Hobbes - Leviathan.pdf

nevertheless pay no part of the public expense; nor are liable to
the penalties, as other subjects, due to their crimes; and,
consequently, stand not in fear of any man, but the Pope; and adhere
to him only, to uphold his universal monarchy.
Fourthly, the giving to their priests (which is no more in the New
Testament but presbyters, that is, elders) the name of sacerdotes,
that is, sacrificers, which was the title of the civil sovereign,
and his public ministers, amongst the Jews, whilst God was their king.
Also, the making the Lord's Supper a sacrifice serveth to make the
people believe the Pope hath the same power over all Christians that
Moses and Aaron had over the Jews; that is to say, all power, both
civil and ecclesiastical, as the high priest then had.
Fifthly, the teaching that matrimony is a sacrament giveth to the
clergy the judging of the lawfulness of marriages; and thereby, of
what children are legitimate; and consequently, of the right of
succession to hereditary kingdoms.
Sixthly, the denial of marriage to priests serveth to assure this
power of the Pope over kings. For if a king be a priest, he cannot
marry and transmit his kingdom to his posterity; if he be not a
priest, then the Pope pretendeth this authority ecclesiastical over
him, and over his people.
Seventhly, from auricular confession they obtain, for the
assurance of their power, better intelligence of the designs of
princes and great persons in the civil state than these can have of
the designs of the state ecclesiastical.
Eighthly, by the canonization of saints, and declaring who are
martyrs, they assure their power in that they induce simple men into
an obstinacy against the laws and commands of their civil
sovereigns, even to death, if by the Pope's excommunication they be
declared heretics or enemies to the Church; that is, as they interpret
it, to the Pope.
Ninthly, they assure the same, by the power they ascribe to every
priest of making Christ; and by the power of ordaining penance, and of
remitting and retaining of sins.
Tenthly, by the doctrine of purgatory, of justification by
external works, and of indulgences, the clergy is enriched.
Eleventhly, by their demonology, and the use of exorcism, and
other things appertaining thereto, they keep, or think they keep,
the people more in awe of their power.
Lastly, the metaphysics, ethics, and politics of Aristotle, the
frivolous distinctions, barbarous terms, and obscure language of the
Schoolmen, taught in the universities (which have been all erected and
regulated by the Pope's authority), serve them to keep these errors
from being detected, and to make men mistake the ignis fatuus of
vain philosophy for the light of the Gospel.
To these, if they sufficed not, might be added other of their dark
doctrines, the profit whereof redoundeth manifestly to the setting
up of an unlawful power over the lawful sovereigns of Christian
people; or for the sustaining of the same when it is set up; or to the
worldly riches, honour, and authority of those that sustain it. And
therefore by the aforesaid rule of cui bono, we may justly pronounce
for the authors of all this spiritual darkness, the Pope, and Roman
clergy, and all those besides that endeavour to settle in the minds of
men this erroneous doctrine, that the Church now on earth is that
kingdom of God mentioned in the Old and New Testament.
But the emperors, and other Christian sovereigns, under whose
government these errors and the like encroachments of ecclesiastics