menu_book Chapter 18

please visit librivox dot org recording by jamie leviathan by thomas hobbes chapter forty four of spiritual darkness from misinterpretation of scripture besides these sovran powers divine and human of which i have hitherto discoursed there is mention in scripture of another power namely that of the rulers of the darkness of this world ephesians six twelve the kingdom of satan matthew twelve twenty six and the principality of beelzebub over demons i nine thirty four that is to say over phantasms that appear in the air for which cause satan is also called the prince of the power of the air ephesians two two and because he ruleth in the darkness of this world the prince of this world john sixteen eleven

and in consequence hereunto they who are under his dominion in opposition to the faithful who are the children of the light are called the children of darkness for seeing beelzebub is prince of phantasms inhabitants of his domain of air and darkness the children of darkness and these demons phantasms or spirits of illusion signify allegorically the same thing this consider'd the kingdome of darkness as it is set forth in these and other places of scripture is nothing else but a confederacy of deceivers that to obtain dominion over men in this present world endeavour by dark and erroneous doctrines to extinguish in them the light both of nature and of the gospel and so to disprepare them for the kingdome of god to come as men that are utterly deprived from their nativity of the light of the bodily eye have no idea at all of any such light and no man conceives in his imagination any greater light than he hath at some time or other perceived by his outward senses

so also is it of the light of the gospel and of the light of the understanding that no man can conceive there is any greater degree of it than that which he hath already attained unto and from hence it comes to pass that men have no other means to acknowledge their own darkness but only by reasoning from the unforeseen mischances that befale them in their ways the darkest part of the kingdome of satan is that which is without the church of god that is to say amongst them that believe not in jesus christ but we cannot say that therefore the church enjoyeth as the land of goshen all the light which to the performance of the work enjoined us by god is necessary whence comes it that in christendom there has been almost from the time of the apostles such jostling of one another out of their places both by forreign and civill warre such stumbling at every little asperity of their owne fortune and every little eminence of that of other men

and such diversity of ways running to the same mark felicity if it be not night amongst us or at least a mist we are therefore yet in the dark the enemy has been here in the night of our natural ignorance and sound the tares of spirituall errors and that first by abusing and putting out the light of the scriptures for we err not knowing the scriptures secondly by introducing the demonology of the heathen poets that is to say their fabulous doctrine concerning demons which are but idols or phantasms of the brain and without any real nature of their own distinct from human fancy such as are dead men s ghosts and faeries and other matter of old wives tales thirdly by mixing with the scripture diverse reliques of the religion and much of the vain and erroneous philosophy of the greeks especially of aristotle fourthly by mingling with both these false or uncertain traditions and feigned or uncertain history and so we come to err by giving heed to seducing spirits and the demonology of such as speak lies in hypocrisy or as it is in the original

of those that play the part of liars first timothy for one two with a seared conscience that is contrary to their own knowledge concerning the first of these which is the seducing of men by abuse of scripture i intend to speak briefly in this chapter the greatest and main abuse of scripture and to which almost all the rest are either consequent or subservient is the resting of it to prove that the kingdom of god mentioned so often in the scripture is the present church or multitude of christian men now living or that being dead are to rise again at the last day whereas the kingdome of god was first instituted by the ministry of moses over the jews only who were therefore called his peculiar people and ceased afterward in the election of saul when they refused to be governed by god any more and demanded a king after the manner of the nations which god himself consented unto as i have more at large proved before in the thirty-fifth chapter after that time there was no other kingdome of god in the world by any pact or otherwise than he ever was is and shall be king of all men and of all creatures

as governing according to his will by his infinite power never the lesse he promised by his prophets to restore this his government to them again when the time he hath in his secret council appointed for it shall be fully come and when they shall turn unto him by repentance and amendment of life and not only so but he invited also the gentiles to come in and enjoy the happiness of his reign on the same conditions of conversion and repentance and he promised also to send his son into the world to expiate the sins of them all by his death and to prepare them by his doctrine to receive him at his second coming which second coming not yet being the kingdom of god is not yet come and we are not now under any other kings by pact but our civil sovereigns saving only that christian men are already in the kingdom of grace inasmuch as they have already the promise of being received and is coming again consequent to the error that the present church is christ's kingdome there ought to be some one man or assembly by whose mouth our saviour now in heaven speaketh giveth law and which representeth his person to all christians

