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The Socinian Connection – Further Thoughts on the Religion of Hobbes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

C. A. J. Coady
Affiliation:
Philosophy Department, University of Melbourne

Extract

Peter Geach supports his case (Religious Studies, December, 1981) that the religion of Thomas Hobbes was both genuine and a version of Socinianism principally by comparing the theological and scriptural sections of Leviathan with the main doctrines of Socinianism and its latter-day developments in Unitarianism and Christadelphianism. He pays particular attention to comparisons with the Racovian Catechism, the theological writings of Joseph Priestley and the Christadelphian document Christendom Astray by Robert Roberts.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

page 277 note 1 See Acts and ordinances of the interregnum, 1942–1660 collected and edited by Firth, C. H. and Rait, R. S.. Vol. 1 (London, 1911), p. 1134.Google Scholar The ordinance was passed on 2 May 1648.

page 278 note 1 Hume, David, The Natural History of Religion, ed. by Root, H. E.. (London, 1956), p. 64 fn.Google Scholar

page 278 note 2 Aubrey's Brief Lives, ed. by Dick, Oliver Lawson. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1949), p. 154.Google Scholar

page 278 note 3 Ibid. p. 153.

page 278 note 4 Ibid. p. 154.

page 278 note 5 Ibid p. 159.

page 278 note 6 Johnson, Paul J., ‘Hobbes' Anglican Doctrine of Salvation’, in Ross, Ralph, Schneider, Herbert and Waldman, Theodore (eds), Thomas Hobbes in His Time (Minnesota, 1974).Google Scholar

page 279 note 1 Op. cit. p. 160.

page 279 note 2 Ibid p. 203.

page 279 note 3 Knott, Edward, A Direction to be Observed by N.N.Google Scholar, published in 1636 and cited in Packer, J. W., The Transformation of Anglicanism, 1643–1660 (Manchester, 1969), pp. 7780.Google Scholar Footnote 2 on p. 79 lists 16 heresies Knott ascribed to Chillingworth, many being points of Socinian belief.

page 279 note 4 See Haller, William, The Rise of Puritanism (New York, 1957), p. 246.Google Scholar

page 280 note 1 Op. cit. p. 236.

page 280 note 2 My thanks to Brian Stoffell for drawing my attention to the fact that Aubrey mentions Lord Falkland as a Socinian. This clue led to my reading further in Aubrey and discovering the reference to Hales' Socinianism. My thanks to Dr D. E. Kennedy of the History Department, University of Melbourne, for scholarly assistance in tracking down Socinian references in early 17th-century religious controversies.