_A._ It was so. But were not the priests cruel, to cause their Kings, whom a little before they adored as Gods, to make away themselves? The King killed them, for the safety of his person; they him, out of ambition or love of change. The King’s act may be coloured with the good of his people; the priests had no pretence against their kings, who were certainly very godly, or else would never have obeyed the command of the priests by a messenger unarmed, to kill themselves. Our late King, the best King perhaps that ever was, you know, was murdered, having been first persecuted by war, at the incitement of Presbyterian ministers; who are therefore guilty of the death of all that fell in that war; which were, I believe, in England, Scotland, and Ireland, near 100,000 persons. Had it not been much better that those seditious ministers, which were not perhaps 1000, had been all killed before they had preached? It had been, I confess, a great massacre; but the killing of 100,000 is a greater. _B._ I am glad the bishops were out of this business. As ambitious as some say they are, it did not appear in that business, for they were enemies to them that were in it. _A._ But I intend not by these quotations to commend either the divinity or the philosophy of those heathen people; but to show only what the reputation of those sciences can effect among the people. For their divinity was nothing but idolatry; and their philosophy, (excepting the knowledge which the Egyptian priests, and from them the Chaldeans, had gotten by long observation and study in astronomy, geometry, and arithmetic), very little; and that in great part abused in astrology and fortune-telling. Whereas the divinity of the clergy of this nation, (considered apart from the mixture that has been introduced by the Church of Rome, and in part retained here, of the babbling philosophy of Aristotle and other Greeks, that has no affinity with religion, and serves only to breed disaffection, dissension, and finally sedition and civil war, as we have lately found by dear experience in the differences between the Presbyterians and Episcopals), is the true religion. But for these differences both parties, as they came in power, not only suppressed the tenets of one another, but also whatsoever doctrine looked with an ill aspect upon their interest; and consequently all true philosophy, especially civil and moral, which can never appear propitious to ambition, or to an exemption from their obedience due to the sovereign power.