Thomas Hobbes

“ Every law is a command to do, or to forbear: neither of these is fulfilled by suffering. If any suffering can be called obedience, it must be such as is voluntary; for no involuntary action can be counted a submission to the law. He that means that his suffering should be taken for obedience, must not only not resist, but also not fly, nor hide himself to avoid his punishment. And who is there amongst them that discourse of passive obedience, when his life is in extreme danger, that will voluntarily present himself to the officers of justice? ”

“ B. I have heard often that they ought to pay what was imposed by consent of Parliament to the use of the King, but to their own use never before. I see by this, it is easier to gull the multitude, than any one man amongst them. For what one man, that has not his natural judgment depraved by accident, could be so easily cozened in a matter that concerns his purse, had he not been passionately carried away by the rest to change of government, or rather to a liberty of every one to govern himself? ”

“ Let all men be subject to the higher powers, whether it be the King or those that are sent by him: Love God with all your soul, and your neighbour as yourself: are words of the Scripture, which are well enough understood; but neither children, nor the greatest part of men, do understand why it is their duty to do so. They see not that the safety of the commonwealth, and consequently their own, depends upon their doing it. Every man by nature (without discipline) does in all his actions look upon, as far as he can see, the benefit that shall redound to himself from his obedience. ”

“ But in case any of those unnecessary doctrines shall be authorized by the laws of the King or other state, I say it is the duty of every subject not to speak against them: inasmuch as it is every man’s duty to obey him or them that have the sovereign power, and the wisdom of all such powers to punish such as shall publish or teach their private interpretations, when they are contrary to the law, and likely to incline men to sedition or disputing against the law. ”

“ For it is a hard matter for men, who do all think highly of their own wits, when they have also acquired the learning of the university, to be persuaded that they want any ability requisite for the government of a commonwealth, especially having read the glorious histories and the sententious politics of the ancient popular governments of the Greeks and Romans, amongst whom kings were hated and branded with the name of tyrants, and popular government (though no tyrant was ever so cruel as a popular assembly) passed by the name of liberty. ”

“ A. The Church morals are in many points very different from these, that I have here set down, for the doctrine of virtue and vice; and yet without any conformity with that of Aristotle. For in the Church of Rome, the principal virtues are, to obey their doctrine, though it be treason, and that is to be religious; to be beneficial to the clergy, that is their piety and liberality; and to believe upon their word that which a man knows in his conscience to be false, which is the faith they require. ”

“ The virtue of a subject is comprehended wholly in obedience to the laws of the commonwealth. To obey the laws, is justice and equity, which is the law of nature, and, consequently, is civil law in all nations of the world ”

“ The virtues of sovereigns are such as tend to the maintenance of peace at home, and to the resistance of foreign enemies. Fortitude is a royal virtue; and though it be necessary in such private men as shall be soldiers, yet, for other men, the less they dare, the better it is both for the commonwealth and for themselves. Frugality (though perhaps you will think it strange) is also a royal virtue: for it increases the public stock, which cannot be too great for the public use, nor any man too sparing of what he has in trust for the good of others. ”

“ For after the Bible was translated into English, every man, nay, every boy and wench, that could read English, thought they spoke with God Almighty, and understood what he said, when by a certain number of chapters a day they had read the Scriptures once or twice over. *And so* the reverence and obedience due to the Reformed Church here, and to the bishops and pastors therein, was cast off; and every man became a judge of religion, and an interpreter of the Scriptures to himself. ”

“ And consequently there can be no error, unless it fall within the compass of blasphemy against God or treason against the King, for which a man can in equity be punished. Besides, who can tell what is declared by the Scripture, which every man is allowed to read and interpret to himself? Nay more, what Protestant, either of the laity or clergy, if every general Council can be a competent judge of heresy, is not already condemned? For divers Councils have declared a great many of our doctrines to be heresy, and that, as they pretend, upon the authority of the Scriptures. ”

“ B. It happens many times that men live honestly for fear, who, if they had power, would live according to their own opinions; that is, if their opinions be not right, unrighteously.
A. Do the clergy in England pretend, as the Pope does, or as the Presbyterians do, to have a right from God immediately, to govern the King and his subjects in all points of religion and manners? If they do, you cannot doubt but that if they had number and strength, which they are never like to have, they would attempt to obtain that power, as the others have done. ”

“ But that which is most intolerable is, that all clerks are forced to make as if they believed them, if they mean to have any Church preferment, the keys whereof are in the Pope’s hands; and the common people, whatsoever they believe of those subtile doctrines, are never esteemed better sons of the Church for their learning. There is but one way there to salvation; that is, extraordinary devotion and liberality to the Church, and readiness for the Church’s sake, if it be required, to fight against their natural and lawful sovereigns. ”

“ Whatsoever he says is impossible in nature, they can prove well enough to be possible, from the Almighty power of God, who can make many bodies to be in one and the self-same place, and one body to be in many places at the same time, if the doctrine of transubstantiation require it, though Aristotle deny it. I like not the design of drawing religion into an art, whereas it ought to be a law ”

