And here lies the mistake of this superficial man, who is not able to distinguish between what the civil power can hinder, and what it can do. "If the parliament can annul ecclesiastical laws, they must be able to make them, since no greater power is required for one than the other." See pref., p. viii. This consequence he repeateth above twenty times, and always in the wrong. He affecteth to form a few words into the shape and size of a maxim, then trieth it by his ear, and, according as he likes the sound or cadence, pronounceth it true. Cannot I stand over a man with a great pole, and hinder him from making a watch, although I am not able to make one myself. If I have strength enough to knock a man on the head, doth it follow I can raise him to life again? The parliament may condemn all the Greek and Roman authors; can it therefore create new ones in their stead? They may make laws, indeed, and call them canon and ecclesiastical laws, and oblige all men to observe them under pain of high treason. And so may I, who love as well as any man to have in my own family the power in the last resort, take a turnip, then tie a string to it, and call it a watch, and turn away all my servants, if they refuse to call it so too. For my own part, I must confess that this opinion of the independent power of the Church, or _imperium in imperio_, wherewith this writer raiseth such a dust, is what I never imagined to be of any consequence, never once heard disputed among divines, nor remember to have read, otherwise than as a scheme in one or two authors of middle rank, but with very little weight laid on it. And I dare believe, there is hardly one divine in ten that ever once thought of this matter. Yet to see a large swelling volume written only to encounter this doctrine, what could one think less than that the whole body of the clergy were perpetually tiring the press and the pulpit with nothing else? I remember some years ago, a virtuoso writ a small tract about worms, proved them to be in more places than was generally observed, and made some discoveries by glasses. This having met with some reception, presently the poor man's head was full of nothing but worms; all we eat and drink, all the whole consistence of human bodies, and those of every other animal, the very air we breathe, in short, all nature throughout was nothing but worms: And, by that system, he solved all difficulties, and from thence all causes in philosophy. Thus it hath fared with our author, and his independent power. The attack against occasional conformity, the scarcity of coffee, the invasion of Scotland, the loss of kerseys and narrow cloths, the death of King William, the author's turning Papist for preferment, the loss of the battle of Almanza, with ten thousand other misfortunes, are all owing to this _imperium in imperio_.