And that men,
pretending under the notion of saints or religion to civil power,
have hitherto never failed to dishonor that profession, the world
is full of examples, whereof I shall confine myself at present
only to a couple, the one of old, the other of new Rome.
In old Rome, the patricians or nobility pretending to be the
godly party, were questioned by the people for engrossing all the
magistracies of that commonwealth, and had nothing to say why
they did so, but that magistracy required a kind of holiness
which was not in the people; at which the people were filled with
such indignation as had come to cutting of throats, if the
nobility had not immediately laid by the insolency of that plea;
which nevertheless when they had done, the people for a long time
after continued to elect no other but patrician magistrates.
The example of new Rome in the rise and practice of the
hierarchy (too well known to require any further illustration) is
far more immodest.
This has been the course of nature; and when it has pleased
or shall please God to introduce anything that is above the
course of nature, he will, as he has always done, confirm it by
miracle; for so in his prophecy of the reign of Christ upon earth
he expressly promises, seeing that "the souls of them that were
beheaded for Jesus, shall be seen to live and reign with him;"
which will be an object of sense, the rather, because the rest of
the dead are not to live again till the thousand years be
finished.
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