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REPRESENTATION AND THE FALL

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 December 2018

ERIC NELSON
ERIC NELSON*
Affiliation:
Department of Government, Harvard University E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article makes the case that the early modern debate over political representation was deeply intertwined with a theological debate over the Fall. The “resemblance” theory of representation adopted by English Parliamentarians was first formulated by Calvinists to make the case that Adam represented humanity, despite the fact that humanity had never authorized him to act in their name. The Royalist rejoinder, which treated authorization as a necessary and sufficient condition of representation, began life instead as a Pelagian response to Calvinist orthodoxy. This theological dispute provides a crucial context for the interventions of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.

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Articles
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Modern Intellectual History , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , September 2020 , pp. 647 - 676
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018

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Footnotes

I am deeply grateful to Benjamin Friedman, Sarah Mortimer, Michael Rosen, Quentin Skinner, Richard Tuck, and three anonymous readers for Modern Intellectual History for their very helpful comments on earlier versions of this essay. I also had the opportunity to present my argument to audiences at Cambridge and Princeton Universities, as well as at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. I am indebted to all those who attended my talks for their comments and encouragement.

References

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3 Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints, in St. Augustine: Four Anti-Pelagian Writings, 238 (quoting Romans 11:33).

4 Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity, 5. An insightful discussion of this passage appears in Harris, Ian, The Mind of John Locke: A Study of Political Theory in Its Intellectual Setting (Cambridge, 1994), 233–40Google Scholar. As will become clear, I offer a very different account of how Locke's intervention should be understood in its theological and political context. In particular, I am unpersuaded that Locke meant this argument to answer Filmer, who in fact never claimed that Adam represented humanity. Locke meant, rather, to answer a range of Calvinist parliamentarian writers. On Locke's view of the Fall more generally see Shouls, Peter, Reasoned Freedom: John Locke and the Enlightenment (Ithaca, 1992), 194–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 202–3; and Marshall, John, John Locke: Resistance, Religion, and Responsibility (Cambridge, 1994), 397–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 414–18. For an unpersuasive attempt to align Locke with a less heterodox position on the Fall see Spellman, W. M., “The Latitudinarian Perspective on Original Sin,” Revue internationale de philosophie 42/165 (1988), 215–28Google Scholar. See in particular Spellman's claim (at 221) that Locke's views were quite close to those of Richard Burthogge. The latter, in fact, straightforwardly endorsed the Augustinian view that Locke rejected—viz. that “mankind is an Extended Adam.” Burthogge, Richard, Tagathon, or, divine goodness Explicated and Vindicated from the Exceptions of the Atheist (London, 1672), 69Google Scholar.

5 Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, ed. Malcolm, Noel, 3 vols. (Oxford, 2012), 2Google Scholar: 244.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid., 246.

8 Ibid.

9 See, importantly, Skinner, Quentin, “Hobbes on Representation,” European Journal of Philosophy 13/2 (2005), 155–84; and Skinner, From Humanism to Hobbes (Cambridge, 2018), 190–221CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Nelson, Eric, The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding (Cambridge, MA, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chap. 2.

10 The best account of this biblical conception appears in Levenson, Jon, Resurrection and the Redemption of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (New Haven, 2006)Google Scholar.

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15 Calvin, Institutio, 148 (2:16): “ita certe habendum est, fuisse Adamum humanae naturae non progenitorem modo, sed quasi radicem, atque ideo in illius corruptione merito vitiatum fuisse hominum genus.”

16 For the role of Ambrosius Catharinus in originating this shift see the valuable discussion in Weir, The Origins of the Federal Theology, 12–15. Other important progenitors of the argument were Zacharias Ursinus, Franciscus Junius, and Johannes Cocceius. See also Charles J. Butler, “Religious Liberty and Covenant Theology” (unpublished PhD thesis, Temple University, 1979), 19–20.

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27 Du Moulin, Anatomy of Arminianisme, 60.

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29 See, for example, Reynolds, Edward, Three Treatises (London, 1631), 401Google Scholar. The chief scriptural authority for this claim is found in Hebrews 7:22.

30 Goodwin, Christ set Forth, 46.

31 Ibid., 46.

32 Ibid., 56. Compare Bridge, William, The Works of William Bridge, Sometime Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge: Now Preacher of the Word of God at Yarmouth, 3 vols. (London, 1649), 2: 117Google Scholar, 203.

33 Westminster Larger Catechism (1648), Quaes. 22.

34 Burgess, Anthony, Treatise of Original Sin (London, 1658), 39Google Scholar.

35 Ibid., 39.

36 Ibid., 430 (“and herein did consult for our good, better then if he had taken any other way is more to be insisted on”).

37 Ibid., 393.

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41 Burgess, Treatise of Original Sin, 431. Cf. Burthogge, Tagathon, 69–70.

