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On Government by the Queen, and Attempted Government from the People
On Government by the Queen and Attempted Government from the People Author:Henry Drummond Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Supreme Governor of both. Yet whoever would judge of the events which took place in the sixteenth century, commonly jumbled together in the single word Reformati... more »on, only from the writings of the best secular historians of that period,such as Schiller, (Dreisigjahriges Krieges,) or Fazzi, (History of the Reformation in Geneva,) would be inclined to believe that political motives worked that great change in Europe, and that religion was only secondarily concerned ; whilst, on the other hand, all the ecclesiastical writers see nothing but the squabbles of priests about dogmas which few of them understood, which drove them on all sides into grievous acts of cruelty, and left them in a state of mutual wrath, which has continued down to the present day. The root of all eyil, as well as of all good, is in the church, from which the fruit of political blessing or mischief is borne in the state. The principles of monarchy were sapped by the Protestant preachers, such as Calvin and Knox ; the doctrines of insubordination and anarchy were broached with, if possible, more coarseness by the Roundheads, came into genuine operation at the French Revolution, and are now universally propagated by the evangelical Protestants throughout Europe, and by the Papists of Ireland. At length the statesmen have been carried away chapter{Section 4also, and anti-monarchical principles are cherished, and anti-monarchical doctrines are promulgated, by the counsellors and ministers of sovereigns. The reformers attacked the ignorance and profligacy of the priesthood, and the corruptions of the Church of Rome, by arguments which are of equal avail against all priests, and all courts. The application of these principles to civil governments was seen in Scotland, and observed by queen Elizabeth, but denied by ...« less