And by these,and such other institutions,they obtained in order to their end,which was the peace of the Commonwealth,that the common people in their misfortunes,laying the fault on neglect,or error in their ceremonies,or on their own disobedience to the laws,were the less apt to mutiny against their governors.And being entertained with the pomp and pastime of festivals and public games made in honour of the gods,needed nothing else but bread to keep them from discontent,murmuring,and commotion against the state.And therefore the Romans,that had conquered the greatest part of the then known world,made no scruple of tolerating any religion whatsoever in the city of Rome itself,unless it had something in it that could not consist with their civil government;nor do we read that any religion was there forbidden but that of the Jews,who (being the peculiar kingdom of God)thought it unlawful to acknowledge subjection to any mortal king or state whatsoever.And thus you see how the religion of the Gentiles was a part of their policy.
But where God himself by supernatural revelation planted religion,there he also made to himself a peculiar kingdom,and gave laws,not only of behaviour towards himself,but also towards one another;and thereby in the kingdom of God,the policy and laws civil are a part of religion;and therefore the distinction of temporal and spiritual domination hath there no place.It is true that God is king of all the earth;yet may He be king of a peculiar and chosen nation.For there is no more incongruity therein than that he that hath the general command of the whole army should have withal a peculiar regiment or company of his own.God is king of all the earth by His power,but of His chosen people,He is king by covenant.But to speak more largely of the kingdom of God,both by nature and covenant,I have in the following discourse assigned another place.
From the propagation of religion,it is not hard to understand the causes of the resolution of the same into its first seeds or principles;which are only an opinion of a deity,and powers invisible and supernatural;that can never be so abolished out of human nature,but that new religions may again be made to spring out of them by the culture of such men as for such purpose are in reputation.
For seeing all formed religion is founded at first upon the faith which a multitude hath in some one person,whom they believe not only to be a wise man and to labour to procure their happiness,but also to be a holy man to whom God Himself vouchsafeth to declare His will supernaturally,it followeth necessarily when they that have the government of religion shall come to have either the wisdom of those men,their sincerity,or their love suspected,or that they shall be unable to show any probable token of divine revelation,that the religion which they desire to uphold must be suspected likewise and (without the fear of the civil sword)contradicted and rejected.
That which taketh away the reputation of wisdom in him that formeth a religion,or addeth to it when it is already formed,is the enjoining of a belief of contradictories:for both parts of a contradiction cannot possibly be true,and therefore to enjoin the belief of them is an argument of ignorance,which detects the author in that,and discredits him in all things else he shall propound as from revelation supernatural:which revelation a man may indeed have of many things above,but of nothing against natural reason.
That which taketh away the reputation of sincerity is the doing or saying of such things as appear to be signs that what they require other men to believe is not believed by themselves;all which doings or sayings are therefore called scandalous because they be stumbling-blocks that make men to fall in the way of religion:as injustice,cruelty,profaneness,avarice,and luxury.For who can believe that he that doth ordinarily such actions,as proceed from any of these roots,believeth there is any such invisible power to be feared as he affrighteth other men withal for lesser faults?
That which taketh away the reputation of love is the being detected of private ends:as when the belief they require of others conduceth,or seemeth to conduce,to the acquiring of dominion,riches,dignity,or secure pleasure to themselves only or specially.
For that which men reap benefit by to themselves they are thought to do for their own sakes,and not for love of others.
Lastly,the testimony that men can render of divine calling can be no other than the operation of miracles,or true prophecy (which also is a miracle),or extraordinary felicity.And therefore,to those points of religion which have been received from them that did such miracles,those that are added by such as approve not their calling by some miracle obtain no greater belief than what the custom and laws of the places in which they be educated have wrought into them.For as in natural things men of judgement require natural signs and arguments,so in supernatural things they require signs supernatural (which are miracles)before they consent inwardly and from their hearts.
All which causes of the weakening of men's faith do manifestly appear in the examples following.First,we have the example of the children of Israel,who,when Moses that had approved his calling to them by miracles,and by the happy conduct of them out of Egypt,was absent but forty days,revolted from the worship of the true God recommended to them by him,and,setting up a golden calf for their god,relapsed into the idolatry of the Egyptians from whom they had been so lately delivered.And again,after Moses,Aaron,Joshua,and that generation which had seen the great works of God in Israel were dead,another generation arose and served Baal.So that Miracles failing,faith also failed.
Again,when the sons of Samuel,being constituted by their father judges in Beer-sheba,received bribes and judged unjustly,the people of Israel refused any more to have God to be their king in other manner than He was king of other people,and therefore cried out to Samuel to choose them a king after the manner of the nations.So that justice failing,faith also failed,insomuch as they deposed their God from reigning over them.
And whereas in the planting of Christian religion the oracles ceased in all parts of the Roman Empire,and the number of Christians increased wonderfully every day and in every place by the preaching of the Apostles and Evangelists,a great part of that success may reasonably be attributed to the contempt into which the priests of the Gentiles of that time had brought themselves by their uncleanness,avarice,and juggling between princes.Also the religion of the Church of Rome was partly for the same cause abolished in England and many other parts of Christendom,insomuch as the failing of virtue in the pastors maketh faith fail in the people,and partly from bringing of the philosophy and doctrine of Aristotle into religion by the Schoolmen;from whence there arose so many contradictions and absurdities as brought the clergy into a reputation both of ignorance and of fraudulent intention,and inclined people to revolt from them,either against the will of their own princes as in France and Holland,or with their will as in England.
Lastly,amongst the points by the Church of Rome declared necessary for salvation,there be so many manifestly to the advantage of the Pope so many of his spiritual subjects residing in the territories of other Christian princes that,were it not for the mutual emulation of those princes,they might without war or trouble exclude all foreign authority,as easily as it has been excluded in England.For who is there that does not see to whose benefit it conduceth to have it believed that a king hath not his authority from Christ unless a bishop crown him?That a king,if he be a priest,cannot marry?That whether a prince be born in lawful marriage,or not,must be judged by authority from Rome?That subjects may be freed from their allegiance if by the court of Rome the king be judged a heretic?That a king,as Childeric of France,may be deposed by a Pope,as Pope Zachary,for no cause,and his kingdom given to one of his subjects?That the clergy,and regulars,in what country soever,shall be exempt from the jurisdiction of their king in cases criminal?
Or who does not see to whose profit redound the fees of private Masses,and vales of purgatory,with other signs of private interest enough to mortify the most lively faith,if,as I said,the civil magistrate and custom did not more sustain it than any opinion they have of the sanctity,wisdom,or probity of their teachers?So that I may attribute all the changes of religion in the world to one and the same cause,and that is unpleasing priests;and those not only amongst catholics,but even in that Church that hath presumed most of reformation.