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Hobbes explores a vision of the ideal state, in which people cede certain freedoms to a sovereign power in exchange for security and stability.

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Table of Contents

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power all his own time is evidently affirmed in the Scripture. First in the text last before cited, because the people promised obedience, not to Aaron, but to him. Secondly ( Exod. 24:1⁠–⁠2), “And God said unto Moses, Come up unto the Lord, thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. And Moses alone shall come near the Lord, but they shall not come nigh, neither shall the people go up with him.” By which it is plain, that Moses, who was alone called up to God (and not Aaron, nor the other priests, nor the seventy elders, nor the people who were forbidden to come up), was alone he that represented to the Israelites the person of God, that is to say, was their sole sovereign under God. And though afterwards it be said (verses 9, 10), “Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel, and there was under his feet, as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone,” etc. ; yet this was not till after Moses had been with God before, and had brought to the people the words which God had said to him. He only went for the business of the people; the others as the nobles of his retinue, were admitted for honour to that special grace, which was not allowed to the people; which was, as in the verse after appeareth, to see God and live, “God laid not his hand upon them, they saw God and did eat and drink,” that is, did live: but did not carry any commandment from Him to the people. Again, it is everywhere said “the Lord spake unto Moses,” as in all other occasions of government, so also in the ordering of the ceremonies of religion, contained in chapters 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 and 31 of Exodus, and throughout Leviticus: to Aaron seldom. The calf that Aaron made, Moses threw into the fire. Lastly, the question of the authority of Aaron, by occasion of his and Miriam’s mutiny against Moses, was ( Numb. 12) judged by God himself for Moses. So also in the question between Moses and the people, who had the right of governing the people, when Corah, Dathan, and Abiram, and two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly “gathered themselves together ( Numb. 16:3) against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, ye take too much upon you, seeing all the

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