Hobbes - Leviathan.pdf

Joash, or it was a horrible crime in the high priest, which ever after
the election of King Saul was a mere subject. The fact of St.
Ambrose in excommunicating Theodosius the Emperor, if it were true
he did so, was a capital crime. And for the Popes, Gregory I,
Gregory II, Zachary, and Leo III, their judgements are void, as
given in their own cause; and the acts done by them conformably to
this doctrine are the greatest crimes, especially that of Zachary,
that are incident to human nature. And thus much of power
ecclesiastical; wherein I had been more brief, forbearing to examine
these arguments of Bellarmine, if they had been his as a private
man, and not as the champion of the Papacy against all other Christian
princes and states.
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* II Kings, 11
CHAPTER XLIII
OF WHAT IS NECESSARY FOR A MAN'S RECEPTION
INTO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
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THE most frequent pretext of sedition and civil war in Christian
Commonwealths hath a long time proceeded from a difficulty, not yet
sufficiently resolved, of obeying at once both God and man then when
their commandments are one contrary to the other. It is manifest
enough that when a man receiveth two contrary commands, and knows that
one of them is God's, he ought to obey that, and not the other, though
it be the command even of his lawful sovereign (whether a monarch or a
sovereign assembly), or the command of his father. The difficulty
therefore consisteth in this, that men, when they are commanded in the
name of God, know not in diverse cases whether the command be from
God, or whether he that commandeth do but abuse God's name for some
private ends of his own. For as there were in the Church of the Jews
many false prophets that sought reputation with the people by
feigned dreams and visions; so there have been in all times, in the
Church of Christ, false teachers that seek reputation with the
people by fantastical and false doctrines; and by such reputation,
as is the nature of ambition, to govern them for their private
benefit.
But this difficulty of obeying both God and the civil sovereign on
earth, to those that can distinguish between what is necessary and
what is not necessary for their reception into the kingdom of God,
is of no moment. For if the command of the civil sovereign be such
as that it may be obeyed without the forfeiture of life eternal, not
to obey it is unjust; and the precept of the apostle takes place:
"Servants, obey your masters in all things"; and "Children, obey
your parents in all things"; and the precept of our Saviour, "The
Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' chair; all therefore they shall
say, that observe, and do." But if the command be such as cannot be
obeyed, without being damned to eternal death, then it were madness to
obey it, and the counsel of our Saviour takes place, "Fear not those
that kill the body, but cannot kill the soul."* All men therefore that
would avoid both the punishments that are to be in this world
inflicted for disobedience to their earthly sovereign, and those
that shall be inflicted in the world to come for disobedience to
God, have need be taught to distinguish well between what is, and what
is not, necessary to eternal salvation.
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* Matthew, 10. 28