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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	good_a	great_a	king_n	5,512	5	3.6764	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86417	Philosophicall rudiments concerning government and society. Or, A dissertation concerning man in his severall habitudes and respects, as the member of a society, first secular, and then sacred. Containing the elements of civill politie in the agreement which it hath both with naturall and divine lawes. In which is demonstrated, both what the origine of justice is, and wherein the essence of Christian religion doth consist. Together with the nature, limits, and qualifications both of regiment and subjection. / By Tho: Hobbes.; De cive. English	Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679.; Vaughan, Robert, engraver.	1651 (1651)	Wing H2253; Thomason E1262_1; ESTC R202404	220,568	406

styled ingenuous learned skilfull what you will except prudent for this Name in regard of civill knowledge they presume to be due to themselves onely Whether therefore the worth of arts is to be weighed by the worthinesse of the Persons who entertain them or by the number of those who have written of them or by the judgement of the wisest certainly this must carry it which so neerly relates to Princes and others engaged in the government of mankinde in whose adulterate Species also the most part of me●… doe delight themselves and in which the most excellent wits of Philosophers have been conversant The benefit of it when rightly delivered that is when derived from true Principles by evident connexion we shall then best discerne when we shall but well have considered the mischiefes that have befallen mankinde in its counterfeit and babling form for in such matters as are speculated for the exercise of our wits if any errour escape us it is without hurt neither is there any losse but of time onely but in those things which every man ought to meditate for the steerage of his life it necessarily happens that not onely from errours but even from ignorance it selfe there arise offences contentions nay even slaughter it selfe Look now how great a prejudice these are such and so great is the benefit arising from this doctrine of morality truly declared How many Kings and those good men too hath this one errour That a Tyrant King might lawfully be put to death been the slaughter of How many throats hath this false position cut That a Prince for some causes may by some certain men be deposed And what blood-shed hath not this erroneous doctrine caused That Kings are not superiours to but administrators for the multitude Lastly how many rebellions hath this opinion been the cause of which teacheth that the knowledge whether the commands of Kings be just or unjust belongs to private men and that before they yeeld obedience they not only may but ought to dispute them Besides in the morall Philosophy now commonly received there are many things no lesse dangerous then those which it matters not now to recite I suppose those antients foresaw this who rather chose to have the Science of Justice wrapt up in fables then openly exposed to disputations for before such questions begā to be moved Princes did not sue for but already exercised the supreme power They kept their Empire entire not by arguments but by punishing the wicked and protecting the good likewise Subjects did not measure what was just by the sayings and judgements of private men but by the Lawes of the Realme nor were they kept in peace by disputations but by power and authority yea they reverenced the supreme power whether residing in one man or in a councell as a certain visible divinity therefore they little used as in our dayes to joyn themselves with ambitious and hellish spirits to the utter ruine of their State for they could not entertain so strange a phansie as not to desire the preservation of that by which they were preserved in truth the simplicity of those times was not yet capable of so learned a piece of folly Wherefore it was peace and a golden age which ended not before that Saturn being expelled it was taught lawfull to take up arms against Kings This I say the Antients not only themselves saw but in one of their fables they seem very aptly to have signified it to us for they say that when Ixion was invited by Jupiter to a banquet he fell in love and began to court Juno her selfe offering to embrace her he clasp't a clowd from whence the Centaures proceeded by nature halfe men halfe horses a fierce a fighting and unquiet generation which changing the names only is as much as if they should have said that private men being called to Counsels of State desired to prostitute justice the onely sister and wife of the supreme to their own judgements and apprehensions but embracing a false and empty shadow instead of it they have begotten those hermophrodite opinions of morall Philosophers partly right and comely partly brutall and wilde the causes of all contentions and blood-sheds Since therefore such opinions are daily seen to arise if any man now shall dispell those clowds and by most firm reasons demonstrate that there are no authenticall doctrines conccening right and wrong good and evill besides the constituted Lawes in each Realme and government and that the question whether any future action will prove just or unjust good or ill is to be demanded of none but those to whom the supreme hath committed the interpretation of his Lawes surely he will not only shew us the