_B._ For the text in the Old Testament, I do not see how the commandment of God to the Jews, to obey their priests, can be interpreted to have the like force in the case of other nations Christian, more than upon nations unchristian (for all the world are God’s people); unless we also grant, that a king cannot of an infidel be made Christian, without making himself subject to the laws of that apostle, or priest, or minister, that shall convert him. The Jews were a peculiar people of God, a sacerdotal kingdom, and bound to no other law but what first Moses, and afterwards every high-priest, did go and receive immediately from the mouth of God in Mount Sinai, in the tabernacle of the ark, and in the _sanctum sanctorum_ of the temple. And for the text in St. Matthew, I know the words in the Gospel are not _go teach_, but _go and make disciples_; and that there is a great difference between a subject and a disciple, and between teaching and commanding. And if such texts as these must be so interpreted, why do not Christian kings lay down their titles of majesty and sovereignty, and call themselves the Pope’s lieutenants? But the doctors of the Romish Church seem to decline that title of absolute power, in their distinction of power spiritual and temporal; but this distinction I do not very well understand. _A._ By spiritual power they mean the power to determine points of faith, and to be judges in the inner court of conscience of moral duties, and a power to punish those men, that obey not their precepts, by ecclesiastical censure, that is, by excommunication. And this power, they say, the Pope hath immediately from Christ, without dependence upon any king or sovereign assembly, whose subjects they be that stand excommunicate. But for the power temporal, which consists in judging and punishing those actions that are done against the civil laws, they say, they do not pretend to it directly, but only indirectly, that is to say, so far forth as such actions tend to the hindrance or advancement of religion and good manners, which they mean when they say _in ordine ad spiritualia_. _B._ What power then is left to Kings and other civil sovereigns, which the Pope may not pretend to be his _in ordine ad spiritualia_? _A._ None, or very little. And this power not only the Pope pretends to in all Christendom; but some of his bishops also, in their several dioceses, _jure divino_, that is, immediately from Christ, without deriving it from the Pope. _B._ But what if a man refuse obedience to this pretended power of the Pope and his bishops? What harm can excommunication do him, especially if he be the subject of another sovereign? _A._ Very great harm. For by the Pope’s or bishop’s signification of it to the civil power, he shall be punished sufficiently.