The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 04 · Thomas Hobbes
AN ANSWER, ETC.
_J. D._ Neither is he more orthodox concerning the holy Scriptures: _hitherto_, that is, for the books of Moses, _the power of making the Scripture canonical, was in the civil sovereign_. The like he saith of the Old Testament, made canonical by Esdras. And of the New Testament, that _it was not the apostles which made their own writings canonical, but every convert made them so to himself_: yet with this restriction, that _until the sovereign ruler had prescribed them, they were but counsel and advice, which whether good or bad, he that was counselled might without injustice refuse to observe, and being contrary to the laws established, could not without injustice observe_. He maketh the primitive Christians to have been in a pretty condition. Certainly the gospel was contrary to the laws then established. But most plainly, _The word of the interpreter of the Scripture is the word of God_. And the _same is the interpreter of the Scripture, and the sovereign judge of all doctrines_, that is, the sovereign magistrate, _to whose authority we must stand no less, than to theirs, who at first did commend the Scripture to us for the canon of faith_. Thus if Christian sovereigns, of different communications, do clash one with another, in their interpretation, or misinterpretation of Scripture, as they do daily, then the word of God is contradictory to itself; or that is the word of God in one commonwealth, which is the word of the Devil in another commonwealth. And the same thing may be true, and not true at the same time: which is the peculiar privilege of T. H. to make contradictories to be true together.
_T. H._ There is no doubt but by what authority the Scripture or any other writing is made a law, by the same authority the Scriptures are to be interpreted, or else they are made law in vain. But to obey is one thing, to believe is another; which distinction perhaps his Lordship never heard of. To obey is to do or forbear as one is commanded, and depends on the will; but to believe, depends not on the will, but on the providence and guidance of our hearts that are in the hands of God Almighty. Laws only require obedience; belief requires teachers and arguments drawn either from reason, or from some thing already believed. Where there is no reason for our belief, there is no reason we should believe. The reason why men believe, is drawn from the authority of those men whom we have no just cause to mistrust, that is, of such men to whom no profit accrues by their deceiving us, and of such men as never used to lie, or else from the authority of such men whose promises, threats, and affirmations, we have seen confirmed by God with miracles. If it be not from the king’s authority that the Scripture is law, what other authority makes it law?
Here some man being of his Lordship’s judgment, will perhaps laugh and say, it is the authority of God that makes them law. I grant that. But my question is, on what authority they believe that God is the author of them? Here his Lordship would have been at a nonplus, and turning round, would have said the authority of the Scripture makes good that God is their author. If it be said we are to believe the Scripture upon the authority of the universal church, why are not the books we call Apocrypha the word of God as well as the rest? If this authority be in the church of England, then it is not any other than the authority of the head of the church, which is the king. For without the head the church is mute. The authority therefore is in the king; which is all that I contended for in this point. As to the laws of the Gentiles, concerning religion in the primitive times of the church, I confess they were contrary to Christian faith.
But none of their laws, nor terrors, nor a man’s own will, are able to take away faith, though they can compel to an external obedience; and though I may blame the _Ethnic_ princes for compelling men to speak what they thought not, yet I absolve not all those that have had the power in Christian churches from the same fault. For I believe, since the time of the first four general councils, there have been more Christians burnt and killed in the Christian church by ecclesiastical authority, than by the heathen emperors' laws, for religion only without sedition. All that the Bishop does in this argument is but a heaving at the King’s supremacy. Oh, but, says he, if two kings interpret a place of Scripture in contrary senses, it will follow that both senses are true. It does not follow. For the interpretation, though it be made by just authority, must not therefore always be true. If the doctrine in the one sense be necessary to salvation, then they that hold the other must die in their sins, and be damned. But if the doctrine in neither sense be necessary to salvation, then all is well, except perhaps that they will call one another atheists, and fight about it.
_J. D._ All the power, virtue, use, and efficacy, which he ascribeth to the holy sacraments, is to be _signs or commemorations_. As for any sealing, or confirming, or conferring of grace, he acknowledged! nothing. The same he saith particularly of baptism: upon which grounds a cardinal’s red hat, or a serjeant-at-arms his mace, may be called sacraments as well as baptism, or the holy eucharist, if they be only signs and commemorations of a benefit. If he except, that baptism and the eucharist are of Divine institution; but a cardinal’s red hat or a serjeant-at-arms his mace are not: he saith truly, but nothing to his advantage or purpose, seeing he deriveth all the authority of the word and sacraments, in respect of subjects, and all our obligation to them, from the authority of the sovereign magistrate, without which these words, _Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus_, are but counsel, no command. And so a serjeant-at-arms his mace, and baptism, proceed both from the same authority. And this he saith upon this silly ground, _that nothing is a command, the performance whereof tendeth to our own benefit_. He might as well deny the Ten Commandments to be commands, because they have an advantageous promise annexed to them, _Do this and thou shalt live_; and _cursed is every one that continueth not in all the words of this law to do them_.
