The Disarmers Dexterities Examined, Chapter 3 · Section 2
Sect. 2.
The notation of the word foreign, from the passive reciprocal. The Hebrew conjugations. foreign. Self-division. Begging the principall questions. The cause considerable in excommunication, though not in Schisme.
IN the second Section what he premises concerning heresie, and formes into a kind of exception against my proceeding, had been intimated by the Catholike Gentleman, and is in the Reply, c. 2. §. 1. evidenced to be his misunderstanding.
What follows at large in a triumphant manner, on occasion of the critical notation of the word foreign, from foreign, in the notation of the Hebrew Hithpael, is perfectly new, and an excellent taste of S. W. his Grammatical skill, but shall no longer detein me, than whilest I clear the truth, and give reply to his objections.
The truth is evidently this, the word Schisme comes from the passive foreign, which regularly signifies being cut, or divided, but yet the sin of Schisme being an action upon himselfe, not a passion from any other, it was, I conceived, of the nature of those passives, which note reciprocal action, or passion which S. Jude fully expresses by foreign, the title which he gives the grand Gnostike Schismaticks, that they cut off, or divide themselves from the Church; and Justinian in his Novels, foreign, if they divide themselves from the gifts of God. This being evident, and yet not regularly the notation of Greek passives, I said it was of the nature of the Hebrew Hithpael, which denoting reciprocal action, is by some reckoned the fourth, by others the seventh conjugation, constantly known among all by that name of conjugation, and I was content to speak as other men constantly speak, and therefore said that for want of conjugations (such as the Hebrew Grammars call thus) the passive was designed to supply the place of the Hebrew Hithpael, and so noted the reciprocal, where the passion is from, and on himself, and is fully exprest by the latine Neutral, a separating, or receding of any member from the unity of the Church. This is as plain sense, and as strictly according to the rules of Grammar, and ordinary use of words, as I could possibly speak, and withall, very usefull, in my conceit, to set down the true notion of Schisme, as it differs from all other things that border on it (and though they are not, may yet be mistaken for the same) particularly from excommunication, which is the cutting off others from the Church, whereas S. Paul speaking of the heretical Gnosticks which were Schismaticks too, saith that they were foreign, such as condemned and excommunicated themselves, which is as perfect an evidence of the reciprocal action or passion, as could be.
This renders him answer to his first scruple [How I know it must necessarily be taken in that notion here, since, saith he, coming from a verb active, it must in the first place have a signification perfectly passive.] The account is given already, because the Schismaticks in S. Jude are defined by him not such as are divided, in a passive sense, but foreign, those that separate or divide themselves, and the same men are by S. Paul said to be foreign, such as inflict the censure of condemnation or excommunication, foreign in the African Councel, God: Afr: can. 22themselves upon themselves. This evidences the Schismaticke to be a reciprocal agent and patient, and that the Greek passive denotes not, but as it supplies the place of the Hebrew Hithpael, therefore thus it must be taken in this word.
2dly. This renders him answer, with what propriety I say this is for want of conjugations, viz. for want of such flexions and variations both of the signification, and of the first syllables, as the Hebricians call conjugations, whose language it was fit I should use, when I spake of the Hebrew idiom, communicated to the Greek.
That voices and conjugations are, as he saith, jumbled in this language, is neither granted by all Grammarians, nor at all tends to S. W: his advantage, if it were granted to him. Those Grammarians that make but four conjugations, do certainly not mixe, or jumble them, for of those foure, each of the three former are divided into their Actives and Passives, such as the Latines and Greeks call voices, and the fourth is not capable of that division, but is reciprocal. And though others style these eight conjugations, as David Kimchi in his foreign, Moses Kimchi in his Grammar, and Elias Levita, yet they have taken care to sever them, into the parents, as they call the Actives, and the off-spring the passives that have issued from them, and the reciprocal, which is parent and daughter too; and so still the distinction is preserved clear, and not the least impropriety imaginable in my speech, that the Greek which had neither voice nor conjugation of the reciprocal forme, used the passive voice in stead of it, for want of conjugations, i. e. for want of something answerable to that, which the Hebrews, both they which make but four, and they that make eight, do uniformly style conjugation.
In this place it is not conceivable how S. W. should come to call them eight votes, and to affirm that the Grammarians so style them. That any one Grammarian hath styled them eight Votes, is more then by any enquiry I can discover: and if any have, I am too dull, I acknowledg, to understand him, unless because Votes signifies voices, when they are used for suffrages, he meanes to give law to language, and appoint votes to signifie Grammatical voices also. And yet if that were his mistake, or if the Printer substituted votes in stead of voices, there must be in it another mistake also, for no Grammarian, I suppose, could ever think there were eight such voices, and therefore still I am to be informed by some Diviner, what S. W. his eight votes signified.
So again, when having disliked my multiplyed conjugations in Hebrew, he yet adds, that there are more in the Greek then in the Hebrew, 'twil not be easie to discern upon what account Grammatical, or rational, he could do so; For it being certain, that the different conjugations in Greek, are not varyed in the flexion, as the Latines are, but only in the Characteristick, (and so the best Grammarians have resolved, that though such foreign are called *foreign, Theodor: foreign, p. 39.conjugations, yet they are improperly so called) it is evident also, that the same strict lawes, that are of force against the multiplying the conjugations in Hebrew, are of equal, if not greater force against the bestowing that title of conjugation upon all the variations of the verbs in Greek. The variations in all those, which the Hebrew call conjugations, being discernible both in the signification, & in the first syllable, which may well outweigh the variation of the characteristick in the Greek; And besides, it is most evident, that one and the same verb goes through all the conjugations in Hebrew, but doth not so in Greek, and accordingly there is no such thing in the Greek language, as the variation of frequentative, transitive, and reciprocal, which are in the Hebrew Piel, Hiphil, and Hithpael, the only ground of my affirming, that the Greek wanted conjugations, which were found among the Hebrews. Such misadventures as these, his descending to such niceties hath cost him, and truly some more, witness his neutropassive taken by him for a passive in the reciprocal or neutral sense, when every school-boy knows, that all neutropassives are of the active voice, so again his instancing in sto, as a word partaking of a passive sense, because it may be rendred, I am standing, and others the like, through every stage of this his voyage, if it were not too great levity, and somewhat unreconcileable with common compassion to enumerate them.