42 Towerson, Gabriel, Of the Sacraments in General (London, 1686), 56Google Scholar.

43 Ibid., 56–7.

44 See, for example, Lee, Daniel, Popular Sovereignty in Early Modern Constitutional Thought (Oxford, 2016), 133–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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46 Ibid., 239.

47 Ibid., 246.

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49 Ibid., 1040.

50 Crell, Johann, The Justification of a Sinner: Being the Maine Argument of the Epistle to the Galations (London, 1650), 184Google Scholar.

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53 Owen, John, Vindiciae Evangelicae, Or the Mystery of the Gospell Vindicated, and Socinianisme Examined (Oxford, 1655), 370Google Scholar.

54 Perkins, A golden Chaine, 965.

55 Calvin, Institutio, 214 (2:12:3): “Prodiit ergo verus homo Dominus noster, Adae personam induit, nomen assumpsit, et eius vices subiret Patri obediendo.”

56 Gillespie, Patrick, The Ark of the Covenant Opened, or, A treatise of the covenant of redemption between God and Christ (London, 1677), 91–2Google Scholar.

57 Ibid., 397.

58 Ibid., 397–8.

59 Ibid., 398.

60 Goodwin, Christ Set Forth, 58.

61 Ibid., 72, 78.

62 Lawson, Theo-Politica, 101.

63 Owen, Vindiciae Evangelicae, 302.

64 Ibid., 337.

65 Parker, Henry, Observations upon some of His Majesties late Answers and Expresses (London, 1642), 13Google Scholar.

66 See, for example, Parker, Henry, The Altar Dispute (London, 1641), 70Google Scholar, 75.

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68 Parker, Observations, 23.

69 Ibid., 29.

70 Ibid., 5.

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72 See, for example, Parker, Henry, The Danger to England Observ'd (London, 1642), 3Google Scholar; Parker, Observations, 11; Parker, Ius Populi, 18–19; cf. [Anon.], A Soveraigne Salve to Cure the Blind (London, 1643), 8, 19.

73 Parker, Observations, 15.

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77 Ibid., 26.

78 Ferne, Henry, Conscience Satisfied (London, 1643), 22Google Scholar. For Herle's response see An Answer to Doctor Fernes reply, 30.

79 Ferne, Conscience Satisfied, 22.

80 Dudley Diggs, An Answer to a Printed Book, Intituled, Observations upon His Majesties Late Answeres and Expresses (1642), 37.

81 Ibid., 113.

82 Henry Hammond, A View of Some Exceptions which have been made by a Romanist to the Ld Viscount Falkland's Discourse Of the Infallibility of the Church of Rome (1650), 13.

83 Ibid., 72.

84 Hammond, A View of Some Exceptions, 74.

85 William Laud, A Relation of the Conference . . . with Mr. Fisher the Jesuite (1639), 229.

86 For a general account see Tyacke, Nicholas, Anti-Calvinists: The Rise of English Arminianism, c.1590–1640 (Oxford, 1987Google Scholar).

87 Episcopius, Simon, Institutiones Theologica in quatuor libros distinctae in Opera theologica, 2nd edn, vol. 1 (The Hague, 1678)Google Scholar, 403. “Impossible est, ut actuale & personale peccatum Adami, originaliter nostrum sit peccatum . . . impossible est, ut quis alio peccet, nisi accedat vel imperium, vel consilium, vel consensus sive tacitus sive expressus, vel saltem (uti quidem volunt) sceleris sive peccati, quod ex lege ad judicem deferri debet, conscientia. At nihil horum potuit locum habere in peccato isto.” For Episcopius's mature position, and its divergence from Arminius's own, see Ellis, Mark A., Simon Episcopius's Doctine of Original Sin (New York, 2006)Google Scholar, esp. 149–66.

88 Placeus, De imputatione primi peccati Adami (Saumur, 1665; first published 1655), 41. Translations from Placeus are my own.

89 Ibid., 59–60.

90 Hoard, Samuel, Gods love to Mankind, Manifested, by Disproving his Absolute Decree (London, 1633), 63Google Scholar.

91 Ibid., 69.

92 Hammond, Henry, Practical Catechism (London, 1645), 6Google Scholar.

93 Taylor, Jeremy, An answer to a letter written by the R.R. the Ld Bp of Rochester. Concerning the chapter of original sin, in the Vnum necessarium (London, 1656), 46Google Scholar.

94 Ibid., 105–6.

95 Ibid., 106. See also Taylor, , Deus Justificatus: Two Discourses of Original Sin . . . (London, 1656), 55–9Google Scholar.

