Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n
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A64353
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The creed of Mr. Hobbes examined in a feigned conference between him and a student in divinity.
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Tenison, Thomas, 1636-1715.
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1670
(1670)
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Wing T691; ESTC R22090
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155,031
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274
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reason on their side when they affirm that the kingdom of glory is in the highest Heavens and not on earth which if men rise the same they were when they acted in the present world retaining all their parts howsoever new-moulded then according to your Hypothesis which conceiveth man to be wholly material the whole earth will be little enough to give the Blessed space wherein to move with pleasure and we shall be as much in the dark for the place of the damned as the place it self is said to be Our blessed Saviour hath assur'd us that we shall in the Resurrection be like the Angels And St. Paul hath also informed Christians that they shall be indued with Coelestial Bodies when they have put off these earthly Sepulchres in which their nobler mindes lay entombed and that this body of flesh and bloud for of that is his whole discourse and not of any moral body of sin and corruption shall not inherit the Kingdom of God And from hence Athenagoras hath been taught to say that in the Resurrection we shall not be as flesh though we bear flesh about us Now this Angelical Coelestial Body seemeth very unagreeable to the condition of Inhabitants upon earth neither had innocent Adam such a body in Paradise And it is also to be noted that the Blessed cannot by any means enjoy such Coelestial Bodies according to the principles by you delivered and of this I above have given some intimation For if man be onely a piece of well-disposed matter and is devoyd of an immaterial soul upon the permanent oneness of which dependeth chiefly his individuation he is no more the same person upon so great an alteration made in the contexture of the body then a spire of Grass is the same with part of the flesh of an Ox into which after digestion it is transform'd But why doth it seem to you incredible that holy men shall be caught up with Enoch and Elias and St. Paul and enjoy their happiness in Heavenly Regions when there are so many places of Scripture which look that way Our blessed Lord administreth comfort to such as bear his Cross by telling them that their reward is great in Heaven And he adviseth all his followers to lay up for themselves treasures not on earth but in the heavens that their hearts may with the greater facility be lifted up by Divine and Heavenly Meditation And he spake these words of consolation to his Disciples who began to be most deeply concerned at the thoughts of his departure Let not your heart be troubled ye believe in God believe also in me In my Fathers house are many mansions if it were no so I would have told you And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto my self that where I am there ye may be also This then was the Doctrine of Christ as also of his Apostles St. Paul delivereth this Doctrine with much confidence saying We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens And he blesseth God for the faith of the Colossians and for the hope which was laid up for them in the Heavens And he comforteth the Thessalonians after this manner The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the Arch-angel and with the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first then we which are alive and remain shall he caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord. The Author also of the Epistle to the Hebrews extolleth the patience of the afflicted Converts and likewise insinuateth the great Reason which they had to take joyfully the spoiling of their earthly goods because they had in Heaven a better and enduring substance Mr. Hobbes I have with much patience attended to your citations there is reason that now you should listen to such as on my side may be produced We finde written in in St. Iohn That no man hath ascended into heaven but he that came down from heaven even the son of man that is in heaven yet Christ was then not in Heaven but upon the earth The like is said of David Acts 2.34 where St. Peter to prove the Ascension of Christ using the words of the Psalmist Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell nor suffer thine holy One to see corruption saith they were spoken not of David but of Christ and to prove it addeth this reason For David is not ascended into Heaven But to this a man may easily answer and say that though their bodies were not to ascend till the general day of Judgement yet their souls were in Heaven as soon as they were departed from their bodies which also seemeth to be confirmed by the words of our Saviour who proving the Resurrection out of the words of Moses saith thus That the dead are raised even Moses shewed at the bush when he called the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Iacob For he is not a God of the dead but of the living for they all live to him But if these words be to be understood onely of the immortality of the soul they prove not at all that which our Saviour intended to prove which was the Resurrection of the body that is to say the immortality of man Therefore our Saviour meaneth that those Patriarchs were immortal not by a property consequent to the Essence and Nature of Mankinde but by the Will of God that was pleased of his meer Grace to bestow eternal life upon the faithful And though at that time the Patriarchs and many other faithful men were dead yet as it is in the Text they lived to God that is they were written in the Book of Life with them that were absolved of their sins and ordained to life eternal at the Resurrection Stud. Our Lord design'd to prove a future state against the Sadduces who denyed not onely the Resurrection of the body but likewise the existence of Angel or Spirit and the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do not always imply the raising of the body but being used without the addition of flesh or body do usually denote the future life and the awakening and advancing of the Soul or the conserving or keeping of it alive as God is said to have raised up Pharaoh that is to have kept him still alive And whereas you suggest that the Patriarchs were alive onely by destination it is an exposition derived by you from your Hypothesis that man is wholly mortal and not from the letter of the words where Christ speaketh in the present and not the future time affirming that the Patriarchs live already and not that they shall be awakened unto
