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How did Leviathan differ from De Cive in its discussion of religion?

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English philosopher Thomas Hobbes — Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes, detail of an oil painting by John Michael Wright; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

While Leviathan (1651) and De Cive (1642) share the same fundamental political theory regarding the necessity of a sovereign to ensure security, they differ in the depth of their treatment of religious matters.

Leviathan does not depart from the core arguments established in De Cive concerning the relationship between protection and obedience; however, it devotes significantly more attention to the civil obligations of Christian believers and the appropriate roles of a church within a state.12

In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes explicitly argues that believers do not jeopardize their prospects of salvation by strictly obeying the decrees of a civil sovereign. Furthermore, he maintains that churches possess no inherent authority independent of that granted by the civil sovereign, reinforcing his stance against the separation of church and state.12