or divers men or divers assemblies that doe the same to divers parts of christendome this power regal under christ being challenged universally by the pope and in particular commonwealths by assemblies of the pastors of the place when the scripture gives it to none but to civill soverines comes to be so passionately disputed that it putteth out the light of nature and causeth so great a darkness in men s understanding that they see not who it is to whom they have engaged their obedience consequent of this claim of the pope to a vicar-general of christ in the present church supposed to be that kingdome of his to which we addressed in the gospel is the doctrine that it is necessary for a christian king to receive his crown by a bishop as if it were from that ceremony that he derives the cause of dea gratia in his title and that then onely is he made king by the favour of god when he is crowned by the authority of god's universal vicegerent of earth and that every bishop whosoever be his soveraign taketh at his consecration an oath of absolute obedience to the pope

consequent to the same is the doctrine of the fourth cancel of lateran held under pope innocent the third chapter three de hereticus that if a king at the popes admonition do not purge his kingdome of heresies and being excommunicate from the group and being excommunicate for the same do not give satisfaction within a year his subjects are absolved of the bond of their obedience whereby heresies are understood all opinions which the church of rome hath forbidden to be maintained and by this means as often there is any repugnancy between the political designs of the pope and other christian princes as there is very often there ariseth such a mist amongst their subjects that they know not a stranger that thrusteth himselfe into the throne of their lawfull prince from him whom they had themselves placed there and in this darkness of mind are made to fight one against another without discerning their enemies from their friends under the conduct of another mans ambition

from the same opinion that the present church is the kingdom of god it proceeds that pastors deacons and all other ministers of the church take the name to themselves of the clergy giving to other christians the name of laity that is simply people for clergy signifies those whose maintenance is that revenue which god having reserved to himself during his reign over the israelites assign'd to the tribe of levi who were to be his public ministers and had no portion of land set them out to live on as their brethren to be their inheritance the pope therefore pretending the present church to be as the realms of israel the kingdome of god challenging to himself and his subordinate ministers the like revenue as the inheritance of god the name of clergy was suitable to that claim and thence it is that tithes and other tributes paid to the levites as god s right amongst the israelites have a long time been demanded and taken of christians by ecclesiastics jure divino that is in god s right

by which means the people every where were obliged to a double tribute one to the state and another to the clergy whereof that to the clergy being the tenth of their revenue is double to that which a king of athens and esteemed the tyrant exacted of his subjects for the defraying of all publick charges for he demanded no more but the twentieth part and yet abundantly maintained therewith the commonwealth and in the kingdome of the jews during the sacerdotal reign of god the tithes and offerings were the whole publique revenue from the same mistaking of the present church for the kingdome of god came in the distinction between the civill and the canon laws the civill law being the acts of soverigns in their dominions and the canon law being acts of the pope in the same dominions which canons though they were but canons that is rules propounded and but voluntarily received by christian princes through the translation of the empire to charlemagne yet afterwards as the power of the pope increased became rules commanded and the emperors themselves to avoid greater mischiefs which the people blinded might be led into

were forc'd to let them pass for laws from hence it is that in all dominions where the pope's ecclesiastical power is entirely receiv'd jews turks and gentiles are in the roman church tolerated in their religion as far forth as in the exercise and profession thereof they offend not against the civill power whereas in a christian though a stranger not to be of the roman religion is capital because the pope pretendeth that all christians are his subjects for otherwise it were as much against the law of nations to persecute a christian stranger for professing the religion of his own country as an infidel or rather more inasmuch as they that are not against christ are with him from the same it is that in every christian state there are certain men that are exempt by ecclesiastical liberty from the tributes and from the tribunals of the civill state for so are the secular clergy besides monks and friars which in many places bear so great a proportion to the common people as if need were there might be raised out of them alone an armies sufficient for any war the church militant should employ them in against their own or other princes

a second general abuse of scripture is the turning of consecration into conjuration or enchantment to consecrate is in scripture to offer give or dedicate in pious and decent language and gesture a man or any other thing to god by separating of it from common use that is to say to sanctify or make it gods and to be used only by those whom god hath appointed to be his public ministers as i have ready proved at large in the thirty-fifth chapter and thereby to change not the thing consecrated but only the use of it from being profane and common to be holy and peculiar to god's service but when by such words the nature or quality of the thing it self is pretended to be changed it is not consecration but either an extraordinary work of god or a vain and impious conjuration but seeing for the frequency of pretending the change of nature in their consecrations it cannot be esteemed their work extraordinary it is no other than a conjuration or incantation whereby they would have men to believe an alteration of nature that is not