“ For if men know not their duty, what is there that can force them to obey the laws? An army, you will say. But what shall force the army? Were not the trained bands an army? Were they not the janissaries, that not very long ago slew Osman in his own palace at Constantinople? I am therefore of your opinion, both that men may be brought to a love of obedience by preachers and gentlemen that imbibe good principles in their youth at the Universities, and also that we never shall have a lasting peace, till the Universities themselves be in such manner, as you have said, reformed ”

“ B. This power of absolving subjects of their obedience, as also that other of being judge of manners and doctrine, is as absolute a sovereignty as is possible to be; and consequently there must be two kingdoms in one and the same nation, and no man be able to know which of his masters he must obey.
A. For my part, I should rather obey that master that had the right of making laws and of inflicting punishments, than him that pretendeth only to a right of making canons (that is to say rules) and no right of co-action, or otherwise punishing, but by excommunication. ”

“ For I see few that are by them esteemed very good Christians, besides such as can repeat their sermons, and wrangle for them about the interpretation of the Scripture, and fight for them also with their bodies or purses, when they shall be required. To believe in Christ is nothing with them, unless you believe as they bid you. Charity is nothing with them, unless it be charity and liberality to them, and partaking with them in faction. How we can have peace while this is our religion, I cannot tell. ”

“ B. Methinks a Parliament of England, if upon any occasion, should furnish the King with money now, in a war against the Scots, out of an inveterate disaffection to that nation that had always anciently taken part with their enemies the French, and which always esteemed the glory of England for an abatement of their own.
A. It is indeed commonly seen that neighbour nations envy one another’s honour, and that the less potent bears the greater malice; but that hinders them not from agreeing in those things which their common ambition leads them to. ”

“ A. In the year 1640, the government of England was monarchical; and the King that reigned, Charles, the first of that name, holding the sovereignty, by right of a descent continued above six hundred years, and from a much longer descent King of Scotland, and from the time of his ancestor Henry II., King of Ireland; a man that wanted no virtue, either of body or mind, nor endeavoured anything more than to discharge his duty towards God, in the well governing of his subjects. ”

“ Besides, you cannot doubt but that they, who in the pulpit did animate the people to take arms in the defence of the then Parliament, alleged Scripture, that is, the word of God, for it. If it be lawful then for subjects to resist the King, when he commands anything that is against the Scripture, that is, contrary to the command of God, and to be judge of the meaning of the Scripture, it is impossible that the life of any King, or the peace of any Christian kingdom, can be long secure. ”

“ For I can hardly believe that their consciences were extraordinarily tender, nor that they were so very great divines, as to know what was the true Church-discipline established by our Saviour and his Apostles; nor yet so much in love with their ministers, as to be over-ruled by them in the government either ecclesiastical or civil. For in their lives they were just as other men are, pursuers of their own interests and preferments, wherein they were not more opposed by the bishops than by their Presbyterian ministers. ”

“ And because men do, for the most part, rather draw the Scripture to their own sense, than follow the true sense of the Scripture, there is no other way to know, certainly, and in all cases, what God commands, or forbids us to do, but by the sentence of him or them that are constituted by the King to determine the sense of the Scripture, upon hearing of the particular case of conscience which is in question. ”

“ Liberality also is a royal virtue: for the commonwealth cannot be well served without extraordinary diligence and service of ministers, and great fidelity to their Sovereign; who ought therefore to be encouraged, and especially those that do him service in the wars. In sum, all actions and habits are to be esteemed good or evil by their causes and usefulness in reference to the commonwealth, and not by their mediocrity, nor by their being commended. For several men praise several customs, and that which is virtue with one, is blamed by others ”

“ For what could that produce, but diversity of opinion, and consequently (as man’s nature is) disputation, breach of charity, disobedience, and at last rebellion? Again, since the Scripture was allowed to be read in English, why are not the translations such as might make all that is read, understood even by mean capacities? Did not the Jews, such as could read, understand their law in the Jewish language, as well as we do our statute laws in English? ”

“ I cannot enter into other men’s thoughts, farther than I am led by the consideration of human nature in general. But upon this consideration I see first, that men of ancient wealth and nobility are not apt to brook, that poor scholars should (as they must, when they are made bishops) be their fellows. Secondly, that from the emulation of glory between the nations, they might be willing to see this nation afflicted by civil war, and might hope, by aiding the rebels here, to acquire some power over the English, at least so far as to establish here the Presbyterian discipline ”

“ For none of the ancient philosophers’ writings are comparable to those of Aristotle, for their aptness to puzzle and entangle men with words, and to breed disputation, which must at last be ended in the determination of the Church of Rome. And yet in the doctrine of Aristotle, they made use of many points ”

“ A. I see little equity in this: that those nations that are bound to equal obedience to the same King, should not have equal privileges. And now seeing there be so very few born before King James’s coming in, what greater privilege had those ingrafted Romans by their naturalization in the state of Rome, or in the state of England the English themselves, more than the Scots?
B. Those Romans, when any of them were in Rome, had their voice in the making of laws. ”

“ Before which time, I doubt not, but that there were many grammar schools for the Latin tongue, which was the natural language of the Roman Church; but for Universities, that is to say, schools for the sciences in general, and especially for divinity, it is manifest that the institution of them was recommended by the Pope’s letter to the Emperor Charles the Great, and recommended further by a Council held in his time, I think, at Chalons-sur-Saone; and not long after was erected an University at Paris, and the college called University College at Oxford. ”