Thomas Hobbes employs the counsel/command theory to argue that clergies are to be subordinate to the sovereign. He shows that bishops are counsellors and the word of the Bible is counsel. The theory of counsel functions as the denial of bishops' right to interpret the Bible and their power of excommunication. While Hobbes in De Cive admits some room for ordained bishops to influence the church governance, he in Leviathan totally denies their iure divino authority. He uses this reasoning to criticise not only Catholicism but also Anglican Episcopacy and Presbyterianism, which shows that he is free from any existing sects.

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This paper aims at examining the ideas of the Independents during the Puritan Revolution (1640-60) from the point of view of millenarianism. Up until the 1970's most studies observed the Independents from the point of view of political thought or church government, and tend to point out their compromising attitudes. This paper, however, depends on recent studies which regard them as the main supporters of millenarianism, and stresses their active and revolutionary characters. This paper first shows the Independent millenarianism contained in the thought of Thomas Goodwin (1600-80). He was a leader of the religious Independents. His millenarianism is charactarized by Biblicism, Anti-Catholicism and Fifth Monarchism. Secondly, his millenarianism is connected with his idea of church. He insisted on gathering Saints in independent churches, because he thought that they became the base of the Kingdom of Christ. Thirdly, his millenarianism was shared with his fellow Independent divines in the 1640's, permeated the members of parliament and the army, and contributed to the downfall of the monarchy. Further, many independent churches were set up by the Independent divine's including Goodwin. They criticized the parish churches, which were opposed to independent churches, with millenarian ideas and as a result struck a blow to the State-Church-System, which was the main pillar of Absolutism. So Independent millenarianism seems to have functioned as a form of revolutionary thought. Finally, as the Independents triumphed in the 1650's, Goodwin kept silent about millenarianism, and millenarianism was taken up by the Fifth Monarchists, who reproached the Independents. However, Independent millenarianism contributed to the downfall of the monarchy and Absolutism, especially in the 1640's. Therefore, it can be said to have functioned as a form of revolutionary thought and, in that sense, to have deserved a place in the development of modern political thought.

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