Hobbes - Leviathan.pdf

for want of a soul to hold them together. Therefore there is nothing
in this similitude from whence to infer a dependence of the laity on
the clergy, or of the temporal officers on the spiritual, but of
both on the civil sovereign; which ought indeed to direct his civil
commands to the salvation of souls; but is not therefore subject to
any but God Himself. And thus you see the laboured fallacy of the
first argument, to deceive such men as distinguish not between the
subordination of actions in the way to the end; and the subjection
of persons one to another in the administration of the means. For to
every end, the means are determined by nature, or by God Himself
supernaturally: but the power to make men use the means is in every
nation resigned, by the law of nature, which forbiddeth men to violate
their faith given, to the civil sovereign.
His second argument is this: "Every Commonwealth, because it is
supposed to be perfect and sufficient in itself, may command any other
Commonwealth not subject to it, and force it to change the
administration of the government; nay depose the prince, and set
another in his room, if it cannot otherwise defend itself against
the injuries he goes about to do them: much more may a spiritual
Commonwealth command a temporal one to change the administration of
their government, and may depose princes, and institute others, when
they cannot otherwise defend the spiritual good."
That a Commonwealth, to defend itself against injuries, may lawfully
do all that he hath here said is very true; and hath already in that
which hath gone before been sufficiently demonstrated. And if it
were also true that there is now in this world a spiritual
Commonwealth, distinct from a civil Commonwealth, then might the
prince thereof, upon injury done him, or upon want of caution that
injury be not done him in time to come, repair and secure himself by
war; which is, in sum, deposing, killing, or subduing, or doing any
act of hostility. But by the same reason, it would be no less lawful
for a civil sovereign, upon the like injuries done, or feared, to make
war upon the spiritual sovereign; which I believe is more than
Cardinal Bellarmine would have inferred from his own proposition.
But spiritual Commonwealth there is none in this world: for it is
the same thing with the kingdom of Christ; which he himself saith is
not of this world, but shall be in the next world, at the
resurrection, when they that have lived justly, and believed that he
was the Christ, shall, though they died natural bodies, rise spiritual
bodies; and then it is that our Saviour shall judge the world, and
conquer his adversaries, and make a spiritual Commonwealth. In the
meantime, seeing there are no men on earth whose bodies are spiritual,
there can be no spiritual Commonwealth amongst men that are yet in the
flesh; unless we call preachers, that have commission to teach and
prepare men for their reception into the kingdom of Christ at the
resurrection, a Commonwealth; which I have proved already to be none.
The third argument is this: "It is not lawful for Christians to
tolerate an infidel or heretical king, in case he endeavour to draw
them to his heresy, or infidelity. But to judge whether a king draw
his subjects to heresy, or not, belongeth to the Pope. Therefore
hath the Pope right to determine whether the prince be to be
deposed, or not deposed."
To this I answer that both these assertions false. For Christians,
or men of what religion soever, if they tolerate not their king,
whatsoever law he maketh, though it be concerning religion, do violate
their faith, contrary to the divine law, both natural and positive:
nor is there any judge of heresy amongst subjects but their own