high way to peace but will also teach us how to avoyd the close darke and dangerous by-paths of faction and sedition then which I know not what can be thought more profitable Concerning my Method I thought it not sufficient to use a plain and evident style in what I had to deliver except I took my begining from the very matter of civill goverment and thence proceeded to its generation and form and the first beginning of justice for every thing is best understood by its constitutive causes for as in a watch or some such small engine the matter figure and motion of the wheeles cannot well be known except it be taken in sunder and viewed in parts so to make a more curious search into the rights of States and duties of Subjects it is necessary I say not to take them in sunder but yet that they be so considered as if they were dissolved i. e. that wee rightly understand what the quality of humane nature is in what matters it is in what not fit to make up a civill government and how men must be agreed among themselves that intend to grow up into a well-grounded State Having therefore followed this kind of Method In the first place I set down for a Principle by experience known to all men and denied by none to wit that the dispositions of men are naturally such that except they be restrained through feare of some coercive power every man will distrust and dread each other and as by naturall right he may so by necessity he will be forced to make use of the strength hee hath toward the preservatiō of himself You will object perhaps that there are some who deny this truly so it happens that very many do deny it But shall I therefore seem to fight against my self because I affirm that the same men confesse and deny the same thing In truth I do not but they do whose actions disavow what their discourses approve of We see all countries though they be at peace with their neighbours yet guarding their Frontiers with armed men their Townes with Walls and Ports and keeping constant watches To what purpose is all this if there be no feare of the neighbouring power Wee see even in well-governed States where there are

expected but no signe can be given that he who us'd future words toward him who was in no sort engag'd to return a benefit should desire to have his words so understood as to oblige himselfe thereby Nor is it suitable to Reason that those who are easily enclined to doe well to others should be oblig'd by every promise testifying their present good affection And for this cause a promiser in this kind must be understood to have time to deliberate and power to change that affection as well as he to whom he made that promise may alter his desert But he that deliberates is so farre forth free nor can be said to have already given But if he promise often and yet give seldome he ought to be condemn'd of levity and be called not a Donour but Doson IX But the act of two or more mutually conveighing their Rights is call'd a Contract But in every Contract either both parties instantly performe what they contract for insomuch as there is no trust had from either to other or the one performes the other is trusted or neither performe Eeither both parties performe presently there the Contract is ended as soon as 't is performed but where there is credit given either to one or both there the party trusted promiseth after-performance and this kind of promise is called a COVENANT X. But the Covenant made by the party trusted with him who hath already performed although the promise be made by words pointing at the future doth no les●e transfer the right of future time thē if it had been made by words signifying the present or time past for the others performance is a most manifest signe that he so understood the speech of him whom he trusted as that he would certainly make performance also at the appointed time and by this signe the party trusted knew himselfe to be thus understood which because he hindred not 't was an evident token of his Will to performe The promises therefore which are made for some benefit received which are also Covenants are Tokens of the Will that is as in the foregoing Section hath been declared of the last act of deliberating whereby the liberty of non-performance is abolisht and by consequence are obligatory for where Liberty ceaseth there beginneth Obligation XI But the Covenants which are made in contract of mutual● trust neither party performing out of hand if there * arise a just suspicion in either of them are in the state of nature invalid for he that first performes by reason of the wicked disposition of the greatest part of men studying their owne advantage either by right or wrong exposeth himself to the perverse will of him with whom he hath Contracted for it suites not with reason that any man should performe first if it be not likely that the other will not make good his promise after which whether it be probable or not he that doubts it must be judge of as hath been shewed in the fore-going Chapter in the 9. Article Thus I say things stand in the state of nature but in a Civill State when there is a power which can compell both parties he that hath contracted to perform first must first performe because that since the other may be compell'd the cause which made him fear the others non-performance ceaseth Arise For except there appear some new cause of fear either from somewhat done or some other token of the Will not to performe from the other part it cannot be judg'd to be a just fear for the cause which