contrary to the testimony of mans sight and of all the rest of his senses as for example when the priest instead of consecrating bread and wine to gods peculiar service in the sacrament of the lord's supper which is but a separation of it from the common use to signify that is to put men in mind of their redemption by the passion of christ whose body was broken and blood shed upon the cross for our transgressions pretends that by saying of the words of our saviour this is my body and this is my blood the nature of bread is no more there but his very body notwithstanding there appeareth not to the sight or other sense of the receiver any thing that appeared not before the consecration the egyptian conjurors that are said to have turned their rods to serpents and the water into blood are thought but to have deluded the senses of the spectators by a false show of things yet are esteemed enchanters but what should we have thought of them if there had appeared in their rods nothing like a serpent and in the water enchanted nothing like blood nor like any thing else but water

but that they had fac'd down the king that they were serpents that look'd like rods and that it was blood that seem'd water that had been both enchantment and lying and yet in this daily act of the priest they do the very same by turning the holy words into the manner of a charm which produceth nothing new to the sense but they face us down that it hath turn'd the bread into a man nay more into a god and require men to worship it as if it were our saviour himself present god and man and thereby to commit most gross idolatry for if it be enough to excuse it of idolatry to say it is no more bread but god why should not the same excuse serve the egyptians in case they had the faces to say the leeks and onions they worshipped were not very leeks and onions but a divinity under their species or likeness the words this is my body are equivalent to these this signifies or represents my body and it is an ordinary figure of speech but to take it literally is an abuse nor though so taken can it extend any further than to the bread which christ himself with his own hands consecrated

for he never said that of what bread so ever any priest whatsoever should say this is my body or this is christ s body that the same should presently be transubstantiated nor did the church of rome ever establish this transubstantiation till the time of innocent the third which was not above five hundred years ago when the power of popes was at the highest and the darkness of the time grown so great as men discerned not the bread that was given them to eat especially when it was stamped with the figure of christ upon the cross as if they would have men believe it were transubstantiated not only in the body of christ but also in the wood of his cross and that they did eat both together in the sacrament the like incantation instead of consecration is used also in the sacrament of baptism where the abuse of gods name in each several person and in the whole trinity with the sign of the cross at each name maketh up the charm

as first when they make the holy water the priest saith i conjure thee thou creature of water in the name of god the father almighty and in the name of jesus christ his only son our lord and in virtue of the holy ghost that thou become conjured water to drive away all the powers of the enemy and to eradicate and supplant the enemy etc and the same is the benediction of the salt to be mingled with it that thou become conjured salt that all phantasms and knavery of the devil's fraud may fly and depart from the peace wherein thou art sprinkled and every unclean spirit be conjured by him that shall come to judge the quick and the dead the same in the benediction of oil that all the power of the enemy all the host of the devil all assaults and phantasms of satan may be driven away by this creature of oil and for the infant that is to be baptized he is subject to many charms first at the church door the priest blows thrice in the child's face and goes go out of him unclean spirit and give place to the holy ghost the comforter

as if all children till blown on by the priest were demoniacs again before his entrance into the church he saith as before i conjure thee c to go out and depart from the servant of god and again the same exorcism is repeated once more before he is baptized these and some other incantations are those that are used instead of benedictions and consecrations in administration of the sacraments of baptism and the lord's supper wherein every thing that serveth to the holy uses except the unhallowed spittle of the priest hath some set form of exorcism nor are the other rites as of marriage of extreme unction of visitation of the sick of consecrating churches and churchyards and the like exempt from charms inasmuch as there is in them the use of enchanted oil and water with the abuse of the cross and of the holy word of david asperges me domino hisopo as things of efficacy to drive away phantasms and imaginary spirits another general error is from the misinterpretation of the words eternal life everlasting death and the second death for though we read plainly in holy scripture that god created adam in an estate of living for ever

which was conditional that is to say if he disobeyed not his commandment which was not essential to human nature but consequent to the virtue of the tree of life whereof he had liberty to eat as long as he had not sinned and that he was thrust out of paradise after he had sinned lest he should eat thereof and live for ever and that christ's passion is a discharge of sin to all that believe on him and by consequence a restitution of eternal life to all the faithful and to them only yet 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 so that the flaming sword at the entrance of paradise though it hinder a man from coming to the tree of life hinders him not from the immortality which god took from him for his sin nor makes him to the need the sacrificing of christ for the recovering of the same and consequently not onely the faithfull and righteous but also the wicked and the heathen shall enjoy eternal life without any death at all much less a second and everlasting death

