186 POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL SOCIETY. Each will prosecute its cause by its advantages, the one by in- struments of temporal power, the other by spiritual arms of censures and curses. And inwhat a case must the poor people then be! howdistracted in their consciences, how divided in their affections, how discordant in their practices! according as each pretence has influence upon them, by its different arguments or peculiar advantages. How can any man satisfy himself in performing or refusingobedi- ence to either? How many, by the intricacy of the point and con- trary pulling, will be withdrawn from yielding due compliance on the one hand or the other! What shall a man do, while one, in case of disobedience to his com- mands, brandishes a sword, the other thunders out a curse against him? one threatens death, the other excision from the church; both denounce damnation. What animosities and contentions, what discomposures and con- fusions, must this constitution of things breed in every place! and how can " a kingdom so divided in itself stand," or not " come into desolation ?" Matt. xii. 25. Such an advantage infallibly will make popes affect to invade the temporal power. It was the reason which Pope Paschal alleged against Henry IV., becausehe did ecclesice regnum auferre,-1" take the kingdom from the church."]' It is, indeed, impossible that a co-ordination of these powers should subsist; for each will be continually encroachingon the other,each, for its own defence and support, will continually be struggling and clambering to get above the other. There will never be any quiet till one come to subside and truckle under the other, whereby the sovereignty of the one or the other will be destroyed. Each of them soon will come to claim a supremacy in all causes, and the power of both swords; and one side will carry it. It is, indeed, necessary that, men for a time continuing possessed with a reverence to the ecclesiastical authority, as independent and uncontrollable, it should at last overthrow the temporal, by reason of its great advantages above it; for The spiritual power pretends an establishment purely divine, which cannot by any accidents undergo any change, diminution, or translation, to which temporal dominions are subject. Its power, therefore, being perpetual, irreversible, depending immediately of God, can hardlybe checked, can never be conquered.' 1 P. Pasch. II., Ep. vii. 2 Vid. Mach. Hist. Flor., p. 18. Impeti possunt humanis præsumptionibus gum divino aunt judicio constituta, vinci autem quorumlibet potestatenon possunt. P. Gel., Ep. viii.; Felix P., Ep. i., p. 597.
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