was not sufficient to keep him from making Compact must not suffice to authorize the breach of it being made XI But from this reason that in all Free-gifts and Compacts there is an acceptance of the conveighance of Right required it followes that no man can Compact with him who doth not declare his acceptance and therefore we cannot compact with Beasts neither can we give or take from them any manner of Right by reason of their want of speech and understanding Neither can any man Covenant with God or be oblig'd to him by Vow except so far forth as it appeares to him by Holy Scriptures that he hath substituted certaine men who have authority to accept of such like Vowes and Covenants as being in Gods stead XIII Those therefore doe vow in vain who are in the state of nature where they are not tyed by any Civill Law except by most certain Revelation the Will of God to accept their Vow or Pact be made known to them for if what they Vow be contrary to the Law of Nature they are not tyed by their Vow for no man is tyed to perform an unlawfull act but if what is vowed be commanded by some Law of nature it is not their Vow but the Law it self which ties them but if he were free before his vow either to doe it or not doe it his liberty remaines because that the openly declar'd Will of the obliger is requisite to make an obligation by Vow which in the case propounded is suppos'd not to be Now I call him the Obliger to whom any one is tyed and the Obliged him who is tyed XIV Covenants are made of such things onely as fall under our deliberation for it can be no Covenant without the Will of the Contractor but the Will is the last act of him who deliberates Wherefore they on●ly concerne things possible and to come no man therefore by his Compact obligeth himself to an impossibility But yet though we often Covenant to doe such things as then seem'd possible when we promis'd them which yet afterward appear to be impossible are we therefore freed from all obligation the reason whereof is that he who promiseth a future incertainty receives a present benefit on condition that he return another for it for his Will who performes the present benefit hath simply before it for its object a certain good valuable with the thing promised but the thing it selfe not simply but with condition if it could be done but if it should so happen that even this should prove impossible why then he must perform as much as he can Covenants therefore oblige us not to perform just the thing it selfe covenanted for but our utmost endeavour for this onely is the things themselves are not in our power XV. We are freed from Covenants two wayes either by performing or by being forgiven By performing for beyond that we oblig'd not our selves By being for-given because he whom we oblig'd our selves to by forgiving is conceiv'd to return us that Right which we past over to him for forgiving implies giving that is by the fourth Article of this Chapter a conveyance of Right to him to whom the gift is made XVI It s an usuall question Whether Compacts extorted from us through fear do oblige or not For example If to redeeme my life from the power of a Robber a promise to pay

springs from Contract we have already shewed in the 6. Chapter And the same Right is derived from nature in this very thing that it is not by nature taken away for when by nature all men had a Right over all things every man had a Right of ruling over all as ancient as nature it selfe but the reason why this was abolisht among men was no other but mutuall fear as hath been declared above in the second Chapter the 3. art reason namely dictating that they must foregoe that Right for the preservation of mankinde because the equality of men among themselves according to their strength and naturall powers was necessarily accompanied with warre and with warre joynes the destruction of mankinde Now if any man had so farre exceeded the rest in power that all of them with joyned forces could not have resisted him there had been no cause why he should part with that Right which nature had given him The Right therefore of Dominion over all the rest would have remained with him by reason of that excesse of power whereby he could have preserved both himselfe and them They therefore whose power cannot be resisted and by consequence God Almighty derives his Right of Soveraignty from the power i● selfe And as oft as God punisheth or slayes a sinner although he therefore punish him because he sinned yet may we not say that he could not justly have punisht or killed him although he had not sinned Neither if the will of God in punishing may perhaps have regard to some sin antecedent doth it therefore follow that the Right of afflicting and killing depends not on divine power but on ●…si●s VI. That question made famous by the disputations of the Antients why evill things befell the good and good things the evill is the same with this of ours by what Right God dispenseth good and evill things unto men and with its difficulty it not only staggers the faith of the vulgar concerning the divine providence but also of Philosophers and which is more even of holy men Psal 73. v. 1 2 3. Truly God is good to Israel even to such as are of a clean heart but as for me my feet were almost gone my steps bad well nigh slipt And why I was grieved at the wicked I do● also see the ungodly in such prosperity And how bitterly did Job expostulate with God that being just he should yet be afflicted with so many calamities God himselfe with