Page:The ethics of Hobbes (IA ethicsofhobbes00hobb).pdf/395

at the persuasions of persons ecclesiastical, yet is he not thereby subject to their government and rule. For if it were by their authority he took that yoke upon him, and not by their persuasion, then by the same authority he might cast it off. But this is unlawful. For if all the churches in the world should renounce the Christian faith, yet is not this sufficient authority for any of the members to do the same. It is manifest therefore, that they who have the sovereign power, are immediate rulers of the church under Christ, and all other but subordinate to them. If that were not, but kings should command one thing upon pain of death, and priests another, upon pain of damnation, it would be impossible that peace and religion should stand together.

11. And therefore there is no just cause for any man to withdraw his obedience from the sovereign state, upon pretence that Christ hath ordained any state ecclesiastical above it. And though kings take not upon them the ministerial priesthood, yet are they not so merely laic, as not to have sacerdotal jurisdiction. To conclude this chapter, since God speaketh not in these days to any man by his private interpretation of the Scriptures, nor by the interpretation of any power above, or not depending on the sovereign power of every commonwealth, it remaineth, that he speaketh by his vice-gods, or lieutenants here on earth, that is to say, by sovereign kings, or such as have sovereign authority as well as they.