LETTER III. Obfervations on Mr. Hobbes's Writings-He fometimes professeth a Regard to the Scripture as the Word and Law of God; at other times ridicules Infpiration or Revelation-He attempts to invalidate the facred Canon, and makes Religion and the Authority of Scripture to depend entirely on the Authority of the Magiftrate-His frange Maxims in Morality and Politics-His Scheme tends to fubvert Natural Religion as well as Revealed-Confuted by feveral learned Authors. IN SIR, two former letters fome obfervations were made on the my writings of that eminent deift, Lord Herbert of Cherbury. The next writer I fhall mention was in several respects of a different character from that noble Lord, though alfo very famous in his time, the noted Mr Thomas Hobbes of Malmsbury. There have been few perfons whofe writings have had a more pernicious influence in fpreading irreligion and infidelity than his; yet as none of his treatises are directly levelled against revealed religion, I fhall content my felf with fome brief general reflections upon them. He fometimes affects to speak with veneration of the facred writings. He exprefsly declareth, that though the laws of nature are not laws as they proceed from nature, yet, "as they are given by God in holy fcripture, they are properly call"ed laws; for the holy fcripture is the voice of God, ruling all "things by the greatest right*." But though he feems here to make the laws of fcripture to be the laws of God, and to derive their force from his fupreme authority, yet in many other paffages, fome of which I fhall have occasion to mention, he suppofeth them to have no authority but what they derive from the prince or civil power. He fometimes feems to acknowledge inspiration to be a fupernatural gift, and the immediate hand of God; at other times he treats the pretence to it as a fign of madness; and, by a jingle upon the words, reprefents God's fpeaking 66 *De Cive, cap. iii. fect. 33. to the ancient prophets in a dream or vision, to be no more than their dreaming that he spoke to them, or dreaming between fleeping and waking. To weaken the authority of the facred Canon, he endeavours to fhew, that the books of Mofes, and the hiftorical writings of the Old Teftament, were not written by thofe whose names they bear, and that they are derived to us from no other authority but that of Efdras, who restored them when they were loftt: a fuppofition in which he hath been fince followed by others on the same side, and very lately by a noble Lord; though the abfurdity of it is manifeft, and hath been fully expofed. As to the writings of the New Teftament, he acknowledgeth, that they are as ancient as the times of the apostles, and that they were written by persons who lived in those times, some of whom faw the things which they relate; which is what many of our modern deifts feem unwilling to own. And though he infinuates that the copies of the fcriptures were but few, and only in the hands of the Ecclefiaftics, yet he adds, that he fees no reafon to doubt, but that the books of the New Teftament, as we have them, are the true registers of those things which were done and faid by the prophets and apoftles §. But then he most abfurdly pretends, that they were not received as of divine authority in the Chriftian church, till they were declared to be fo by the council of Laodicea, in the year after Chrift 364: though nothing is capable of a clearer proof, than that their authority was acknowledged among Christians from the apoftolic times. He expressly afferts, that we have no affurance of the certainty of fcripture, but the authority of the church, and this he resolveth into the authority of the commonwealth: and declares, that till the fovereign ruler had prefcribed them, "the precepts of fcrip"ture were not obligatory laws, but only counfel and advice, "which he that was counfelled might without injustice refuse to "obferve, and being contrary to the laws could not without injuftice obferve;" that the word of the interpreter of fcripture is the word of God, and the fovereign magiftrate is the interpreter of scripture, and of all doctrines, to whofe authority we must 66 *Leviath. p. 196. + Ibid. p. 200, 201, 203. Reflections on Lord Bolingbroke's Letters, p. 51, &c. ftand. ftand*. Yea, he carrieth it fo far as to pronounce, that Chriftians are bound in confcience to obey the laws of an infidel king in matters of religion; that "thought is free; but when it comes "to confeffion of faith, the private reason must submit to the "public, that is to fay, to God's lieutenant." And accordingly, he alloweth the fubject, being commanded by the fovereign, to deny Christ in words, holding firmly in his heart the faith of Chrift: and that in that cafe, "it is not he that denieth Chrift "before men, but his governor and the laws of his country." And he exprefsly declareth, that idolatry to which a man is compelled by the terror of death is not idolatry. And this being the cafe, it is not to be wondered at, that he speaks with contempt of the ancient martyrs. In this the fucceeding deifts have not failed to imitate him. They have reproached thofe excellent perfons as having died as a fool dieth‡; as if it were a ridiculous and senseless thing to endure hardships and fufferings, for the fake of truth and confcience: and yet thofe have been always juftly admired, who have exposed themselves to the greatest dangers in a noble cause, and who would not do a base thing to fave their lives. Mr. Hobbes acknowledgeth the existence of God, and that we muft of neceffity arife from the effects which we behold, to the eternal Power of all powers, and Cause of all causes; and he blames thofe as abfurd who call the world, or the foul of the world, God: but he denies that we know any more of him than that he exists, and feems plainly to make him corporeal; for he affirms, that that which is not body is nothing at all§: and though he sometimes feems to acknowledge religion and its obligations, and that there is an honour and worship due to God, prayer, thanksgivings, oblations, &c. yet he advanceth principles which evidently tend to fubvert all religion. The account he gives of it is this," that from the fear of power invifible, feigned by the "mind, or imagined from tales publicly allowed, ariseth religion, not allowed fuperftition." And he elsewhere refolveth religion into things which he himself derides; viz. " opinions of * See Queft. concerning Liberty, p. 136. De Cive, c. 17. Leviath. P. 169. 