(_d_) “With a purpose to make a noise with declaiming against those who dare dispute of the nature of God, that is, who dare set forth his justice and his goodness, &c.” The Bishop will have much ado to make good, that to dispute of the nature of God, is all one with setting forth his justice and his goodness. He taketh no notice of these words of mine, ‘pious men attribute to God Almighty for honour’s sake, whatsoever they see is honourable in the world’; and yet this is setting forth God’s justice, goodness, &c, without disputing of God’s nature. (_e_) “In the flames of the true Tophet, that is hell.” The true Tophet was a place not far from the walls of Jerusalem, and consequently on the earth. I cannot imagine what he will say to this in his answer to my _Leviathan_, if there he find the same, unless he say, that in this place by the _true_ Tophet, he meant a _not true_ Tophet. (_f_) “_This is life eternal_ (saith our Saviour) _to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ_, &c.” This which followeth to the end of his answer and of the book, is a reprehension of me, for saying that ‘true religion consisteth in obedience to Christ’s lieutenants’. If it be lawful for Christians to institute amongst themselves a commonwealth and magistrates, whereby they may be able to live in peace one with another, and unite themselves in defence against a foreign enemy; it will certainly be necessary to make to themselves some supreme judge in all controversies, to whom they ought all to give obedience. And this is no such strange doctrine, nor so uncouth a phrase to Christian ears, as the Bishop makes it, whatsoever it be to them that would make themselves judges of the Supreme Judge himself. No; but, saith he, Christ is the Supreme Judge, and we are not to obey men rather than God. Is there any Christian man that does not acknowledge that we are to be judged by Christ, or that we ought not to obey him rather than any man that shall be his lieutenant upon earth? The question therefore is, not of who is to be obeyed, but of what be his commands. If the Scripture contain his commands, then may every Christian know by them what they are. And what has the Bishop to do with what God says to me when I read them, more than I have to do with what God says to him when he reads them, unless he have authority given him by him whom Christ hath constituted his lieutenant? This lieutenant upon earth, I say, is the supreme civil magistrate, to whom belongeth the care and charge of seeing that no doctrine may be taught the people, but such as may consist with the general peace of them all, and with the obedience that is due to the civil sovereign. In whom would the Bishop have the authority reside of prohibiting seditious opinions, when they are taught (as they are often) in divinity books and from the pulpit? I could hardly guess, but that I remember that there have been books written to entitle the bishops to a _divine right_, underived from the civil sovereign.