Hobbes - Leviathan.pdf

for canon signifieth a rule; and a rule is a precept by which a man is
guided and directed in any action whatsoever. Such precepts, though
given by a teacher to his disciple, or a counsellor to his friend,
without power to compel him to observe them, are nevertheless
canons, because they are rules. But when they are given by one whom he
that receiveth them is bound to obey, then are those canons not only
rules, but laws: the question therefore here is of the power to make
the Scriptures, which are the rules of Christian faith, laws.
That part of the Scripture which was first law was the Ten
Commandments, written in two tables of stone and delivered by God
Himself to Moses, and by Moses made known to the people. Before that
time there was no written law of God, who, as yet having not chosen
any people to be His peculiar kingdom, had given no law to men, but
the law of nature, that is to say, the precepts of natural reason,
written in every man's own heart. Of these two tables, the first
containeth the law of sovereignty: 1. That they should not obey nor
honour the gods of other nations, in these words, Non habebis deos
alienos coram me; that is, "Thou shalt not have for gods, the gods
that other nations worship, but only me": whereby they were
forbidden to obey or honour as their king and governor any other God
than Him that spake unto them by Moses, and afterwards by the high
priest. 2. That they "should not make any image to represent Him";
that is to say, they were not to choose to themselves, neither in
heaven nor in earth, any representative of their own fancying, but
obey Moses and Aaron, whom He had appointed to that office. 3. That
"they should not take the name of God in vain"; that is, they should
not speak rashly of their King, nor dispute his right, nor the
commissions of Moses and Aaron, His lieutenants. 4. That "they
should every seventh day abstain from their ordinary labour," and
employ that time in doing Him public honour. The second table
containeth the duty of one man towards another, as "To honour
parents"; "Not to kill"; "Not to commit adultery"; "Not to steal";
"Not to corrupt judgement by false witness"; and finally, "Not so much
as to design in their heart the doing of any injury one to another."
The question now is who it was that gave to these written tables the
obligatory force of laws. There is no doubt but they were made laws by
God Himself: but because a law obliges not, nor is law to any but to
them that acknowledge it to be the act of the sovereign, how could the
people of Israel, that were forbidden to approach the mountain to hear
what God said to Moses, be obliged to obedience to all those laws
which Moses propounded to them Some of them were indeed the laws of
nature, as all the second table, and therefore to be acknowledged
for God's laws; not to the Israelites alone, but to all people: but of
those that were peculiar to the Israelites, as those of the first
table, the question remains, saving that they had obliged
themselves, presently after the propounding of them, to obey Moses, in
these words, "Speak thou to us, and we will hear thee; but let not God
speak to us, lest we die."* It was therefore only Moses then, and
after him the high priest, whom, by Moses, God declared should
administer this His peculiar kingdom, that had on earth the power to
make this short Scripture of the Decalogue to be law in the
commonwealth of Israel. But Moses, and Aaron, and the succeeding
high priests were the civil sovereigns. Therefore hitherto the
canonizing, or making of the Scripture law, belonged to the civil
sovereign.
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* Exodus, 20. 19