open voyce resolved this difficulty in the case of Job and hath confirmed his Right by arguments drawn not from Jobs sinne but from his own power For Job and his friends had argued so among themselves that they would needs make him guilty because he was punisht and he would reprove their accusation by arguments fetcht from his own innocence But God when he had heard both him and them refutes his expostulation not by condemning him of injustice or any sin but by declaring his own power Job 38. v. 4. Where wast thou sayes he when I laid the foundation of the earth c. And for his friends God pronounces himself angry against them Job 42. v. 7. Because they had not spoken of him the thing that is right like his servant Job Agreeable to this is that speech of our Saviours in the mans case who was born blind when his Disciples asking him whether he or his Parents had sinned that he was born blind he answered John 9. v. 3. Neither hath this man sinned nor his Parents but that the works of God should be manifest in him for though it be said Rom. 5. 12. That death entred into the world by sinne it followes not but that God by his Right might have made men subject to diseases and death although they had never sinned even as he hath made the other animalls mortall and sickly although they cannot sinne VII Now if God have the Right of Soveraignty from his power it is manifest that the obligation of yeelding him obedience lyes on men by reason of their * weaknesse for that obligation which rises from Contract of which we have spoken in the second Chapter can have no place here where the Right of Ruling no Covenant passing between rises only from nature But there are two Species of naturall obligation one when liberty is taken away by corporall impediments according to which we say that heaven and earth and all Creatures doe obey the common Lawes of their Creation The other when it is taken away by hope or fear according to which the weaker despairing of his own power to resist cannot but yeeld to the stronger From this last kinde of obligation that is to say from fear or conscience of our own weaknesse in respect of the divine power it comes to passe that we are obliged to obey God in his naturall Kingdome reason dictating to all acknowledging the divine power and providence that there is no kicking against the pricks By reason of their weaknesse If this shall seem hard to any man I desire him with a silent thought to consider if there were two Omnipotents whether were bound to obey I beleeve he will confesse that neither is bound if this be true then it is also true what I have set down that men are subject unto God because they are not omnipotent And truly our Saviour admonishing Paul who at that time was an enemy to the Church that he should not kick against the pricks seems to require obedience from him for this cause because he had not power enough to resist VIII Because the word of God ruling by nature onely is supposed to be nothing else but right reason and the Laws of Kings can be known by their word only its manifest that the Laws of God ruling by nature alone are onely the naturall Lawes namely those which we have set down in the second and third Chapters and deduced from the dictates of reason Humility Equity Justice Mercy and other Morall vertues befriending Peace which pertain to the discharge of the duties of men one toward the other and those which right reason shall dictate besides concerning the honour and worship of the Divine Majesty We need not repeat what those Naturall Laws or Morall vertues are but we must see what honours and what divine worship that is to say what sacred Lawes the same naturall reason doth dictate IX Honour to speak properly is nothing else but an opinion of anothers power joyned with goodnesse and to honour a man is the same with highly esteeming him and so honour is not in the Party honoured but in the honourer now three Passions do necessary follow honour thus placed in opinion Love which referres to goodnesse hope and feare which regard power And from these arise all outward actions wherewith the powerfull are appeased and become Propitious and which are the effects and therefore also the naturall signes of honour it selfe But the word honour is transferred also

able enough to interpret those books of antiquity in the which Gods word is contained and that for this cause it is not reasonable that this office should depend on their authority he may object as much against the Priests and all mortall men for they may erre and although Priests were better instructed in nature and arts then other men yet Kings are able enough to appoint such interpreters under them and so though Kings did not themselves interpret the word of God yet the office of interpreting them might depend on their authority and they who therefore refuse to yeeld up this authority to Kings because they cannot practise the office it selfe doe as much as if they should say that the authority of teaching Geometry must not depend upon Kings except they themselves were Geometricians We read that Kings have prayed for the People that they have blest the people that they have consecrated the Temple that they have commanded the Priests that they have removed Priests from their office that they have constituted others Sacrifices indeed they have not offered for that was hereditary to Aaron and his sonnes but it is manifest as in Moyses his life time so throughout all ages from King Saul to the captivity of Babylon that the Priesthood