Hobbes - Leviathan.pdf

any power to give sentence.
From hence it followeth that one Church cannot be excommunicated
by another: for either they have equal power to excommunicate each
other, in which case excommunication is not discipline, nor an act
of authority, but schism, and dissolution of charity; or one is so
subordinate to the other as that they both have but one voice, and
then they be but one Church; and the part excommunicated is no more
a Church, but a dissolute number of individual persons.
And because the sentence of excommunication importeth an advice
not to keep company nor so much as to eat with him that is
excommunicate, if a sovereign prince or assembly be excommunicate, the
sentence is of no effect. For all subjects are bound to be in the
company and presence of their own sovereign, when he requireth it,
by the law of nature; nor can they lawfully either expel him from
any place of his own dominion, whether profane or holy; nor go out
of his dominion without his leave; much less, if he call them to
that honour, refuse to eat with him. And as to other princes and
states, because they are not parts of one and the same congregation,
they need not any other sentence to keep them from keeping company
with the state excommunicate: for the very institution, as it
uniteth many men into one community, so it dissociateth one
community from another: so that excommunication is not needful for
keeping kings and states asunder; nor has any further effect than is
in the nature of policy itself, unless it be to instigate princes to
war upon one another.
Nor is the excommunication of a Christian subject that obeyeth the
laws of his own sovereign, whether Christian or heathen, of any
effect. For if he believe that "Jesus is the Christ, he hath the
Spirit of God,"* "and God dwelleth in him, and he in God."*(2) But
he that hath the Spirit of God; he that dwelleth in God; he in whom
God dwelleth, can receive no harm by the excommunication of men.
Therefore, he that believeth Jesus to be the Christ is free from all
the dangers threatened to persons excommunicate. He that believeth
it not is no Christian. Therefore a true and unfeigned Christian is
not liable to excommunication: nor he also that is a professed
Christian, till his hypocrisy appear in his manners; that is, till his
behaviour be contrary to the law of his sovereign, which is the rule
of manners, and which Christ and his Apostles have commanded us to
be subject to. For the Church cannot judge of manners but by
external actions, which actions can never be unlawful but when they
are against the law of the Commonwealth.
-
* John, 5. 1
*(2) Ibid., 4. 15
-
If a man's father, or mother, or master be excommunicate, yet are
not the children forbidden to keep them company, nor to eat with them;
for that were, for the most part, to oblige them not to eat at all,
for want of means to get food; and to authorize them to disobey
their parents and masters, contrary to the precept of the Apostles.
In sum, the power of excommunication cannot be extended further than
to the end for which the Apostles and pastors of the Church have their
commission from our Saviour; which is not to rule by command and
coercion, but by teaching and direction of men in the way of salvation
in the world to come. And as a master in any science may abandon his
scholar when he obstinately neglecteth the practice of his rules,
but not accuse him of injustice, because he was never bound to obey