APPENDIX. 221 power in things sacred, or of ecclesiastical power inthings civil, andyet ge- nerally such a mutual agreement will be made betweencivil and ecclesiastical rulers, by some superiorities on one side or the other, as to keep the per- sons and consciences of the common people in deep bondage ? This odd mixture has produced infinite confusion and mischief', both in church and state ; it has brought in wars and slaughters, inquisitions and bloody persecutions, loss of all piety and goodness, burning zeal, blindness, hy- pocrisy and superstition, slavery of souls and bodies, and fraud and violence without end. XXIII. Never did the all-wise God mingle sacred and civil power throughout any national government but that of the Jews, where he him- self was both the political and ecclesiastical head, the God of the church, and the king of the state. Scarceare these mixtures safe in any other hand but his. When in later ages some of their high priests the successors of the Maccabees, grew up to be kings, and God their supreme king with- drew from them his divine influences, and his kind superintendency, what terrible confusion, barbarity, and madness were sometimes found among them? XXIV. And I might add, that such dangerous mixtures as these in every popish state or government, where thereis no toleration nor liberty allowed to other christians, who would maintain the purity of their religion ; these, I say, are the very compositionof thefeet and toes of Nebuchadnezzar's great image in Daniel, chap. ii. whichwere made part ofpotter's clay andpart of irony: These may try to mix, but they will not well cleave to oneanother. And if the dream of the Assyrian king bedivine, or the interpretation of the Jewish prophet betrue, these" toes and these feet, wherein the iron is mixed with miryclay, wait only for the stone cut out ofthe mountain without hands, tosmite the huge imageupon itsfeet and to break it topieces." Then the four vast monarchies of this world meet their last period, andbecome like the chaff of a threshingfloor, and the wind carries them away: Then shall thatstone grow and fill the whole earth, and thekingdoms of this world become the kingdom of the Lord and his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever ; Rev. xi. M. Amen. Loath in his Commentary on Daniel seems to approve entirely this expo- sition, for he gives no other sense of the words, verse 42. And if this were a proper place for explaining the prophecies of Daniel or the visions of St. John, chapters sill.. and xvii. I think it might be made to appear beyond all reasonable opposition, that the first head of the Roman empire was only civil, and strong as iron, like the legs of Nebuchadnezzar's image: The last was part Civil and part ecclesiastical ; such were the feet and ten toes of this image, or thepope- dom with its ten kingdoms, mingled of iron and clay, which await this final destruction.
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