Chatsworth, Aug. 18, 1679.

That no spurious brats, for the time to come, be fathered upon

the deceased author, I have printed, verbatim, these passages
out of his letters written to me at several times; their original I
have by me. I will be so just to his memory, that I will not print
anything but what is perfect, and fitted for the press. And if any
book shall be printed with his name to it, that hath not before
been printed, you may be confident it is not his, unless printed
for
William Crooke.

CONSIDERATIONS

UPON THE REPUTATION, &c.

OF
 THOMAS HOBBES.

Sir,
I am one of them that admire your writings; and having read
over your Hobbius Heauton-timorumenos, I cannot hold from
giving you some account of the causes why I admire it. And first
I considered how you handle him for his disloyalty, in these
words (page 5): His great Leviathan, wherein he placed his main
strength, is now somewhat out of season; which, upon deserting
his royal master in distress, (for he pretends to have been the
King’s tutor, though yet, from those who have most reason to
know it, I can find but little ground for such a pretence), was
written in defence of Oliver’s title, or whoever, by whatsoever
means, can get to be upmost; placing the whole right of
government merely in strength, and absolving all his Majesty’s
subjects from their allegiance, whenever he is not in a present
capacity to force obedience.
That which I observe and admire here, first, is, that you left
not this passage out, for two reasons; one, because Mr. Hobbes
could long for nothing more than such an occasion to tell the
world his own and your little stories, during the time of the late
rebellion.
When the Parliament sat, that began in April 1640, and was
dissolved in May following, and in which many points of the regal
power, which were necessary for the peace of the kingdom, and
the safety of his Majesty’s person, were disputed and denied, Mr.
Hobbes wrote a little treatise in English, wherein he did set forth
and demonstrate, that the said power and rights were
inseparably annexed to the sovereignty; which sovereignty they
did not then deny to be in the King; but it seems understood
not, or would not understand that inseparability. Of this treatise,
though not printed, many gentlemen had copies, which
occasioned much talk of the author; and had not his Majesty
dissolved the Parliament, it had brought him into danger of his
life.
 He was the first that had ventured to write in the King’s
defence; and one, amongst very few, that upon no other ground
but knowledge of his duty and principles of equity, without
special interest, was in all points perfectly loyal.
The third of November following, there began a new
Parliament, consisting for the greatest part of such men as the
people had elected only for their averseness to the King’s
interest. These proceeded so fiercely in the very beginning,
against those that had written or preached in the defence of any
part of that power, which they also intended to take away, and in
gracing those whom the King had disgraced for sedition, that Mr.
Hobbes, doubting how they would use him, went over into
France, the first of all that fled, and there continued eleven
years, to his damage some thousands of pounds deep. This,
Doctor, was your time of harvest: you were in their favour, and
that, as you have made it since appear, for no goodness.
Being at Paris, he wrote and published his book De Cive, in
Latin, to the end that all nations which should hear what you
and your Con-Covenanters were doing in England, might detest
you, which I believe they do; for I know no book more magnified
than this is beyond the seas.
When his Majesty, that now is, came to Paris, Mr. Hobbes had
the honour to initiate him in the mathematics; but never was so
impudent or ignorant as to call, or to think himself the King’s
tutor, as you, that understand not what that word, out of the
University, signifies, do falsely charge him with; or ever to say,
that he was one of his Majesty’s domestic servants. While upon
this occasion he staid about Paris, and had neither
encouragement nor desire to return into England, he wrote and
published his Leviathan, far from the intention either of
disadvantage to his Majesty, or to flatter Oliver, who was not
made Protector till three or four years after, on purpose to make
way for his return. For there is scarce a page in it that does not
upbraid both him, and you, and others such as you, with your
abominable hypocrisy and villainy.
 Nor did he desert his Majesty, as you falsely accuse him, as his
Majesty himself knows. Nor was his Majesty, as you unmannerly
term it, in distress. He had the title, right, and reverence of a
King, and maintained his faithful servants with him. It is true
that Mr. Hobbes came home, but it was because he would not
trust his safety with the French clergy.
