24. Every man, although unaware of it, thinks of a company of men as a man. Therefore he at once perceives the meaning when it is said that a king is the head and the subjects the body, and also when it is said that this or that person is of such a quality in the general body, that is, in the kingdom. As it is with the body politic, so it is with the body spiritual. The body spiritual is the Church, its head is God-Man. From this it is clear how the Church as a man would appear in this perception if the One God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, were not thought of, but instead of one, several gods. Understood in that way, the Church would appear as one body with many heads, thus not as a man but as a monster. If it be said that these heads have one essence, by which means they together make one head, no other idea could result from this except of one head with several faces or of one face with several heads. Thus, in that perception, the Church would be presented as deformed, when yet the One God is the head and the Church is the body which acts, not from itself, but under command of the head, as is also the case in man. Hence it is also that there is only one king in one kingdom. For several kings would rend it asunder while one king can hold it together.