The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 04 (of 11)
Thomas Hobbes · en
Hebrew, as may be seen by Bellarmine’s quotations, to join a noun of
the plural number with a verb of the singular. And we may say also
of many other texts of Scripture alleged to prove the Trinity, that
they are not so firm as that high article requireth. But mark his
Lordship’s Scholastic charity in the last words of this period:
_such bold presumption requireth another manner of confutation_.
This bishop, and others of his opinion, had been in their element,
if they had been bishops in Queen Mary’s time.
_J. D._ Concerning God the Son, forgetting what he had said
elsewhere, where he calleth him _God and man_, and _the Son of God
incarnate_, he doubteth not to say, that _the word_ hypostatical _is
canting_. As if the same person could be both God and man without a
personal, that is, an hypostatical union of the two natures of God
and man.
_T. H._ If Christian profession be (as certainly it is in England) a
law; and if it be of the nature of a law to be made known to all men
that are to obey it, in such manner as they may have no excuse for
disobedience from their ignorance; then, without doubt, all words
unknown to the people, and as to them insignificant, are canting.
The word _substance_ is understood by the vulgar well enough, when
it is said of a body, but in other sense not at all, except for
their riches. But the word _hypostatical_ is understood only by
those, and but few of those that are learned in the Greek tongue,
and is properly used, as I have said before, of the union of the two
natures of Christ in one person. So likewise _consubstantial_ in the
Nicene creed, is properly said of the Trinity. But to an Englishman
that understands neither Greek nor Latin, and yet is as much
concerned as his Lordship was, the word _hypostatical_ is no less
canting than _eternal now_.
_J. D._ He alloweth every man who is commanded by his lawful
sovereign, _to deny Christ with his tongue before men_.