Do you know that ever he sought any benefit either from
Oliver, or from any of his party, or was any way familiar with any
of his ministers, before or after his return; or curried favour with
any of them, as you did by dedicating a book to his vice-
chancellor, Owen?
Did you ever hear that he took anything done to him by his
Majesty in evil part, or spake of him otherwise than the best of
his servants would do; or that he was sullen, silent, or sparing,
in praising his Majesty in any company, upon any occasion?
He knew who were his enemies, and upon what ground they
misconstrued his writings.
But your indiscretion appears more manifestly in giving him
occasion to repeat what you have done, and to consider you, as
you professedly have considered him. For with what equity can it
be denied him to repeat your manifest and horrible crimes, for
all you have been pardoned; when you publish falsely pretended
faults of his, and comprehended in the same pardon?
If he should say and publish, that you deciphered the letters of
the King and his party, and thereby delivered his Majesty’s
secrets to the enemy, and his best friends to the scaffold, and
boasted of it in your book of arithmetic, written in Latin, to all
the world, as of a monument of your wit, worthy to be preserved
in the University Library: how will you justify yourself, if you be
reproached for having been a rebel and a traitor? It may be you,
or some for you, will now say, you deciphered those letters to
the King’s advantage: but then you were unfaithful to your
masters of the Parliament: a very honest pretence, and full of
gallantry, to excuse treason with treachery, and to be a double
spy. Besides, who will believe it? Who enabled you to do the
King that favour? Why herded you with his enemies? Who
brought the King into a need of such a fellow’s favour, but they
that first deserted him, and then made war upon him, and which
were your friends and Mr. Hobbes his enemies? Nay more, I
know not one enemy Mr. Hobbes then had, but such as were
first the King’s enemies, and, because the King’s, therefore his.
Your being of that party, without your deciphering, amounts to
no more than a desertion. Of the bishops that then were, and for
whose sakes, in part, you raised the war, there was not one that
followed the King out of the land, though they loved him, but
lived quietly under the protection, first of the Parliament, and
then of Oliver, (whose titles and actions were equally unjust)
without treachery. Is not this as bad as if they had gone over,
and (which was Mr. Hobbes his case) been driven back again? I
hope you will not call them all deserters, or, because by their
stay here openly they accepted of the Parliament’s and of
Oliver’s protection, defenders either of Oliver’s or of the
Parliament’s title to the sovereign power.
How many were there in that Parliament at first that did
indeed and voluntarily desert the King, in consenting to many of
their unjust actions? Many of these afterwards, either upon
better judgment, or because they pleased not the faction, (for it
was a hard matter for such as were not of Pym’s cabal to please
the Parliament), or for some other private ends deserted the
Parliament, and did some of them more hurt to the King than if
they had stayed where they were; for they had been so
affrighted by such as you, with a panic fear of tyranny, that
seeking to help him by way of composition and sharing, they
abated the just and necessary indignation of his armies, by
which only his right was to be recovered.
That very entering into the Covenant with the Scottish nation
against the King, is by itself a very great crime, and you guilty of
it. And so was the imposing of the Engagement, and you guilty
of that also, as being done by the then Parliament, whose
democratical principles you approved of.
You were also assisting to the Assembly of Divines that made
the Directory, and which were afterwards put down by Oliver for
counterfeiting themselves ambassadors. And this was when the
King was living, and at the head of an army, which with your
own endeavour might have protected you. What crime it is, the
King being head of the Church of England, to make Directories,
to alter the Church-government, and to set up new forms of
God’s service, upon your own fancies, without the King’s
authority, the lawyers could have told you; and what punishment
you were to expect from it, you might have seen in the statute
printed before the Book of Common Prayer.
