XIV. Now, since the consciences of believers, being privileged with the liberty which we have described, have been delivered by the favour of Christ from all necessary obligation to the observance of those things in which the Lord has been pleased they should be left free, we conclude that they are exempt from all human authority. For it is not right that Christ should lose the acknowledgments due to such kindness, or our consciences the benefit of it. Neither is that to be accounted a trivial thing, which we see cost Christ so much; which he estimated not with gold or silver, but with his own blood;[251] so that Paul hesitates not to assert, that his death is rendered vain, if we suffer our souls to be in subjection to men.[252] For his sole object in some chapters of his Epistle to the Galatians is to prove that Christ is obscured, or rather abolished, with respect to us, unless our consciences continue in their liberty; from which they are certainly fallen, if they can be insnared in the bonds of laws and ordinances at the pleasure of men.[253] But as it is a subject highly worthy of being understood, so it needs a more diffuse and perspicuous explanation. For as soon as a word is mentioned concerning the abrogation of human establishments, great tumults are excited, partly by seditious persons, partly by cavillers; as though all obedience of men were at once subverted and destroyed. XV. To prevent any one from falling into this error, let us therefore consider, in the first place, that man is under two kinds of government—one spiritual, by which the conscience is formed to piety and the service of God; the other political, by which a man is instructed in the duties of humanity and civility, which are to be observed in an intercourse with mankind. They are generally, and not improperly, denominated the spiritual and the temporal jurisdiction; indicating that the former species of government pertains to the life of the soul, and that the latter relates to the concerns of the present state; not only to the provision of food and clothing, but to the enactment of laws to regulate a man’s life among his neighbours by the rules of holiness, integrity, and sobriety. For the former has its seat in the interior of the mind, whilst the latter only directs the external conduct: one may be termed a spiritual kingdom, and the other a political one. But these two, as we have distinguished them, always require to be considered separately; and while the one is under discussion, the mind must be abstracted from all consideration of the other. For man contains, as it were, two worlds, capable of being governed by various rulers and various laws. This distinction will prevent what the gospel inculcates concerning spiritual liberty from being misapplied to political regulations; as though Christians were less subject to the external government of human laws, because their consciences have been set at