Hobbes - Leviathan.pdf

preaching, and other functions pertaining to that office, and that
they are but his ministers; in the same manner as magistrates of
towns, judges in courts of justice, and commanders of armies are all
but ministers of him that is the magistrate of the whole Commonwealth,
judge of all causes, and commander of the whole militia, which is
always the civil sovereign. And the reason hereof is not because
they that teach, but because they that are to learn, are his subjects.
For let it be supposed that a Christian king commit the authority of
ordaining pastors in his dominions to another king (as diverse
Christian kings allow that power to the Pope), he doth not thereby
constitute a pastor over himself, nor a sovereign pastor over his
people; for that were to deprive himself of the civil power; which,
depending on the opinion men have of their duty to him, and the fear
they have of punishment in another world, would depend also on the
skill and loyalty of doctors who are no less subject, not only to
ambition, but also to ignorance, than any other sort of men. So that
where a stranger hath authority to appoint teachers, it is given him
by the sovereign in whose dominions he teacheth. Christian doctors are
our schoolmasters to Christianity; but kings are fathers of
families, and may receive schoolmasters for their subjects from the
recommendation of a stranger, but not from the command; especially
when the ill teaching them shall redound to the great and manifest
profit of him that recommends them: nor can they be obliged to
retain them longer than it is for the public good, the care of which
they stand so long charged withal as they retain any other essential
right of the sovereignty.
If a man therefore should ask a pastor, in the execution of his
office, as the chief priests and elders of the people asked our
Saviour, "By what authority doest thou these things, and who gave thee
this authority":* he can make no other just answer but that he doth
it by the authority of the Commonwealth, given him by the king or
assembly that representeth it. All pastors, except the supreme,
execute their charges in the right, that is, by the authority of the
civil sovereign, that is, jure civili. But the king, and every other
sovereign, executeth his office of supreme pastor by immediate
authority from God, that is to say, in God's right, or jure divino.
And therefore none but kings can put into their titles, a mark of
their submission to God only, Dei gratia Rex, etc. Bishops ought to
say in the beginning of their mandates, "By the favour of the King's
Majesty, Bishop of such a diocese"; or as civil ministers, "In His
Majesty's name." For in saying, Divina providentia, which is the
same with Dei gratia, though disguised, they deny to have received
their authority from the civil state, and slyly slip off the collar of
their civil subjection, contrary to the unity and defence of the
Commonwealth.
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* Matthew, 21. 23
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But if every Christian sovereign be the supreme pastor of his own
subjects, it seemeth that he hath also the authority, not only to
preach, which perhaps no man will deny, but also to baptize, and to
administer sacrament of administer the sacrament of the Lord's
Supper and to consecrate both temples and pastors to God's service;
which most men deny, partly because they use not to do it, and
partly because the administration of sacraments, and consecration of
persons and places to holy uses, requireth the imposition of such
men's hands as by the like imposition successively from the time of