Hobbes - Leviathan.pdf

doctrine of Christ did therein sin, but that they died in their
sins; that is, that their sins against the laws to which they owed
obedience were not pardoned. And those laws were the laws of nature,
and the civil laws of the state, whereto every Christian man had by
pact submitted himself. And therefore by the burden which the Apostles
might lay on such as they had converted are not to be understood laws,
but conditions, proposed to those that sought salvation; which they
might accept or refuse at their own peril, without a new sin, though
not without the hazard of being condemned and excluded out of the
kingdom of God for their sins past. And therefore of infidels, St.
John saith not, the wrath of God shall come upon them, but the wrath
of God remaineth upon them;*(3) and not that they shall he
condemned, but that they are condemned already.*(4) Nor can it be
conceived that the benefit of faith is remission of sins, unless we
conceive withal that the damage of infidelity is the retention of
the same sins.
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* Acts, 15. 28
*(2) Isaiah, 55. 1
*(3) John, 3. 36
*(4) Ibid., 3. 18
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But to what end is it, may some man ask, that the Apostles and other
pastors of the Church, after their time, should meet together to agree
upon what doctrine should be taught, both for faith and manners, if no
man were obliged to observe their decrees To this may be answered
that the Apostles and elders of that council were obliged, even by
their entrance into it, to teach the doctrine therein concluded, and
decreed to be taught, so far forth as no precedent law, to which
they were obliged to yield obedience, was to the contrary; but not
that all other Christians should be obliged to observe what they
taught. For though they might deliberate what each of them should
teach, yet they could not deliberate what others should do, unless
their assembly had had a legislative power, which none could have
but civil sovereigns. For though God be the sovereign of all the
world, we are not bound to take for His law whatsoever is propounded
by every man in His name; nor anything contrary to the civil law,
which God hath expressly commanded us to obey.
Seeing then the acts of council of the Apostles were then no laws,
but counsels; much less are laws the acts of any other doctors or
councils since, if assembled without the authority of the civil
sovereign. And consequently, the books of the New Testament, though
most perfect rules of Christian doctrine, could not be made laws by
any other authority than that of kings or sovereign assemblies.
The first council that made the Scriptures we now have canon is
not extant: for that collection of the canons of the Apostles,
attributed to Clemens, the first bishop of Rome after St. Peter, is
subject to question: for though the canonical books be there
reckoned up; yet these words, Sint vobis omnibus Clericis & Laicis
Libri venerandi, etc., contain a distinction of clergy and laity
that was not in use so near St. Peter's time. The first council for
settling the canonical Scripture that is extant is that of Laodicea,
Can. 59, which forbids the reading of other books than those in the
churches; which is a mandate that is not addressed to every Christian,
but to those only that had authority to read anything publicly in
the Church; that is, to ecclesiastics only.
Of ecclesiastical officers in the time of the Apostles, some were