The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 05 (of 11) — Thomas Hobbes — John Shaqi
The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 05 (of 11)
Thomas Hobbes · en
and suspicions between God and his creatures, or to poison mankind with
an apprehension that God doth not love them, but only this opinion,
which was the office of the serpent (Gen. iii. 5). Fourthly, for the
outward worship of God; (_e_) how shall a man praise God for his
goodness, who believes him to be a greater tyrant than ever was in the
world; who creates millions to burn eternally, without their fault, to
express his power? How shall a man hear the word of God with that
reverence, and devotion, and faith, which is requisite, who believeth
that God causeth his gospel to be preached to the much greater part of
Christians, not with any intention that they should be converted and
saved, but merely to harden their hearts, and to make them inexcusable?
How shall a man receive the blessed sacrament with comfort and
confidence, as a seal of God’s love in Christ, who believeth that so
many millions are positively excluded from all fruit and benefit of the
passions of Christ, before they had done either good or evil? How shall
he prepare himself with care and conscience, who apprehendeth that
eating and drinking unworthily is not the cause of damnation, but,
because God would damn a man, therefor he necessitates him to eat and
drink unworthily? How shall a man make a free vow to God without gross
ridiculous hypocrisy, who thinks he is able to perform nothing but as he
is extrinsically necessitated? Fifthly, for repentance, how shall a man
condemn and accuse himself for his sins, who thinks himself to be like a
watch which is wound up by God, and that he can go neither longer nor
shorter, faster nor slower, truer nor falser, than he is ordered by God?
If God sets him right, he goes right; if God sets him wrong, he goes
wrong. How can a man be said to return into the right way, who never was
in any other way but that which God himself had chalked out for him?
What is his purpose to amend, who is destitute of all power, but as if a
man should purpose to fly without wings, or a beggar who hath not a
groat in his purse, purpose to build hospitals?