Further he may say, and truly, that you were guilty of all the
treasons, murders, and spoil committed by Oliver, or by any
upon Oliver’s or the Parliament’s authority: for, during the late
trouble, who made both Oliver and the people mad, but the
preachers of your principles? But besides the wickedness, see
the folly of it. You thought to make them mad, but just to such a
degree as should serve your own turn; that is to say, mad, and
yet just as wise as yourselves. Were you not very imprudent to
think to govern madness? Paul they knew, but who were you?
You were they, that put the army into Oliver’s hands, who
before, as mad as he was, was too weak, and too obscure to do
any great mischief; with which army he executed upon such as
you, both here and in Scotland, that which the justice of God
required.
Therefore of all the crimes, the great one not excepted, done
in that rebellion, you were guilty; you, I say, Doctor, how little
force or wit soever you contributed, for your good-will to their
cause. The King was hunted as a partridge in the mountains;
and though the hounds have been hanged, yet the hunters were
as guilty as they, and deserved no less punishment. And the
decipherers, and all that blew the horn, are to be reckoned
amongst the hunters. Perhaps you would not have had the prey
killed, but rather have kept it tame. And yet who can tell? I have
read of few kings deprived of their power by their own subjects,
that have lived any long time after it, for reasons that every man
is able to conjecture.
 All this is so manifest, as it needs no witnesses. In the
meantime Mr. Hobbes his behaviour was such, that of them who
appeared in that scene, he was the only man I know, except a
few that had the same principles with him, that has not
something more or less to blush for; as having either assisted
that rebellious Parliament, without necessity (when they might
have had protection from the King, if they had resorted to him
for it in the field), by covenanting, or by action, or with money or
plate, or by voting against his Majesty’s interest, in himself or his
friends; though some of them have since by extraordinary
service deserved to be received into favour; but what is that to
you? You are none of them; and yet you dare to reproach the
guiltless, as if after so ill fruits of your sermons, it were not
impudence enough to preach.
I admire further, that having been forgiven these so
transcendant crimes, so great a debt to the gallows, you take Mr.
Hobbes by the throat for a word in his Leviathan, made a fault
by malicious or over-hasty construction: for you have thereby,
like the unmerciful debtor in the Gospel, in my opinion, forfeited
your pardon, and so, without a new one, may be hanged yet.
To that other charge, that he writ his Leviathan in defence of
Oliver’s title, he will say, that you in your own conscience know it
is false. What was Oliver, when that book came forth? It was in
1650, and Mr. Hobbes returned before 1651. Oliver was then but
General under your masters of the Parliament, nor had yet
cheated them of their usurped power. For that was not done till
two or three years after, in 1653, which neither he nor you could
foresee. What title then of Oliver’s could he pretend to justify?
But you will say, he placed the right of government there,
wheresoever should be the strength; and so by consequence he
placed it in Oliver. Is that all? Then primarily his Leviathan was
intended for your masters of the Parliament, because the
strength was then in them. Why did they not thank him for it,
both they and Oliver in their turns? There, Doctor, you
deciphered ill. For it was written in the behalf of those many and
faithful servants and subjects of his Majesty, that had taken his
part in the war, or otherwise done their utmost endeavour to
defend his Majesty’s right and person against the rebels:
whereby, having no other means of protection, nor, for the most
part, of subsistence, they were forced to compound with your
masters, and to promise obedience for the saving of their lives
and fortunes; which in his book he hath affirmed they might
lawfully do, and consequently not lawfully bear arms against the
victors. They that had done their utmost endeavour to perform
their obligation to the King, had done all that they could be
obliged unto; and were consequently at liberty to seek the safety
of their lives and livelihood wheresoever, and without treachery.
But there is nothing in that book to justify the submission of you,
or such as you, to the Parliament, after the King’s being driven
from them, or to Oliver; for you were the King’s enemies, and
cannot pretend want of that protection which you yourselves
refused, denied, fought against, and destroyed. If a man owe
you money, and you by robbing him, or other injury, disable him
to pay you, the fault is your own; nor needs this exception,
unless the creditor rob him, be put into the condition of the
bond. Protection and obedience are relative. He that says a man
may submit to an enemy for want of protection, can never be
construed, but that he meant it of the obedient. But let us
consider his words, when he puts for a law of nature, (vol. iii. p.
