hing of the sort, but it matters little
what he was technically, since no plain man who can read can doubt that
Hobbes's enthronement of the State was the dethronement of God:--

"Seeing then that in every Christian commonwealth the civil sovereign
is the supreme factor to whose charge the whole flock of his subjects
is commuted, and consequently that it is by his authority that all
other pastors are made and have power to teach and perform all other
pastoral offices, it followeth also that it is from the civil
sovereign that all other pastors derive their right of teaching,
preaching and other functions pertaining to that office, and that
they are but his ministers in the same way as the magistrates of
towns, judges in Court of Justice and commanders of assizes 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."--(_The Leviathan_, Hobbes's _English Works_ (Molesworth's
Edition), vol. iii. p. 539.)

Hobbes shirks nothing, and asks himself the question, What if a king, or
a senate or other sovereign person forbid us to believe in Christ? The
answer given is, "such forbidding is of no effect; because belief and
unbelief never follow men's commands." But suppose "we be commanded by
our lawful prince to say with our tongue we believe not, must we obey
such command?" Here Hobbes a little hesitates to say outright "Yes, you
must"; but he does say "whatsoever a subject is compelled to do in
obedience to his own Sovereign, and doth it not in order to his own
mind, but in order to the laws of his country, that action is not his,
but his Sovereign's--nor is it that he in this case denieth Christ
before men, but his Governor and the law of his country." Hobbes then
puts the case of a Mahomedan subject of a Christian Commonwealth who is
required under pain of death to be present at the Divine Service of the
Christian Church--what is he to do? If, says Hobbes, you say he ought
to die, then you authorise all private men to disobey their princes in
maintenance of their religion, true or false, and if you say the
Mahomedan ought to obey, you admit Hobbes's proposition and ought to
consent to be yourself bound by it. (See Hobbes's _English Works_, iii.
493.)

The C