Empire But further Were every man supposed loose even from the yoke of Paternal Government yet in such a state there would be place for the Natural Laws of good and evil For first There is in Mankind an ability of Soul to ascend unto the knowledg of the first invisible Cause by the effects of his Power and Wisdom and Goodness which are conspicuous in all the parts of his Creation I say an ability to know not an actual acknowledgment of the Being of a God For the Acrothoitae are said by Theophrasius to have been a Nation of Atheists as also to have been swallow'd up by the gaping Earth undergoing a Judgment worthy that God whom their Imaginations banish'd out of the World If then there be such ability in the Mind of Man he is capable of sinning by himself in the secretest retirement from the Societies and Laws of his Fellow-creatures either by the supiness of his mind in being secure in Atheism for want of exerting those Powers by exercise which God hath implanted in him or by the ingratitude of his mind by want of Love and Thankfulness to God whom in speculation he confesseth to exist the notion of a Deity including that of a Benefactor Mr. H. I must acknowledg that it is not impossible in the state of Nature to sin against God Stud. A man may also in that state fin by being injurious to himself Mr Hobb Neither is that denied because hec may pretend that to be for his preservation which neither is so nor is so judged by himself Stud. But he may likewise sin with reference to himself in matters wherein no prejudice accrueth to his health or outward safety The Instance may be made in Buggery with a Beaâ—â— which seemeth to be a sin against the order oâ— God in Nature This monstrous Indecency this detestable and abhominable Vice as the Statute calls it is by our Law made Felony without Clergy and this surely in regard it is rather a sin against Nature than Commonwealth it being less noxious to Society to humble than to kill the owners beast the latter of which is but a treâ—pass Lastly In relation to otâ—ers I cannot but judg that one man espying another and not discerniâ—g in him any tokens of mischief but rather of submission if being thus secure unassaulted he rusheth upon him so to display his power and please his tyrannous mind bereaveâ—h him of life he is a murdâ—rer in the account of God Man The reason seemeth unstâ—ained cogent For there is no such neer propriety to a man in any possession as in that of life which a man as to this state can no more forego then he can part with himself neither can the Right be more confirmed to him than his own Peâ—â—â—nality Wherefore in no condition of Mankind can it be forfeited but by his own default or consent But in meer self defence there 's no murther because one life being apparently in hazard it is reason that the assaulted man should esteem his own more dearly than his Enemy's It is eâ—sie to understand on which side to act when it is come to this pass that as the Italians say of War We must either be spectators of other meâ—s deaths or spectacles of our own Moreover it appeareâ—h unto me not altogether improbable that in this feigned state of nature unjust robbery may have place For in this community there being sufficient portions both for the necessity convenience of all men if one shall intrude into the possessiâ—n of another who is contented with a modest share being moved only by ambition wantonness of mind he seemeth to be no other than an unrighteous aggressoâ— For all men being by you supposed of equal righâ— the advantage of pre-occupancy on the one sidâ— do's turn the scale if natural justice holds the ballance For it is in Law an old maxim In pari jure melior est conditio Possidentis Wherefore if any person endeavours by such unnatural practises as I have mention'd to encrease his outward safety or brutish delight he in truth destroyeth by his iniquity more of himself than he can preserve by his ambition and lust And he may be resembled to a rash Seaman who out of presumed pleasure in swimming throws himself headlong into a boisterous Sea temporal delight and preservation by sin being the ready way to bottomless ruin By what hath been said I am induced to believe that there is not only iniquity but injustice too in a meer state of Nature although neither of them be capable of such aggravations or are extended to so many Instances as in that state where men live under Positive Commands For to make Instance not in the lower restraints of fishing fowling hunting but in the more considerable case of promiscuous mixtures such practice seemeth not so much condemned by the Law of Nature as by Custom the commands of Moses Christ Christian Magistrates and heathen Powers For the most holy God would never have begun the World by one Man and Woman whose Posterity must needs be propagated by the mixtures of their Sons Dâ—ughters if what we call Incest had been inconsistent with any immutable Law of Reason Nature Neither would â—e have allowed the Patriarchs in Polygamy if it had been in truth an absolute evil and not rather in some Circumstances of time and place and persons fit and convenient Neither is there in these matters any consent of Nations who have no other instructor besides Nature for the Garamantici married not but engendred as the Monsters at the Springs of Africa And Sâ—leucus gave his own Wife to his son Antiochus then passed it into a Law And Socrates the great pretender to Moral Prudence esteemed it a civility to his Friend to permit his wife to enter into his imbraces Wherefore St. Paul affirming that the taking of the Father's wife was a Forâ—ication not once named amongst the Gentiles is to be understood of those Heathens whose manners conversations he had observed in his Travels And Aelian's Reading or Memory was but narrow when in contemplation of the victorious Sicyâ—â—ians deflouring the Pollenaearian Virgins he cried out These Practices by the gods of Graecia are very cruel and as far as I remember not approved of by the veriest Barbarians And as I think it must be granted to you that such consent of Nations as may seem to argue a common principle whence it is derived is not easily in many cases found by those who look beyond the usages of Europe the Colonies planted by the Europâ—ans For Pagans unless it be in the acknowledgment of God in which most agree do infinitly differ not only from Jews Christians but from one another â—rom their very selves also in process of time And those who liv'd but an hundred years ago before the strange improvement of Navigation and Merchandize could understand but little