_T. H._ Of the sacraments I said no more, than that they are _signs_ or _commemorations_. He finds fault that I add not _seals_, _confirmations_, and that they _confer grace_. First, I would have asked him, if a seal be any thing else besides a sign, whereby to remember somewhat, as that we have promised, accepted, acknowledged, given, undertaken somewhat. Are not other _signs_, though without a _seal_, of force sufficient to convince me or oblige me? A writing obligatory, or release, signed only with a man’s name, is as obligatory as a bond signed and sealed, if it be sufficiently proved, though peradventure it may require a longer process to obtain a sentence; but his Lordship I think knew better than I do the force of bonds and bills; yet I know this, that in the court of heaven there is no such difference between saying, signing, and sealing, as his Lordship seemeth here to pretend. I am baptized for a commemoration that I have enrolled myself. I take the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper to commemorate that Christ’s body was broken, and his blood shed for my redemption. What is there more intimated concerning the nature of these sacraments, either in the Scripture or in the book of Common Prayer?
Have bread and wine and water in their own nature, any other quality than they had before the consecration? It is true that the consecration gives these bodies a new relation, as being a giving and dedicating of them to God, that is to say a making of them holy, not a changing of their quality. But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken English, to be thought perfect in the French language; so his Lordship, I think, to seem a perfect understander of the unintelligible language of the Schoolmen, pretends an ignorance of his mother-tongue. He talks here of _command_ and _counsel_, as if he were no Englishman, nor knew any difference between their significations. What Englishman, when he commandeth, says more than, _Do this_; yet he looks to be obeyed, if obedience be due unto him. But when he says, _Do this, and thou shalt have such or such a reward_, he encourages him, or advises him, or bargains with him; but commands him not. Oh, the understanding of a Schoolman! _J. D._ Sometimes he is for holy orders, and giveth to the pastors of the church the right of ordination and absolution, and infallibility, too much for a particular pastor, or the pastors of one particular church. _It is manifest, that the consecration of the chiefest doctors in every church, and imposition of hands, doth pertain to the doctors of the same church._ And, _it cannot be doubted of, but the power of binding and loosing was given by Christ to the future pastors, after the same manner as to his present apostles_. And, _our Saviour hath promised this infallibility in those things which are necessary to salvation, to his apostles, until the day of judgment, that is to say, to the apostles, and pastors to be consecrated by the apostles successively, by the imposition of hands_.
But at other times he casteth all this meal down with his foot. _Christian sovereigns are the supreme pastors, and the only persons whom Christians now hear speak from God, except such as God speaketh to in these days supernaturally._ What is now become of the promised infallibility? And, _it is from the civil sovereign that all other pastors derive their right of teaching, preaching, and all other functions pertaining to that office; and they are but his ministers in the same manner as the magistrates of towns, or judges in courts of justice, and commanders of armies_. What is now become of their ordination? Magistrates, judges, and generals, need no precedent qualifications. He maketh _the pastoral authority of sovereigns to be_ jure divino, _of all other pastors_ jure civili: he addeth, _neither is there any judge of heresy among subjects, but their own civil sovereign_. Lastly, _the church excommunicateth no man but whom she excommunicateth by the authority of the prince_. And, _the effect of excommunication hath nothing in it, neither of damage in this world, nor terror upon an apostate, if the civil power did persecute or not assist the church: and in the world to come, leaves them in no worse estate, than those who never believed. The damage rather redoundeth to the church. Neither is the excommunication of a Christian subject, that obeyeth the laws of his own sovereign, of any effect._ Where is now their power of binding and loosing?
_T. H._ Here his Lordship condemneth, first my too much kindness to the pastors of the church; as if I ascribed infallibility to every particular minister, or at least to the assembly of the pastors of a particular church. But he mistakes me; I never meant to flatter them so much. I say only that the ceremony of consecration, and imposition of hands, belongs to them; and that also no otherwise than as given them by the laws of the commonwealth. The bishop consecrates, but the king both makes him bishop and gives him his authority. The head of the church not only gives the power of consecration, dedication, and benediction, but may also exercise the act himself if he please. Solomon did it; and the book of canons says, that the King of England has all the right that any good king of Israel had; it might have added, that any other king or sovereign assembly had in their own dominions. I deny that any pastor or any assembly of pastors in any particular church, or all the churches on earth though united, are infallible: yet I say, the pastors of a Christian church assembled are, in all such points as are _necessary to salvation_. But about what points are _necessary to salvation_, he and I differ.
