Hobbes shirks nothing, and asks himself the question, What if a king, or a senate or other sovereign person forbid us to believe in Christ? The answer given is, “such forbidding is of no effect; because belief and unbelief never follow men’s commands.” But suppose “we be commanded by our lawful prince to say with our tongue we believe not, must we obey such command?” Here Hobbes a little hesitates to say outright “Yes, you must”; but he does say “whatsoever a subject is compelled to do in obedience to his own Sovereign, and doth it not in order to his own mind, but in order to the laws of his country, that action is not his, but his Sovereign’s—nor is it that he in this case denieth Christ before men, but his Governor and the law of his country.” Hobbes then puts the case of a Mahomedan subject of a Christian Commonwealth who is required under pain of death to be present at the Divine Service of the Christian Church—what is he to do? If, says Hobbes, you say he ought to die, then you authorise all private men to disobey their princes in maintenance of their religion, true or false, and if you say the Mahomedan ought to obey, you admit Hobbes’s proposition and ought to consent to be yourself bound by it. (See Hobbes’s English Works, iii. 493.)
The Church of England, though anxious both to support the king and suppress the Dissenters, could not stomach Hobbes; but if it could not, how was it to deal with Hobbes’s question, “if it is ever right to disobey your lawful prince, who is to determine when it is right?”
Parker seeks to grapple with this difficulty. He disowns Hobbes.
“When men have once swallowed this principle, that Mankind is free from all obligations antecedent to the laws of the Commonwealth, and that the Will of the Sovereign Power is the only measure of Good and Evil, they proceed suitably to its consequences to believe that no Religion can obtain the force of law till it is established as such by supreme authority, that the Holy Scriptures were not laws to any man till they were enjoyn’d by the Christian Magistrate, and that if the Sovereign Power would declare the Alcoran to be Canonical Scripture, it would be as much the Word of God as the Four Gospels. (See Hobbes, vol. iii. p. 366.) So that all Religions are in reality nothing but Cheats and impostures to awe the common people to obedience. And therefore although Princes may wisely make use of the foibles of Religion to serve their own turns upon the silly multitude, yet ’tis below their wisdom to be seriously concerned themselves for such fooleries.” (Parker’s Ecc. Politie, p. 137.)
As against this fashionable Hobbism, Parker pleads Conscience.
“When anything that is apparently and intrinsically evil is the Matter of a Human Law, whether it be of a Civil or Ecclesiastical concern, here God is to be obeyed rather than Man.”
He forcibly adds:—
“Those who would take off from the Consciences of Men all obligations antecedent to those of Human Laws, instead of making the power of Princes Supreme, Absolute and Uncontrollable, they utterly enervate all their authority, and set their subjects at perfect liberty from all their commands. For if we once remove all the antecedent obligations of Conscience and Religion, Men will no further be bound to submit to their laws than only as themselves shall see convenient, and if they are under no other restraint it will be their wisdom to rebel as oft as it is their interest.” (Ecc. Politie, pp. 112-113.)
But though when dealing with Hobbes, Parker thinks fit to assert the claims of conscience so strongly, when he has to grapple with those who, like the immortal author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, “devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to Church,” and upheld “unlawful Meetings and Conventicles,” his tone alters, and it is hard to distinguish his position from that of the philosopher of Malmesbury.
Parker’s argument briefly stated, and as much as possible in his own vigorous language, comes to this: