ople will sooner obey priests than captains, and
nothing so forcible as superstition, or better than blind zeal to rule a
multitude; have so terrified and gulled them, that it is incredible to
relate. All nations almost have been besotted in this kind; amongst our
Britons and old Gauls the Druids; magi in Persia; philosophers in Greece;
Chaldeans amongst the Oriental; Brachmanni in India; Gymnosophists in
Ethiopia; the Turditanes in Spain; Augurs in Rome, have insulted; Apollo's
priests in Greece, Phaebades and Pythonissae, by their oracles and
phantasms; Amphiaraus and his companions; now Mahometan and pagan priests,
what can they not effect? How do they not infatuate the world? _Adeo
ubique_ (as [6408]Scaliger writes of the Mahometan priests), _tum gentium
tum locorum, gens ista sacrorum ministra, vulgi secat spes, ad ea quae ipsi
fingunt somnia_, "so cunningly can they gull the commons in all places and
countries." But above all others, that high priest of Rome, the dam of that
monstrous and superstitious brood, the bull-bellowing pope, which now
rageth in the West, that three-headed Cerberus hath played his part. [6409]
"Whose religion at this day is mere policy, a state wholly composed of
superstition and wit, and needs nothing but wit and superstition to
maintain it, that useth colleges and religious houses to as good purpose as
forts and castles, and doth more at this day" by a company of scribbling
parasites, fiery-spirited friars, zealous anchorites, hypocritical
confessors, and those praetorian soldiers, his Janissary Jesuits, and that
dissociable society, as [6410]Languis terms it, _postremus diaboli conatus
et saeculi excrementum_, that now stand in the fore front of the battle,
will have a monopoly of, and engross all other learning, but domineer in
divinity, [6411]_Excipiunt soli totius vulnera belli_, and fight alone
almost (for the rest are but his dromedaries and asses), than ever he could
have done by garrisons and armies. What power of prince, or penal law, be
it never so strict, could enforce men to do that which for conscience' sake
they will voluntarily undergo? And as to fast from all flesh, abstain from
marriage, rise to their prayers at midnight, whip themselves, with
stupendous fasting and penance, abandon the world, wilful poverty, perform
canonical and blind obedience, to prostrate their goods, fortunes, bodies,
lives, and offer up themselves at their superior's feet, at his command?
What so pow