Hobbes - Leviathan.pdf

come in the flesh, is of God";* that is, is approved and allowed as
a prophet of God: not that he is a godly man, or one of the elect
for this that he confesseth, professeth, or preacheth Jesus to be
the Christ, but for that he is a prophet avowed. For God sometimes
speaketh by prophets whose persons He hath not accepted; as He did
by Baalam, and as He foretold Saul of his death by the Witch of Endor.
Again in the next verse, "Every spirit that confesseth not that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of Christ. And this is the
spirit of Antichrist." So that the rule is perfect rule is perfect
on both sides: that he is a true prophet which preacheth the Messiah
already come, in the person of Jesus; and he a false one that
denieth him come, and looketh for him in some future impostor that
shall take upon him that honour falsely, whom the Apostle there
properly calleth Antichrist. Every man therefore ought to consider who
is the sovereign prophet; that is to say, who it is that is God's
vicegerent on earth, and hath next under God the authority of
governing Christian men; and to observe for a rule that doctrine which
in the name of God he hath commanded to be taught, and thereby to
examine and try out the truth of those doctrines which pretended
prophets, with miracle or without, shall at any time advance: and if
they find it contrary to that rule, to do as they did that came to
Moses and complained that there were some that prophesied in the
camp whose authority so to do they doubted of; and leave to the
sovereign, as they did to Moses, to uphold or to forbid them, as he
should see cause; and if he disavow them, then no more to obey their
voice, or if he approve them, then to obey them as men to whom God
hath given a part of the spirit of their sovereign. For when Christian
men take not their Christian sovereign for God's prophet, they must
either take their own dreams for the prophecy they mean to be governed
by, and the tumour of their own hearts for the Spirit of God; or
they must suffer themselves to be lead by some strange prince, or by
some of their fellow subjects that can bewitch them by slander of
the government into rebellion, without other miracle to confirm
their calling than sometimes an extraordinary success and impunity;
and by this means destroying all laws, both divine and human, reduce
all order, government, and society to the first chaos of violence
and civil war.
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* I John, 4. 2, etc.
CHAPTER XXXVII
OF MIRACLES AND THEIR USE
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BY Miracles are signified the admirable works of God: and
therefore they are also called wonders. And because they are for the
most part done for a signification of His commandment in such
occasions as, without them, men are apt to doubt (following their
private natural reasoning) what He hath commanded, and what not,
they are commonly, in Holy Scripture, called signs, in the same
sense as they are called by the Latins, ostenta and portenta, from
showing and foresignifying that which the Almighty is about to bring
to pass.
To understand therefore what is a miracle, we must first
understand what works they are which men wonder at and call admirable.
And there be but two things which make men wonder at any event: the
one is if it be strange, that is to say, such as the like of it hath
never or very rarely been produced; the other is if when it is