to salve this it is said that by second and everlasting death is meant a second and everlasting life but in torments a figure never used but in this very case all which doctrine is founded only on some of the obscure places of the new testament which never theless the whole scope of the scripture considered are clear enough in a different sense and unnecessary to the christian faith for supposing that when a man dies there remaineth nothing of him but his carcass cannot god that raised inanimate dust and clay into a living creature by his word as easily raise a dead carcass to life again and continue him alive for ever or make him die again by another word the soul in scripture signifieth always either the life or the living creature and the body and soul jointly the body alive in the fifth day of the creation god said let the waters produce reptile anima viventis the creeping thing that hath in it a living soul the english translate it to that hath life

and again god created whales et omnem animem viventum which in the english is every living creature and likewise of man god made him out of the dust of the earth and breathed in his face the breath of life a factus de homo in animem that is and man was made a living creature and after noah came out of the ark god saith he will no more smite omnum animem viventum that is every living creature and eat not the blood for the blood is the soul that is the life from which places if by soul were meant a substance incorporeal with an existence separated from the body it might as well be inferred of any other living creature as of man but that the souls of the faithful are not of their own nature but by god's special grace to remain in their bodies for the resurrection to all eternity i have already i think sufficiently proved out of the scriptures in the thirty-eighth chapter and for the places of the new testament where it is said that any man shall be cast body and soul into hell-fire it is no more than body and life that is to say they shall be cast alive into the perpetual fire of gehenna

this window it is that gives entrance to the dark doctrine first of eternal torments and afterwards of purgatory and consequently of the walking abroad especially in places consecrated solitary or dark of the ghosts of men deceased and thereby to the pretences of exorcism and conjuration of phantasms as also of invocation of men dead and to the doctrine of indulgences that is to say of exemption for a time or for ever from the fire of purgatory wherein these incorporeal substances are pretended by burning to be cleansed and made fit for heaven for men being generally possest before the time of our saviour by contagion or the demonology of the greeks of an opinion that the souls of men were substances distinct from their bodies and therefore that when the body was dead the soul of every man whether godly or wicked must subsist some where by virtue of its own nature without acknowledging therein any supernatural gift of gods

the doctors of the church doubted a long time what was the place which they were to abide in till they should be reunited to their bodies in the resurrection supposing for a while they lay under the altars but afterward the church of rome found it more profitable to build for them this place of purgatory which by some other churches in this later age has been demolished let us now consider what texts of scripture seem most to confirm these three general errors i have touched as for those which cardinal bellarmine hath alleged for the present kingdom of god administered by the pope than which there are none that make a better show of proof i have already answered them i made it evident that the kingdom of god instituted by moses endeth in the election of saul after which time the priest of his own authority never deposed any king that which the high priest did to athalia was not done in his own right but in the right of the young king joash her son but solomon in his own right deposed the high priest abiathar and set up another in his place the most difficult place to answer of all those that can be brought to prove the kingdom of god by christ is already in this world is alleged not by bellarmine

or any other of the church of rome but by biza that will have it to begin from the resurrection of christ but whether he intend thereby to entitle the presbytery to the supreme power ecclesiastical in the commonwealth of geneva inconsequently to every presbytery and every other commonwealth or to princes and other civill soverigns i do not know for the presbytery hath challenged the power to excommunicate their own kings and to be the supreme moderators in religion in the places where they have that form of church government no less than the pope challengeeth it universally the words are verily i say unto you that there be some of them that stand here which shall not taste of death till they have seen the kingdome of god come with power mark nine one which words if taken grammatically make it certain that either some of the men that stood before christ at the time are yet alive or else that the kingdome of god must be now in this present world

and then there is another place more difficult for when the apostles after our saviour's resurrection and immediately before his ascension asked our saviour saying wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to israel he answered them it is not for you to know the times and the seasons which the father hath put in his own power but ye shall receive power by the coming of the holy ghosts upon you and ye shall be my witnesses both in jerusalem and in all judea and in samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth acts one six which is as much as to say my kingdom is not yet come nor shall you foreknow when it shall come for it shall come as a thief in the night but i will send you the holy ghost and by him you shall have power to bear witness to all the world by your preaching of my resurrection and the works i have done and the doctrine i have taught that they might believe in me and expect eternal life at my coming again how does this agree with the coming of christ's kingdom at the resurrection and that which st paul says

