47. know better than they, that power is preserved by PART IV. the same virtues by which it is acquired; that is to say, by wisdom, humility, clearness of doctrine, and sincerity of conversation; and not by suppression of the natural sciences, and of the morality of natural reason; nor by obscure language; nor by arrogating to themselves more knowledge than they make appear; nor by pious frauds; nor by such other faults, as in the pastors of God's Church are not only faults, but also scandals, apt to make men stumble one time or other upon the suppression of their authority. of the papacy dom of fairies. But after this doctrine, that the Church now mi- Comparison litant, is the kingdom of God spoken of in the Old with the kingand New Testament, was received in the world; the ambition, and canvassing for the offices that belong thereunto, and especially for that great office of being Christ's lieutenant, and the pomp of them that obtained therein the principal public charges, became by degrees so evident, that they lost the inward reverence due to the pastoral function: insomuch as the wisest men, of them that had any power in the civil state, needed nothing but the authority of their princes, to deny them any further obedience. For, from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten to be acknowledged for bishop universal, by pretence of succession to St. Peter, their whole hierarchy, or kingdom of darkness, may be compared not unfitly to the kingdom of fairies; that is, to the old wives' fables in England, concerning ghosts and spirits, and the feats they play in the night. And if a man consider the original of this great ecclesiastical dominion, he will easily perceive, that the Papacy is no other than the ghost 47. PART IV. of the deceased Roman empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof. For so did the Papacy start up on a sudden out of the ruins of that heathen Comparison of the papacy dom of fairies. The language also, which they use, both in the churches, and in their public acts, being Latin, which is not commonly used by any nation now in the world, what is it but the ghost of the old Roman language? The fairies in what nation soever they converse, have but one universal king, which some poets of ours call King Oberon; but the Scripture calls Beelzebub, prince of demons. The ecclesiastics likewise, in whose dominions soever they be found, acknowledge but one universal king, the Pope. The ecclesiastics are spiritual men, and ghostly fathers. The fairies are spirits, and ghosts. Fairies and ghosts inhabit darkness, solitudes, and graves. The ecclesiastics walk in obscurity of doctrine, in monasteries, churches, and church-yards. The ecclesiastics have their cathedral churches, which, in what town soever they be erected, by virtue of holy water, and certain charms called exorcisms, have the power to make those towns, cities, that is to say, seats of empire. The fairies also have their enchanted castles, and certain gigantic ghosts, that domineer over the regions round about them. The fairies are not to be seized on; and brought to answer for the hurt they do. So also the ecclesiastics vanish away from the tribunals of civil justice. The ecclesiastics take from young men the use of reason, by certain charms compounded of meta 47. physics, and miracles, and traditions, and abused PART IV. Scripture, whereby they are good for nothing else, but to execute what they command them. The Comparison fairies likewise are said to take young children out with the kingof their cradles, and to change them into natural dom of fairies. fools, which common people do therefore call elves, and are apt to mischief. In what shop, or operatory the fairies make their enchantment, the old wives have not determined. But the operatories of the clergy are well enough known to be the universities, that received their discipline from authority pontificial. When the fairies are displeased with any body, they are said to send their elves, to pinch them. The ecclesiastics, when they are displeased with any civil state, make also their elves, that is, superstitious, enchanted subjects, to pinch their princes, by preaching sedition; or one prince enchanted with promises, to pinch another. The fairies marry not; but there be amongst them incubi, that have copulation with flesh and blood. The priests also marry not. The ecclesiastics take the cream of the land, by donations of ignorant men, that stand in awe of them, and by tithes. So also it is in the fable of fairies, that they enter into the dairies, and feast upon the cream, which they skim from the milk. What kind of money is current in the kingdom of fairies, is not recorded in the story. But the ecclesiastics in their receipts accept of the same money that we do; though when they are to make any payment, it is in canonizations, indulgencies, and masses. To this, and such like resemblances between the of the papacy 47. PART IV. papacy, and the kingdom of fairies, may be added this, that as the fairies have no existence, but in Comparison the fancies of ignorant people, rising from the of the papacy with the king traditions of old wives, or old poets: so the spidom of fairies. ritual power of the Pope, without the bounds of his own civil dominion, consisteth only in the fear that seduced people stand in, of their excommunications; upon hearing of false miracles, false traditions, and false interpretations of the Scripture. It was not therefore a very difficult matter, for Henry VIII by his exorcism; nor for queen Elizabeth by hers, to cast them out. But who knows that this spirit of Rome, now gone out, and walking by missions through the dry places of China, Japan, and the Indies, that yield him little fruit, may not return, or rather an assembly of spirits worse than he, enter, and inhabit this clean swept house, and make the end thereof worse than the beginning? For it is not the Roman clergy only, that pretends the kingdom of God to be of this world, and thereby to have a power therein, distinct from that of the civil state. And this is all I had a design to say, concerning the doctrine of the POLITICS. Which when I have reviewed, I shall willingly expose it to the censure of my country. A REVIEW, AND CONCLUSION. Review, and FROM the contrariety of some of the natural facul- PART IV. ties of the mind, one to another, as also of one passion to another, and from their reference to conclusion. conversation, there has been an argument taken, to infer an impossibility that any one man should be sufficiently disposed to all sorts of civil duty. The severity of judgment, they say, makes men censorious, and unapt to pardon the errors and infirmities of other men: and on the other side, celerity of fancy, makes the thoughts less steady than is necessary, to discern exactly between right and wrong. Again, in all deliberations, and in all pleadings, the faculty of solid reasoning is necessary: for without it, the resolutions of men are rash, and their sentences unjust and yet if there be not powerful eloquence, which procureth attention and consent, the effect of reason will be little. But these are contrary faculties; the former being grounded upon principles of truth; the other upon opinions already received, true or false; and upon the passions and interests of men, which are different, and mutable. And amongst the passions, courage, (by which I mean the contempt of wounds, and violent death) inclineth men to private revenges, and sometimes to endeavour the unsettling of the public peace : and timorousness, many times disposeth to the de |