Hobbes - Leviathan.pdf

*(4) Matthew, 18. 17
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And in this last sense only it is that the Church can be taken for
one person; that is to say, that it can be said to have power to will,
to pronounce, to command, to be obeyed, to make laws, or to do any
other action whatsoever; for without authority from a lawful
congregation, whatsoever act be done in a concourse of people, it is
the particular act of every one of those that were present, and gave
their aid to the performance of it; and not the act of them all in
gross, as of one body; much less the act of them that were absent,
or that, being present, were not willing it should be done.
According to this sense, I define a Church to be: a company of men
professing Christian religion, united in the person of one
sovereign; at whose command they ought to assemble, and without
whose authority they ought not to assemble. And because in all
Commonwealths that assembly which is without warrant from the civil
sovereign is unlawful; that Church also which is assembled in any
Commonwealth that hath forbidden them to assemble is an unlawful
assembly.
It followeth also that there is on earth no such universal Church as
all Christians are bound to obey, because there is no power on earth
to which all other Commonwealths are subject. There are Christians
in the dominions of several princes and states, but every one of
them is subject to that Commonwealth whereof he is himself a member,
and consequently cannot be subject to the commands of any other
person. And therefore a Church, such a one as is capable to command,
to judge, absolve, condemn, or do any other act, is the same thing
with a civil Commonwealth consisting of Christian men; and is called a
civil state, for that the subjects of it are men; and a Church, for
that the subjects thereof are Christians. Temporal and spiritual
government are but two words brought into the world to make men see
double and mistake their lawful sovereign. It is true that the
bodies of the faithful, after the resurrection, shall be not only
spiritual, but eternal; but in this life they are gross and
corruptible. There is therefore no other government in this life,
neither of state nor religion, but temporal; nor teaching of any
doctrine lawful to any subject which the governor both of the state
and of the religion forbiddeth to be taught. And that governor must be
one; or else there must needs follow faction and civil war in the
Commonwealth between the Church and State; between spiritualists and
temporalists; between the sword of justice and the shield of faith;
and, which is more, in every Christian man's own breast between the
Christian and the man. The doctors of the Church are called pastors;
so also are civil sovereigns: but if pastors be not subordinate one to
another, so as that there may be one chief pastor, men will be
taught contrary doctrines, whereof both may be, and one must be,
false. Who that one chief pastor is, according to the law of nature,
hath been already shown; namely, that it is the civil sovereign: and
to whom the Scripture hath assigned that office, we shall see in the
chapters following.
CHAPTER XL
OF THE RIGHTS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD, IN ABRAHAM, MOSES,
THE HIGH PRIESTS, AND THE KINGS OF JUDAH
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THE FATHER of the faithful, and first in the kingdom of God by
covenant, was Abraham. For with him was the covenant first made;