of making Christ; and by the power of ordaining penance; and of remitting and retaining of sins.

Tenthly, by the doctrine of purgatory, of justification by external works, and of indulgences, the clergy is enriched.

Eleventhly, by their demonology, and the use of exorcism, and other things appertaining thereto, they keep, or think they keep, the people more in awe of their power.

Lastly, the metaphysics, ethics, and politics of Aristotle, the frivolous distinctions, barbarous terms, and obscure language of the schoolmen, taught in the universities, which have been all erected and regulated by the Pope's authority, serve them to keep these errors from being detected, and to make men mistake the ignis fatuus of vain philosophy for the light of the Gospel.

To these, if they sufficed not, might be added other of their dark doctrines, the profit whereof redoundeth manifestly to the setting up of an unlawful power over the lawful sovereigns of Christian people; or for the sustaining of the same, when it is set up; or to the worldly riches, honour, and authority of those that sustain it. And therefore by the aforesaid rule of cui bono we may justly pronounce for the authors of all this spiritual darkness, the Pope and Roman clergy, and all those besides that endeavour to settle in the minds of men this erroneous doctrine that the Church now on earth is that kingdom of God mentioned in the Old and New Testament.

But the emperors, and other Christian sovereigns, under whose government these errors, and the like encroachments of ecclesiastics upon their office, at first crept in, to the disturbance of their possessions and of the tranquillity of their subjects, though they suffered the same for want of foresight of the sequel, and of insight into the designs of their teachers, may nevertheless be esteemed accessories to their own and the public damage. For without their authority there could at first no seditious doctrine have been publicly preached. I say they might have hindered the same in the beginning but when the people were once possessed by those spiritual men there was no human remedy to be applied, that any man could invent. And for the remedies that God should provide, who never faileth in His good time to destroy all the machinations of men against the truth, we are to attend His good pleasure, that suffereth many times the prosperity of His enemies, together with their ambition, to grow to such a height as the violence thereof openeth the eyes, which the wariness of their predecessors had before sealed up, and makes men by too much grasping let go all, as Peter's net was broken by the struggling of too great a multitude of fishes; whereas the impatience of those that strive to resist such encroachment before their subjects' eyes were opened, did but increase the power they resisted. I do not therefore blame the emperor Frederick for holding the stirrup to our countryman Pope Adrian; for such was the disposition of his subjects then, as if he had not done it, he was not likely to have succeeded in the empire. But I blame those that in the beginning, when their power was entire, by suffering such doctrines to be forged in the universities of their own dominions, have holden the stirrup to all the succeeding Popes, whilst they mounted into the thrones of all Christian sovereigns, to ride and tire both them and their people at their pleasure.

But as the inventions of men are woven, so also are they ravelled out; the way is the same, but the order is inverted. The web begins at the first elements of power, which are wisdom, humility, sincerity, and other virtues of the Apostles, whom the people, converted, obeyed out of reverence, not by obligation. Their consciences were free, and their words and actions subject to none but the civil power. Afterwards the presbyters, as the

flocks of Christ increased, assembling to consider what they should teach, and thereby obliging themselves to teach nothing against the decrees of their assemblies, made it to be thought the people were thereby obliged to follow their doctrine, and when they refused, refused to keep them company (that was then called excommunication), not as being infidels, but as being disobedient: and this was the first knot upon their liberty. And the number of presbyters increasing, the presbyters of the chief city or province got themselves an authority over the parochial presbyters, and appropiated to themselves the names of bishops: and this was a second knot on Christian liberty. Lastly, the Bishop of Rome, in regard of the imperial city, took upon him an authority (partly by the wills of the emperors themselves, and by the title of Pontifex Maximus, and at last when the emperors were grown weak by the privileges of St. Peter), over all other bishops of the empire which was the third and last knot, and the whole "synthesis" and "construction" of the pontifical power.

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And therefore the "analysis," or "resolution," is by the same way; but beginneth with the knot that was last tied; as we may see in the dissolution of the præterpolitical Church government in England. First, the power of the Popes was dissolved totally by Queen Elizabeth; and the bishops, who before exercised their functions in right of the Pope, did afterwards exercise the same in right of the Queen and her successors; though by retaining the phrase of jure divino, they were thought to demand it by immediate right from God: and so was untied the third knot. After this, the presbyterians, lately in England obtained the putting down of episcopacy and so was the second knot dissolved. : And almost at the same time the power was taken also from the presbyterians: and so we are reduced to the independency of the primitive Christians, to follow Paul, or Cephas, or Apollo, every man as he liketh best which, if it be without contention, and without measuring the doctrine of Christ, by our affection to the person of His minister (the fault which the apostle reprehended in the Corinthians), is perhaps the best. First, because there ought to be no power over the consciences of men, but of the Word itself, working faith in every one, not always according to the purpose of them that plant and water, but of God himself, that giveth the increase. And secondly, because it is unreasonable in them, who teach there is such danger in every little error, to require of a man endued with reason of his own, to follow the reason of any other man, or of the most voices of any other men, which is little better than to venture his salvation at cross and pile. Nor ought those teachers to be displeased with this loss of their ancient authority. For there is none should know better than they, that power is preserved by 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.

But after this doctrine, "that the Church now militant is the kingdom of God spoken of in the Old and 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" 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 power.

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.

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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 churchyards.

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 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 metaphysics, and miracles, and traditions, and abused Scripture, whereby they are good for nothing else but to execute what they command them. The "fairies" likewise are said to take young children out of their cradles, and to change them into natural 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 pontifical.

When the "fairies" are displeased with anybody, 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, indulgences, and masses.

To this, and such like resemblances between the Papacy and the kingdom of "fairies," may be added this, that as the "fairies" have no existence but in the fancies of ignorant people, rising from the traditions of old wives, or old poets: so the spiritual 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.

FROM the contrariety of some of the natural faculties of the mind, one to another, as also of one passion to another, and from their reference to 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 desertion of the public defence. Both these, they say, cannot stand together in the same person.

And to consider the contrariety of men's opinions and manners in general, it is, they say, impossible to entertain a constant civil amity with all those with whom the business of the world constrains us to converse; which business consisteth almost in nothing else but a perpetual contention for honour, riches, and authority.

To which I answer, that these are indeed great difficulties, but not impossibilities; for by education and discipline, they may be, and are sometimes reconciled. Judgment and fancy may have place in the same man; but by turns, as the end which he aimeth at requireth. As the Israelites in Egypt were sometimes fastened to their labour of making bricks, and other times were ranging abroad to gather straw; so also may the judgment sometimes be fixed upon one certain consideration, and the fancy at another time wandering about the world. So also reason and eloquence, though not perhaps in the natural sciences, yet in the moral, may stand very well together. For wheresoever there is place for adorning and preferring of error, there is much more place for adorning and preferring of truth, if they have it to adorn. Nor is there any repugnancy between fearing the laws, and not fearing a public enemy; nor between abstaining from injury, and pardoning it in others. There is therefore no such inconsistence of human nature, with civil duties, as some think. I have known clearness of judgment, and largeness of fancy; strength of reason, and graceful elocution; a courage for the war, and a fear for the laws, and all eminently in one man; and that was my most noble and honoured friend, Mr. Sidney Godolphin; who hating no man, nor hated of any, was unfortunately slain