Hobbes - Leviathan.pdf

the name of anything The meaning of these words of baptism is this.
He that is baptized is dipped or washed as a sign of becoming a new
man and a loyal subject to that God whose person was represented in
old time by Moses, and the high priests, when He reigned over the
Jews; and to Jesus Christ, His Son, God and Man, that hath redeemed
us, and shall in his human nature represent his Father's person in his
eternal kingdom after the resurrection; and to acknowledge the
doctrine of the Apostles, who, assisted by the Spirit of the Father
and of the Son, were left for guides to bring us into that kingdom, to
be the only and assured way thereunto. This being our promise in
baptism; and the authority of earthly sovereigns being not to be put
down till the day of judgement; for that is expressly affirmed by
St. Paul, where he saith, "As in Adam all die, so in Christ all
shall be made alive. But every man in his own order, Christ the
first fruits, afterward they that are Christ's at his coming; then
cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God,
even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule, and all
authority and power."* It is manifest that we do not in baptism
constitute over us another authority by which our external actions are
to be governed in this life, but promise to take the doctrine of the
Apostles for our direction in the way to life eternal.
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* I Corinthians, 15. 22, 23, 24
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The power of remission and retention of sins, called also the
power of loosing and binding, and sometimes the keys of the kingdom of
heaven is a consequence of the authority to baptize or refuse to
baptize. For baptism is the sacrament of allegiance of them that are
to be received into the kingdom of God; that is to say, into eternal
life; that is to say, to remission of sin: for as eternal life was
lost by the committing, so it is recovered by the remitting of men's
sins. The end of baptism is remission of sins: therefore St. Peter,
when they that were converted by his sermon on the day of Pentecost
asked what they were to do, advised them to "repent, and be baptized
in the name of Jesus, for the remission of sins."* And therefore,
seeing to baptize is to declare the reception of men into God's
kingdom, and to refuse to baptize is to declare their exclusion, it
followeth that the power to declare them cast out, or retained in
it, was given to the same Apostles, and their substitutes and
successors. And therefore after our Saviour had breathed upon them,
saying, "Receive the Holy Ghost,"*(2) he addeth in the next verse,
"Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and
whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained." By which words is
not granted an authority to forgive or retain sins, simply and
absolutely, as God forgiveth or retaineth them, Who knoweth the
heart of man and truth of his penitence and conversion; but
conditionally, to the penitent: and this forgiveness, or absolution,
in case the absolved have but a feigned repentance, is thereby,
without other act or sentence of the absolved, made void, and hath
no effect at all to salvation, but, on the contrary, to the
aggravation of his sin. Therefore the Apostles and their successors
are to follow but the outward marks of repentance; which appearing,
they have no authority to deny absolution; and if they appear not,
they have no authority to absolve. The same also is to be observed
in baptism: for to a converted Jew or Gentile, the Apostles had not
the power to deny baptism, nor to grant it to the unpenitent. But
seeing no man is able to discern the truth of another man's