703) that every man is bound, as much as in him lieth, to protect
in war the authority by which he is himself protected in time of
peace; which I think is no ungodly or unreasonable principle. For
confirmation of it, he defines in what point of time it is, that a
subject becomes obliged to obey an unjust conqueror; and
defines it thus: it is that point wherein having liberty to submit to
the conqueror, he consenteth either by express words, or by
other sufficient signs, to be his subject.
I cannot see, Doctor, how a man can be at liberty to submit to
his new, that has not first done all he could for his old master:
nor if he have done all he could, why that liberty should be
refused him. If a man be taken by the Turk, and brought by
terror to fight against his former master, I see how he may be
killed for it as an enemy, but not as a criminal; nor can I see how
he that hath liberty to submit, can at the same time be bound
not to submit.
But you will say, perhaps, that he defines the time of that
liberty to the advantage of Oliver, in that he says, that for an
ordinary subject, it is then, when the means of his life are within
the guards and garrisons of the enemy; for it is then, that he
hath no protection but from the enemy for his contribution. It
was not necessary for him to explain it to men of so great
understanding, as you and other his enemies pretend to be, by
putting in the exception, unless they came into those guards and
garrisons by their own treason. Do you think that Oliver’s party,
for their submission to Oliver, could pretend the want of that
protection?
The words therefore by themselves, without that exception, do
signify no more than this; that whosoever had done as much as
in him did lie, to protect the King in war, had liberty afterwards
to provide themselves of such protection as they could get;
which to those whose means of life were within the guards and
garrisons of Oliver, was Oliver’s protection.
Do you think, when a battle is lost, and you at the mercy of an
enemy, it is unlawful to receive quarter with condition of
obedience? Or if you receive it on that condition, do you think it
honesty to break promise, and treacherously murder him that
gave you your life? If that were good doctrine, he were a foolish
enemy that would give quarter to any man.
You see, then, that this submission to Oliver, or to your then
masters, is allowed by Mr. Hobbes his doctrine only to the King’s
faithful party, and not to any that fought against him, howsoever
they coloured it, by saying they fought for the King and
Parliament; nor to any that writ or preached against his cause,
or encouraged his adversaries; nor to any that betrayed his
counsels, or that intercepted or deciphered any letters of his, or
of his officers, or of any of his party; nor to any that by any way
had contributed to the diminution of his Majesty’s power,
ecclesiastical or civil; nor does it absolve any of them from their
allegiance. You that make it so heinous a crime for a man to
save himself from violent death, by a forced submission to a
usurper, should have considered what crime it was to submit
voluntarily to the usurping Parliament.
I can tell you besides, why those words were put into his last
chapter, which he calls the review. It happened at that time that
there were many honourable persons, that having been faithful
and unblemished servants to the King, and soldiers in his army,
had their estates then sequestered; of whom some were fled,
but the fortunes of them all were at the mercy, not of Oliver, but
of the Parliament. Some of these were admitted to composition,
some not. They that compounded, though they helped the
Parliament less by their composition, than they should have
done, if they had stood out, by their confiscation, yet they were
ill-spoken of, especially by those that had no estates to lose, nor
hope to compound. And it was for this that he added to what he
had written before, this caution, that if they would compound,
they were to do it bona fide, without intention of treachery.
Wherein he justified their submission by their former obedience,
and present necessity; but condemned treachery. Whereas you
that pretend to abhor atheism, condemn that which was done
upon necessity, and justify the treachery: and you had reason for
it, that cannot otherwise justify yourselves. Those strugglings
which happened afterwards, lost his Majesty many a good and
able subject, and strengthened Oliver with the confiscation of
their estates; which if they had attended the discord of their
enemies, might have been saved.