For I, in the forty-third chapter of my _Leviathan_, have proved that this article, _Jesus is the Christ_, is the _unum necessarium_, _the only article necessary to salvation_; to which his Lordship hath not offered any objection. And he, it seems, would have necessary to salvation every doctrine he himself thought so. Doubtless in this article, _Jesus is the Christ_, every church is infallible; for else it were no church. Then he says, I overthrow this again by saying that Christian sovereigns are the _supreme pastors_, that is, heads of their own churches; _That they have their authority jure divino; that all other pastors have it jure civili_. How came any Bishop to have authority over me, but by letters patent from the king? I remember a parliament wherein a bishop, who was both a good preacher and a good man, was blamed for a book he had a little before published in maintenance of the _jus divinum_ of bishops; a thing which before the reformation here, was never allowed them by the pope. Two _jus divinums_ cannot stand together in one kingdom. In the last place he mislikes that the church should excommunicate by authority of the king, that is to say, by authority of the head of the church. But he tells not why.
He might as well mislike that the magistrates of the realm should execute their offices by the authority of the head of the realm. His Lordship was in a great error, if he thought such encroachments would add any thing to the wealth, dignity, reverence, or continuance of his order. They are pastors of pastors, but yet they are the sheep of him that is on earth their sovereign pastor, and he again a sheep of that supreme pastor which is in heaven. And if they did their pastoral office, both by life and doctrine, as they ought to do, there could never arise any dangerous rebellion in the land. But if the people see once any ambition in their teachers, they will sooner learn that, than any other doctrine; and from ambition proceeds rebellion.
_J. D._ It may be some of T. H. his disciples desire to know what hopes of heavenly joys they have upon their master’s principles. They may hear them without any great contentment: _There is no mention in Scripture, nor ground in reason, of the cœlum empyræum_, that is, the heaven of the blessed, where the saints shall live eternally with God. And again, _I have not found any text that can probably be drawn to prove any ascension of the saints into heaven, that is to say, into any cœlum empyræum_. But he concludeth positively, that _Salvation shall be upon earth, when God shall reign at the coming of Christ in Jerusalem_. And again, _In short, the kingdom of God is a civil kingdom_, &c. called also _the kingdom of heaven, and the kingdom of glory_. All the Hobbians can hope for, is, to be restored to the same condition which Adam was in before his fall. So saith T. H. himself: _From whence may be inferred, that the elect, after the resurrection, shall be restored to the estate wherein Adam was before he had sinned_. As for the beatifical vision, he defineth it to be a word unintelligible.
_T. H._ This _cœlum empyræum_ for which he pretendeth so much zeal, where is it in the Scripture, where in the book of Common Prayer, where in the canons, where in the homilies of the church of England, or in any part of our religion? What has a Christian to do with such language? Nor do I remember it in Aristotle. Perhaps it may be in some Schoolman or commentator on Aristotle, and his Lordship makes it in English the _heaven of the blessed_, as if _empyræum_ signified _that which belongs to the blessed_. St. Austin says better; that after the day of judgment all that is not heaven shall be hell. Then for _beatifical vision_, how can any man understand it, that knows from the Scripture that no man ever saw or can see God. Perhaps his Lordship thinks that the happiness of the life to come is not real, but a vision. As for that which I say (_Leviathan_, p. 625), I have answered to it already.
_J. D._ But considering his other principles, I do not marvel much at his extravagance in this point. To what purpose should a _cœlum empyræum_, or heaven of the blessed, serve in his judgment, who maketh the blessed angels that are the inhabitants of that happy mansion, to be either idols of the brain, that is in plain English, nothing, or thin, subtile, fluid bodies, destroying the angelical nature. _The universe being the aggregate of all bodies, there is no real part thereof that is not also body._ And elsewhere, _Every part of the universe is body, and that which is not body, is no part of the universe. And because the universe is all, that which is no part of it is nothing, and consequently nowhere._ How? By this doctrine he maketh not only the angels, but God himself to be nothing. Neither doth he salve it at all, by supposing erroneously angels to be corporeal spirits, and by attributing the name of incorporeal spirit to God, _as being a name of more honour, in whom we consider not what attribute best expresseth his nature, which is incomprehensible, but what best expresseth our desire to honour him_. Though we be not able to comprehend perfectly what God is, yet we are able perfectly to comprehend what God is not, that is, he is not imperfect, and therefore he is not finite, and consequently he is not corporeal. This were a trim way to honour God indeed, to honour him with a lie. If this that he says here be true, that _every part of the universe is a body, and whatsoever is not a body is nothing_, then, by this doctrine, if God be not a body, God is nothing: not an incorporeal spirit, but _one of the idols of the brain_, a mere nothing, though they think they dance under a net, and have the blind of God’s incomprehensibility between them and discovery.