was not a Maistry but a Ministry XVII After their returne from Babylonian bondage the Covenant being renewed and sign'd the Priestly Kingdome was restor'd to the same manner it was in from the death of Ioshuah to the beginning of the Kings excepting that it is not expresly set downe that the return'd Jewes did give up the Right of Soveraignty either to Esdras by whose directions they ordred their State or to any other beside God himselfe That reformation seemes rather to be nothing else then the bare promises and vowes of every man to observe those things which were written in the booke of the Law notwithstanding perhaps not by the Peoples intention by virtue of the Covenant which they then renewed for the Covenant was the same with that which was made at Mount Sinai that same state was a Priestly Kingdome that is to say the supreme civill authority and the sacred were united in the Priests Now howsoever through the ambition of those who strove for the Priesthood and by the interposition of forraigne Princes it was so troubled till our Saviour Iesus Christs time that it cannot be understood out of the histories of those times where that authority resided yet it 's plaine that in those times the power of interpreting Gods Word was not severed from the supreme civill power XVIII Out of all this we may easily know how the ●ewes in all times ●om Abraham unto Christ were to behave themselves in the Commands of their Princes for as in Kingdomes meerly humane men must obey a subordinate Magistrate in all things excepting when his Commands containe in them some Treason so in the Kingdome of God the I●we● were bound to obey their Princes Abraham Isaac Jacob Moyses the Priest the King every one du●…ng ●heir time in all things except when their commands did containe some treason against the Divine Majesty Now treason against the Divine Majesty was first the deniall of ●is divine providence for this was to deny God to be a King by nature next Idolatry or the worship not of other for there is but one God but of strange Gods that is to say a worship though of one God yet under other Titles Attributes and Rites then what were establisht by Abraham and Moyses for this was to deny the God of Abraham to be their King by Covenant made with Abraham and themselves in all other things they were to obey and if a King or Priest having the Soveraign authority had commanded somewhat else to be done which was against the Lawes that had been his sinne and not his subjects whose duty it is not to dispute but to obey the Commands of his superiours Of the Kingdome of God by the new Covenant I. The Prophesies concerning Christs Dignity II. The Prophesies coneerning his Humility and Passion III. That Jesus was THAT CHRIST IV. That the Kingdome of God by the new Covenant was not the Kingdome of Christ as Christ but as God V. That the Kingdome by the new Covenant is heavenly and shall beginne from the day of Judgment VI. That the government of Christ in this world was not a Soveraignty but Counsell or a government by the way of doctrine and perswasion VII What the promises of the new Covenant are on both parts VIII That no Lawes are added by Christ beside the institution of the Sacraments IX Repent ye be baptized keep the Commandements and the like forms of speech are not Lawes X. It pertains to the civill authority to define what the sinne of injustice is XI It pertains to the civill authority to define what conduces to the Peace and defence of the City XII It pertains to the civill authority to judge when need requires what definitions and what inferences are true XIII It belongs to the Office of Christ to teach morally not by the way of speculation but as a Law to forgive sinnes and to teach all things whereof there is no science properly so called XIV A distinction of things temporall from spirituall XV. In how many seveverall sorts the word of God may be taken XVI That all which is contained in holy Scripture belongs not to the Canon of Christian Faith XVII That the word of a lawfull Interpreter of holy Scriptures is the word of God XVIII That the authority of interpreting Scriptures is the same with that of determining controversies of Faith XIX Divers significations of a Church XX. What a Church is to which we attribute Rights Actions and the like personall Capacites XXI A Christian City is the same with a Christian Church XXII Many Cities do not constitute one Church XXIII Who are Ecclesiasticall Persons XXIV That the Election of Ecclesiasticall Persons belongs to the Church their consecration to Pastors XXV That the power of remitting the sinnes of the penitent and retaining those of the impenitent belongs to the Pastors but that of judging concerning repentance belongs to the Church XXVI What Excommunication is and on whom it cannot passe XXVII That the Interpretation of Scripture depends on the authority of the City XXVIII That a Christian city ought to interpret Scriptures by Ecclesiasticall Pastors I. THere are many cleare prophesies exta●…t in the old Testament concerning our Saviour Jesus Christ who was to restore the Kingdome of God by a new Covenan● partly foretelling his regall Dignity partly his Humility and Passion Among others concerning his Dignity these God blessing Abraham ●akes him a promise of his sonne Isaac and ●ddes And Kings of People shall be of him Gen 17. vers 15. Jacob blessing his sonne Judah The Scepter quoth be shall not depart from Judah Gen. 49. vers 10. G●d to Moyses A Prophet saith he will I raise them up from