It Is Shown That The Right Over Matters Spiritual Lies Wholly With The
Sovereign, And That The Outward Forms Of Religion Should Be In Accordance
With Public Peace, If We Would Obey God Aright.
(1) When I said that the possessors of sovereign power have rights over everything, and
that all rights are dependent on their decree, I did not merely mean temporal rights, but
also spiritual rights; of the latter, no less than the former, they ought to be the interpreters
and the champions. (2) I wish to draw special attention to this point, and to discuss it
fully in this chapter, because many persons deny that the right of deciding religious
questions belongs to the sovereign power, and refuse to acknowledge it as the interpreter
of Divine right. (3) They accordingly assume full licence to accuse and arraign it, nay,
even to excommunicate it from the Church, as Ambrosius treated the Emperor
Theodosius in old time. (4) However, I will show later on in this chapter that they take
this means of dividing the government, and paving the way to their own ascendancy. (5) I
wish, however, first to point out that religion acquires its force as law solely from the
decrees of the sovereign. (6) God has no special kingdom among men except in so far as
He reigns through temporal rulers. [19:1] (7) Moreover, the rites of religion and the
outward observances of piety should be in accordance with the public peace and well-
being, and should therefore be determined by the sovereign power alone. (8) I speak here
only of the outward observances of piety and the external rites of religion, not of piety,
itself, nor of the inward worship of God, nor the means by which the mind is inwardly led
to do homage to God in singleness of heart.
(19:9) Inward worship of God and piety in itself are within the sphere of everyone's
private rights, and cannot be alienated (as I showed at the end of Chapter VII.). (10) What
I here mean by the kingdom of God is, I think, sufficiently clear from what has been said
in Chapter XIV. (11) I there showed that a man best fulfils Gods law who worships Him,
according to His command, through acts of justice and charity; it follows, therefore, that
wherever justice and charity have the force of law and ordinance, there is God's kingdom.
(19:12) I recognize no difference between the cases where God teaches and commands
the practice of justice and charity through our natural faculties, and those where He
makes special revelations; nor is the form of the revelation of importance so long as such
practice is revealed and becomes a sovereign and supreme law to men. (13) If, therefore,
I show that justice and charity can only acquire the force of right and law through the
rights of rulers, I shall be able readily to arrive at the conclusion (seeing that the rights of
rulers are in the possession of the sovereign), that religion can only acquire the force of
right by means of those who have the right to command, and that God only rules among
men through the instrumentality of earthly potentates. (14) It follows from what has been
said, that the practice of justice and charity only acquires the force of law through the
rights of the sovereign authority; for we showed in Chapter XVI. that in the state of
nature reason has no more rights than desire, but that men living either by the laws of the
former or the laws of the latter, possess rights co-extensive with their powers.
