think they intended rather to ridicule than defend it. But if the Popes were originally mere Bishops, upon the level with other Bishops; if they had no power but what was common to them with all other Bishops; by what means could they thus exalt themselves above their Collegues, nay, _above all that is called God_? What could induce their Collegues, and with them the greater part of the _Christian_ world, to acknowlege such an unheard-of power, and submit to a yoke of all others the most heavy and tyrannical? For an answer to these questions I refer the reader to the following History, where he will find every branch of power, authority, or jurisdiction claimed by the Popes, traced from its first origin, and the various steps pointed out, by which they raised themselves from the lowest beginnings to the highest pitch of greatness; which is opening a school of the most refined policy, that ever was known or practised upon earth. In this respect we must own the Popes to have been, generally speaking, men of extraordinary talents, the ablest Politicians we read of in History, Statesmen fit to govern the world, and equal to the vast dominion they grasped at; a Dominion over the Minds as well as the Bodies and Estates of mankind; a Dominion, of all that ever were formed, the most wide and extensive, as knowing no other Bounds but those of the Earth; nay, and not even those, since these mighty Princes claim to themselves all power in Heaven as well as in Earth, all power over the Dead as well as the Living. To establish the spiritual part of this wondrous Authority upon the Gospel of _Christ_, which contradicts it in every line, was an undertaking of no little difficulty, and that required no common skill: to establish the temporal dominion without a fleet, without an army; to subject to it not only the ignorant and superstitious multitude, but Kings themselves, nay and to prevail upon them to employ both their arms and their interest in promoting a power evidently derogatory to and inconsistent with their own; was a work not to be accomplished but by men of superior talents, thoroughly acquainted with all the arts of insinuation and address, and steady in pursuing, by the best concerted measures, the great point that they constantly had in their view. Two things, however, concurred to facilitate, in some degree, the establishing the one and the other; _viz._ the profound ignorance of the times, and the matchless cunning of the persons employed by the Popes as their Emissaries and Agents; without which helps no imposture was ever carried on with success.