_T. H._ This of _incorporeal substance_ he urged before, and there I answered it. I wonder he so often rolls the same stone. He is like Sisyphus in the poet’s hell, that there rolls a heavy stone up a hill, which no sooner he brings to day-light, than it slips down again to the bottom, and serves him so perpetually. For so his Lordship rolls this and other questions with much ado, till they come to the light of Scripture, and then they vanish; and he vexing, sweating, and railing, goes to it again, to as little purpose as before. From that I say of the universe, he infers, that I make God to be nothing: but infers it absurdly. He might indeed have inferred that I make him a corporeal, but yet a pure spirit. I mean by the universe, the aggregate of all things that have being in themselves; and so do all men else. And because God has a being, it follows that he is either the whole universe, or part of it. Nor does his Lordship go about to disprove it, but only seems to wonder at it.
_J. D._ To what purpose should a _cœlum empyræum_ serve in his judgment, who denieth the immortality of the soul? _The doctrine is now, and hath been a long time, far otherwise; namely, that every man hath eternity of life by nature, inasmuch as his soul is immortal._ Who supposeth that _when a man dieth, there remaineth nothing of him but his carcase_? Who maketh the word _soul_ in Holy Scripture to signify always either the life, or the living creature; and expoundeth the casting of body and soul into hell-fire, to be _the casting of body and life into hell-fire_? Who maketh this orthodox truth, that the souls of men are substances distinct from their bodies, to be _an error contracted by the contagion of the demonology of the Greeks, and a window that gives entrance to the dark doctrine of eternal torments_? Who expoundeth these words of Solomon (_Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God that gave it_) thus, _God only knows what becometh of a man’s spirit when he expireth_? He will not acknowledge that there is a spirit, or any substance distinct from the body. I wonder what they think doth keep their bodies from stinking.
_T. H._ He comes here to that which is a great paradox in School-divinity. The grounds of my opinion are the canonical Scripture, and the texts which I cited I must again recite, to which I shall also add some others. My doctrine is this: first, _that the elect in Christ, from the day of judgment forward, by virtue of Christ’s passion and victory over death, shall enjoy eternal life, that is, they shall be immortal_. Secondly, _that there is no living soul separated in place from the body, more than there is a living body separated from the soul_. Thirdly, _that the reprobate shall be revived to judgment, and shall die a second death in torments, which death shall be everlasting_. Now let us consider what is said to these points in the Scripture, and what is the harmony therein of the Old and New Testament.
And first, because the word _immortal soul_, is not found in the Scriptures, the question is to be decided by evident consequences from the Scripture. The Scripture saith of God expressly (1 Tim. vi. 16) that _He only hath immortality, and dwelleth in inaccessible light_. Hence it followeth that the soul of man is not of its own nature immortal, but by grace, that is to say, by the gift of God. And then the question will be, whether this grace or gift of God were bestowed on the soul in the creation and conception of the man, or afterwards by his redemption. Another question will be, in what sense immortality of torments can be called a gift, when all gifts suppose the thing given to be grateful to the receiver. To the first of these, Christ himself saith (Luke xiv. 13, 14): _When thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: and thou shalt be blessed, for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of them that be just_. It follows hence that the reward of the elect is not before the resurrection.
What reward then enjoys a separated soul in heaven, or any where else, till that day come, or what has he to do there till the body rise again? Again, St. Paul says (Rom. ii. 6-8): _God will render to every man according to his works. To them, who by patient continuance in well doing seek for honour, glory, and immortality, eternal life. But unto them that be contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath._ Here it is plain that God gives eternal life only to well doers, and to them that seek, not to them that have already, immortality. Again (2 Tim. i. 10): _Christ hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light, through the Gospel_. Therefore before the Gospel of Christ, nothing was immortal but God. And St. Paul, speaking of the day of judgment (1 Cor. xv. 54), saith, that _this mortal shall put on immortality_, and _that then death is swallowed up in victory_. There was no immortality of any thing mortal till death was overcome, and that was at the resurrection. And John, viii. 51: _Verily, verily, if a man keep my sayings he shall never see death_; that is to say, he shall be immortal.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.