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.

The Ecclesiastiques have their Cathedral Churches; which, in what Towne
soever they be erected, by vertue of Holy Water, and certain Charmes
called Exorcismes, have the power to make those Townes, cities, that is
to say, Seats of Empire. The Fairies also have their enchanted Castles,
and certain Gigantique Ghosts, that domineer over the Regions round
about them.