In stead of so doing, I shal only adde an answer to his one principal scruple, when having mentioned the notion of Hithpael, to signifie an express action upon it selfe, he demands, where the Dr among all his criticall observations can shew him one word in all the Latine and Greek language to parallel it, or that is (as the Doctor expresseth it) of the nature of Hithpael. I answer foreign is such a Greek word of the nature of Hithpael, signifying sometimes saving and delivering himselfe, and in rendring expressed by the neutral, escaping, Gen. 19.19. and 22. 1 Sam. 19.12. Joel 2.32. and so 'tis used by S. Luke in the same sense, Acts 2.40. foreign, be ye saved, literally, but in sense, rescue, or as the English renders it, save your selves, or escape, or get out of this wicked generation. So yet neerer to the word we have in hand, foreign, literally, to be separated, is sometimes to separate themselves, without any action of, or passion received from any other, as 2 Cor. 6.17. where by way of exhortation the Apostole bespeaks them, foreign, Come out and be yee separate, i. e. separate your selves, not, be ye separated, or cast out by others. The foregoing neutral sense of coming out, expresseth this to be the importance of it. And for the very word which hath occasioned this debate, see Num. 16.20. where when the Hebrew hath foreign in Hithpael, separate your selves, the Greek reads foreign, be ye cut off, or divided from them, the very same that is varyed, v. 24. into foreign get you up from them; and v. 26. foreign depart, again rendred by the Gr: foreign, be ye separated. These are sufficient to answer his question: And for variety of other the like examples (I never affirmed it of all, as he is pleased to inferre, p. 9. but only of this and some others) if he have, either skill, or conversation in the original languages of the Scripture, he will be soon able upon this momento, with a little observation, to furnish himself.
As for his ways of disproving it, p. 10. [that if it signifie a reciprocal action or passion, it must signifie an act of dividing exercised on himselfe, who therefore is the thing divided: and since division is a progress or motion from unity to plurality, its proper and formall effect is to make that, which it works on, more of one, but that which it works upon, saith the Dr, is himselfe the Schismaticke, therefore it cuts the Schismaticke in two] this is indeed a deep subtilty, which will soon be avoided by remembring him, what self-division it is, of which he knows we speak, not that of hewing, or mutilating his body, but cutting himself off from the body of the Church, with which he was united (the Church being a body as well as S. W.) and sure such a division is motus ab unitate ad pluralitatem, a progress from unity to plurality, when he cuts himsef off from the Church, as well as when he cuts himselfe in pieces. If these be the rigorous, by which he saith he means solid, pregnant, convincing discourses, to which S. W. so pretends, I have no reason to be ill pleased, that he likes not my way of arguing, I should be sorry to have approved my self to him.
But it seems all this debate might have been spared, for after all this sollicitude (which hath brought in but slender advantages to S. W.) he willingly grants all that this Criticisme demanded, viz. that the sin of schisme, must be the voluntary recession, as that differs from the passive, excommunication, which therefore he acknowledges not to be schisme. Which as plain a truth as it is, I desire to take witnesse of it, that it is granted me by him, and then I shall be the more perfectly secure from the guilt of schisme, till by some other argument than the Popes having excommunicated us (viz. by our voluntary recession from them, or from some members at least of the true Church of God) he shall prove that we are truly Schismaticks.
What he adds farther in this Sect. p. 12. of the no immunity from error in the Governed, fit to counterpoise the liableness to error in the Governors, which I had mentioned; and p. 13 of the voluntary continuance in a just excommunication, which makes the thus excommunicated Schismaticks] hath in both parts perfect truth in it, but is no ways applicable to the business*T… of Schism. c. 2. §. 3, 4. there in hand, nor can pretend to be so, without a begging of the principal questions, or matters in controversie betwixt the Romanist and us: First, that the Bishop of Rome was the Governor, and we the governed, at the time when he first excommunicated this nation; whereas at the time of those Censures coming, in Qu: Elizabeths days, he neither de facto was then owned as such, nor de jure had title to it: And at the time when this Nation first did that, for wch he first excommunicated them, i. e. in King Henries dayes, de jure he had no title to it, and by Papists, continuing such in all other points, the Government, which he held de facto, was first cast off, and that by those, to whom the supreme power, under Christ, did belong, viz. by the King concurring with the Bishops, and by the Bishops with the King. 2dly. That the excommunication sent out against us, was founded in a just cause; which it could not be, if we did nothing toward the Bishop and Church of Rome (viz. in that one act of casting out his usurped power, and reforming our selves) which was not perfectly lawfull for us to do. For though, as I said, in a voluntary recession, which alone is schisme, it is not worth heeding what the cause or occasion is, because none, how weighty soever, can be sufficient to justifie that, yet in excommunication, which is not schisme, it is not so, the justice or injustice of that, whether in respect of the power (the legality thereof) or of the cause, is that which gives it validity, or renders it invalid, and null to all effects: and this being in part granted by S. W. viz. that unjust excommunication hurts no man, and the other part being as evident, that an unjust power is no power, and the acts null, we are perfectly safe from all the suggestions of the 2d Sect. till he make it appear, what here he attempts not to do, that their excommunicating of us had neither of these injustices and nullities in it.