The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 04 (of 11)
Thomas Hobbes · en
_J. D._ We have seen what his principles are concerning the Deity,
they are full as bad or worse concerning the Trinity. Hear himself:
_A person is he that is represented as often as he is represented.
And therefore God who has been represented, that is personated
thrice, may properly enough be said to be three persons, though
neither the word Person nor Trinity be ascribed to him in the
Bible._ And a little after: _To conclude, the doctrine of the
Trinity, as far as can be gathered directly from the Scripture, is
in substance this, that the God who is always one and the same, was
the person represented by Moses, the person represented by his Son
incarnate, and the person represented by the apostles. As
represented by the apostles, the holy spirit by which they spake is
God. As represented by his Son, that was God and man, the Son is
that God. As represented by Moses and the High-priests, the Father,
that is to say, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is that God.
From whence we may gather the reason why those names, Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost, in the signification of the Godhead, are never used
in the Old Testament. For they are persons, that is, they have their
names from representing, which could not be till divers persons had
represented God, in ruling or in directing under him._
Who is so bold as blind Bayard? The emblem of a little boy
attempting to lade all the water out of the sea with a cockle-shell,
doth fit T. H. as exactly as if it had been shaped for him, who
thinketh to measure the profound and inscrutable mysteries of
religion, by his own silly, shallow conceits. What is now become of
the great adorable mystery of the blessed undivided Trinity? It is
shrunk into nothing. Upon his grounds there was a time when there
was no Trinity: and we must blot these words out of our creed, _the
Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal_: and
these other words out of our Bibles, _Let us make man after our
image_: unless we mean that this was a consultation of God with
Moses and the apostles. What is now become of the eternal generation
of the Son of God, if this sonship did not begin until about four
thousand years after the creation were expired? Upon these grounds
every king hath as many _persons_, as there be justices of peace and
petty constables in his kingdom. Upon this account God Almighty hath
as many _persons_, as there have been sovereign princes in the world
since Adam. According to this reckoning each one of us, like so many
Geryons, may have as many _persons_ as we please to make
procurations. Such bold presumption requireth another manner of
confutation.