Like Hobbes I remain attached to the idea of civil government and believe it to be in every way superior to the role of priests.
In early 2025 I read Thomas Holden's Hobbes's Philosophy of Religion (2023), an excellent and convincing exploration of how the philosopher from Malmesbury understood theology and - much more importantly for Hobbes - piety. Holden defines Hobbes' understanding of the language and practice of piety as "fit and proper, a laudable and rational expression of reverence before the awe-inspiring power of the great cause":
Hobbes holds that reason and proper piety require all seventeenth-century English subjects to participate publicly in the ceremonial forms and scriptural practices of the contemporary Anglo-Protestant religion.
Holden also quotes Hobbes' understanding of prayer:
The end of prayer, as of thanksgiving, is not to move but to honour God Almighty, in acknowledging that what we ask can be effected by him onely.
If read within the context known to Hobbes, of the bloody Wars of the Three Kingdoms, wars of religion encouraged by clerics and religious enthusiasm, the attraction of this modest, cautious account of piety becomes very understandable.
More recently, reading David Lloyd Dusenbury's The Innocence of Pontius Pilate (2021), his chapter on Hobbes is superb. Dusenbury interprets Hobbes as providing a "theological defence of the secular", in which to hold that the church is a "Kingdom ... of this World" is, "Hobbes insists, to betray Christ". Here, says Dusenbury - perhaps rather unfairly - in the title to the chapter, is "the momentary orthodoxy of Thomas Hobbes". Despite that use of 'momentary', the testimony of an Anglican cleric is noted at the outset of the chapter:
it was reported by a cleric who knew him that, in his final weeks, Hobbes had 'received the Sacrament ... with seeming devotion, and in humble, reverent posture'. It is impossible not to notice the word 'seeming', but irresponsible - and perhaps, uncharitable - to forget Hobbes's 'reverent posture'.
These interpretations of Hobbes establish the background for my exploring Hobbes' conformity to the Church of England at the Restoration. His was, I believe, a thoughtful, sincere conformity: not enough for Bramhall and other clerical critics of Hobbes, but such critics cannot be held to exclusively define conformity.
To examine the nature and character of Hobbes' conformity, we turn to his Considerations upon the Reputation, Loyalty, Manners, and Religion of Thomas Hobbes, published in 1662. What is particularly striking about this work is how it articulated a solidly Episcopalian view of 'the late unhappy confusions'. Consider, for example, Hobbes' description of the preaching of the Interregnum:
And in the Pulpit most of you have been a scandal to Christianity, by preaching up Sedition, and crying down Moral Virtue. You should have preach'd against unjust Ambition, Covetousness, Gluttony, Malice, Disobedience to Government, Fraud, and Hypocrisie: But the most part you preach'd your own Controversies, about who should be uppermost, or other fruitless and unedifying Doctrines.
Here we see the outlines of what emerged post-1660 as a sustained critique by a stream of Episcopalian thought of 'Calvinistic' preaching - "crying down Moral Virtue" while emphasising "fruitless and unedifying doctrines". Similarly, that such sermons could find a ready audience did not surprise Hobbes for the same reason it did not surprise Episcopalians critical of the Interregnum ecclesiastical order:
And yet such Sermons are much applauded. But why? First, because they make not the People ashamed of any Vice. Secondly, Because they like the Preacher, for using to find fault with the Government or Governor. Thirdly, For their vehemence, which they mistake for Zeal. Fourthly, For their zeal to their own ends, which they mistake for zeal to God's Worship.
These were not the sermons of a learned clergy but, rather, of Enthusiasts:
I have heard besides divers Sermons made by Phanatiques, young men, and whom by that, and their habit, I imagined to be Apprentices.
It is, to say the least, interesting to note how Hobbes' view echoes that expressed by Jeremy Taylor in 1655:
the people are fallen under the harrows and saws of impertinent and ignorant preachers, who think all religion is a sermon, and all sermons ought to be libels against truth and old governors; and expound chapters, that the meaning may never be understood; and pray that they may be thought able to talk, but not to hold their peace; they caring not to obtain any thing but wealth and victory, power and plunder.
Hobbes, in other words, is standing within an influential current of Episcopalian criticism of the Interregnum church.
As for settling the theological debates that could again unsettle the realm, Hobbes' answer was to support the restoration of the traditional order of the Royal Supremacy:
These Opinions, I said were to be judged by those to whom God has commited the ordering of Religion; that is, to the Supreme Governours of the Church, that is, in England to the King: By His Authority, I say, it ought to be decided, not what men shall think, but what they shall fay in those Questions.
Rejecting the preachers who were to be found during the Interregnum intruded into parish churches in the place of episcopal clergy. Regarding their sermons as encouragement to sedition. Decrying their concerns with doctrinal controversy rather than holy living. Affirming the Royal Supremacy as the cornerstone of the realm's ecclesiastical order. This was the conformity of an Episcopalian layman, who had lived through 'the late unhappy confusions' and now welcomed the settlement of church and state brought by the Restoration.
What is more, in his critique of Interregnum preaching, we can see how Hobbes would welcome the approach to pulpit ministry set out by Taylor to his clergy in 1661:
Every Minister in reproofs of sin and sinners, ought to concern himself in the faults of them that are present, but not of the absent; nor in reproof of the times; for this can serve no end but of Faction and Sedition, publick Murmur and private Discontent; besides this it does nothing but amuse the people in the faults of others, teaching them to revile their Betters, and neglect the dangers of their own souls.
As it looks like flattery and design to preach nothing before Magistrates but the duty of their people and their own eminency; so it is the beginning of Mutiny to preach to the people the duty of their Superiors and Supreme ...
Let not a Curate of Souls trouble himself with any studies but such which concern his own or his peoples duty; such as may enable him to speak well, and to do well; but to meddle not with controversies, but such by which he may be enabled to convince the gainsayers in things that concern publick peace and a good life.
Such was the preaching desired by Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, conforming son of the Church of England.
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