283, 284. † Ibid. p. 238. 271. See Chrift. not founded on Argument, p. 32, 33. § Leviath. p. 214. 371. D 3 "ghofts, "ghofts, ignorance of fecond caufes, devotion to what men fear, " and taking of things cafual for prognoftics*." He takes pains in many of his works to prove man to be a neceffary agent, and exprefsly afferts the materiality and mortality of the human foul; and he represents the doctrine concerning the distinction between foul and body in man to be an error contracted by the contagion of the demonology of the Greeks. We may obferve by the way the great difference there is in this refpect between Mr. Hobbes and Lord Herbert. This noble writer has reckoned the notion and belief of a future ftate among the common notices naturally obvious to the minds of all men: but the account Mr. Hobbes is pleased to give of it is this, that the belief of a future ftate after death" is a belief grounded upon other men's faying, that they "knew it fupernaturally, or that they knew thofe, that knew "them, that knew others, that knew it fupernaturally +.” That we may have the better notion of this extraordinary writer, it may not be amifs to mention fome other of his maxims. He afferts, that by the law of nature every man hath a right to all things, and over all perfons, and that the natural condition of man is a flate of war, a war of all men against all men: that there is no way fo reasonable for any man as to anticipate, that is, by force and wiles to mafter all the perfons of others that he can, fo long till he fees no other power great enough to endanger him: that the civil laws are the only rules of good and evil, `just and unjuft, honeft and dishonest; and that antecedently to fuch laws every action is in its own nature indifferent: that there is nothing good or evil in itfelf, nor any common laws conflituting what is naturally juft and unjust; that all things are measured by what every man judgeth fit, where there is no civil government, and by the laws of fociety where there is one. That the power of the fovereign is abfolute, and that he is not bound by any compacts with his fubjects: that nothing the fovereign can do to the fubject can properly be called injurious or wrong; and that the king's word is fufficient to take any thing from any fubject, if there be need, and the king is judge of that need §. *Leviath. p. 54. +Ibid. p. 74. De Cive, c. vi. f. 18. c. x. f. 1. c. 12. f. i. Leviath. p. 24, 25. 60, 61, 62,63.72. Leviath. p. 90. 106. In Mr. Hobbes we have a remarkable inftance what firange extravagancies men of wit and genius may fall into, who, whilst they value themfelves upon their fuperior penetration, and laugh at popular errors and fuperftition, often give into notions fo wild and ridiculous, as none of the people that govern themselves by plain common sense could be guilty of. It will hardly be thought too severe a cenfure to fay, that Mi. Hobbes's fcheme strikes at the foundation of all religion, both natural and revealed: that it tendeth not only to fubvert the authority of the fcripture, but to deftroy God's moral administration: that it confoundeth the natural differences of good and evil, virtue and vice, and taketh away the diftinction between foul and body, and the liberty of human actions: that it deftroyeth the beft principles of the human nature, and, inftead of that innate benevolence and focial difpofition which should unite men together, fuppofeth all men to be naturally in a state of war with one another: that it eretteth an abfolute tyranny in the ftate and church, which it confounds, and maketh the will of the prince or governing power the fole ftandard of right, and wrong; and that it destroyeth all the rights of private confcience, and indeed leaveth no room for conscience at all. But notwithstanding the ill tendency of many of Mr. Hobbes's principles, yet the agreeableness of his ftile, of which he was a great master, joined to his dogmatical way of pronouncing with a very decifive air, and the very oddnefs and apparent novelty of his notions, gave them a great run for a time, and did no small mifchief. He himself boafteth of the good reception his Leviathan met with among many of our gentry: but the manifold abfurdities and inconfiftencies of his fcheme, and the pernicious confequences of it to religion, morality, and the civil government, have been fo well expofed, and fet in so clear a light, that there are not many of our modern deifts that would be thought openly to efpoufe his fyftem in its full extent: though indeed it cannot be denied, that there are not a few things in their writings borrowed from his, and that fome of them have chofen rather to follow him than Lord Herbert in feveral of his principles, and particularly in afferting the materiality and mortality of the human foul, and denying man's free agency. Mr. Hobbes met with many learned adverfaries, among whom |