Perhaps you will take for a sign of Mr. Hobbes his ill meaning,
that his Majesty was displeased with him. And truly I believe he
was displeased for a while, but not very long. They that
complained of, and misconstrued his writings, were his Majesty’s
good subjects, and reputed wise and learned men, and thereby
obtained to have their misconstruction believed for some little
time: but the very next summer after his coming away, two
honourable persons of the Court, that came over into England,
assured him, that his Majesty had a good opinion of him; and
others since have told me, that his Majesty said openly, that he
thought Mr. Hobbes never meant him hurt. Besides, his Majesty
hath used him more graciously than is ordinary to so humble a
person as he is, and so great a delinquent as you would make
him; and testified his esteem of him in his bounty. What
argument now can you draw from hence more than this, that his
Majesty understood his writings better than his accusers did?
I admire in the next place, upon what ground you accuse him,
and with him all those that have approved his Leviathan, with
atheism. I thought once, that that slander had had some, though
not firm, ground, in that you call his a new divinity: but for that
point he will allege these words of his Leviathan (p. 438): By
which it seemeth to me (with submission nevertheless, both in
this and all other questions whereof the determination
dependeth on the Scriptures, to the interpretation of the Bible
authorized by the commonwealth, whose subject I am), that, &c.
What is there in these words, but modesty and obedience? But
you were at this time in actual rebellion. Mr. Hobbes, that holds
religion to be a law, did in order thereto condemn the
maintenance of any of his opinions against the law; and you that
reproach him for them, upon your own account should also have
shown by your own learning, wherein the Scripture, which was
his sole proof, was miscited or misconstrued by him; (for he
submitted to the laws, that is to say, to the King’s doctrine, not
to yours); and not have insulted for the victory won by the
power of the law, to which you were then an enemy.
Another argument of atheism you take from his denying
immaterial or incorporeal substances. Let any man impartially
now compare his religion with yours, by this very measure, and
judge which of the two savours most of atheism.
It is by all Christians confessed, that God is incomprehensible;
that is to say, that there is nothing can arise in our fancy from
the naming of him, to resemble him either in shape, colour,
stature, or nature; there is no idea of him; he is like nothing that
we can think on. What then ought we to say of him? What
attributes are to be given him (not speaking otherwise than we
think, nor otherwise than is fit,) by those who mean to honour
him? None but such as Mr. Hobbes hath set down, namely,
expressions of reverence, such as are in use amongst men for
signs of honour, and consequently signify goodness, greatness,
and happiness; and either absolutely put, as good, holy, mighty,
blessed, just, wise, merciful, &c., or superlative, as most good,
most great, most mighty, almighty, most holy, &c., or negative
of whatsoever is not perfect, as infinite, eternal, and the like:
and not such as neither reason nor Scripture hath approved for
honourable. This is the doctrine that Mr. Hobbes hath written,
both in his Leviathan, and in his book De Cive, and when
occasion serves, maintains. What kind of attribute, I pray you, is,
immaterial, or incorporeal substance? Where do you find it in the
Scripture? Whence came it hither, but from Plato and Aristotle,
heathens, who mistook those thin inhabitants of the brain they
see in sleep, for so many incorporeal men; and yet allowed them
motion, which is proper only to things corporeal? Do you think it
an honour to God to be one of these? And would you learn
Christianity from Plato and Aristotle? But seeing there is no such
word in the Scripture, how will you warrant it from natural
reason? Neither Plato nor Aristotle did ever write of, or mention,
an incorporeal spirit. For they could not conceive how a spirit,
which in their language was πνεῦμα, in ours a wind, could be
incorporeal. Do you understand the connexion of substance and
incorporeal? If you do, explain it in English; for the words are
Latin. It is something, you will say, that being without body,
stands under——. Stands under what? Will you say, under
accidents? Almost all the Fathers of the Church will be against
you; and then you are an atheist. Is not Mr. Hobbes his way of
attributing to God, that only which the Scriptures attribute to
him, or what is never any where taken but for honour, much
better than this bold undertaking of yours, to consider and
decipher God’s nature to us?
For a third argument of atheism, you put, that he says:
besides the creation of the world, there is no argument to prove
a Deity: and, that it cannot be evinced by any argument that the