that they turn from idols to serve the living and true god and to wait for his son from heaven first thessalonians one nine ten where to wait for his son from heaven is to wait for his coming to be king in power which were not necessary if his kingdome had been then present again if the kingdome of god began as biza on that place would have it at the resurrec tion what reason is there for christians ever since the resurrec tion to say in their prayers let thy kingdome come it is therefore manifest that the words of st mark are not so to be interpreted there be some of them that stand here saith our saviour that shall not taste of death till they have seen the kingdome of god come in power if then this kingdome were to come at the resurrection of christ why is it said some of them rather than all for they all lived till after christ was risen but they that require an exact interpretation of this text let them interpret first the like words of our saviour to st peter concerning st john if i will that he tarry till i come what is that to thee john twenty one twenty two upon which was grounded a report that he should not die

nevertheless the truth of that report was neither confirm'd as well as grounded nor refuted as ill grounded on those words but left as a saying not understood the same difficulty is also in the place of saint mark and if it be lawful to conjecture at their meaning by that which immediately follows both here and in saint luke where the same is again repeated it is not improbable to say that they have a relation to the transfiguration which is described in the verses immediately following where it is said that after six days jesus taketh with him peter and james and john not all but some of his disciples and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves and was transfigured before them and his raiment became shining exceeding white as snow so as no fuller on earth can white them and there appear'd unto them a lias with moses and they were talking with jesus etc so that they saw christ in glory and majestie as he is to come in so much as they were sore afraid

and thus the promise of our saviour was accomplished by way of vision for it was a vision as may probably be inferred out of st luke that reciteth the same story and saith that peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep luke nine twenty eight but most certainly out of matthew seventeen nine where the same is again related for our saviour charged them saying tell no man the vision until the son of man be risen from the dead howsoever it be yet there can from thence be taken no argument to prove that the kingdom of god taketh beginning till the day of judgment as for some other texts to prove the pope s power over civill soverines besides those of bellarmin as that the two swords that christ and his apostles had amongst them were the spiritual and the temporal sword which they say saint peter had given him by christ and that of the two luminaries the greater signifies the pope and the lesser the king one might as well infer out of the first verse of the bible that by heaven is meant the pope and by earth the king which is not arguing from scripture but a wanton insulting over princes that came in fashion

after the time the popes were grown so secure of their greatness as to contemn all christian kings and treading on the necks of emperors to mock both them and the scripture in the words of the ninety first psalm thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder the young lion and the dragon thou shalt trample under thy feet as for the rites of consecration though they depend for the most part upon the discretion and judgment of the governors of the church and not upon the scriptures yet those governors are obliged to such direction as the nature of the action itself require with as that the ceremonies words gestures be both decent and significant or at least conformable to the action when moses consecrated the tabernacle the altar and the vessels belonging to them he anointed them with the oil which god had commanded to be made for that purpose exodus forty and they were holy there was nothing exercised to drive away phantasms the same moses the civil soverine of israel when he consecrated aaron the high priest and his sons did wash them with water not exercised water put their garments upon them and anointed them with oil

and they were sanctified to minister unto the lord in the priest's office which was a simple and decent cleansing and adorning them before he presented them to god to be his servants when king solomon the civill soverine of israel consecrated the temple he had built he stood before all the congregation of israel and having blessed them he gave thanks to god for putting into the heart of his father to build it and for giving to himself the grace to accomplish the same and then pray'd unto him first to accept that house though it were not suitable to his infinite greatness and to hear the prayers of his servants that should pray therein or if they were absent towards it and lastly he offer'd a sacrifice of peace offering and the house was dedicated second kings eight here was no procession the king stood still in his first place no exercised water no aspergismy nor other impertinent application of words spoken upon another occasion but a decent and rational speech and such as in making to god a present of his new-built house was most conformable to the occasion we read not that st john did exercise the water of jordan nor philip the water of the river wherein he baptized the eunuch

nor that any pastor in the time of the apostles did take his spittle and put it to the nose of the person to be baptized and say in ulderim suavitidis that is for a sweet savour unto the lord wherein neither the ceremony of spittle for the uncleanness nor the application of that scripture for the levity can by any authority of man be justified chapter forty four part one Recording by J.B. Ash Young