96 Ibid., 109.

97 Taylor, Unum Necessarium (London, 1655), 381–2.

98 Ibid., 382.

99 For a brief, but important, discussion of how Covenant theologians might have influenced Hobbes's account of representation see Skinner, Quentin, “Hobbes on Persons, Authors, and Representatives,” in Spingborg, Patricia, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes's Leviathan (Cambridge, 2007), 157–80, at 169Google Scholar. See also Martinich, A. P., The Two Gods of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Religion and Politics (Cambridge, 1992), 147–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

100 See, for example, Malcolm, Noel, Aspects of Hobbes (Oxford, 2002), 10–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Mortimer, Sarah, Reason and Religion in the English Revolution: The Challenge of Socinianism (Cambridge, 2010), 63–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

101 Numerous works by Perkins, Tuke, and du Moulin appear in the manuscript library catalogue that Hobbes prepared for his patron, the Earl of Devonshire, in the 1630s—among them Tuke's High-Way to Heaven (Hobbes MSS (Chatsworth) MS E.1.A, no. 439). Hobbes likewise mentions Perkins by name as one of the “Doctors of the Church” whom (along with Luther, Calvin, and Melanchthon) “I never sleighted, but alwayes very much reverenced, and admired.” See Hobbes, Thomas, Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity, and Chance Cleary Stated and Debated (London, 1656), 212Google Scholar.

102 Hobbes, Leviathan, 2: 246.

103 Ibid, 2: 246–7. For Hobbes's debts in this passage to the Civilian tradition see Daniel Lee, “Hobbes and the Civil Law: The Use of Roman Law in Hobbes's Civil Science,” in Dyzenhaus, David and Poole, Thomas, eds., Hobbes and the Law (Oxford, 2012), 210–335CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 223–7.

104 Hobbes, Leviathan, 2: 247.

105 Ibid., 2: 246.

106 The most important discussions appear in chaps. 36 and 41 of Leviathan.

107 Hobbes, Leviathan, 3: 634.

108 Ibid., 3: 700–1.

109 Ibid., 3: 698.

110 Compare Hobbes's comment in his reply to Bramhall: “nor is there here any punishment [after the Fall], but onely a reducing of Adam and Eve to their original mortality, where death was no punishment but a gift of God.” Hobbes, Thomas, The Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity, and Chance (London, 1656), 78Google Scholar.

111 Hobbes, Leviathan, 3: 700.

112 Ibid., 2: 252.

113 Ibid., 2: 252.

114 See van Asselt, Willem J., “Expromissio or Fideiussio? A Seventeenth-Century Theological Debate between Voetians and Cocceians about the Nature of Christ's Suretyship in Salvation History,” Mid-America Journal of Theology 14 (2003), 37–57Google Scholar. The alternative to a fideiussio, in Roman law, is an expromissio, in which the debtor is immediately absolved of his debt, even before the sponsor has paid the creditor. Late seventeenth-century Dutch attempts to cast Christ as an expromissor led to predictable difficulties surrounding the efficacy and centrality of the cross.

115 Hobbes, Leviathan, 3: 646.

116 Ibid., 3: 762.

117 Ibid, 3: 762, 768.

118 Ibid., 3: 776.

119 Ibid., 3: 776. Compare Crell, Johann, The Expiation of a Sinner in a Commentary upon the Epistle to the Hebrews (London, 1646), 3Google Scholar: “Christ is the character or image of Gods person; for God did as it were imprint his person upon Christ, that Christ might be his substitute upon earth to personate, represent and resemble the person of God.”

120 Hobbes, Leviathan, 2: 560.

121 Hobbes, Liberty and Necessity, 87. Indeed, Bramhall relied strongly on the argument that God's punishment of mankind was just because “He made the Covenant of works with mankind in Adam, and therefore he punisheth not man contrary to his own Covenant, but for the transgression of his duty.” Ibid., 101, Hobbes quoting Bramhall.

122 On Hobbes and Socinianism more broadly see Mortimer, Reason and Religion in the English Revolution, esp. 149–57.

123 Pierce, Thomas, Divine Purity Defended (London, 1659), 61Google Scholar. Burthogge, Compare Richard, An Argument for Infants Baptisme (London, 1684), 98–107Google Scholar.

124 van Limborch, Phillip, [Theologia Christiana] A compleat system of Divinity, vol. 1 (London, 1690),Google Scholar 198.

125 Nye, Stephen, A brief History of the Unitarians, called also Socinians in four letters (London, 1687), 56Google Scholar.

126 Burnet, Gilbert, Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England (London, 1699, dated 1700), 115Google Scholar.

127 Ibid., 115.

128 Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity, 5.

129 See Nelson, The Royalist Revolution, 80–107; 184–228.

130 Locke, John, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Laslett, Peter, rev. edn (Cambridge, 1967), 384Google Scholar, 347–8, 431. Locke in fact stated that men could not “think themselves in Civil Society, till the Legislature was placed in collective Bodies of Men.” Ibid., 347. This passage is in obvious tension with Locke's remarks in chap. 10 (see ibid., 372).

131 See, for example, ibid., 343, 388.

132 Ibid., 372.

133 Ibid., 343.

134 Ibid., 425–6.

135 Ibid., 191.