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 many other men; Which is little better, then to venture his Salvation at crosse and pile.  Nor ought those Teachers to be displeased with this losse of their antient Authority:  For there is none should know better then they, that power is preserved by the same Vertues by which it is acquired; that is to say, by Wisdome, Humility, Clearnesse of Doctrine, and sincerity of Conversation; and not by suppression of the Naturall Sciences, and of the Morality of Naturall 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 Gods Church are not only Faults, but also scandalls, apt to make men stumble one time or other upon the suppression of their Authority.

Comparison Of The Papacy With The Kingdome Of Fayries But after this Doctrine, “that the Church now Militant, is the Kingdome of God spoken of in the Old and New Testament,” was received in the World; the ambition, and canvasing for the Offices that belong thereunto, and especially for that great Office of being Christs Lieutenant, and the Pompe of them that obtained therein the principal Publique Charges, became by degrees so evident, that they lost the inward Reverence due to the Pastorall Function:  in so much as the Wisest men, of them that had any power in the Civill 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 Universall, by pretence of Succession to St. Peter, their whole Hierarchy, or Kingdome of Darknesse, may be compared not unfitly to the Kingdome 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 originall of this great Ecclesiasticall Dominion, he will easily perceive, that the Papacy, is no other, than the Ghost of the deceased Romane Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof:  For so did the Papacy start up on a Sudden out of the Ruines of that Heathen Power.

The Language also, which they use, both in the Churches, and in their Publique Acts, being Latine, which is not commonly used by any Nation now in the world, what is it but the Ghost of the Old Romane Language.

The Fairies in what Nation soever they converse, have but one Universall King, which some Poets of ours call King Oberon; but the Scripture calls Beelzebub, Prince of Daemons.  The Ecclesiastiques likewise, in whose Dominions soever they be found, acknowledge but one Universall King, the Pope.

The Ecclesiastiques are Spirituall men, and Ghostly Fathers.  The Fairies are Spirits, and Ghosts.  Fairies and Ghosts inhabite Darknesse, Solitudes, and Graves.  The Ecclesiastiques walke in Obscurity of Doctrine, in Monasteries, Churches, and Churchyards.